Is the world crazy or am I?

  Photo by  Rocco Dipoppa  on  Unsplash The name of this article seems a little illogical coming from someone who is and always has been pro-remain and anti-Brexit. Yet I increasingly believe the issue that I’ve seen as a negative force will actually unite my country again (in a way). To be clear, I am sure of the fact Brexit will be incredibly damaging. There’s little to mitigate against that now. It’s a reality.  There’s no more posturing on what Brexit could potentially mean. It is what it always was, a huge shock to our system. In some ways, this is welcome as it shakes us awake from complacency but also forces us to sober up and truly see our place in the world without all the pomp and bluster.  Brexit is no longer hypothetical, it’s real! We’re outside the EU, the Single Market, Customs Union, and we have a thin deal which prevents the very worst outcome from this whole exercise. Everything Brexiteers wanted h...

Dry January is something people do at this time of year. It primarily exists as a reaction to the heavy drinking of Christmas and New Year and the fact that lots of people like to try and start the new year with a healthier perspective in mind. Whilst some people join a gym or start crazily prohibitive diet plans to lose weight, some people just stop drinking; for a bit. This year I was one of them. Statistically speaking most New Year's resolutions fail between February  and March. No matter whether it's in the UK or the USA  we mostly just run out of willpower in about 3 months. With that in mind 30 days is an achievable goal almost anyone can manage. I felt up to the challenge of this. However, 30 days without alcohol doesn't seem like much but it is a surprisingly long stint when living it. I don't consider myself an alcoholic by any means. I don't tend to drink by myself at home or holiday and it's normally confined to social occasions at weekends (wi...

Preface:  I wanted to write about this subject as I felt particularly moved by the memory of of the Great War as we reach 100 years since its end. It’s not a subject I think about much. Maybe because it’s easier not to think about the horrors of this war. However, when I thought about it recently and considered how little we really remember of how bad it truly was I felt compelled to write something. I always remember feeling particularly humbled by the trenches and war graves in Flanders and from what I studied at school and wanted to try and put that into words. The annual poppy pile-on It’s poppy season, that strange time of year where people manufacture crises over people not wearing poppies disrespecting poppies or claiming Muslims want to ban poppies . I’ve had a strange relationship with the remembrance poppies myself, as they’ve seemed hijacked by nationalists of late. This has always seemed an unfair reflection on these somewhat benign symbols of memory. Alth...

It's nearly 2018! As we count down to the end of 2017, a year that didn't have to try very hard after the dismal 2016 and yet still turned out to be disappointing somehow, we can cast our minds forwards to what's in store for the next year. I've been having a think of how the news cycle in our age of fake news, pretend outrage and other tiresome buzzwords everyone repeats due to a lack of imagination or interest with the topics at hand, might look in the coming year. Also the internet loves predictive lists in December and listacles are really easy to write. So here's how I think the hierarchy of news could look in 2018 going from most important to utter rubbish: Real news - Wars, explosions, coups, political corruption, beloved celebrity turns out to be massive bell end prolific sex offender etc. Sport - Almost real news, at least involves something happening. An influential person says something they shouldn't - Whoops someone wasn...

The rusty cogs of government have finally begun to creak into life as the Brexit negotiations begin, and people finally have to put their money (some say £350 million for the NHS and some say a £100 billion EU divorce bill) where their mouth is. A lot has happened in just a year since the shocking result. Of course, there was division and anger and then just confusion over what Brexit means. There was a new Prime Minister in Theresa May, who promised not only Brexit but Red, White and Blue Brexit, which would surely give the EU stationers some minor headaches finding the right colour paper. Finally, there was another twist in the tale as May then called a snap election expecting the kind of majority that Thatcher would have licked Michael Foot’s arse on TV to get. Then another shock, May lost her majority after fronting one of the most lacklustre campaigns in living memory, maybe only tying with the kind of complacency of Hillary Clinton’s Democratic campaign. Rupert Murdoch then v...