Journey To The Top Of The World - Part 1 Life Matters News Digest No.074 July/August/Sept 2024 Midnight Sun at 12.03 am - Just North of the Arctic Circle It all started with a horror story. When I go for a walk each day I tend to listen to podcasts on my earbuds but getting bored of the same half dozen presenters I searched out some fiction to listen to instead. The story I was listening to on this particular day was called “The White Vault” and it told the tale of a team of investigators who...
3 months ago • 12 min read
Art Underwater Life Matters New Digest No. 073 June 2024 Cannes Underwater Eco-Museum, ile Sainte-Marguerite, France The theme perhaps of this month's newsletter is the environment and what we can do to improve it. In my small way I, like many of you, do my bit to recycle where I can and not waste resources such as water and electricity where possible. Some people though are much more ambitious. For example, Jason deCaires Taylor, a British-born sculptor whose permanent site-specific works...
5 months ago • 10 min read
Northumberland Uncovered Life Matters News Digest No.072 May 2024 Nobody who received my email with the picture above at the beginning of the month guessed where it was. The nearest guess was Edinburgh, which was not bad (Loes!) - it is just 85 miles away. The castle is at Alnwick (pronounced "Annick") in Northumberland, UK, and has been the seat of the dukes of that county for 700 years. I thought some of you might recognise it because it was used as the location of "Hogwarts School of...
6 months ago • 10 min read
Saving Face Life Matters News Digest No.071 March 2024 Laxmi Saa I first wrote about Laxmi Saa from India in a blog post on human cruelty in 2016. At 15 years old she was disfigured in an acid attack because she rejected an offer of marriage. Her attacker got just 3 years in jail. Fortunately, an Indian fashion company, Viva N Diva, stepped forward and employed her as a model, empowering Laxmi to speak out about her suffering and allowing her to let herself be seen. She has since campaigned...
9 months ago • 8 min read
Bridging The Gap Life Matters News Digest No.070 February 2024 A couple of times a week Microsoft Windows downloads a new image on my computer as it starts up. Usually, it is some tropical beach scene with white sand and turquoise water, or mountains, or a desert somewhere in a US national park. But the one in the photograph above intrigued me as I had not seen anything like it before. I like its contemporary art feel, the shapes in it and all those bricks! After a bit of research, turns out...
10 months ago • 7 min read
“The Times They Are A Changin..” Life Matters News Digest No.069 January 2024 A Crossley Buxton I recently helped to arrange a funeral for a lovely lady called Nancy, who died at the age of 98. This meant she was born in 1925, such a very long time ago. So I did a bit of research. In 1925, a 4lb loaf of bread cost one shilling and sixpence (English old money), the equivalent of seven and a half pence now (around 9 cents US). The average wage was £260 ($330) a year and a luxury car, like a...
11 months ago • 9 min read
Surviving Christmas and New Year Life Matters News Digest No.068 December 2023 Don’t know about you, but I find this a strange time of year. To be honest, I am not a great Christmas fan, although I “play the game”, put up the decorations and go along with it all. Unless you are religious, I am not quite sure what it all means. An excuse to get together with friends and relatives and exchange gifts and maybe have some fun. That’s all good. Would we make the effort without the official holiday?...
12 months ago • 8 min read
Extreme Rhetoric to Political Power: The Threat to Diversity Life Matters News Digest No. 67 November 2023 What the hell is going on? The normally entirely reasonable, fluent English-speaking, balanced Dutch, have voted extreme right-wing Geert Wilders into a majority position in the Netherlands Parliament! Fortunately, although Wilders' PVV ("Freedom Party") gained 37 seats, the other 113 seats won are divided among 13 parties, few of which are as extreme as the PVV. Wilders clearly won this...
about 1 year ago • 8 min read
"There's Nothing Like Your Own Bed" - Elvis, Cuisine and Ceilings Life Matters News Digest No.066 October 2023 South Uist - Outer Hebrides (On a good day!) I recently returned from a trip to Scotland and the Outer Hebrides (a series of loch/lake-filled islands off the northwest coast of Scotland for the uninitiated). Quite why we went there, I am not sure, but my partner, Tricia, likes the "elemental" - and elemental it sure was! We like the odd adventure into the "unknown" now and again; it...
about 1 year ago • 13 min read