In the golden days of newspapers, when the word ‘columnist’ was bestowed only upon the worthy and brilliant (and not viewed as a natural ascension for opinionated feature writers) acerbic, controversial and provocative views would generate post-bags of mail.

Indignant senders never knew if their missives were read let alone heard, and it was probably best they never knew that the intended recipients were untouched by (more…)

Dear Jane** (& Britain),

This is a tough one to write. Don’t think me a coward for doing this by letter and from 5,000 miles away. I just couldn’t do the face-to-face drama thing. Or Twitter. I mean, how do you break-up with someone in 140 characters or less? So I feel this civilised approach settles somewhere between the two.  

The fact that tears are not rolling down my face right now tells me all I need to know – this is the right thing to do. Thirty-seven years (more…)

So President Obama has become the first person to win the Nobel Peace Prize for rhetoric, hope and good intentions. This day in October 2009 is indeed momentous because the world’s top accolade has seemingly been awarded on grounds of unanimous optimism.

Such is the desperate hope that Obama will herald change and heal the world that even the peace prize committee is viewing his presidency (more…)