Category: History

Artistic differences, dogs and cats, earth and sky

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 7 August 2016 One of the dangers of spending “quality time” with a significant other, especially if much time has passed since the last period of “quality time”, is the need to “discuss the relationship”. Spend any significant amount of time with a member of the opposite gender and you quickly come to… Continue reading Artistic differences, dogs and cats, earth and sky

Canada Slim behind bars 5a: Arrested development

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 18 July 2016 Somehow it feels like it’s time. After decades of silence and sifting of memory, as more years lie behind me than ahead… When the headlines of the moment evoke so much emotion and recollection within me… I read of the injustice of America and its treatment of its minority populations by those who… Continue reading Canada Slim behind bars 5a: Arrested development

Canada Slim behind bars 4: Me and D´Arcy McGee

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 7 July 2016 I have some bad habits. I am essentially a man who prefers leisure to work. As each and every person who has ever existed, exists or will ever exist is defined by how he/she decides to use the 24 hours each day provided us indiscriminately, so it can be said… Continue reading Canada Slim behind bars 4: Me and D´Arcy McGee

Canada Slim behind bars 3: Prisoners of choice

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 5 July 2016 Why do people travel? For each person there are personal, individual reasons for venturing outside our personal comfort zones into the Great Unknown. But essentially I think it is a quest to learn something new, something previously undiscovered, not yet experienced before. Travellers seek to challenge themselves by discovering who they themselves… Continue reading Canada Slim behind bars 3: Prisoners of choice

Canada Slim behind bars 2: Punishment preserved

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 2 July 2016 Brexit and the European Championship seem all anyone can talk about these days, whether in the classes where I teach or at the Starbucks stores where I work as a barista. As I don´t have a stake in either event, my thoughts are more preoccupied with my duties at hand, plans… Continue reading Canada Slim behind bars 2: Punishment preserved

Canada Slim behind bars 1: Voyeurs of tragedy

Dorchester Prison, Dorset, England, Saturday 9 August 1856 A day of drizzle, a crowd of 4, 000 people of all ages gathered to watch a woman swing from a prison scaffold. Before the gallows, Martha was counselled by the Reverend Clementson, the prison chaplain, so she faced her death composed. Elizabeth Martha Brown had been… Continue reading Canada Slim behind bars 1: Voyeurs of tragedy

When the last Luddites walk away…

Nottingham, England, 1811 They move about in bands at night, masked and sworn to secrecy, smashing up the new machinery which is taking over the textile industry. Their leader is a mysterious man named Ned Ludd of Sherwood Forest, who has been likened to the legendary Robin Hood as a friend of the poor and… Continue reading When the last Luddites walk away…

Shakespeare in the original Klingon

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 20 June 2016 “All the world´s a stage and all the men and women merely players.  They have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts.” (William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7) “You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the… Continue reading Shakespeare in the original Klingon

Shame denied

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 16 June 2016 “You can judge a nation by the way it treats its most vulnerable members.” (Aristotle) “…the best test of a nation´s righteousness is how it treats the poorest and most vulnerable in its midst.” (Jim Wallis) In St. Gallen stands a man, a beggar named Bruno, who hangs around outside… Continue reading Shame denied