Oedipus Lex

A very quick piece on a very com­plex issue! This latest round of Israeli/Palestinian hos­til­it­ies (includ­ing sup­port­ers and detract­ors of both sides)is exactly that, another bout in a deeply com­plex and long run­ning series of scuffles, con­flicts and tit-for-tat repris­als. Before we rush to con­demn Israel, as it is often so easy to do, or defend …

This morning I had a meeting at another office. It got cancelled and as I made my way back through some side streets I saw a man walking towards me. As he stepped into the light I realised that I knew him, his name was Stu and we had served together in the army. London …

I was standing in an army barracks in Lancashire, soaking with sweat, dressed in combats, boots and a regimental sweatshirt; we’d just come back from a platoon run. I was about to get undressed and someone came running into my room saying that a plane had crashed into some building in New York.

Like the half-starved, exhausted remnants of Charles Edward’s army at Culloden, an Itinerant team, lacking the dashing verve of their batsmen, gathered at a ground familiar only to a few veterans. Among their hastily assembled ranks there numbered the hung-over, the unpractised and the perennially untalented. Yet a dogged determination prevailed: these men would stand …

…I love it. There, said it. As I sit in my grey office on a grey day in a grey suit there is a light. It comes in the shape, or rather sound, of TMS (Test Match Special for the philistines) playing via the BBC on my PC. Cricket obviously has its detractors, I am constantly …

While the comparison is frequently bandied around in the press Afghanistan is looking more and more like Vietnam. For better or worse Britain is stuck for the foreseeable in a part of the world where few outsiders have had military success. America had more helicopters than you can shake a oily monkey wrench at during …