Category: Outlook

  • Democratic deficit

    After two world wars, Europeans had had enough of wars, and so we saw the slow but inexorable development of the EC, which has evolved into the EU. Now, it is true that many considered this multinational organisation a bureaucratic and undemocratic mastodon, and for many years the Scandinavian countries, for instance, refused to join,…

  • Paradise on earth

    From my rooftop terrace in the old town on top of the cliff, I might perhaps be excused for imagining that this is a beautiful world. Squinting against the sun, I see undulating green fields, pink almond blossoms, pale against the rich green foliage of orange trees, frolicking birds, a twinkling river – all carefree…

  • National health

    Three weeks ago I had an operation. As it happens, it was a rather large, if not life-threatening one. Yet, after exactly 48 hours, I was back home again, walking up the stairs to my flat. Why am I telling you this? Why am I also telling you that as soon as I had woken…

  • Beware of GDP and GNI

    I’d like to tell you about an article I read in El País this morning, about Luanda. I hadn’t really intended to read it – I mean, who cares about Luanda? But there was an intriguing dislocation in the heading that I could not resist: The most expensive city in the world is in an…

  • Picking a fight

    Some of you are simply itching to get into a red-hot quarrel because you need somebody on whom to take out your matrimonial or economic malaise. So who will it be? The Jews? The Arabs? The blacks? No of course not. That would be politically incorrect. The nice thing about Trump is that you can…

  • The little prince

    Walking my dog along a track in the woods, I came upon an unexpected couple. Or should I say, they unexpectedly found themselves there, having evidently come down a path from a residential area, without realising they would be engulfed by forest and surrounded by great big, dark and dismal fir trees. So when I…

  • Palm Sunday

    I have three countries. Yes, that’s right, three, and don’t ask me where I was born. In two of them, Easter means that kids are home from school and that shops are mostly closed, so that parents will have to have planned food schedules and child care for an entire week. In my third country,…

  • Denialists on the rampage

    First, the definitions: A denialist is somebody who plays hymns full blast when the rain keeps pouring down and flood waters rise around his house, or somebody who goes looking for his favourite fishing rod when told his son has raped somebody’s daughter, or somebody who shoots asylum seeking immigrants huddling together at a reception…

  • From a cairn

    Under a grey sky, I made my way up the steep hill – more like a cliff – to the local Bronze Age cairns. A small sign, planted by a representative of the Directorate of Cultural Heritage, explains that the cairns are about 3000 years old and that most Bronze Age cairns in this country…

  • …and the winner is:

    Speaking ill of the dead is in bad taste. I suspect that speaking ill of the winner of a competition is no better. So I have a problem. I may not speak ill of the winners of the US presidential primaries, may not speak ill of the Brexicists and may not even speak ill of…