Essays, observations and ideas to explore.
A child has only one childhood. If part of it is spent in segregated schooling, the reassurance that things are improving elsewhere has a fairly obvious limitation. It cannot give those years back. That…
Read article →Someone asks what you did at the weekend. It is an ordinary question, until answering honestly means making a calculation about whether it is safe to mention the person you love. Then a small…
Read article →Looking for a home means trying to imagine an ordinary day somewhere you do not yet live. The journey to work. Whether the children could settle. Who would be close enough to help if…
Read article →It is possible to spend so long arguing about the justification for an airstrike that the people objecting to it become a secondary consideration. Their protest is then treated as another problem to be…
Read article →Imagine being refused an opportunity and discovering that there is nobody you can explain yourself to. There is a result, perhaps a polite message, but no conversation in which the circumstances of your life…
Read article →Being told that something you said was humiliating can produce an immediate urge to explain yourself. You meant it affectionately. Everyone was laughing. You would have said the same thing to anyone. All of…
Read article →Losing a home takes away somewhere to carry on being ordinary. Somewhere to leave unfinished work, disagree with someone you love, sleep badly and hope tomorrow goes better. When people become homeless, all that…
Read article →There is something deeply unfair about asking a person to speak courageously when someone else will decide what that courage costs. From a safe distance, speaking out can look like a straightforward moral duty.…
Read article →A woman doing her job should be able to finish the working day without having to decide how much abuse she can afford to notice. When the work involves speaking publicly, the possibility of…
Read article →If an institution gets something important about your life wrong, you need somewhere to begin correcting it. Someone to speak to, some explanation of how the judgement was reached, and a realistic chance of…
Read article →A qualification can take years to earn and only a moment to become the thing through which an institution sees you. Once that happens, everything else about your life may have to struggle for…
Read article →There is a particular difficulty in telling someone something about your life and discovering that they regard it as the beginning of an investigation. Are you sure? Could there be another explanation? Have you…
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