Essays, observations and ideas to explore.
There is a particular helplessness in having a grievance and discovering that the act of expressing it may put you in danger. Whatever brought you out of the house remains unresolved. Now you must…
Read article →A child has to live for a very long time with decisions adults make on their behalf. That is an uncomfortable starting point for any discussion of marriage, because the adults may regard a…
Read article →Being asked to prove who you are is an ordinary part of life. Having to persuade someone that your form of identification deserves consideration is a different demand. Before the transaction can proceed, you…
Read article →There is a particular burden in being unable to make an ordinary plan. Whether to send a child to school, repair a home, arrange a visit, begin some work: decisions that look small from…
Read article →There is something deeply appealing about the thought of somebody going home. A journey reversed, a familiar place reached, perhaps a door opened. We can imagine the relief so readily that we may stop…
Read article →There is a peculiar cruelty in expecting people to stand on their own feet while the ground beneath them remains broken. A family may want work, a home, the ordinary responsibility of providing for…
Read article →There is something exhausting about having to explain why an insult mattered to someone who has already decided it should not have mattered very much. Before the conversation has properly begun, the person describing…
Read article →Being asked to prove who you are is ordinary enough. The difficulty begins when the proof you offer is unfamiliar to the person receiving it. You may have arrived expecting a routine transaction and…
Read article →A person deciding whether to leave an online conversation may be giving up more than an argument. It might be a neighbourhood group, a professional network, somewhere they went for company. “Just log off”…
Read article →To make plans for tomorrow is an ordinary freedom, so ordinary that we rarely recognise it as one. Arranging work, deciding when to visit someone, expecting a child to come home: much of a…
Read article →If someone you loved were being denied their rights, you would probably have little patience with the argument that writing a letter might achieve nothing. You would want people to try. Yet when the…
Read article →A family struggling to pay for fuel still has to pay for it after a politician has identified an enemy. A school in poor condition still needs repairing. There is something worth holding on…
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