Ten things that will disappear

I received an email recently postulating that there will be ten things that will disappear in our lifetime. The document seems to have originated in the US, but as you would expect, it is just as applicable here. First to go they reckon is the Post office. Well it’s almost disappeared already in our town. A “Temporarily Closed” sign on the posting slots in Lincoln Road has been there for months and the government have agreed to a three...

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The welcome return of the artisan

According to various explanations of the Grimm Fairy tales the “rub-a-dub-dub” rhyme was referring to the laundering of money. The upper floors of candlestick shops were often used as poor tenant housing and houses of ill repute because the process of rendering tallow to make candles smelled so terribly that no one who had money/social standing would live in the space. Back then prostitution was regarded with the same sort of disdain as...

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Not everyone free after long walk

Unlike the Prime Minister I have a clear memory of where I stood on the 1981 Springbok Rugby tour of New Zealand. I was unashamedly pro-tour. Not that I went to any of the matches. I may well have attempted to go if they had been any played in our neck of the woods, but I was content to view the games on TV - well at least those contests that were allowed to go ahead. I was not pro-apartheid; I personally didn’t know anyone who was,...

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