fourth edition

This morning I packed my bag for work knowing that I’d be heading to knitting group after work. I zipped up my Frankie Says jumper on its KnitPro needles, threw in the pattern and was too lazy to fish out my sock needles. Now, my workplace is the sort of place where you can waltz [...]

Just a link to another weblog today, but it is a link I encourage you to click. A fellow knitter-in-Scotland, Kate, suffered a stroke some time ago and this is how she is experiencing the recovery process.
Without going into too many details, I can relate to her words and her post made me think quite [...]

The economic recession has claimed many victims. The first phase saw people losing jobs, companies going bankrupt and banks folding. Experts say that this first wave is over. Signs of economic growth are visible in the financial sectors. We are now living through the second phase: spending cuts have to be made. This is all [...]

Sitting comfortably? Good.
Just before Christmas our computer finally died on us. This was not totally unexpected after some emergency surgery earlier this year, but still came as a surprise as the computer had been really fine and well until we left it for a few days in order to travel to Aberdeenshire (a journey [...]

Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem todo—
With “I have saved this afternoon for you”;
And four wax candles in the darkened room
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,
An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.
We have been, [...]

Maybe it is the festive season, maybe it is the constant news coverage of the climate conference, but I am homesick. I have lived in Glasgow well over three years now and I have settled reasonably well, but even so this is Not Quite Home.
I miss my Danish friends. I miss meeting up with [...]

.. are condemned to repeat it.
Or, in other words, try reading this news article about Switzerland banning minarets, replace the words “minaret” with “synagogue” and “Muslim” with “Jewish” and then ask yourself what it reminds you of? A simple semantic trick, but a very useful one.
Meanwhile, I have become slightly addicted to Galaxy Zoo. When [...]

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in [...]

Sitting here in dark, rainy Scotland does not feel so bad, when I look at the Danish Budget for 2010. Among all the talk about a new super-hospital and whatnot, the government is now going to offer non-Western immigrants up to £12,000 for giving up their legal residency and returning “home”. The Budget also includes [...]

Twenty years ago today my mother woke me up early. She was crying. Last time she woke me up crying, Olof Palme had just been assassinated. This time, though, my mother’s tears were not angry, horrified and sad tears. She was crying with joy. The Berlin Wall had fallen.
I went to school that day. My [...]