Recently I found myself in not one but two meetings that also included George Soros, and I was inspired to furious intellectual effort. You see, I’m convinced it’s possible to construct a terrific palindrome centering on the famous investor’s reversible last name. Unfortunately, the best I’ve come up with so far is an imaginary conversation wherein I ask the great man what to make of the gyrations of Japan’s exchange rate, and he tells me […]
Tensions erupted in Athens during demonstrations against the economic measures that government needs to take in order receive financial assistance from the IMF and the EU. Three people have died in a bank that went on fire. Three people. Who is responsible for their deaths. The ones who attacked the bank and put it on fire? Yes, of course and they need to be found and secured to justice. But who else? The politicians who […]
A soft summer wind outside shakes the huge mango trees and the palms in our garden. It is past midnight and I cannot remember last time I have been so late up working on a paper and writing now in this blog. Headphones throwing ambient music from my iTune radio. Familiar sounds that accompany my home based work. For a second a felt like being back at the university, more precisely in Glasgow. Working on […]
Who is following me from Staverton, UK?
A Vietnamese woman in her mid thirty enters the lobby of the Horison Hotel in Ha Noi. She gives a quick glance to various groups of people gathered after breakfast. Most are men in dark gray suits, white shirts, laptop bags in their hands, ready for the day. She finds the people she has come to meet at the left corner of the lobby and moves towards them. A woman about her age walk towards […]
Night. Alone in my room in Dar es Salaam. Had nice dinner in the best Indian restaurant of the continent. Silence. The hooming of the a/c. Talk to myself. My mind in circles having conversations. My voice. The reply. The reply to the reply. Seeing myself running slowly at Oyster Bay at the sunset. Waves of the Indian Ocean. Philippines are in that direction. Silence. Only my voice talking to myself. I did not Skype […]
‘How can you do this? How can you live in this way?’ These were the two questions that my old friend P. asked me one evening of twelve years ago. They resonate in my memory. they have been with me all these years and have accompanied me in various countries and travels patiently waiting for a reply. Not sure I have one, though. There is a price to be paid in every choice. The famous […]
Ho provato un nuovo modo di correre alla sera. Scarpe da jogging, pantaloncini, maglietta, iPod e i podcast di Travaglio. Corro qui a Dumaguete su una pista attorno ad un campo di calcio e quindi dopo qualche giro mi perdo nelle parole che ascolto nelle cuffiette. Ieri ‘e stata la volta del podcast sulla protezione civile e gli interventi (o mancati interventi) in Abruzzo per il terremoto. La prefettura che si svuota alle 23:30 alla […]