Stockholm in January: Where the Cold Means Business
The first thing you notice when arriving in Stockholm in January is just how cold it is. Not “oh, I should’ve brought a thicker jumper” cold, but through-your-clothes, into-your-soul cold. The kind of cold that laughs at scarves. So if you’re visiting in winter, layer up. Then add another layer and you should be warm (ish). That said, the cold does give the city a certain clarity. The air feels clean, sharp, and very Scandinavian. ...
Aging, Ailments and Catastrophising!
I was feeling a bit rough before Christmas. A complex tooth extraction, ongoing tinnitus, and a general sense of fragility conspired to make me feel vulnerable, weak and for the first time, properly my age. Someone said to me that the real problem with getting ailments and taking longer to recover as we get older is that we’re not used to it, so we don’t know how to cope. Nailed it. For those of us from the “just get on with it” ...
Is Nigel Farage Deliberately Sabotaging Himself to Avoid Being PM?
I can’t help but think that Nigel Farage’s recent political manoeuvring isn’t a bold march towards Downing Street, but a carefully choreographed stumble away from it. Because if you genuinely wanted to become Prime Minister, you probably wouldn’t start by surrounding yourself with Robert Jenrick and Nadhim Zahawi. Would you? Farage has spent his entire career doing what he does best: shouting very loudly from the sidelines. It’s a ...
So This Is Fine: Trump, Term Two, and the Calm Before the Midterms
Donald Trump is now well into his second term, the desk once again occupied by a man who treats the Constitution like terms and conditions he didn’t bother to read. We are now trundling cheerfully towards the mid-terms like passengers on a bus with no brakes not knowing what is coming next. If it feels surreal, that’s because it is. This is no longer a warning from history, this is the bit that future documentaries will pause on, lower ...
A System Balanced on a Knife Edge – It’s Snow Joke for Forecasters
The deep area of low pressure developing and heading across southern England on Friday is one of those weather systems that makes forecasters quietly sigh, put the kettle on, and cancel any plans they had for being confidently correct. Not because it lacks potential, quite the opposite - but because it sits right on the most awkward of battlegrounds. Cold air is already in place, milder air is trying to barge in from the Atlantic, and the ...