All Beginnings are Hard
dated 2009-04-07 | posted in columns | topic People | permanent link
Sally cringed when I suggested that we read The Road Home by Rose Tremain for our April book club choice. The author won the prestigious Orange Broadband Prize for women's fiction last year for her novel about an Eastern European immigrant’s struggle to adapt to his new life in London. “Let’s read something that relates to us, “she moaned. In the end we decided to read the book.
On the surface, The Road Home has little to do with “us.” ...
Sign of the Times
dated 2009-04-28 | posted in columns | topic Economy | permanent link
You don’t have to be extra astute to decipher the words scrawled on shop windows all over town. Familiar ones say: Remodelação; Fechado para obras; Fechado; Vende; and Trespasse-se . But are we really to believe them? Let’s take the first: Remodelação. How naive I was to believe my favourite shoe shop that they were really remodelling. With so few customers why remodel? And that’s just the point. Management seems to prefer the disguise ...