Valentines Day. The day for the loved-up and the loving. The day when hope and longing coalesce in an inescapable, incandescent burst of desire. The loveliest, sappiest, soppiest, most intolerable day of the year. On Valentine’s Day we talk about true love but half the time we don’t know whether it’s true or not - …
On Monday night, Arsenal scored one of the loveliest goals I’ve ever seen. And I say Arsenal, not Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, because practically the entire side made it: a team of specialists contributing to a sublime whole. I work with specialists. Universities are full of them. Not one of them has a right foot like Aubameyang’s …
Community is a tricky idea these days. Surveys tell us we no longer know our neighbours and TV tells us that, when we do, they are very often ‘from Hell’. Online communities are elusive and shifting. The Guardian reported recently that ‘Facebook is now dead and buried to teenagers’. But politicians like the word ‘community’. …