TROUBLE IN PARADISE – THE BEACH BOYS By Duncan R. Shaw Madrid, 18 September 2022 Would you like to be whisked away: from our dismal age of war, crisis and mourning? To an age of youth, innocence and good clean fun? Well, that’s exactly what happened to me last night. I was transported back to …
TIME FOR A REPUBLIC NOW? By Duncan Richard Shaw Madrid, 9 September 2022 Amidst all the (globalized) grief at the passing away of Elizabeth II, I would just like to ask you one simple question: wouldn’t a republic be better? Cheaper, more logical, cheaper, more egalitarian, more ‘advanced’, modern, democratic? Less elitist, unpredictable (nobody knows …
THE TWO MIKHAIL GORBACHEVS By Duncan R. Shaw Madrid, 31 August 2022 Yesterday, in Moscow, the two Mikhail Gorbachevs died, both of them aged 91. The serene, sagacious, perspicacious, beloved liberator Mikhail Gorbachev who won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Cold War and peacefully dismantling Soviet Union died – and today is being …
VICTOR KLEMPERER – THE GREATEST DIARIST EVER? By Duncan R. Shaw Madrid, 27 August 2022 Who has been the greatest diarist of all time? Anne Frank, Samuel Pepys, Alan Bennett, James Boswell, Virginia Woolf, Edward Ellis – even Robert Shields? But how about considering Victor Klemperer as the best ever? Never heard of him? Well, …
DOES PRIVATIZATION REALLY BENEFIT THE PEOPLE OR JUST THE WEALTHY FEW? By Duncan R. Shaw, PhD Madrid, 20 August 2022 As Britain sweats through the hottest and driest summer on record, an acrimonious debate has started about the consequences of the privatization process unleashed on the country 40 years ago by Margaret Thatcher. The pretext …
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PAUL WELLER: OUR GREAT POET OF ALIENATION By Duncan R. Shaw, PhD Madrid, 12 August 2022 How gratifying it is to open the eyes of young people to a twentieth century musician, artist, writer, philosopher, decent politician (rara avis, to be sure) – somebody they’d never really heard about properly, despite the internet. Having a …
THE ALEX JONES VERDICT: IS THIS THE WAY TO STOP ‘FAKE NEWS’? By Professor Duncan Richard Shaw Madrid, 6 August 2022 At the beginning of each of my courses at Schiller, I spend time making sure my new students know the difference between fact and opinion. I have been doing this since around 2000, when …
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JOE STRUMMER: OUR GREAT POET OF PROTEST By Duncan R. Shaw, PhD Madrid, 1 August 2022 This long hot ‘Summer of Discontent ‘ has seen presidential palaces and parliaments stormed by people inflamed by global warning and corruption – and furious at rising prices. In countries as diverse as Sri Lanka, Argentina, Libya and Iraq, …
WAS LIFE BETTER FIFTY YEARS AGO? By Dr Duncan Richard Shaw Madrid, 23 July 2022 This is a tale from the pastel fields, where we ran when we were young This is a tale from the water meadows, trying to spread some hope into your heart It’s mixed with happiness, it’s mixed with tears, …
TO THE ASTONISHMENT OF THE MARTIANS… By Professor Duncan Richard Shaw Madrid, 17 July 2022 The report of the Martian reconnaissance mission to Planet Earth continues, as seen in the legendary 1970s television adverts in Britain was for Smash powdered mashed potato. “So, please tell us what else is happening on Planet Earth, dear reconnaissance …
