The ruinous nature of holidays
It’s not often you find yourself leaving home with the perfect companion. This is especially true when travelling.
The pressure to have a good time can sap you of the joy that you end up wearing as a mask to hide the strain. So I was pleased to recently find myself on a trip to Cyprus with Geoff Dyer.
As a fellow “professional of distraction”, he did for me what I, at the time, couldn’t bring myself to do, out of lethargy and a sense of existential displacement. That is to articulate the sense of disaffection and fatigue with both the interior and exterior landscape.
What Does Aldous Huxley’s Island Tell Us About the Essence of Humanity?
In his final novel, Island, Aldous Huxley created a vision of utopia where the Pacific island of Pala is an “oasis of happiness and freedom,” free from the trappings of capitalism, consumerism, and technology. Some say that the Island is an example of humanity at its sanest and most admirable. Yet it ends, predictably, in sorrow, “the work of a hundred years destroyed in a single night.” So, what was Huxley’s point in creating then destroying a vision of paradise?
Women, know your place: Up front and ahead of the game
Here we are in 2015, approaching 90 years since women got the vote, being urged to celebrate all that we’ve achieved in honour of International Women’s Day. And there’s a lot to celebrate – we are not only more visible, we are also playing more of a leading role in society, politics, the economy and the arts. However, there’s no denying that the struggle isn’t over, we’ve a long way to go yet.