Ian on Sunday

Evil

Any number of times I read of some atrocity here or in the wider world and say to myself or exclaim in horror: “No, this is the worst. 

Extraordinary People – V.S .Naipaul

When I was in the 5th form at Queens Royal College in Port-of-Spain, I think it was in 1948, I used to go with some of my classmates to where the 6th formers gathered during lunch hour to talk among themselves and express their considered opinions on the school, Trinidad, the world and the universe.

Tears

As one gets old it is inevitable that sadness grows as beloved friends die. 

Extraordinary People: Rex Nettleford

I found people liked to recall the royalty of his name and nature but thought that King was too high and mighty so they named him a prince of men and that somehow seemed right.

Beloved Essequibo

Venezuelan dictator Maduro’s threat to annex Essequibo hurts my soul. I am particularly anguished by this threat because of all the many wonders in my life the great and beautiful Essequibo stands out most memorably.

Man’s inhumanity to man

In his great book Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon, in writing about the reign of Titus Pius, commented in passing that history was “little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”

Discoveries

My tutor at Cambridge, Professor Nick Hammond, authority on the history of ancient Macedonia and on the life of Alexander the Great, used to coach me on what he called “exercises of the mind.”

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