I have at various times and in various places advocated a form of engagement for change that I have called ‘permanent reform’. The basic idea is that if sufficient people can be mobilized around the righting of a number of incontrovertible wrongs, once mobilized they will up for more activism to secure more and yet… Read More »
When I was asked to write a few words on Georgie ‘Rose’ Kennington’s performance in St Michael’s Church I was apprehensive: after all I am no music critic! But I assented for two reasons. First, I had thoroughly enjoyed the evening’s programme; and second, if I know anything at all about music, then it’s about… Read More »
The final blog: from Beijing back to Epsom: Sunday 19 August We opted out of the group’s morning tour to the Summer Palace in favour of a wander under our own steam and an excursion to the Forbidden City. We kept to our plan, sort of. We found our way, circuitously, to Tiananmen Square, pausing… Read More »
Onwards via blog 5 to Beijing: Friday 17 August We felt we had been micro-waved and well browned by the time Eva knocked on our cabin door at 4am. Was our arrival in Beijing imminent? No. We were on schedule, but it was the use of toilet facilities that was urgent, unless visitors/invaders from other… Read More »
Already I have had feedback – including the tweeting of a link to a paper I had not been aware of – for which many thanks. There’s an issue of authorship here. It was never my intention to profit quietly from the suggestions, guidance or insights of colleagues. Multi-authorship maybe, or a novel form of… Read More »
Blog number four: from Irkutsk onwards: Tuesday 14 August Breakfast, ironically, was in the bar I had vacated about 1am, whence a minibus transported us back to Irkutsk Station. Eva seemed reluctant to talk over plans for the day. Maybe this reflected local uncertainty, but on the other hand … We had learned to be… Read More »
As the manuscript for our edited book on Café Society was dispatched to the publisher, the American branch of Palgrave Macmillan, I took the decision to write a paper arising out of four decades of personal café usage. The purpose would be twofold: (a) to reflect on the parameters of this varied and varying usage, as a… Read More »
In this fourth in a sequence of blogs on the theories of Jurgen Habermas I move on to consider his use of the concepts of lifeworld and system. These receive their fullest expression in his magisterial two-volume ‘Theory of Communicative Action’, although many of the theories pre-existed this treatise. One enduring problem Habermas set out… Read More »
This third blog on our trip on the Trans-Siberian railway takes us from Irkurtsk ever onwards. Saturday 11 August We were due to reach Irkutsk in the early hours of Sunday morning, so this was out last full day on board for a while. Respite from the journey was, I suspect, eagerly anticipated, a chance… Read More »
At least this second blog gets us on the train. So here goes: Wednesday 8 August Ken, Nigel and I made our way mid-mooning to Moscow’s Red Square. Taking a circuitous route through GUM, we stood in line behind a group of Americans outside Lenin’s Mausoleum. I waited for one of them to ask ‘who… Read More »