The Anti Room

Reality TV has foisted a great number of ugly things on us – step forward, Big Brother and Jersey Shore – but it still remains the best way to journey into somebody else’s life in a totally new way. Thanks to reality TV, those of us who are a bit ‘curious’ (or nosey, as some [...]

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How wonderful to hear that the Nobel Committee has awarded the 2011 Peace Prize to three women who have made a huge contribution to improving conditions in their home countries and furthering the cause of women there and all over the world. In a press release the Norwegian Nobel Committee explained that it had “decided [...]

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Perhaps the most distressing statistic emerging from the current economic crisis is that the suicide rate in Greece is reported by the Wall Street Journal to have risen by at least 40%. The Greek collapse is described as a financial catastrophe of their own making but with soaring unemployment, harsh cuts to education and healthcare budgets and [...]

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One of the guests on the Sean Moncrieff radio show recently was an Irish woman living in Osaka, Japan. She spoke about the recent earthquake and tsunami, and how she was sufficiently moved to raise money for a charity to help the victims – the animal victims. In the wake of this devastating event, biblical [...]

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Babies are dying in the Horn of Africa. Their pitiful faces, and the faces of their mothers are being beamed into our living rooms; they are on the Internet and they are in our newspapers. We are hearing about this new drought, which is bringing famine as an unwelcome visitor to millions of Africans. According to UNICEF, [...]

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Recent tragic events in Norway brought to mind a wonderful holiday I enjoyed there a while back and just how amazing, resilient and heroic the Norwegian people can be. Here are some of my impressions of Oslo and her heroes. If you get the chance I urge everyone to travel there and enjoy this beautiful, peaceful [...]

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I’ve just started reading a book. Normally, I would wait until I’d finished reading a book before offering it – and my thoughts on it – up for you to consider. But I feel this book deals with such an important subject that I can’t wait until I’ve finished to talk/write about it. This book – “Unnatural [...]

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I was visiting friends a few weeks ago, and it turned out that I’d be there for the Manchester Slutwalk. They were going, with some other people, so I decided to join them. (I even made a placard). If you’ve had your feminist-news antennae switched on lately, you probably know what Slutwalk is (Wikipedia article [...]

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Amongst the flurry of Kindle-this, ebook-that and the news that Harry Potter’s taking to the virtual world, it’s nice to sit down quietly with a cuppa and a well-thumbed tome and remember that it was recently Independent Booksellers’ Week. I’m not going to go into the reasons why we need independent bookshops, or even the [...]

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What was a more productive issue for the western blogosphere to focus its attention on right now? A fictional Syrian lesbian, or real live Syrians – queer or otherwise – who are being persecuted for their courage in demanding freedom for their country? Tom MacMaster, creator of the Gay Girl In Damascus blog, reckoned it [...]

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