Archive for month: September, 2011

Thank you for the music

27 September, 2011 (14:34) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

Yes, yes, I know it’s late. I’ll explain why in a minute. But first, having had a shall-we-say challenging week, I’d like to start on a positive note. Into the tiny, low-ceilinged room bustled a man with an armful of CDs, obviously the proprietor. “This,” I addressed him sternly, “is a nightmare”. “Oh dear,” he […]

Going underground

19 September, 2011 (16:18) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

Anybody in Cornwall, with a sense of Cornish history, must have felt a rush of sympathy in the wake of the Welsh mine tragedy this week. Several strands of thought came together for us. It was a week in which my partner was teaching her students about a Cornish miner, aged nine, sent down into […]

Moving pictures

12 September, 2011 (12:05) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

Since last week’s piece, wildly critical of such folks as bankers and solicitors, I have been deluged by protests: hundreds of people have sprung to the defence of the banking and legal industries, angrily declaring that such professionals are worth every penny they earn and insisting they are beloved of the majority of the public. […]

Heart of darkness

5 September, 2011 (09:34) | All articles | By: Stuart Fraser

My holiday was spent traversing far, uncharted territory deep in the Amazon basin, beating precarious paths through dense forests where none had dared venture before. I cast all danger from me with a manly nonchalance, as you would expect, be it 30-foot anaconda or deadly piranha. Eventually, far from my Western home and in a […]