A Privileged Source of Information
 
 

DISGUST

It is Sunday evening and the Chans are gathered for their weekly weekend family dinner at the entrance of a reputable Szechuan restaurant. The restaurant re-opened a week ago after being closed for a complete face-lift for three months. It is in the South Wing of The Dorchester, a hotel established in the days when Singapore was still a British colony. The hotel has also been undergoing an extensive renovation that began six months ago and does not look as if it has finished. ...

Getting the Right Feedback: The Alpha Hi-Fi

We all know the electrifying thrill of listening to a favourite band in a crowded, sweaty stadium, or the sublime sensation of a violinist playing Vivaldi's Primavera. But rarely do we feel those same emotions when we put a CD on. Part of that missing link is undoubtedly ambience, but is there something else lacking? My father, a hi-fi designer who has won awards for design ingenuity, certainly seems to think so. I track him down in his hi-fi ‘listening room’ to get some answers.

Total solar eclipses – being in tune with the universe

In today’s "so exciting" and "so important" daily life only a few occasions remind us of the source of this very life on planet Earth. Some of those rare incidents include the mood-changing effect of a sunny day after a week of rain, or a red sky-tinted sunset. In fact, it is very rarely acknowledged that not only our emotional life, our rhythm and our very existence on this planet depend on the sun.

Let’s have some Monkey Mess!

Believe it or not, but someone has conducted a study in order to show how many cookbooks there are in UK households and how often they are being used.

 

Average seven; never. Those were the results. ...

Rural Renaissance - Building the New Eden

There's a revolution going on in the English countryside, so quiet that to date it has made little impact on the general psyche, but when the future looks back at us it will stand out as radical and significant. It starts as a tale of bone-chilling Cold War tension, the rape of the countryside by the god 'Profit', and ends with hope.

 

A WEEKEND IN ZAGREB

For a little over a year now, I have called Zagreb home. I first saw the city where I live and work for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in the dead of winter on my way to Italy from the small town in Bosnia...

 

RUBY-RED COMFORT FOOD

Can you name a Polish dish? I didn’t think so. Frankly, I don’t blame you – Polish cuisine never made it to the charts and it’s not just due to difficult spelling.

True, some exceptions can be found here and there, mostly...