Empathy and our homeless project

I never warmed to Alain de Botton. For a number of reasons: 1) his Essays on Love were, I felt, dressed up as more than they actually were, and I felt I could have done better; and 2) but then he actually did it—wrote the thing—and I had not; 3) everything else that followed was [...]

Ian Jack on tense and cherries

I have just had porridge for breakfast. I mixed it with a banana (Dominican Republic), a Clementine (Spain), some organic raisins (Kenya) and some almonds (also Spain). I sprinkled on some linseed (Canada) and some cinnamon (unspecified within the EU). I have no way of knowing where the oats came from, but as the bag [...]