Ian on Sunday
National accounting and real life Governments everywhere, quite naturally, make every effort to portray the state of the nation in the best possible light. How does one account for the fact that in countries, including our own, official spokesmen can proudly, and in one sense accurately, boast that Gross Domestic Product is increasing while the [...]
Ian On Sunday
Devil-take-the-hindmost People tell me that an article I wrote some time ago continues to “circulate widely on the internet.” I have no real idea exactly what this implies. However, I suppose any writer should be pleased that what he writes is being read by a greater number of people which I assume is what circulating [...]
Ian On Sunday
The irrelevance of sport? A couple of weeks ago I explained in a column what an important part sport has played, and very much continues to play, in my life. I got a few responses, one or two playfully tongue-in-the-cheek I think, which questioned my devotion to games. The gist of the comments was that [...]
Ian on Sunday
The vindication of Hypatia Currently its most venerable member, I am delighted to learn that the Georgetown Club has at last burst gloriously into, let us say, the 20th century and admitted women as full members. It seems decades ago that I participated in that fight and thought at the time it was won only [...]
Ian on Sunday
Teaching beyond the ordinary run of our lives When we are young, if we are lucky, we meet a person who opens our minds to the infinite possibilities of life in this wondrous world. Such a person, he or she is often a teacher, suddenly reveals what mysteries we might want to try unravelling, what [...]
Ian On Sunday
The quiet sport Not many people guess right when asked “What is the most popular sport in the world?” The irony is that, more than any other people in the West Indies, Guyanese are in a position to say what is the most popular of all sports simply because Guyana provides a better environment for [...]
Ian On Sunday
The complex value of the word I love poetry. It is the quiet passion of my life. When I was a child my mother read me old nursery rhymes at bedtime and they had the lilt of poetry in them which stayed with me forever. And in our home there were shelves filled with books, [...]
Ian On Sunday
Home is a lovely place In Canada it is just getting cool and the trees are filling with greenish gold and a darkening red as the beautiful season of fall begins to decorate the landscape. A place where seasons change the living earth so much is strange to me and holds a fascination I am [...]
Ian On Sunday
Greed brings down a nation In the 1987 film “Wall Street”, ruthless stock trader Gordon Gecko, played by Michael Douglas, famously declared “Greed is Good.” It summed up the credo of America – and, following America, most of the rest of the world – for the next two decades. Year by year the greed became [...]
Ian On Sunday
Victory at all costs? An old sporting argument – good for many lovely hours of intense discussion and fervent discussion – surfaces every now and then. Is winning everything? Or does sportsmanship and “playing the game” come first? Students of cricket will remember way back in 1981 in a one day International played between New [...]
Ian On Sunday
A bigger threat than terror We have to look forward to a long and terrible age of increasing and fearsome devastation. I am sorry to be so gloomy but all the evidence is there. Of course, we must seek, and indeed have even more incentive than before, to salvage joy, comfort, interest and achievement in [...]
Ian On Sunday
The whole point is not to talk or think I avoid as far as I can any party, club, reception or event when or where rap music is likely to be predominant. I do not think this is only because I am getting old and crotchety about the inexplicable likes and dislikes of the younger [...]
Ian On Sunday
Unsung heroes In the last month I have enjoyed watching the Olympics from majestic opening to colourful and tumultuous closing and between those spectacular bookends have seen an endless display of compelling competitive excellence. And all this was followed very closely by a Caribbean Festival of all the arts which turned out to be the [...]
Ian On Sunday
A festival Caricom badly needed Carifesta X was a splendid and significant success. There were dropped catches, fumbles in the field, times of anxiety, periods of doubt, batting failures, technical errors and fractious disappointment among loyal fans here and there but the Test Match was gloriously won and that is what matters for Guyana and [...]
Ian On Sunday
Illth Absurdly, we still take for granted that Gross Domestic Product is an accurate measure of success and well-being in a nation, so that if GDP is increasing we think we must be doing better. This is nonsense. When anybody proudly declares that GDP has gone up by such and such a percentage we should [...]