Ian McDonald

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Articles by Ian McDonald

Genetic destiny

One of the strangest paradoxes in the history of the human race is that while men have commonly dominated simply by virtue of their greater strength and aggression, women time and time again have been the cause of their downfall and defeat.

What is poetry for?

Seamus Heaney, the great Irish poet, whose marvellous collection of essays The Redress of Poetry I like to re-read, writes that WH Auden’s elegy for Yeats was “a rallying cry that celebrates poetry for being on the side of life, and continuity of effort, and enlargement of the spirit.”

The most important resource by far

One man is running a company with the help of three old family retainers, two others who haven’t had a new idea in a couple of generations, and a whole raft of school drop-outs.

The wisdom of Marcel Proust

When I was young, and benefited not only from a fresh and eagerly absorptive mind but also from a strong belief that an eternity of life stretched in front of me, I loved to read big books, books of immense length.

The innings

Two weeks later I am still sweating with the initial nervousness and horror and still dancing in the final exultation of our victory in the World Cup.

Bankrupting the world

Like a stampede of wild horses on a dirt highway, daily events in the constant chaos of their unfolding kick up a vast obscuring cloud of dust and smoke.

The Olympics

I first played international sport when I represented Trinidad in lawn tennis as a schoolboy in 1949.

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