by Nigel Scotchmer | Jul 14, 2026 | Essays
Alfaaz means, simply, words. And words, read aloud and in good company, are the whole of what we’re after this month. On the evening of July 26, The Irony Club is opening the mic again, and this time we’re widening it considerably. It will run the way an open mic...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Jun 30, 2026 | Art
Nigel writes about his experience at an exhibition at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture – Ithra Centre in Dhrahan, Saudi Arabia. The View, by Rima Mardam Bey, 1983 During my visit to Saudi Arabia this year, I went to an exhibition of women artists...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Jun 23, 2026 | Essays
A missionary family raises four boys in one of Madrid’s most drug-ravaged neighbourhoods. Jonathan Tepper’s memoir traces an extraordinary journey. Jonathan Tepper’s Shooting Up is much more than the account of four brothers in a missionary family growing...
by Nigel Scotchmer | May 19, 2026 | Essays
A drive down from myth-haunted Mt. Parnassus into the passes, graveyards, and battlefields Picture Credits: Edward Dodwell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons It is said that Zeus, the great philanderer, lay with Mnemosyne (Memory), a Titan, for a marathon...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Mar 17, 2026 | Humour
In this Forgotten Heroes story, Alfred Russel Wallace, flying whales called linanders, and a peace-making dish collide in an improbable history of the world’s most famous rice pan. Recently discovered petroglyph of a linander assisting ancient boy scouts...