by Nigel Scotchmer | Jul 15, 2024 | Essays
A Bookseller’s stall in Kutaisi, Georgia Now the ‘Luring of Children’ is a provocative title for an article in a non-political periodical like The Ironist. It comes from a picture, (above), that I took in Georgia (the country), recently, at a bookseller’s stall in the...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Jun 25, 2024 | Essays
The Need For Critical Thinking Children, quite rightly, expect adults to look out for them. Maybe, when we grow up, we continue to expect others in authority to look after us. Or we WANT to believe they care. The more fools we are. Last night my bank called and said...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Dec 30, 2023 | Stories
Chapter 1 India This is the story of my sister Lakshmi. She is two minutes older than I am. The story starts on a chilly morning in early January, and we were high up on the ramparts of the great Merangarh Fort. I will never forget the day. That was the day Lakshmi...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Sep 28, 2023 | Essays
ISSN 2817-7363 A Tonic for the Age The Ironist is an open forum to encourage discussion and reflection upon the written word and the world around us to promote critical analysis. Irony, “the recognition of incongruities” (Cleanth Brooks), is a tool that permits...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Sep 27, 2023 | Essays
It is a supreme irony that the Ontario public school system, at least in its Peel District school board, should fall victim to wokeist activists of the ‘cancel culture’ persuasion, militants unrepresentative of Canadian majority opinion. Recent news reports of a...