by Peter Scotchmer | Feb 24, 2025 | Essays
The story is told by his son Dylan of a memorable exchange between Dylan’s father, the Canadian writer William Bell, famous for his novel Forbidden City, and Dylan’s sister Megan. Megan had been reprimanded for some unspecified childish misdemeanour or other, and had...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Feb 24, 2025 | Essays
The Real Cost of War My father’s Combat Report, after responding to a raid on Teignmouth, England, in which six were killed, many injured, and 183 homes and a school were destroyed. „Absturz in See,“ the note said, “ditched in the sea“. Someone wanted the truth to be...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Oct 29, 2024 | Essays
The blind need a helping hand, but a disability can be a gift A maidenhair tree, or ginkgo biloba A recent article in the Spectator[1]...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Oct 19, 2024 | Essays
“Meet me at the gate to Yu Garden” – Anonymous My neighbour across the street ran the ‘Maple Leaf Express’, one of the exit routes from Hong Kong when the British returned it to China in 1997. He regaled with me stories of incompetent Canadian government officials...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Oct 12, 2024 | Essays
We need more humor. It is hard keeping paper money dry when you live in the water. That is why I always kept my lari¹ in coins. Coins don’t get soggy. I think that is why American sturgeons switched to credit cards and then many got themselves into so problems with...
by Nigel Scotchmer | Oct 3, 2024 | Essays
Sometimes we feel as though “they” (companies, lobbyists, governments,) are trying to frighten us, to make us feel as though we are in danger, implying that the world is about to end. The purpose of this would be to make us feel as though we need them, which would...