Essays

Smile!

Smile!

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...

read more
Take Back Control

Take Back Control

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...

read more
We Need More Insouciance

We Need More Insouciance

Flt. Lieut. Peter Guy Scotchmer next to his damaged Typhoon after returning from an attack on an E-boat. Today, we read and hear not only about wars in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and of impending wars, but of riots and the threats of riots in many countries....

read more
Gordon of Khartoum

Gordon of Khartoum

An overdue retrospective Major General Charles George Gordon, CB, 1833-1885 The Victorian Age was an idealistic age, beginning with the might of the Royal Navy breaking the thralldom of slavery outside the British Empire. There was a dawning acceptance of Darwin’s...

read more
A Culture of Reticence

A Culture of Reticence

The past is another country. They do things differently there. – L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between   (A mosaic from Hadrumetum, in Tunisia, an important pre-Carthage Phoenician city, which depicts Aeneas surrounded by Clio, (history), and Melpomene (tragedy). This...

read more
The Luring of Children

The Luring of Children

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...

read more
Unsung Heroes of Art History

Unsung Heroes of Art History

An Ode to Snail     Amidst the splendor of art history, nestled obscurely amongst majestic portraits, mosaic goddesses, and epic battles, an unlikely yet constant character appears time and again: the humble snail. Yes, those slow-moving, shell-carrying...

read more
What can We Believe?

What can We Believe?

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...

read more
Supreme Irony

Supreme Irony

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...

read more