Essays

Play

Play

If all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, it makes Jill pretty boring, too. If truth be told, those workaholics Mr. and Mrs. Jack are tedious company, as well. So obsessed has our society become with work, usually paid work, that its antithesis, play, has become...

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Such Trifles

Such Trifles

The Russian writer, dissident, and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1917-2008) was an outspoken critic of communism in what was then called the Soviet Union, and was imprisoned in the Siberian gulag for eight years for critical comments he...

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It was a Golden Age

It was a Golden Age

We have the great Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “the highest law in the land” we are told. Ask Jordan Peterson and Tamara Lich if we have rights and freedoms.

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The Sober Second Thought

The Sober Second Thought

Stopping the Creeping Cancer under Wokeism. Henry Goulburn, PC, one of the British negotiators at the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 (which ended America’s illegal attempt to seize Canada), remarked: “I had no idea of the fixed determination which there is in the heart of every American…”

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What is Irony?

What is Irony?

"It’s as clear as mud.” Since mud is not clear, the speaker cannot mean what he says. (Let us assume he is male). In fact, he means that what he has heard or read is unclear. Very unclear. He says the opposite of what he means to emphasize his difficulty in...

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An Introduction

An Introduction

The modern world has suffered in the past century, and into the present one, from the tyranny of monomaniacs, from murdering monsters of depravity like Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao, to cultural purists infected with the arrogance of privilege, like Trump and...

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The Joy of Mud

The Joy of Mud

Children like to play in mud. It is (or was, for us ‘oldies’), a relatively rare treat to be able to play in the mud.  It is slippery, fun, sticky, squishable, slimy, and well, just fun to mess around with wet dirt. You will see kids playing in mud all the time. For a kid, what is more enjoyable?

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Author

  • Nigel Scotchmer

    Nigel’s peripatetic path in life gives him, he believes, a unique perspective on the world around him. He has worked at many occupations over the years from driving a truck, writing welding standards, to being an international salesman,\ accountant and business owner. Brought up in a family that believed that Antigone in the Greek myth was correct to stand up and die for her belief that fairness and truth were more important than the ranting raves of the unthinking mob – his father accepted the consequences of refusing to fire a homosexual in the 1950s – Nigel believes irony is the greatest tool for both encouraging equity and our enjoyment of life. Since irony involves the interplay between emotions, reality and chance, its appreciation can provide meaning to the often inexplicable world in which we live. He said, when interviewed for this summary: “No, we can’t all be heroes, and too often we make the wrong choice, for the wrong reasons – but at least irony can bring peace to us by helping reconcile the warring elements.” Nigel loves literature – especially books and poems that deal with universal themes such as love, war, and justice – and is now happily retired from the world of business. Ironically, (like countless retirees before him!), he says he has the ambition to be a great writer and is currently writing fiction full-time…. Visit him at https://nigelscotchmer.com/