Rejected and shunned by top teams in Europe, Ronaldo’s manic ego is becoming an eyesore of the beautiful game
Despite Will Ford’s willingness to piggy-back him to Saudi Arabia, Cristiano Ronaldo won’t be taking up the offer of nearly a quarter of a billion quid to spend two years in Western Asia. So what now? Ronaldo has asked to leave Manchester United but, most likely to his surprise, there...
Cristiano Ronaldo, please go to Saudi Arabia; we’re sick of the pageantry you engender and encourage
An unnamed club from Saudi Arabia has reportedly offered Ronaldo a two-year contract worth £2 million($2.5 million)-a-week. Manchester United would pocket a £25 million ($30 million) transfer fee, while the megastar’s representatives would earn a tidy £17 million ($20 million). Nearly quadrupling his wages, it must be a tempting offer;...
House of Common sins: British parliament has been synonymous with sexual scandals for centuries
When the school nurse walked into the London schoolroom in 1815, she found the Member of Parliament for Barnstaple already there. Sir Eyre Coote was distinguished by a history of public service and a surpassing fondness for flagellation. Sir Eyre had popped into the school that day to pay the...
Scrappy management: Company culture is main reason successive projects suffer similar problems because we’re too busy to include voice of the costumer
I was recently told by some smarty-pants consultant that “As long as the team makes a logical proposal to the executives, they will support their recommendation.” My retort: “Then why do people smoke?” I mean, it’s not logical to smoke. There’s plenty of data to suggest it’s bad for your...
Why United Kingdom is turning to mushroom farming in peatland to meet is Climate Change goals
In a huge industrial shed on Leckford Estate, a farm owned by the supermarket Waitrose in a beautiful part of southern England, a revolution is stirring in the world of mushroom growing. UK production of this crop relies on peat, the incredibly carbon-rich organic matter found in bogs and fens...
US derives its legitimacy from deciding whether legislative enactments comport with the Constitution
In the eyes of many institutionalists, the Supreme Court of the United States – or any court, for that matter – would be less legitimate if it factored public opinion into its decision-making. As former Chief Justice William Rehnquist argued in 1992, “The judicial branch derives its legitimacy, not from...
US abortion rights nullification kicked up a storm over civil liberties and legitimacy of the Supreme Court itself
In a scathing joint dissent, Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer declared that the nullification of the constitutional right to abortion last week was a catastrophic decision not just for American civil liberties, but also for the legitimacy of the court itself. “In overruling Roe and...
Mutual respect and conversation, not name-calling and conflict, are key to America’s gun violence prevention
When an 18-year-old took a semiautomatic rifle to an elementary school in Texas last month and killed 19 students and two teachers, I was looking after my 10-year-old grandson. He knows I have spent most of my life trying to prevent gun violence. I had to tell him we had...
‘Weed’ is currently subject of political storm in Kenya, but is the interest in its hyped medicinal efficacy genuine?
Three weeks ago, I wrote about the various medical approaches to treating pain, and one reader emailed to ask why I hadn’t mentioned cannabis. I had been thinking about more mainstream options, but I was wrong to ignore cannabis because, in several parts of the world, this drug has now...
Kenya elections: Azimio manifesto is rich on rhetoric, bereft of substance and is a continuation of failed presidency
Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga – a leading candidate in the 2022 presidential election – unveiled his manifesto he says has the ingredients to revamp an economy battered by a decade of brazen theft by members of the outgoing government. Outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government is synonymous with public...
