July 2016 – Martin Rose

Einstein, Iraq and the Samsonite

July 11, 2016

Years ago in Cairo there was a joke: “What’s the definition of an expert?” to which the answer was “Anyone within a mile of Talaat Harb Square carrying a Samsonite.” One of the emerging themes of modern British political life seems to be a similar disdain for expertise. Michael Gove famously declared in the course of … More Einstein, Iraq and the Samsonite

A Mixture of Spice and Salt

July 4, 2016

It is a Libyan-flavoured revolution, a mixture of spice and salt and light that smells like the blessings that come from the lanterns of saints. I find this lovely sentence, haunting in its sensual eloquence, scribbled down in my commonplace book, the first small footprint left there by Hisham Matar. I was acutely conscious as … More A Mixture of Spice and Salt