College graduations have abounded over the past month or so and many of us will have seen friends or relatives proudly don the gown and collect their certs. Despite the ensuing sequence of awkward photographs, in front of a succession […]
After numerous talks, workshops, readings and walking tours, the Dublin Book Festival finally comes to a close this Sunday. For those of you whose creative sparks may have been set ablaze by proceedings, fear not – perhaps it is just […]
James Bond seems to be everywhere these days. He has stormed the cinemas, brushing aside competitors like the bully who’s hit puberty long before everyone else on the schoolyard. Whole chat shows have been dedicated to him. Over the last […]
When a character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is asked how he became bankrupt, he replies ‘Gradually, then suddenly’. The same can be said of how we experience change. We barely notice it happen until it’s blindingly obvious. […]
The steady stream of people walking, jogging, or cycling past our office on Dublin’s North Wall Quay reminds us that exercise has become an integral part of many people’s lives. The fact that over fourteen thousand people are expected to […]
With the stateside elections now just around the corner, media coverage of the presidential race – on both sides of the Atlantic – has begun to reach fever pitch. As many of you will know, the third in the candidates’ […]
It’s easy to assume that professional sportspeople and ordinary members of the public lead lives as different from one another as chalk and cheese. While this may be true in a general sense, there are marked similarities too. As a […]
In times of economic instability, many people feel it their duty to forego the pleasurable in favour of the necessary. This affects course choices as much as anything else: pursuing what is deemed useful is preferred to pursuing what may […]
It seems, in this macho world, that few things can help a man to see his more intuitive side – but it now seems that doing a part-time course is one of them. I blogged recently about my neighbour who, […]
This writer hopes to undertake the second and final year of a distance learning postgraduate course next September. First year was passed with flying colours back in 2011, but second year had to be postponed because I could not afford […]
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. (Henry Adams) Most of us will be willing to testify to the inherent value of education, and rightly so. But the virtues – as considerable as they are […]
Did you know that today (September 26th) is the European Day of Languages No For shame. It involves events all over the continent -from children’s TV shows to conferences – promoting greater awareness of the benefits of multilingualism. Not well […]
A friend of mine has just started an 8-week German course, his first night was last night. His goal is to learn German so he can make new contacts for his business, but he tells me he was amazed at […]
