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Rwanda rising
In a letter of advice to his son Eduard, Albert Einstein wrote ‘Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.’ He wasn’t wrong but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It is hard to find the resolve to move forward when faced with overwhelming suffering. Yet this is exactly what…
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Land of a thousand haunting hills
Rwanda is a small but bustling country. Despite being the size of Munster it is home to some 14 million people. That makes it the most densely populated country in Africa. There are more than seven times as many people per square kilometre in Rwanda as in Ireland. Traveling the winding roads from village to…
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There were nine million bicycles in Beijing
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century discusses how wealth becomes concentrated over time, leading to social and economic instability. That topic has long interested me but one paragraph left a particularly strong impression. Piketty describes how, in the 1880s, the cheapest bicycle in France cost half the average worker’s annual income. And this was for a…
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The Toy Show and one child’s dream of a (play)house
The Late Late Toy Show generated so much excitement last Friday that you couldn’t miss it. It has become a cultural phenomenon. For many it marks the official start to Christmas. These days, with the rise of streaming services, shared TV experiences are rare. The Toy Show is one exception but it has not entered…
…sure what else would you be doing?
Opportunity Costs 