Living robots and the meaning of life
The advent of ‘living robots’, or biobots, not only poses grave risks for which we must be prepared but also raises profound questions about the future and what it means to be human.
Read MoreThe unlikely demonisation of Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie made a very unlikely target for the fury of conservative Muslims, which is why the opportunistic fatwa issued by a Khomeini in serious decline took the novelist and the world by surprise.
Read MoreFICTION: Escaping terror firma, Part 4 – Drowning in a sea of dashed dreams
“I fully expect to be escorted off the ship and onwards towards oblivion, first in a prison cell in Israel and then in the prison of Gaza… But then…”
Read MoreFICTION: Escaping terror firma, Part 3 – Shipwrecked delusions
My body is seized by an overwhelming fit of shivering of epileptic proportions… “Don’t move,” a male voice commands, rather unreasonably, from amid the nervous crowd of weapons.
Read MoreFICTION: Escaping terror firma, Part 2 – Breaking out of the fish bowl
We live in a fish bowl. It would be more likely for a pink elephant to fall out of the sky than for me to get Faris alone somewhere. But the pink elephant somehow managed to land right next to me.
Read MoreFICTION: Escaping terror firma, Part 1: Hell from the heavens
Poetry and song talk of soaring free as a bird, but the heavens are where hell resides. People talk of taking wing, but, me, I’d rather take fin, be free as a fish.
Read MoreOmar Sharif was an actor without borders
The late Omar Sharif was living, breathing, walking proof that there is nothing inherently irreconcilable between the Middle East and the West
Read MoreFiction: Us old guys
“We never regret. Us old guys never regret.” They both chuckled and gave a nod of goodbye.
Read MoreFiction: Don’t, don’t, don’t!
Don’t verbalise! Don’t try to be clever! Don’t try to organise me! Don’t sort things out! Don’t stop fights!
Read MoreFiction: Football
I ask if he is making friends… She tells me he has black skin, lifting her arm to show me in case I don’t comprehend the significance.
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