Mubarak's verdict "At first, there were cheers. Hosni Mubarak, President-Dictator of Egypt for thirty years, had been declared guilty, responsible for the killing of protesters during the revolution last year, and sentenced to life. Then the fine print of the verdict came down."
Great Expectations: Just what do we want? "We talk endlessly of how (our politicians) let us down, of how hopeless they are. I think this is only partly born of the fact that they may actually be hopeless. It is also – and this is much less discussed – born of the fact that we don't really know what we expect of them, or of government, in the first place." (Quarterly Essay excerpt, Laura Tingle)
The future of medicine: squeezing out the doctor "Demand for health care looks unlikely to be met by doctors in the way the past century’s was. For one thing, to treat the 21st century's problems with a 20th-century approach would require an impossible number of doctors. For another, caring for chronic conditions is not what doctors are best at."
The North West London Blues "Willesden Green Book Shop is run by Helen. Helen is an essential local person. I would characterize her essentialness in the following way: 'Giving the people what they didn't know they wanted.' Important category. Different from the concept popularized by Mr Murdoch: giving the people what they want. " (Zadie Smith)
