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San Juan, Puerto Rico, has an interesting fort and a pretty township. I kept hearing 'America' from West Side Story playing in my head.

Once a giant Spanish Fort, San Juan resisted all comers, including the British, until the United States bombarded it from the sea, then landed a ground force and took it, as they did in Cuba and Hispaniola.  Unlike those islands, the US has held it ever since, as it remained, until WW2, strategically key to the naval control of the Caribbean.

 

Now I'm hearing America again.

"I like the city of San Juan
I know a boat you can get on"

 

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Travel

Romania

 

 

In October 2016 we flew from southern England to Romania.

Romania is a big country by European standards and not one to see by public transport if time is limited.  So to travel beyond Bucharest we hired a car and drove northwest to Brașov and on to Sighisiora, before looping southwest to Sibiu (European capital of culture 2007) and southeast through the Transylvanian Alps to Curtea de Arges on our way back to Bucharest. 

Driving in Romania was interesting.  There are some quite good motorways once out of the suburbs of Bucharest, where traffic lights are interminable trams rumble noisily, trolley-busses stop and start and progress can be slow.  In the countryside road surfaces are variable and the roads mostly narrow. This does not slow the locals who seem to ignore speed limits making it necessary to keep up to avoid holding up traffic. 

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Fiction, Recollections & News

Outcomes for girls and boys

 

 

A Radio National discussion (May 29 2015) stated that statistically girls outperform boys academically and referenced research suggesting that this has something to do with working parents:

Provocative new research suggests that the outcomes for girls and boys can be different when parents go back to work, in particular mothers.

The big question is WHY?

 

Read more: Outcomes for girls and boys

Opinions and Philosophy

The Meaning of Life

 

 

 

This essay is most of all about understanding; what we can know and what we think we do know. It is an outline originally written for my children and I have tried to avoid jargon or to assume the reader's in-depth familiarity with any of the subjects I touch on. I began it in 1997 when my youngest was still a small child and parts are still written in language I used with her then. I hope this makes it clear and easy to understand for my children and anyone else. 

Read more: The Meaning of Life

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