Fires, facts and fallacies written by Chris Cork

Chirs Cork

News of the tanker inferno came to me early Sunday morning via Facebook, as half asleep I was feeling my way into the day. ‘Are you OK?’ people were asking. It took me a few minutes to get up to speed, tell my global friendship group that I and mine were fine and was then immersed in the horror.

Mass-casualty events of this nature happen from time to time — a quick Google seemed to suggest that most happen on the African continent. But this was almost literally on my doorstep and the

Finding spaces written by Chirs Cork

Chris Cork

Anew pizza joint opened in the city in the last week, one of a global chain and nothing remarkable in that you may think — pizza parlours are two-a-penny. Family pressures prevailed and we duly rolled up a couple of nights after the opening to find the place packed. And I do mean packed. It was standing room only the customer seating having proved inadequate to demand as I waited

Political incorrectness redux by Chris cork

Chris Corc

‘Political correctness’ (PC) first came on my radar in the mid-1970s when I was working as a local government social worker. It was as I recall a gradual understanding that there were ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ ways not only to use language that was derogatory or demeaning to people in general, but a need to recalibrate entire paradigms. Its spread and

Let’s talk about Mosul written by Chris Cork

     

                                                             Let’s talk about Mosul

       Chris Cork

The writer is editorial consultan
t at The Express Tribune,
 news junkie, bibliophile,

 cat lover and occasional cyclist

Mosul. Second largest city in Iraq. Currently held by Islamic State and encircled by a range of forces made up of Kurdish Peshmerga, regular Iraqi army troops and paramilitary police, irregular Sunni militias and assorted licensed bandits there for the scrap. Every TV channel worth the name has embedded correspondents sending breathless packages back to HQ, and by day three of the