This day, 6 February, in 2003, Shi Jiuyong, a well-known Chinese international law expert, was elected President of the International Court of Justice for a 3-year term....
I love games consoles. I own more than I care to admit. But (Marie Kondo, since you’re asking) every one of them sparks joy. The console is a well-named invention, providing solace that sometimes even tea can’t provide.
I’m not the only one; retro gaming is as much of a draw for my generation as steam trains for my father’s. An industry surrounds console nostalgia, with restorations, re-releases, emulation and excavation.
But in focusing so much on the games console, the home experience of games, the nostalgia is neglecting another great...
Alcohol makes you mellow and unconstrained. And then it makes you boisterous and shouty. Caffeine banishes fatigue from the limbs and the brow, then makes you arrogant and shouty. Such are the devils we know.
There’s a huge variety of delivery methods to these legal, reality distorters; some fast, some slow, some calorific, some less so. And it’s the flavours and occasions which influence how we choose to take them; chocolate or yerba matte, sake or champagne.
Urban legend suggests that lining up licquors in the right order may prevent...
The first thing that hits is how inefficient this whole game is. It isn’t quite May as we climb the mountain. Picking only began on 31st March. And already the season is over. Not a basket or wicker hat to be seen.
And it isn’t that these tea bushes have stopped producing; glossy, thick leaves are growing abundantly. If fact, what work we see is the two-man job of sawing off the top 40% or so of the bush along each terrace. Baseball bats are worn for the less-romantic (but...
They call it “herbal medicine”. And in this house, this week, it’s everywhere.
I call it “horrible medicine”. But I actually quite like it.
It smells of fragrant-soil and it tastes like fragrant-soil-with-brown-sugar.
Apparently, it has an English name; Isatis Tinctoria. But, like the names for all those things popular only in China, that’s not really an English name.
The brew hasn’t caught on elsewhere; what Americans call root-beer is a completely different thing. But here it’s enormous. As I write, your local pharmacy is selling fast out.
There’s no scientific evidence that...
