Tag: Ethics

The problems of describing mental illness

Articles & Essays

We are often told that there is still a stigma surrounding mental illness. It is therefore strange that the England cricketer Jonathan Trott was stigmatised for allegedly not having one. Trott left the England tour of Australia in November citing a “long-standing, stress-related condition”. But when he gave an interview last month explaining that he was burnt out rather than depressed, the former England captain Michael Vaughan said that he felt “a little bit conned”, saying, “When I hear players talking about burnout, I suspect it is an excuse.”

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How allotments lost the plot

Articles & Essays, Food

The arrival of the BBC’s The Big Allotment Challenge shows that grow-your-own is a pursuit worthy of the same attention as baking, dating and home improvement. As an allotment holder myself, albeit very much the head gardener’s lackey, I’m ambivalent about this. Allotments are wonderful things but the rise, fall, and rise again in their popularity tells a story about social change that is both encouraging and dispiriting…

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The Death of the Dining Room

Articles & Essays, Food

Eating at table should not be equated with formality and outmoded etiquette. Its main association should be conviviality. We sit around a table, but in front of the TV. We eat together at the table, but merely at the same time elsewhere. Even when eating alone, however, dispensing with a dining table comes at a cost. When we have our meals while doing other things we are not eating, we are merely feeding. We cease paying attention to what we are ingesting and our food becomes mere fuel.

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