Thomil's Random Ramblings

Heritage - a word that is both empowering and immobilising. To this day, many people see it as a source of pride, something that tells them where they belong, especially for those who are unwilling or unable to find their own place in this admittedly chaotic world. It is a term that has been used or abused to justify just about anything, from colourful parades through southern Bavarian towns at certain times of the year, to keeping Catholic Irish from voting in Northern Ireland and brutally enforcing segregation in the Deep South of the United States.  While that may be a topic all of its own, I'm not planning to go down that road just yet. Instead I'll concentrate on an issue that is just as contentious as anything I mentioned in the opening paragraph - The way we treat the architectural heritage in our modern cities. Quite a u-turn, eh? Well, the issue itself isn't new, in fact it has been present ever since the first large scale urban redevelopment took place followin...

I don't know what to say.  I am truly at a loss for words. Once again, Paris has been the target of an abhorrent, despicable attack. The scenes that flickered across TV screens last night have burned themselves into the minds of all those watching, and the horror of the events at the Bataclan music club and at other sites throughout the city will probably never leave those poor souls who had to live through them. I will not go through the numbers here, nor will I show any images of the carnage of last night, this has been well covered by other media. If you look at it from a distance, with a certain detachment, you would think that we would have gotten used to this kind of attack. After all, it hardly is the first. New York, Madrid, London, Bali, Mumbai, and just this winter the attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. However, this attack feels different. It seems to have struck much closer to home. This wasn't some far-away place, or some newsroom, this h...