Meanwhile... Whilst it’s been another tricky year to navigate and an increasingly tricky world to parse, I do know this one thing. Your joy often arrives from the small places that are closest, in ways that are usually unpredictable, and never neatly…

Or why climate change should make you “Joe Biden has announced new steps to ban oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and limit onshore drilling in Alaska, as his administration reportedly prepares to approve a huge new oilfield in the state.”The…

Or not the one I meant to post I know. What I said was that I would post the second of two found poems as part of ushering in the new year and before that I said I would explain the title of the publication next and doubtless there were other small…

In praise of the ordinary It’s a weird time. Even with the seasons reversed, I’ve discovered that ghosts still appear when the sun is up. Particularly in the evening when the city is still because many people are out of town and many others are…

Discover more from Standing in the yard, under the stars Poisonous butterflies and instructions on metamorphosis I will tell you something beautiful. Several things in fact. Occasionally we might hide ourselves away, dissolve and re-form. More often…

On opening a door. So I finally jumped in. That makes it sound more sudden than it actually was. Really it took much deliberation, some gentle prodding and the realisation of having been stuck for too long in the big meanwhile. Nevertheless here I…

We’re navigating out of the pandemic with a new perspective on long-term wellbeing, both of healthcare workers and the communities they serve. – both that of health workers and the communities they serve, writes Alex Kazemi. The politics of health…

The precautionary principle tells us that when catastrophe is a possibility, it is wise to act to prevent it, rather than waiting to gather more information on likelihood, writes Alex Kazemi. In the photo, Robert Pershing Wadlow is smiling. He stands…

Amid a delta outbreak, a pandemic still roaring around the world, and a push towards reopening borders, we should consider the realities at the sharp end of the NZ health system, writes former Intensive Care doctor Alex Kazemi. Buried somewhere in…

‘On one scale the coronavirus that plagues us is microscopic. On another we ourselves are made small.’ An essay by Alex Kazemi. Make a Moebius strip. Take a long rectangular piece of paper, loop it, then join the two ends after putting one end…

The Covid-19 pandemic has seen doctors and nurses cast as heroes battling a villainous virus. It may be well-intentioned, but it’s a narrative that serves no value, writes ICU doctor Alex Kazemi. In a foyer in Southampton General Hospital in the UK…

Dr Alex Kazemi, an ICU specialist, writes here in his personal capacity on the opportunity Covid-19 provides to rebuild our healthcare system. The tooth fairy never showed. My daughter had written a note – “You are invited to a tea party on Saturday…

I’m glad you could stop by to have a look at what I’m writing. And what am I writing? Well, I wish I could offer some niche explanation like “Great Train Journeys of the World” or some such. That would be much easier to explain. But the world is…