Colette NiReamonn Ioannidou

‘I’ll never forget the New Year I was 15,’ an Irish friend told me. It was near lunchtime, the extended family in the living room. There was a bang on ...

Soon president-elect Donald Trump will rule the White House once more and an intelligent, educated woman I know, is ecstatic. When I asked her if his attitude and that of ...

I watched The Day After Tomorrow when it first came out and was impressed with the terrifying special effects. The second time round, I was impressed and worried by how ...

It’s fair to say humans have stolen from each other since the beginning of time. Thieves reap the benefits of other peoples’ labour without the slightest pang of conscience, ...

I watched Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix. Interested in two strands of human development: space, and human advances towards civilization, the series drew me in. The sky and what evolves up ...

We all tell the odd white lie to avoid something or someone. No real harm done, like excuses to get out of a thing you don’t want to attend ...

Flat, calm August welcomed an interesting September. The reaction to Odysseus Michaelides’ sacking as auditor-general was an example of the law versus the people. His wasn’t a case of ...

An Irish poet once told me ‘We’re storytellers by nature and that includes gossip. What begins as a short story one end of town is a full length novel ...

Parenting is a learning curve, teaching is a qualification. Praising a child’s efforts is often more productive than complaining about mistakes. Some highly-qualified teachers lack sensitivity or the personality ...

The EU has advantages on one side, question marks on the other. In July, The Irish Times columnist Jack Power writing about Ursula Von der Leyen’s reelection chances said ‘...

Sure, we’re biased about home products, Smuggling Hendrix was great, and everyone I’ve asked said Stelana Kliris’ Find Me Falling was captivating. Some foreign critics deemed it simple ...

When my politically opposed friends Dub a proxy Democrat and let’s call her Sally, a Trumpite, get together it’s akin to tectonic plates grinding off one another. Maria ...

‘In the burnt earth I lay weeping, I had lost all my humanity. In the scorched earth, like a wounded animal, wondering where was my life and the person I ...

Monk caught me years ago, and second time around on Netflix I surrendered to the sheer pleasure of the series. Actor Tony Shalhoub’s take on the obsessive-compulsive detective Adrien ...

Although I don’t dwell on the Old Reaper, this squirrel thought it time to throw away junk to make sorting easier for those left behind when I pop off, ...

This once-teen devoured sci-fi novels and it’s revelatory to watch as what knowledgeable and imaginative writers predicted becomes reality. Applications then lacked tech innovation, but with time, AI has ...

Greek words pad today’s English, take politics. Ancient Greek ‘democratia’ selected those who would benefit under it: plutocracy. What’s changed? Some politicians, supposedly maintaining its modern-implied, human rights ...

THE WAY THINGS ARE Buddy was a rescued, fierce-looking, lovable Labrador-Great Dane cross. Friends adopted a Cane Corso mastiff responding in kind to love given. Buddy was left as nature ...

THE WAY THINGS ARE Why wasn’t Joe Biden’s ‘Outrage and heartbreak!’ at the brutal death of seven foreign aid workers the reaction of a man who suffered family ...

THE WAY THINGS ARE Apart from Ed Speleers, the trailer for An Irish Wish was uninspiring. I’m not a Lindsay Lohan or rom-com fan. Still, it was a chance ...

THE WAY THINGS ARE After getting into and out of Suits, I was happy to find on Netflix an actor I like, Nathan Fillion, and his female co-workers in The ...

THE WAY THINGS ARE Critical thinking doesn’t mean teaching children selected influences the teacher either approves or disapproves of. It means giving unbiased information and allowing a child to ...

THE WAY THINGS ARE Euthanasia is legal in some countries, not in others. It costs to have the privilege of deciding when it’s time to die in comfort, slipping ...

THE WAY THINGS ARE ‘The politician man says do the best you can. And I will do my very best to help. Yes, please do sir, help yourself.’ So sang ...