Rodrigo Olivares-Caminal, Queen Mary University of London Moody’s, one of the big three credit rating agencies, is not upbeat about the prospects for the world’s debt in 2020 – to put it mildly. If we were to try to capture the agency’s view of where we are heading on a palette of colours, we would be pointing at black – pitch black. Moody’s rates the creditworthiness of 142 countries, which represent about US$62.2 trillion (£48 trillion) of debt. It sees a disruptive political environment both within various countries and at the international level. This, it says, is aggravating the slow-motion…
Author: Pride Team
Fay Bound Alberti, University of York What does loneliness sound like? I asked this question on Twitter recently. You might expect that people would say “silence”, but they didn’t. Their answers included: The wind whistling in my chimney, because I only ever hear it when I’m alone. The hubbub of a pub heard when the door opens to the street. The sound of a clicking radiator as it comes on or off. The terrible din of early morning birds in suburban trees. I suspect everyone has a sound associated with loneliness and personal alienation. Mine is the honk of Canadian…
Sharron Hinchliff, University of Sheffield It’s not often you see people over-50 having sex on screen. It’s so rare, in fact, that the sex scenes in 45 Years, the recent film about the approaching anniversary of a retired couple, became one of the main talking points in its coverage. And yet a sizeable minority of people continue to have active sex lives into their 70s, 80s and even beyond. A recent study found that a third of over-70s had sex at least twice a month. So why do we so often shy away from talking about or portraying something so…
Black excellence is a big deal for us here at Pride Magazine Nigerian as well as celebrating women who continually accomplish outstanding feats. A woman of such calibre worth celebrating today as our Woman Crush Wednesday is Adesewa Josh. Adesewa is an award-winning broadcast journalist and philanthropist. In 2009, she received a Certificate in News Production and Reporting from BBC World Service while in 2012, earned a certificate in TV Presenting from UK’s Aspire Presenting Institute. She also holds a Certificate in Basic Presentation from Radio Nigeria. In 2011, she completed her postgraduate diploma in International Relations from Lagos State…
Raian Ali, Bournemouth University; Emily Arden-Close, Bournemouth University, and John McAlaney, Bournemouth University The World Health Organisation is to include “gaming disorder”, the inability to stop gaming, into the International Classification of Diseases. By doing so, the WHO is recognising the serious and growing problem of digital addiction. The problem has also been acknowledged by Google, which recently announced that it will begin focusing on “Digital Well-being”. Although there is a growing recognition of the problem, users are still not aware of exactly how digital technology is designed to facilitate addiction. We’re part of a research team that focuses on…
Paul Basu, SOAS, University of London It’s an extraordinary collection of portraits from Nigeria and Sierra Leone taken between 1909 and 1915, when Britain was at the height of its empire. The archive shows a vast array of faces – of women, children and men – some distant, some suspicious, some proud, some confused, some joyous. Most are photographed against a canvas backdrop, some with number boards above their heads, all of them silent. Many of our museums and archives are filled with such traces of Britain’s colonial past, and exist as troubling presences in our public institutions. Many of…
Denise Rosemary Nicholson, University of the Witwatersrand A big barrier to lifelong learning can be the cost of resources. There are worldwide initiatives to change this, though, and it’s helpful to know how to use these resources legally. One such arrangement is Creative Commons, considered to be the global standard for open licences. These were written by legal experts around the world and dedicated to the public domain. They enable teaching and learning resources to be made available in the public domain. This is usually in their digital form under an open licence and without cost other than the cost…
Brands The last three weeks have been dramatic for social media advertisers, influencers and politicians. Two of the world’s largest social media platforms fired unexpected shots against the underbelly of the social media underbelly. For Twitter, the founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey (who recently paid an eccentric visit to Nigeria) did not dignify his targets with an official statement or press release. On the night of the 30th of October, Jack dropped the bombshell via his personal Twitter handle (@jack) that the world’s largest social microblogging platform will no longer tolerate any form of political advertising. To Jack, it is…
Persistent sin. We suffer from that. The cold tears that run down every night Wondering if forgiveness will ever come. The burning of the soul for the longing Of some form of reconciliation To say that the soul is clear, if not pure. We look up, and ask for what we want. We hear nothing. Unconsciously, we continue to sin, As we think it wouldn’t matter As our cries for help were not answered. Someday, we might just sit and look around. We might look at the little things and listen. Listen to those sounds of accepting one’s…
Reading 1 Rom 8:1-11 Brothers and sisters: Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death. For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live not according to the flesh but…