Home Blogs & Comment Birmingham Columnists Sarah Evans

Finding out who we are with a few grains of rice

Three hundred and ninety seven billion pounds. It is a literally meaningless number. We are told that is what it takes to save the American financial system and it may well be but – really? Read

Brown's 'rosy hue' may not last autumn's dying days

What completely wonderful autumnal days! Heavy mists in the morning, requiring jumpers and even gloves, then by lunchtime, wondering why you aren’t wearing a nice white T-shirt with bare arms and legs. Read

Education and health not always a level playing field

The two great foundations of our welfare state both came out for an airing last week. Read

Politicians can't have it both ways over pushy parents

Education minister, Andrew Adonis’ remarks about pushy parents are timely. It is exactly the season when parents regroup and plan strategies for the year ahead. Read

Film makes me weep – for all the wrong reasons

I know. It was only a minute since the last time I felt compelled to tell yet another person how they could do their job better. It is just too easy. Read

Thanks for the memory but I'd rather look it up

I was well into my 20s before it dawned on me that the ability to recite apt pieces of verse was not the most sensible criteria to use when choosing your partner through life. Read

A wet weekend is all part of the great British getaway

It is not unknown for me to devote column inches to how other people could do their jobs better. Read

Why 'Prime Minister at Play' turned into a farce

WODYS, a Worcester based youth drama group put on, last week at the Swan Theatre, a superb production of Back to the 80s, a nostalgic Grease-type musical, particularly well suited to teenagers. Read

A Britt of alright at 65 - it's a matter of opinion

Until Britt Ekland, it was the perfect end to a perfect Scottish holiday day. Read

There’s nothing like an economic downturn to make us change

You can’t really get away from it. We now know that economic fortunes are just that – fortune and chance, at the beck and call of Lady Luck. No one can be expected to control or even gently manage the economy – all is in free fall because that is just how it is. Read

A real hero is needed to be Brown's role model

It is hard to find anyone who wants our country to be run by Heathcliff, the anti-hero of Emily Bronte's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. Read

Heels and toes key to summer fashions

The best you can say about men’s fashion is that it is very boring. Read

Today a window box - tomorrow a rooftop field full of rocket

I switched the radio on the other morning to hear a singularly self-righteous programme about urban farming. Read

No need to be shy and retiring - it's time to spend

I attended the first retirement party where the retiree was actually a close friend. There are times in your life when certain rites of passage figure strongly. You tend to find that in your 20s there are lots of weddings to go to, followed by baby celebrations. Read

With so much going for her Hillary still found there was a limit

"My daughters and women everywhere... now know there are no limits to their dreams," said the victorious Obama, recognizing the place of Hillary Clinton in history. Read

A weekend in France to prepare for those exams

It's easy to blame parents. Young people causing misery to each other and the rest of us with their gang wars, drunken brawling and public loutishness must be the result of bad parenting. Read

Craig Bellamy puts millionaire footballers to shame

Family and friends will testify that if it were left up to me, the billions of pounds spent on professional sport would have to find some other home. Read

So many reasons not to eat fellow mammals

National Vegetarian Week starts today! As a vegetarian of many years, I am using the occasion to stand up to be counted and point out to all those carnivores out there, the folly of their ways. Read

There is no place for inspectors in our schools

I wonder whether there are children who, when asked what they want to do when they grow up, say "I want to be an inspector" or "I want to work for the Audit Office". Read

Public turns its back on politics

I always remember on May Day, a story my grandmother used to tell my sister and me on our childhood visits to her home in Aberdare. Read

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