The Needham Question Re~visited

As you know from my previous Blog, this October is the 75th anniversary of the New China which started in 1949. I hope you know too that next year is the 60th anniversary of our own SACU, which was inaugurated in May 1965 when Joseph Needham himself gave a speech to an audience of over 1000 at Church House Westminster. As my last Blog explained, since 1949 China has made spectacular progress in Science and Technology, so much so that China now has the most patents in terms of ranking of patents by country globally. By the end of 2023, […]

Wǔsì Yùndòng ( May Fourth)

As I write this it’s May First, a national holiday in China which is known as 劳动节, Láodòng Jié or Labour Day. The traditions of Labour Day started in 1890 when the Marxist International Socialist Congress in Paris designated the day to commemorate an event in Chicago in 1886 when the police used gunfire on a crowd that was protesting in favour of an eight hour working day! A number of protestors were shot dead and many more were injured. Remembering the ‘Haymarket Martyrs’ was an inspiration for the original Labour Day. May First was declared a national holiday in […]

We Remember them All

On the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour, Britain will respectfully remember and honour those who fought in and those who sacrificed their lives in the two world wars. This is personal to me, as it is to many of you. My maternal grandmother risked her life nightly with the artillery teams defending Southampton from bombing raids. My maternal grandfather was in the Royal Hampshire’s in North Africa and in Italy including the carnage of Monte Cassino. My paternal grandfather was a pilot in the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Both 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 were […]