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Patrick Thompson

Northern Ireland
As seen in: Medium, NewsBreak, iTWire, BlackDoctor, VettaFi Advisor Perspectives, Coin Geek, IT Brief Australia, IT Brief New Zealand, IT Brief Asia, CFOtech Asia and
🌹✊ 📸 | researcher on civil rights & Irish-British relations | @HAPPatQUB & @QUBMitchell | rt ≠ endorsements etc
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The loneliness of a late night departure lounge

The loneliness of a late night departure lounge

thinkingaloudx.wordpress.com — There is something very strange about an airport departure lounge. Sitting on a Tuesday night, surrounded by tired people and tired sandwiches in Toulouse airport, everything feels distinctly flat. The bright lights and neon fronted duty free may be designed to keep us all interested, but no one bites. The age of glamorous travel has been over for a long time, unless of course you have the spare capital to enjoy the luxuries of a first class lounge. I'm told the free food, liquor and massages are excellent, but such decadence is firmly beyond the means of most normal people.
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Night Buses - Old Street on a Sunday Morning.

Night Buses - Old Street on a Sunday Morning.

medium.com — It's just before three am on a Sunday morning and I'm waiting for a bus. The roads are busy, mostly with taxis and late night (or early, early morning) delivery vans, but my bus wont come. The N205 has, on other nights like this, been my friend. Now though, it's leaving me out in the cold. Night buses are a peculiar thing, loved and hated by Londoners almost without exception. On the one hand, they'll pick you up when the Underground has deserted you and a combination of them can take you almost anywhere in the city (except Stoke Newington, only taxis seem to go there).
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One hundred days of misery: a guide to the General Election

One hundred days of misery: a guide to the General Election

thinkingaloudx.wordpress.com — There are exactly one hundred days until the general election and they're not going to be pretty. A lot can happen in three and a half months, and a lot will happen, but the chances of any hopeful changes in British politics between now and May 7 th are slim, if not already gone. Don't believe what you may have heard. It is more than likely that today simply sees the rounding of the final corner in a five-year race to be the people's least unpopular politician. Two party politics is, for now, over.
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A History of Violence: Why investigating historic torture matters

A History of Violence: Why investigating historic torture matters

thinkingaloudx.wordpress.com — Today, in a development that should have surprised exactly no one, we all found out that the CIA tortured people after 9/11 and that dozens of countries around the world helped them do it. Forgive my initial cynicism, but this narrative should be common knowledge. Was there really a need for the US Senate to spend millions of dollars investigating something we all knew about? Actually, yes. Yes there was, and is, a need to investigate what the world's security services were doing after the autumn of 2001.
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Is #CameronMustGo news?

Is #CameronMustGo news?

thinkingaloudx.wordpress.com — There is, in the strange, blue tinted world of Twitter, a furious political campaign being carried out as I type. An organised, passionate insurgency to use micro-blogging to bring down a government. It is called 'Cameron must go' or, to be correct #CameronMustGo. Having become one of the top trending hashtags in the UK and, apparently, the third most popular topic on Twitter world wide, it is somewhat of a social media phenomenon. Except you won't read that much about it in the media (meaning anything not online or more complex than a TL;DR format).
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Ed Miliband, a man alone?

Ed Miliband, a man alone?

thinkingaloudx.wordpress.com — In politics, the old saying goes; a week can be a very long time. It follows then that the thirty weeks or so between now and the general elections next year should be an eternity. But for the Labour Party and Ed Miliband, riding uncomfortably low in the water after a poor conference season, it must seem an awfully soon. It wasn't so long ago that Miliband was setting the political agenda. Ahead in the polls and grabbing the headlines with policies such as the proposed freeze on energy bills, Labour were beginning to look, if not comfortable then at least confident.
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There is something far more contagious than Ebola in the air.

There is something far more contagious than Ebola in the air.

thinkingaloudx.wordpress.com — Here are some very basic facts about Ebola hemorrhagic fever that you need to know: It was first identified in 1976 in Sub-Saharan Africa. Symptoms include an initial flu like stage followed by vomiting and sometimes rashes. After this patients will start to haemorrhage, often vomiting blood as well as suffering from internal bleeding and blood loss from the nose and gums. The ability of blood to clot will be impaired. There is no known cure, although a wide variety of treatments usually based around rehydration are used. Mortality rate in those infected is usually between 50 and 90%.
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Am I a public nuisance?

Am I a public nuisance?

newint.org — What constitutes a public nuisance? Since the late 1990s and the birth of the Antisocial Behaviour Order (ASBO), British society has been struggling to answer that question. On the one hand, the ASBO has allowed the authorities to take action against drunken youths and noisy neighbours. On the other, ASBOs have been handed out for singing in the bath and gardening naked; even an unborn baby has received one. Research suggests that at one point nearly half of all ASBOs had been served to children aged between 10 and 17. They have also proved largely ineffective at actually dealing with antisocial behaviour.
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Britain's bedroom tax shame

Britain's bedroom tax shame

newint.org — Housing is a human right. That isn't just my opinion, but also that of the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25 of the declaration, concerning the right to an adequate standard of living, is clear on the matter: 'Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.'
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Universities are the new battleground for free speech

Universities are the new battleground for free speech

newint.org — Almost three years to the day after the student protests of 2010 - when the BBC's Ben Bradshaw was seen wearing a flack jacket in Whitehall - students are now back on the streets, making their voices heard. During the past two weeks, police have used excessive force to crack down on students demonstrating outside Senate House. Ironically, this London University building was the inspiration for George Orwell's 'Ministry of Truth' in his novel 1984. A month ago the president of the University of London Students' Union, Michael Chessum, was arrested after arranging a small but vocal protest over the future of the Union.
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