Linguistics professor John O’Regan on history written in the present tense, and Simon Allen on other documentary annoyances Adrian Chiles’s article concerning the use of the present tense in ...

We use the present simple tense for things that we do regularly and for facts, habits, truths and permanent situations. We often use time expressions like every day, once a week, on Fridays.

Combining have been and were in this way is perfectly acceptable here, Umed. Often, in language use, deciding whether to use the present perfect or the past simple depends on your perspective on the ...