[wds id=”6″] Good day yesterday with Mark, who shares both my love of walking and conviction the world is run by and for the criminally insane. As we walked – on moorland and cliff edge, quiet lane and wooded … Read More »
Listening to the news from Paris these past few days I, like so many Britons, think of climate change as a terrible possibility which may or may not materialise: an appalling possibility we learn to live with, like the threat … Read More »
[ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]It’s a seductive message, but reactionary. Take greed, one of the seven deadlies and universally castigated, with greater or lesser hypocrisy and force, since time began. The ambivalence of our reluctant acceptance – admiring disapproval? – of greed reflects … Read More »
[ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]I’m no fan of journalist Mehdi Hasan but credit where it’s due. On last week’s BBC Question Time he asked Small Business Minister Anna Soubry why, if we’re against extreme Islamists, we arm and support Saudi Arabia. “That’s just … Read More »
My friend Sue Beardon alerted me to this FB post of November 17 by Greg Afinogenov, a Muscovite living in Boston MA: I’m so sick of seeing the endless debate about “if you care about Paris you don’t care about … Read More »
Today I came across a few commentariat exchanges below a soberly laid out (if a tad detached) Grauniad piece by Kenan Malik. That zerohoursuni chap seems reasonable, well informed and scrupulously polite. Though heavily outvoted by the philistine element, he’s … Read More »
[ezcol_1third][/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end] Why of course the people don’t want war. That is understood … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, … Read More »
Like countless others on Saturday morning I padded bleary-eyed into the kitchen to make coffee and, while I waited, switch on the radio. You know something big has happened by the muted tones of those on the scene, and by … Read More »
We have dual natures, you and I. On the one hand we are supremely social animals. Unlike pike or tigers or black widow spiders, who associate only to mate or commit internecine violence, we need one another. Ill equipped for … Read More »
I had a mildly sticky phone convo yesterday, apropos my last post, Corbyn: the first five days, with someone I’ve known a very long time. An intelligent man, highly so in fact, he had two beefs. One (tacitly informed by … Read More »