Last night Channel 4 screened a documentary on Isis recruitment of British Muslim women. A young woman calling herself Aisha spends a year engaging Islamists, graduating from Twitter and FB through text and phone call to live meetings. She’s in … 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 »
Few things musical exemplify more perfectly the acid-drenched clarion call to sixties hedonism than the west coast sounds of Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the greatest of these was Dead but … Read More »
Dreadful article by Rafael Behr in the Grauniad today. You get the gist from its headline: Jihadism a symptom of western policy? That’s mangled history. In a piece whose thrust is to rubbish Jeremy Corbyn – in this instance for … 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 »
I spent last week with friends who’ve ended decades in The Smoke, selling up in South London to buy a sea view in Seaford on the Sussex coast. On Wednesday hardy kite surfers were in the water close to Newhaven … Read More »
do nine men interpret – nine men I nod. Thanks to Pete for this gem: a song by Weird Al Yankovic that’s not only a classy parody of Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues but whose every line is a palindrome.
I’ve never doubted it’s possible to speak of personal things in an impersonal way, though I’m equally sure there are those who can’t tell the difference. Four years ago a cancer scare coincided with looming redundancy at Sheffield Hallam Uni. … Read More »
The Jordan: 17th century and formed by the western edge of a hemisphere of concentric canals: Herengracht, Keisersgracht, Prinsengracht. Its houses, their foundations reclaimed by the finest Dutch engineers – world masters at cheating the seas and taming the polder … Read More »