Denis Boyles: ‘It took until this morning, on the BBC’s “Today” programme on Radio 4, for correspondent Jeremy Bowen, cornered by Ford, to finally admit that the rebels have been systematically using the people they were ostensibly “liberating” as human shields, a war crime that went unreported.’
Michael Blackburn: ‘It was all to get my haircut, because I prefer to travel twelve miles through this landscape there and back, however long the wait at the other end, rather than making the less attractive journey into town. This particular morning I’d seen familiar sights briefly transformed in singular ways, ways that created a sense of enchantment. Enchantment may seem an oddly old-fashioned idea but we all crave it in one form or another, and the enchantment of place is one of the most enduring we can experience. ‘
Thursday, 15 December 2016
Alan Macfarlane: ‘When the market, law, or political system itself is highly inefficient, over-bureaucratic, or too weak or too strong, corruption may be the only way to get things done. Without the ‘informal’ or black economy, much of the world’s formal economy would collapse. Without the ‘connections’ which dominate in much of the world there would be very little activity.’
Tuesday, 13 December 2016
Michael Blackburn: ‘The drama of listening to recondite legal precedents and proposals is lost on me, though it is faintly amusing to hear the learned ones trying to work out whether the documents under discussion are labelled as volume three or part three or have a separate nomenclature when provided in an electronic pack. Whatever the supporters of this legal challenge say about democracy and the sovereignty of parliament, however, is hypocrisy. We know the challenge was launched to sabotage the Brexit process either by stopping it from happening or by causing damaging delays.’
George Saintsbury: ‘[Renan’s]] gospel may certainly be said to be a vague gospel, and the enemy may contend that Morgane la Fée is architect and clerk of the works at the buildings which he so industriously edifies with graceful words and, at the same time, with a vast quantity of solid learning. But of his literary skill there can be no question, and scarcely less of the admirable character of his intentions.’
Saturday, 3 December 2016
Alan Macfarlane: ‘If we do not think in a radical way as our world changes dramatically, we are just marching into an ever-narrowing valley which will finally trap us. We should think in new ways to fit a world of increasing expectations and technology, but also increasing leisure and information. China is already leading the way, though it has also partly caught the ‘hospitalisation’ disease. So it may be that once again, as with printing, compasses, paper, porcelain, gunpowder, let alone tea and rhubarb, we can learn from the Chinese.’
Michael Blackburn: ‘Before I get too blasé about all this, it’s worth having a laugh at a couple of figures who will go down in political history as fluff-brained lightweights compared with El Commandante (as those of us who never met the great Fidel like to call him).’
Stephen Wade: ‘Early man and woman must have known literary rejection. Violence, aggression and downright open attacks are not uncommon and they are certainly not new. Today the poet is able to supply a retort to the editor by e-mail, writing ‘You know diddly-squit about good writing, you penny ha’penny hack.’ ‘
Thursday, 24 November 2016
UPLANDS B BUSINESS PARK, BLACKHORSE LANE, SUMMER 2011 By IAN BOURN. TODAY IS BRIGHT and cloudless in the Uplands B Business Park, which overlooks the Lea Valley and its sunlit reservoirs. I lock my bicycle to some railings near the rubbish bins in the car park of Landmark House. I could have come by bus, […]
Wednesday, 23 November 2016
Chloë Hawking: ‘this is obviously not the time for all thoughtful Americans to abandon political action in favor of reading Henry James. But it is important that each of us who intend to participate in this struggle against Trump be attentive to exactly why we’re doing what we are; it is important, in our fight against a man who has been labeled both a fascist and an autocrat, that we not mindlessly follow the marching orders from above.’
Michael Blackburn: ‘You can see why the outcome of the referendum is such an annoyance to the Europhiles and mandarins. It’s the triumph of the gullible, the uneducated, the ill-informed. Look at how they were misled, Kerr says, about immigration (repeating one of the numerous cliches of the remain side) — some of the areas with the largest vote to leave were those with the smallest amount of immigration!’
James Gallant: ‘Georges Bataille thought that the European cathedrals with their attached schools—permanent structures in space—had probably been as critical to the maintenance of medieval orthodoxy as the instruction provided in them.’
Tuesday, 15 November 2016
Alan Macfarlane: ‘How can children leave home to work for others and set up their own businesses or even buy a separate house if there is nothing to be done? If there are no jobs, they can only fall back on the one group who will probably feed and house them — their natal family. This is clearly happening on a large scale and means that for the first time in the Anglosphere, children are staying on at home into their late 20s and 30s.’
Wednesday, 9 November 2016
By “XIAOMAO” [in a comment to a Washington Post article, “The media didn’t want to believe Trump could win. So they looked the other way.”] — no, you didn’t “miss” it. you deliberately, persistently, and consistently dismissed people and their voices by twisting our words, taking things out of context to make your misleading headlines, […]
Lawrence Markert: ‘AGGARD, LEFT FOR dead, Henry stretches across two stuffed
chairs at the corner coffee shop, abandoned. He prays
the caffeine will reanimate his dazzled brain,
restore his brutish nature…’
Ernest Renan.
George Saintsbury: ‘[Renan’s]] gospel may certainly be said to be a vague gospel, and the enemy may contend that Morgane la Fée is architect and clerk of the works at the buildings which he so industriously edifies with graceful words and, at the same time, with a vast quantity of solid learning. But of his literary skill there can be no question, and scarcely less of the admirable character of his intentions.’