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A hard rain is gonna fall. — Bob Dylan
Jesus Christ, they’ve done it. — Bob, Threads
In late September of 1984 I was in my home town preparing to go back to university, having graduated with a good enough Bachelor’s degree to continue to a Master’s. (more…)
Recently-published private correspondence by Matt Hancock, who was the UK’s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care during the Covid lockdowns, reveals that he encouraged the government to “frighten” the public into submission to the measures, and that he found the requirement for travelers to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival “hilarious,” among other revelations.
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The story is not about me, and actually it isn’t about Matt Hancock as an individual. The story is about collateral damage. — Isabel Oakeshott, English journalist
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies. — Fleetwood Mac
If there is one lesson to be learned from the recent Covid pandemic, it is that British public opinion is as dirigible as a child’s party balloon on a string. Just as when someone in a crowd looks fixedly up to the sky, followed by the chap next to him, repeated by the family next to him, until finally everyone is looking up at nothing, classic crowd psychology also applies to information. Divert the attention of a few, and you will get everyone’s attention, like aquarium fish following the alpha. (more…)
John Foxx
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Listening, they were listening. — John Foxx, The Quiet Men
Ultravox! were a band out of time. — My brother
Genres in music, like genders elsewhere, keep multiplying. But there is one which seems particular to England: art-rock. Founder members of bands often met at art college, if they weren’t getting together at Pistols or Bowie gigs (which often meant they were already at art college), and the results of visual arts students transferring their visions to a musical canvas produced a rewarding school of rock music. (more…)
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Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. — George Orwell, 1984
American college students have said, ‘Like 1984, man’, when asked not to smoke pot in the classroom or advised gently to do a little reading. — Anthony Burgess, 1985
I made a half-hearted New Year’s resolution not to mention Orwell’s 1984 this year, not once. Like most of these Janus-faced pledges, however, it didn’t last long. But hasn’t the book been over-visited? (more…)
Riot in Knowsley on February 10 that was sparked by a video of a migrant propositioning a minor.
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Out, damn’d Scot!
So it’s fare thee well to dime-store Lady Macbeth, Nicola Sturgeon. The Scottish premier, and the woman Nigel Farage called the most unpleasant politician he had ever met, quit after an uproar, which is what journalists reading tweets and sensing a story is called just at the moment. (more…)
Illustration from London Labour and the London Poor
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I hated being wicked, but I was tricked and cheated. I am truly sorry for it, but what could a poor girl do? — Henry Mayhew, interview with a street beggar, London Labour and the London Poor
But what can a poor boy do? — The Rolling Stones, “Street Fighting Man”
History has always troubled me. I don’t mean the grand Hegelian sweep of the past; that would be enough to trouble anyone. I mean the fact that I know so little about it. Not the kings and queens of England and the Ottoman Empire and the battles, but the minutiae — the lives of the little people. (more…)
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A minimum put to good use is enough for anything. — Jules Verne, Around the World in 80 Days
Up, up and away
In my beautiful balloon.
— The 5th Dimension, “Up, Up and Away,” 1967
The curious thing about the Chinese spy balloon (which would be a great name for a restaurant in Chinatown) is not that it was from China. (more…)
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So, then. The first month of 2023 has passed, and Britannia’s New Year’s resolution is clearly to become even more nuts than she was last year. On the crazy scale, she is moving from being mad as a wet hen to being mad as Tucker Carlson’s laugh. We’ll start on the streets of London . . . (more…)
Klaus Schwab trying not to look like an evil mastermind.
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We, a select group of human beings . . . — John Kerry speaking at Davos
In this life, one thing counts.
In the bank, large amounts.
I’m afraid these don’t grow on trees,
You’ve got to pick a pocket or two.
— Fagin, Oliver! (more…)
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I routinely summarize what people have said to me, and ask them if I have understood properly. — Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life
Don’t talk to me that way. — Patti Smith, Break It Up
Jordan Peterson is not, as we English used to say, everyone’s cup of tea. Many on the political Right don’t know what to make of him, while the Left see two things they don’t understand and therefore don’t like: intelligence and a high-profile opinion divergent from theirs. (more…)
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I am the last of the famous international playboys. — Morrissey, song of the same name
Reggae music is vile. — Morrissey, 1980s interview
It began as one of those pub conversations about culture and art. You know how it is: Four or five guys (no chicks, please; they tend not to know much about music, and they are a distraction) not so much shooting the breeze as machine-gunning it. (more…)
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For media junkies like myself, the blessed week between Christmas and New Year’s should be rehab. It isn’t, of course. We can’t quit the needle. We spend the week watching myriad round-ups of the year that has just left us from around the media globe, as well as the other side of the two-faced god Januarius’ gaze: the media’s prognostications as to the year ahead. (more…)