1,787 words
When I first said I wanted to be a comedian, everyone laughed. Well, they’re not laughing now.
— Bob Monkhouse
If you and your friends were to have a séance, and you channeled the spirit of George Orwell, the greatest Englishman never to appear on a banknote would use the glass to tap out the following: stop quoting 1984. (more…)
Cars parked outside Joe the Barber’s house in Apalachin, New York, 1957.
2,362 words
How many friends have we over there?
The border guards fight unconvincingly.
Whate’er we do it seems things are arranged.
We always have to feed the enemy. (more…)
Salvador Dalí, The Phoenix, 1975.
1,517 words
I have believed for some time that the only way the white West can be saved is disaster. I appreciate that we seem to be in the middle of one, but I will be more specific.
The West, from the eastern borders of Finland and the Visegrád 4 (V4) countries to the Californian coast, needs financial collapse in order to continue. (more…)
Alex Belfield with his 100,000 YouTube subscribers plaque.
2,768 words
It is no secret to those of us from the UK who have not been vaccinated against reality that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is politically biased. Despite an apparent failsafe in its charter requiring it to stay neutral, it is about as non-partisan as a rabid sports fan bellowing in support of his team. (more…)
Detail, Santi di Tito, Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli, ca. 1550.
1,379 words
I had been aware for some time of the phrase “the engineer’s fallacy,” but unaware of its provenance and exact definition. I struck lucky on the ‘net, because this gentleman claims to have invented the phrase, and this short piece repays inspection.
Mr. Kelly’s definition of the Engineer’s Fallacy is pleasingly simple: (more…)
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1,938 words
Don’t use the rules.
They’re not for you,
They’re for the fools.
And you’re a fool
If you don’t know that.
So, here’s the rules
You stupid fool.
— The Clash, “Cheat” (more…)
2,072 words
“I believe in the certainty of chance,” sang Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy in 1998, a wonderful songwriter musing on one of philosophy’s oldest conundrums. Are events pre-ordained or as yet unwritten? Do we live in a world of free will or determinism? All of us will look back on our lives and find at least one incident that changed (more…)
1,442 words
Football players in England resumed their interrupted season in front of empty stands this month. Before the first game, each player, in addition to their name, squad number, and advertising slogans (including the now-sainted NHS or National Health Service symbol), wore the slogan “Black Lives Matter” on the back of their shirts, (more…)
1,592 words
High-Rise (2015)
Directed by Ben Wheatley
Screenplay by Amy Jump, based on the novel by J. G. Ballard
Starring Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, & Elisabeth Moss
The numbers are never consistent, but there is a general consensus that given a complete, Venezuelan-style financial collapse and the subsequent loss of order and infrastructure, any Western society is just a few days from anarchy. (more…)
2,062 words
DSM V is the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The book first appeared in 1952, and the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes DSM, calls it “an authoritative volume that defines and classifies mental disorders in order to improve diagnoses, treatment and research.” The glib might call DSM V the psychiatrists’ bible. The cynical might view it as a retail catalogue for the big pharmaceutical companies.
2,229 words
Few outside England and under 50 will have noted the passing last month of one of Britain’s great comic character actors: Windsor Davies. Although born in North London, he was actually Welsh by parentage, gifting him an accent he made much use of, delivered in a timber-shaking baritone. (more…)
1,811 words
Peter Oborne
The Triumph of the Political Class
London: Simon & Schuster, 2007
Some books are born again. Every book with a political theme aims to be prophetic, and only time can reveal their success or otherwise. Orwell’s 1984, Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations, Faye’s Convergence of Catastrophes are all books whose time has arrived. (more…)