Hearing my song
As the attention of the world is focussed on Ukraine, I expected to be writing about autocracy, war crimes and the humanitarian crisis but my eye was caught by an article about the climate emergency. Clearly this is still with us – and the conflict is almost certainly worsening things. We can hope for an […]
No more Blah Blah
Boris’s COP26 Blah Blah Bla bla blah COP agreements signed and sealed Blah Blah Bla bla blah Except for Cambo, our oilfield Blah Blah Bla bla blah Get the world to give up coal Blah Blah Bla bla blah New Cumbrian coalmine even so Blah Blah Bla bla blah There’s the backbench to please Blah […]
Pointing the way
A month in and it still feels like a new year. Partly because of politics, although that also feels like the same old stuff. Partly because of pure busyness. Every January is the same. A few days of idleness followed by everything kicking off at once. So this feels like a good time to look […]
Ankles, teeth and the nuclear threat
Image courtesy of Les Haines, Creative Commons Priorities I’ve been musing on the question of priorities. Just think of what we’re faced with. The newspapers are full of North Korea and the public posturing by TweedleTrump and TweedleKim. Bluster and bragging seem to have replaced reason and diplomacy. Threats serve to escalate the crisis and […]
Etiquette, Politics, and Facebook
Image courtesy of Kevin Ott and Flickr; Creative commons. Permitted subjects over dinner It used to be said that polite dinner guests did not discuss sex, religion or politics. That might make the dinner party boring but at least you finish the evening with everyone on speaking terms. No such restrictions seem to be applied […]
Personal attacks and the ‘real’ world
Image courtesy of mariusz kluzniak and Flickr Creative Commons Margaret Thatcher I never thought I’d start a blog with that heading but it was Margaret Thatcher who insisted that personal attacks on political opponents merely demonstrated a lack of anything worthwhile to say, a lack of policies. Her current successor appears to have forgotten this but […]
The age of anxiety
I seem to remember that The Age of Anxiety is the name of a Bernstein symphony, which makes it particularly appropriate today. It’s ironic that it was only on Tuesday that I reached the conclusion that I should be more chilled, less driven. On Wednesday morning we all woke to the news that Donald Trump […]