BoJo the clown
May 7, 2021
politics
Is the prime minister Britain’s best clown ever?
Days are of two kinds
May 6, 2021
wellbeing
Days are of two kinds, alike and not
Trollope
May 3, 2021
arts & wellbeing
Some people grasp early in life that the world is not divided into saints and monsters. For the rest of us, there is Trollope. I wish I had read him earlier.
What we saw in Roswell
May 2, 2021
journal
The smart money is that we are not alone. That will change the way we see ourselves. Forever.
The orkestra bows out
May 1, 2021
arts
The Orkestra del Sol ends fifteen years of channeling musical anarchy from Latin America and the Balkans. Good luck — and thank you!
Imagine Hampstead village and South End Green with no through traffic
Apr 30, 2021
cycling & politics
Changes to the road network to promote active travel create congestion. It’s not the plan gone wrong; it is the plan.
What makes this so dangerous
Apr 29, 2021
politics
They were careless people … they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
Rural rides
Apr 22, 2021
journal
Working from my mother’s flat in Hampshire this week. Lunch at the local pub, reached by a walk through the woods.
Crank it up
Apr 18, 2021
arts
If elevator music deadened your ear to the energy of The Four Seasons, you are not alone.
Rediscovering our animal nature
Apr 17, 2021
politics & wellbeing
The trouble started after Eden. We began seeing ourselves as separate from the natural world. Destined for an afterlife. We need to accept our mortality.
The high streets of Hampstead
Apr 15, 2021
politics
High streets everywhere were already changing before the pandemic. Hampstead is lovely, but no exception.
The beneficiaries of the status quo are in no rush to change
Apr 15, 2021
politics
If we are serious about the Paris agreement, we have to disrupt that cosy relationship between business and government.
Among the many things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.
Apr 14, 2021
wellbeing
— Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
Animal Farm: Special illustrated edition
Apr 14, 2021
arts & politics
Rereading Animal Farm after half a century, I am struck by how much I dislike it.
Nuclear-armed rogue states
May 24, 2016
politics & views
Who more flagrantly breaches the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Iran or Britain?
The Sixth Extinction
May 24, 2014
politics & views
The Earth’s fossil record shows five mass extinctions, in which many or most species disappeared over a few months or centuries. We are now nearing the end of the Sixth.
Food of love
Aug 4, 2013
arts
My favourite creation myth: God made humans just so he could listen to the music we make.
War on Terror
May 24, 2013
politics & views
The “War on Terror” is a monstrous sham, a catch-all slogan spun onto the 9/11 attack and now available to justify domestic repression, violence
Terror is a tactic
Sep 3, 2012
politics & views
Terror is a tactic used successfully by states and groups alike. Its essence is violence to civilians; any weapon qualifies.
Global worming
Aug 4, 2012
politics
Like every species on a roll, we’re gobbling everything in sight until we are fighting and starving in our own effluent.
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