Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Vladimir Bukovsky, the courageous and outspoken Soviet dissident, has died. His last years were marred by a bizarre prosecution that had likely been triggered by an FSB (ex-KGB) frame-up operation. Here’s Jay Nordlinger’s 2019 interview with Bukovsky in Cambridge: parts…
John Naughton, professor of the public understanding of technology at the Open University in London, writes in The Guardian: …as it has become clear that the US Federal Trade Commission is about to impose a fine of $5bn (£4bn) on…
The great Morrissey’s at it again: …She [For Britain leader Anne Marie Waters] is extremely intelligent, ferociously dedicated to this country, she is very engaging, and also very funny at times… Everyone ultimately prefers their own race – does this…
James Butler on the LRB blog (June 12), comparing Boris Johnson and Donald Trump: …whereas Trump has a genuine reserve of rage and fixation with particular policies, Johnson’s desire for power is unimpeded by such attachments. I take this for…
Robert Messenger reviews a collection of Philip Larkin’s letters to his mother, his sister, his lovers and others. Along the way, Messenger quotes a presumably autobiographical note by Larkin first published in Andrew Motion’s biography of the poet: My mother,…
George Eaton’s dubious account, in the New Statesman, of his interview with Roger Scruton begins with this paragraph: It was in Paris in May 1968, as French workers and students revolted, that Roger Scruton became a conservative. “I was woken…
Neal Ascherson wrote in the New York Review of Books in 2017: The parliamentary sovereignty dogma was enshrined by the great Victorian jurist A.V. Dicey. But, funnily enough, Dicey changed his mind about referendums at the end of his life.…
There’s no proper place for referenda in the British political system, other than – perhaps – as a people’s veto. A national poll in lieu of royal assent could work, but electors should not be able to give orders to…
There’s a more obvious irony to Daniel Lavelle’s piece on accent softening in The Guardian. The author is a regular contributor to The Guardian; he received the 2017 Hugo Young award for his reporting. …since I moved from Manchester to London…
Daniel Lavelle, who writes on “on mental health, homelessness and social care” for The Guardian, describes his and other people’s efforts to “soften” their regional English accents: I am in central London, attending an “accent softening taster session” with the…
Ellen Meiksins Wood wrote in The Origins of Capitalism: The word ‘improve’ itself, in its original meaning, did not mean just ‘make better’ in a general sense but literally meant to do something for monetary profit, especially to cultivate land…
A Maggot was the first book by John Fowles I had read. It was his last novel, published in 1985. Soon afterwards, I read The French Lieutenant’s Woman, first published in 1969. Much later, I added The Collector (1963) to…