The French showing the Americans how civilised nations behave when potential presidential candidates are convicted of corruption
Aging
Thomas Buddenbrook in Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, meditating on the irritations of growing old: "We’re only as young or old as we feel. And when something good we’ve longed for finally does come along, it lumbers in a little too late somehow, loaded down with petty, annoying, upsetting…
Afternoons
Richard Grannison in Raymond Postgate's Somebody at the Door soliloquises about afternoons: “Afternoons are the time for seduction. Anatole France proved it long ago … “Consider the whole question in the light of reason … The conventional night out. What does it mean? Why, creeping home…
Academic writing and potatoes
Characters from the wonderful Barbara Pym's An Unsuitable Attachment, discussing academics and their writing production: “ … my wife says that we anthropologists are like a housewife faced with the remains of yesterday’s stew and wondering whether it can possibly be…
I just told Speaker Hoyle to keep Trump out of Parliament - will you do the same? actionstorm.org/petitions/du... #DumpTrump
The new world order is exactly what it looks like. Are we too frozen with fear to name it?
‘Allo ‘Allo! Europe’s leaders get together dans Paris for emergency sommet
A year on from his death, Alexei Navalny still shines bright in a dark land
Yes, the kind of thing I would do, but not guilty this time!
I like the idea of the researcher having a love of order, as expressed here in Jääskeläinen's "The Rabbit Back Literature Society".
“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” #Trump and #Musk both (and #Putin).
May 2025 see the end of Putin’s reign #Putin #Russia
As Russia celebrates the New Year I gauge the mood in Moscow. “Russian people are patient,” one man tells me, “they stay silent.” Thanks to @lizashuvalova.bsky.social
Definitely my book of the year - and I’ve read a lot. #Navalny
