Peter Momtchiloff

I am the fool who thought Kemi Badenoch would be good for the Conservatives, so I take perverse satisfaction in this. (I am also the fool who thought Theresa May would be good for the Conservatives.)

I published a book by his mother - I guess she fucked up

Another wonderful year! Excited about 2026

I think it’s an interesting novel (sounds like faint praise, I know). The Schegels stay with one. I was put off it, though, by people parroting ‘only connect’ with sage and sensitive expressions on their faces as if it meant something deep. I’d like to think EMF was being ironic, but I suspect not.

My memory of HE is that, although Bast is portrayed unsympathetically, Forster also makes it hard to sympathize with the Schlegels’ (snobbish and condescending) attitudes towards him? But perhaps I should reread.

Capital gains tax looks like the easy win

Could you do better than Reeves as chancellor? Play our interactive budget game Can you pull the levers of power to deliver a successful budget? Can you keep backbenchers happy without upsetting the bond markets? And can you do it all while keeping the books balanced? Try our bud...

Looking forward to fiddling about with this

www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...

YouTube video by Skep Wax Would-be-goods - The Gallopers

m.youtube.com/watch?v=sphe...

Tears Before Bedtime, by Would-Be-Goods 14 track album

We the Would-be-goods shall release a new album on 13 February, *Tears Before Bedtime*. At our Bandcamp page you can listen to ‘The Gallopers’, a single from the album, and watch the first ever Would-be-goods video . . .

would-be-goods.bandcamp.com/album/tears-...

Shame Joanna Lumley couldn’t have taken over twenty years ago

Klebrigefingerangst?
It will be obvious that I don’t speak
German.

Is there a German word for when you put a delicate object down but then your hand catches on it as you move the hand away and threatens to knock the object over?

On page 9 of the Blackwell companion to David Lewis, Steffi Lewis reprints two letters from IM about and to DL

An incredibly important election in a tiny country just went the right way. Moldova has resisted a huge Russian disinformation campaign and will not become a Russian puppet state.

I also resigned my Unite membership a few months ago, now I’m worried I’m going to get suspended too

I’ll be there for you? “Not a word had fallen from Lord Cantrip’s friendly lips as to the possibility of Phineas being invited to join the future government. An attempt had been made to console him with the hazy promise of ...

Nicola Shulman’s reviews are the best thing in the TLS
www.the-tls.com/politics-by-...

They hate London because it is beautiful Matthew Goodwin went to that there London the other day and what he found shook him to his core.

open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

Yes, if life is a voyage, it is as if we are rowing, with our destination behind us

If we lived the other way up, standing and walking on our hands, would we call low notes high notes and high notes low notes?

I think of the MFA in Boston as being really good for this

Oxf that time of year

Reminds me of the French proverb which goes something like:
“Mieux assis que debout, couche qu’assis, mort que tout cela”
and was memorably versioned by Samuel Beckett as:
“Better on your arse than on your feet
Flat on your back than either
Dead than the lot”

"Maybe something like yours. Maybe something better."

My god, he went full Bette Davis.

Oxf nightfall

Thank you for not saying ‘is key’