Jo Wolff

Barron. Can you come and collect your father please? He thinks he’s Don Quixote again.

Painting of Cote D’Azur: tree in foreground in full leaf, houses in mid distance, then bright blue bay, and lighter blue sky.

Royal Academy promoting their new exhibition with this rather wonderful Raoul Dufy: Golfe Juan, 1927

Just been told: These are unacceptable:

Clothing: all denim, sportswear including polo shirts, vest tops, jodhpurs or leggings, cropped tops, sweatshirts, shorts and other similar attire. Footwear: trainers, hiking boots, sandals, flip-flops, deck shoes and other similar sports style footwear.

Just preparing my Proust/Hawking mash-up. A Brief History of Lost Time.

I just misread an email as opening with 'I hope the new year has started well for most of you.' I will save this for next year.

A paradigm case of populism. Promise sellers that prices will go up, and buyers that they will go down.

Henry Shue's argument against the political folk wisdom that:

Libertarian rights of non-interference are 'negative' rights and therefore cheap, social democratic rights of subsistence are 'positive' rights and therefore expensive.

Shue (Basic Rights) Army, police, law courts etc cost a fortune.

I once met a man who told me that his job was to make the skins for skinless sausages. As a philosopher I’ve never managed to get this out of my head.

He’s mostly talking about the US. I imagine figures rather different there, especially now.

True. And it’s of great philosophical relevance.

Henry Shue's argument against the political folk wisdom that:

Libertarian rights of non-interference are 'negative' rights and therefore cheap, social democratic rights of subsistence are 'positive' rights and therefore expensive.

Shue (Basic Rights) Army, police, law courts etc cost a fortune.

You know when the newspapers now say ‘according to a person familiar with the situation.’? You realise they’re talking about me?

Look into your heart – you will find
There's nothin' there to hide
Take me as I am, take my life
I would give it all, I would sacrifice

Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for
I can't help it, there's nothin' I want more
You know it's true:
Everything I do, I do it for you, oh, yeah

Tell you what. Let’s pay the bloke in charge 2 trillion dollars. That’s bound to make everything better.

So careless to lose so many lives JD. Can’t you try harder to remember where you put them? Try going out of the room and coming back in again.

Fair point!

There is a famous argument that it must be morally wrong to be a carpenter, for what if everyone became a carpenter?

I’m surprised Reform wanted to present him as an academic. Are we not the enemies of the people?

'Antisemitism is the means by which a person without a character could suddenly arrive at one.' Moritz Gottlieb Saphir (1795-1858) Probably true of all forms of prejudice.

I really want to see it now.

How Many People did the Nazis Murder? | Holocaust Encyclopedia Behind the number of victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution are people whose hopes and dreams were destroyed. Learn about the toll of Nazi policies.

Ah, ok. I see you are talking about the numbers murdered in total including millions of Soviet Prisoners of War, rather than those who died in concentration and death camps (which would have included some Soviets). I hadn't seen these figures before.

encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/a...

The old test in moral philosophy ‘what if everyone did that?’ is coming back to haunt us. LLMs only work because the information they are sucking up was not generated by LLMs. But as they drive more and more real researchers out of business they are building layers and layers on their own quicksand.

In Nazi camps? I’ve never seen that number for Christians. And millions of Jews were killed in forests not camps - the Holocaust of bullets. What are your sources?

Errrr …is this something you only say after you’ve done something you know to be indefensible in its own terms?

I really want to see it now.

Good to see Spain trolling … every other country, more or less.

“Bucking a Global Trend, Spain Offers Undocumented Migrants a Legal Way to Stay” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/w...

The old test in moral philosophy ‘what if everyone did that?’ is coming back to haunt us. LLMs only work because the information they are sucking up was not generated by LLMs. But as they drive more and more real researchers out of business they are building layers and layers on their own quicksand.

William Hague introducing Anne Applebaum’s Alfred Landecker Memorial Lecture this evening.

“I was Leader of the Opposition. Tony Blair was Prime Minister. We didn’t really disagree about anything. He wanted taxes a fraction higher than me. I wanted public spending a fraction lower than him.”

I’m surprised Reform wanted to present him as an academic. Are we not the enemies of the people?

Errrr …is this something you only say after you’ve done something you know to be indefensible in its own terms?