Martin Langfield

A warm rapport with the “world’s coolest dictator” | News Decoder The people of El Salvador, and Donald Trump, love Nayib Bukele’s iron fist approach to fighting crime. But how long can a state of emergency last? 🗞️ Correspondent Martin Langfield unpacks Bukele's d...

I wrote an article for my friends at News Decoder about the age-old balance between security and freedom, and how the increasingly dictatorial Nayib Bukele in El Salvador should be a cautionary tale, not an inspiration, for his admirers in the United States.

www.linkedin.com/posts/newsde...

Killing, injuring and intimidating those who provide eye-witness testimony from areas of conflict is all about eluding public scrutiny and controling the narrative. It’s a crime, whoever does it and wherever they try it. Character assassination is part of it. Public actions require public scrutiny.

bsky.app/profile/acyn...

Joint statement on Gaza from AFP, AP, BBC News and Reuters

I stand with my former employers, Reuters, on this. It’s not just about Gaza. Public actions require public scrutiny. www.bbc.com/mediacentre/...

The USA has presidents, for 8 years max. Not kings. And certainly not banana-republic caudillos.

Indeed. Thank you for the support. I understand, but others might not, that when you say you have lost all respect for “the media” that you are not including Reuters in that catch-all term.

Statement from the editors of Reuters, The Associated Press and Bloomberg News Statement from the editors of Reuters, The Associated Press and Bloomberg News

The major news wires are professional and reliable. They have to be. Governments, financial institutions and the smaller news organizations they serve need them to be so. Reuters, the AP and Bloomberg News today issued this statement in response to the White House: reutersagency.com/resources/st...

A privilege to see the great Scott Wallace at New York’s Explorers Club last night, where he gave a powerful talk on his time reporting the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s and early 1990s. Our paths briefly crossed there. www.gftbooks.com/books_Wallac...

As an American citizen by choice, I would like to say that my adoptive country is now suffering banana-republic levels of mendacity, incompetence and vindictiveness from the wannabe strongman occupying the White House. But on reflection, that would be unfair to banana-republic strongmen.

2/2:

May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

1/2: From “September 1, 1939,” by W.H. Auden (original version)

(…)

We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:

I recently halted a Dalek invasion of East Anglia and the world. You’re welcome.

The Holme Post is at the lowest point in England, in Holme Fen, Cambridgeshire. In 1851 the top of the post was at ground level. Fen drainage has since caused the drying peat soil of the area to shrink and subside, exposing more and more of the metal post, which is embedded in the clay below.

RIP Tony Slattery, seen here in rehearsals for the 1981 Footlights pantomime “The Pied Piper.” A kind, brilliant man and star of the aforementioned “Premises, Premises” show in 1982, gone today, way too soon.

Sometimes it just takes a change of perspective to make the world seem strange and miraculous again, as it surely is. Our day-to-day brains are not geared to reality but to survival.

5. I toured the UK with these gentlemen in a comedy show in the summer of 1982. Richard Vranch was musical director, Neil Mullarkey one of the cast and I was the drummer. It was great to see them again tonight, 42-odd years later, in their fabulous show at London’s Comedy Store! #comedystoreplayers

Mine too!

FFS

Rome was not built in a day. This seems like the best option so far. Thanks for adding me to your list.

I would like to make Bluesky work like the good bits of Instagram and Facebook, the latter now almost extinct. Contact with friends and family, a place for interesting pictures and connection with like-minded souls, without becoming just an echo chamber of its own. Let’s see what we can do.

4. The Spotted Eagle Ray looks remarkably like a person up close. Here’s one making a new friend at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, England a few months ago. Am I anthropomorphizing? Sure.

She sounds very impressive! I have a soft spot for Robert Scarlett because he reputedly said that he had in fact buried three queens: Katherine of Aragon, Mary Queen of Scots and his own lady wife.

3. My avatar represents Old Scarlett, the gravedigger who buried two queens at Peterborough Cathedral and was interred there himself after dying aged 98 in 1594. Legend has it that he inspired Shakespeare‘s gravedigger character in “Hamlet.”

Image 2, and the first in an occasional series on Very Interesting Drums: Sir Francis Drake took this snare drum with him when he sailed around the world. Legend has it that, like King Arthur, it will noisily stir to life whenever England is in danger. Here it is on display at the Box in Plymouth.

I have, but would not have the expertise to distinguish different kinds of rings!

First image: Trinity Church seen from Wall Street.

First post! Let’s see how this goes.