Category: Politics

It Begins with C

I would only quite like to read Cherie Blair’s 2008 memoir but I haven’t. I wait for a biography of a Prime Minister’s wife (beginning with C) and then two come along.

Budget Blues

After the recent Budget farmers on tractors drove to Downing Street to protest. Where were pensioners on Zimmer frames?

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Categorised as Politics

Roy and Winston

I must digress before I begin. You will be aware I use Wikipedia a lot. Not so much now. When I ask Google a question AI Overview comes up with the answer. I now realise AI already touches all our lives.

Tick the Box

This ballot box was used in a ministerial by-election in Pontefract in 1872.

Prenez Garde

Primo Levi’s account of the year (1944/45) he was at Auschwitz was published in Britain in 1947 as If This is a Man. I can say no more – I haven’t read it but it is on order.

I Did It Steinway

At the end of last month I missed one of the best proms this year: Yunchan Lim playing Beethoven, Bruckner and Tüür.

Pyramus and Thisbe

These are the first books written by Nina Willner and Terry Hayes: Forty Autumns published in 2016 and I Am Pilgrim in 2012.

The Courier

I wonder how many spies die in their beds, old and contented, surrounded by their children and grandchildren? We will never know because we only hear about the spies who were caught.

Katyn Memorial

It never crossed my mind until this week but there are very few, if any, big cemeteries in central London. There is no space. Accordingly, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea bought 8.9 hectares at Gunnersbury in Hounslow in 1925. It was on the SE corner of Gunnersbury Park, owned then by the Rothschilds.

Making Your Mind Up

“I’ve changed my mind” said Nigel Farage, deciding after all to stand for parliament in the general election; he had seven defeats behind him so must have taken a few soundings in Clacton.

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Categorised as Politics