Category: Politics

Frank Cooper

It’s always worth browsing in a second hand bookshop. So often I buy something I didn’t know existed. This is a collection of interviews by John Mortimer, published in 1986, that originally appeared in The Sunday Times.

THAAD

There’s always a reason but why is North Korea so bellicose? Internally there are signs of the economy becoming less centralised and surely the regime just wants to be left alone and to continue its despotic reign? Why attract the censure of the world?

Catalonia

World events usually find me looking the wrong way. I have been fretting about North Korea when I should have been looking closer to home. It had not occurred to me that Catalonia was in such a hurry to gain independence. I thought it lacked the urgency that mañana conveys to me. Here’s my view… Continue reading Catalonia

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Categorised as Politics

Juncker & Trump; Dangerous Men

There’s nothing wrong with changing one’s mind, is there? Before the EU referendum I was undecided, then I became a Remainer, then I thought we could fudge some deal whereby the UK remained in the EEA or something similar. Now I have changed my mind again.

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Black Mischief

I am re-reading Black Mischief. It is laugh-out-loud funny. Cyril Connolly was not best pleased to be depicted as the drunk General Connolly with a Negress wife called Black Bitch, although later she is elevated to Duchess and is delighted.

Mr Kidson

There is much good stuff in The Enigma of Kidson and rather a weepy end, as so often with biographies of mortals.

A Fanfare for Europe

In January 1973 Denmark, Ireland and the UK joined the European Union, joining Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The UK electorate were as divided then as they are now, although a largely north European trading bloc doesn’t seem too scary considering what it has now become.

The Truth about Trump

A reader in the West Country has trumped me in the Bitters department. He sent this picture of two specimens that have eluded my collection. This reminds me that he alerted me to a lovely conspiracy theory that was doing the rounds among the in-crowd in the United States late last year.

Chocs Away

Although I was on the electoral register in the Irish Republic for a few years I don’t think I ever voted. But I did go into the polling booth with my grandmother a few times to watch her vote and see what it was all about. It was a bit like, I suppose, watching the… Continue reading Chocs Away

In Their Wisdom

I’m reading In Their Wisdom by CP Snow. In an early chapter a character says “… perhaps he needs his £6 10s.”