Category: Politics

Today

The Today Programme has changed a lot in its sixty years on air. Every tweak has been met with outrage from listeners allergic to change of any sort and then been accepted as the new normal.

Trexit

This is not an April Fool – I wish it were. Today is the first day of Trexit when Hammersmith and Fulham leaves the tri-borough of H&F, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster.

Local Notes

1. Periwinkle, planted in 1984, seems indestructible. It has spent months buried under building materials over the years and gets trampled on by me and the bin men.

Russian Election

There is a Presidential election in Russia on Sunday. 420 Short Term Observers have been deployed. I applied but did not get chosen. Why not?

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Categorised as Politics

Boots

“It was a lonely land then, the vast frontier held by the last scattered remnants of the once great armies that fought the Civil War. To such as these, all but forgotten, doing a dirty, thankless job, without reward or glory, the army was a way of life, the only one they knew or wanted.”

Thelma

Thelma Cazalet-Keir (1899 – !989) was a Conservative politician and feminist, serving on the London County Council and as a Member of Parliament. She was also, amongst much else, a member of the Arts Council and a Governor of the BBC.

Robert Herrick

Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen is PG Wodehouse’s last complete novel, published in 1974, a year before he died aged ninety-three. At an age when his creative juices might be expected to dry up, it is right up to his usual high standard. If you want to know why Bertie Wooster is mistaken for arch-criminal Alpine Joe… Continue reading Robert Herrick

Carmen

I was watching the second episode of Yes, Prime Minister in which Bernard explains to Prime Minister, Jim Hacker, that he has not much to do; no department to run, just chairing Cabinet meetings, Prime Ministers questions, and a chat with the Queen on Tuesday evenings.

Pigeon Diplomacy

FTWeekend often provides instructive and profitable insights. An article last weekend seems to be a watershed moment illustrating the former.

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Categorised as Politics

Fire and Fury

Michael Wolff’s revelations in Fire and Fury about the Trump administration allege, among much else, that Donald Trump and his inner circle did not expect to win the election. This is last year’s news. It is such old hat that it appeared here in The Truth about Trump posted in July last year. Warning: this… Continue reading Fire and Fury