Short post: should be working. Lunch yesterday with an old friend (my oldest in the UK?). Found myself ranting (cough, cough) about the lies we need to tell ourselves to get through the day/up the greasy poles etc. "If you woke up every morning saying to yourself 'I am a basically powerless individual living in... Continue Reading →
Masculinity, coal and… Weetabix. I kid you not
This from the early 1970s. Back when coal-mining was a suitable analogy for masculinity, and was used to sell... breakfast cereal. Somebody could probably squeeze a Master's thesis, taking historical, cultural, energy humanities, Freudian and environmental humanities perspectives on all this. Throw in some Haraway, some Merchant, Jung, etc. Whatever, life is too short.
“Fascism simply burst like a soap bubble” – what not to say when your boss is Hitler… or “Doing a Jodl”
One of the many MANY skills I have never mastered (1) is saying the right thing to people who can make life easier or harder. I think making "unhelpful" (career or life-limiting) observations about sensitive topics should be called "doing a Jodl." That above is from Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich." According to Groser... Continue Reading →
Where does this come from, who is to blame, what is to be done? The usual questions
Those people in the hotel in Rotherham must have been absolutely terrified. Sure, there may well be "economic migrants" among them, but I bet you a bunch have fled war zones, survived all sorts of horrors on the journey that cost the lives of many others. And they arrive in the Civilized West (1) and... Continue Reading →
Election maunderings and “what it means?” brain vomit (why are you READING this, there’s so few tolerable years left!)
The plan was to go to bed as soon as the Exit Poll (all hail the Mighty Exit Poll!) came through. But an hour after the 410 vs 120 figure came out, I was still up, pottering around on various academic article databases for Another Project. Ho-hum. Set the alarm for 3am, by which time... Continue Reading →
Cygnets, herons, existentialism and James Baldwin (again).
For shifting lard I tend to a) overeat less b) yomp more. Fascinating, eh? Well, it's working, and more importantly I am getting to see some wildlife and listen to some podcasts. In theory I am going to blog each yomp. In reality I won't. But anyhoos, the times I do will include a) links... Continue Reading →
Homo Sapiens Rectiens – or “you hairless apes are assholes”
I just had a letter in the FT, about John Carpenter's "Starman". It made me realise there is a film season to be done about sci-fi films and novels about how "we" appear to intrstellar visitors. Novelistically you could go for War of the Worlds, where (as HG Wells says the Martians are merely doing... Continue Reading →
Is that it? Really? On the Vacuity of Most Podcasts
No names, but this: On my two hour pre-work walk along the canal tow-path to feed moorhens/ducks/swans/all-the-birds-in-the-hedges I listened to four whole podcasts. One was about carbon capture and storage and it was okay I guess, but really didn't drill down (see what I did there) into the history of it all, or talk about... Continue Reading →
On really thinking about how power works on bodies, and the need for seeing your privilege
Someone my age just went to Dignitas, the assisted dying place in Switzerland. It concentrates the mind, of course. She had stage 4 bowel cancer and things were about to get seriously unpleasant. There's an interview with her in the Guardian, conducted the night before she did the deed. Asked about the dangers of people... Continue Reading →
Of the Horizon scandal, #climate doom and the Professional Managerial Class… (and what is to be done).
We're doomed. It’s partly the fault of the staggeringly successful campaigns of doubt and denial over the last thirty five years, that are still happening - the fossil fuel propaganda campaigns like the one just starting up (Noor, 2024). Those campaigns stopped us taking action that would have delayed the onset of the ferocious warming... Continue Reading →
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