tl;dr - there is a market for "brightside-ing" that relies on ignoring the relevant trajectories and instead cherry-picking largely irrelevant factoids. Even otherwise worth-reading writers peddle it some of the time. Examples are given, "what is to be done" addressed. I'm not going to recap the scale and scope of the shit we are in.... Continue Reading →
On July 3 the legislation to proscribe the direct action group Palestine Action passed the Lords. An article was published that had the following warning in its last paragraph. "The police could face ridicule if they enforce the law, and the charge of selectiveness if they don’t. “Are we saying they should arrest thousands of... Continue Reading →
I went to posh schools (a minor prep school in Hampshire and then the second 'best' school in Adelaide). At university I was on the fringe of the political set, who went on to State and Federal politics. Beyond that, I spent (i.e. wasted) a solid decade and a half interacting with the Manchester Labour... Continue Reading →
Last week was, well, interesting. At some point I will write about it. For now, this - I spent two days at the National Archives (one of my happy places) and hauled away a couple of thousand pictures of pages from various (60 or 70? distinct folders - some literally a page, others 3 inches... Continue Reading →
Tom Lehrer died, aged 97, in late July. Lehrer had written 37 (well, a few more) songs in the 1950s and 1960s, and on the basis of this is still (rightly in my opinion) regarded as one of the pre-eminent satirists of the 20th century. Interviewed in 2014 Weird Al Yankovic said "I wouldn’t call... Continue Reading →
Brian Bilston nailing it, July 10 this year.
There's a new book called Fascist Yoga, which I am probably not going to read, but I am probably glad that it exists. Meanwhile
Year written: 1613 Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): Definitely phoning it in. Working with a young guy called Fletcher. Basically re-tread of Two Gentlemen of Verona, for better or worse. Plot in a paragraph: Bezzies Arcite and Palamon are captured by king Theseus and fall in love at... Continue Reading →
Saw this online and it made me laugh a bit - ymmv. See also Phil Ochs "love me, I'm a liberal". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cdqQ2BdgOA Blah blah "if you're middle of the road you get hit by the traffic in both directions" blah blah.
Year written: 1610 or whatever Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): We’re near the end, and he is retreading his earlier steps…. Also, franchises suck - by about Sixth Night, he was really phoning it in… Plot in a paragraph: Oh, this is a retread of The Comedy of... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 