an american speaks about hungary in 1956

THANKSGIVING (1956) a monstering horror swallows this unworld me by you as the god of our fathers' fathers bows to a which that walks like a who but the voice-with-a-smile of democracy announces night & day `all poor little peoples that want to be free just trust in the u s a' suddenly uprose hungary…

Tirade against the Cretinocracy

Reading this book has helped liberate me from an obscure species of writer's block: see my underlinings below. It's also fun to read an iconoclast who likes to break the rules of what's currently acceptable to say: see the paragraph at bottom in burnt orange. Bu I wouldn't dream of imitating him outside these four…

The Practice of Compassion

originally published on Wednesay 9th September 2014 The hotel where we stayed in Dublin stands on a crossroads. Facing it are: The Patriots Inn The Richmond Tower, gateway to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) the Kilmainham Gaol. We arrived on foot from our house in England, aided by 2 buses and a plane…

My Day, by Victoria Roberts

I've no idea how I came to acquire this book, but it was published in 1984, when my youngest daughter was five years old. I'll ask her how old she would have been to write her name thus. (She reckons 9) I've selected a few out of the fifty strip cartoons. Victoria Roberts was born…

A World Split by the Same God …

. . . Un Mondo Separado Por El Mismo Dios in the original Spanish I put this compilation together about 12 years ago. 1. Weep No More My Baby - Brenda Lee I'd just left school and got a summer job washing dishes in a Shanklin hotel - heard it in the street and loved…

What’s Wrong with the World?

first published on August 2nd, 2006, restored from a backup Today I am following on from my previous post and the comments made by Darius and Rama. They felt that it did not really matter what someone believes. Perhaps they take the view that there is some inner Truth ready to be found which will…

A Brief History of Politics?

inspired by a new blog:  A Platform for Politics and Culture Speech evolved from homo erectus's point and grunt for catching game in a team. It's presented as a series of steps explained in a talk by Wittgenstein, transcribed in The Brown Book, appended here. Thus creatures and things could be given names. Then speech…

Holy Family

Ascension of Yemaya into the Waters ,2019 I guess like other educated white males I haven’t understood the the accusation that came out so often last year in the Black Lives Matter campaigns, that people like me are “privileged”. Especially in the sense that there are things we may never be able to understand, such…

Where We Stand

Politics has never been more rotten, more destructive of the people’s wellbeing. From an impartial distance, this is surely unarguable. But who keeps this distance? From where I stand, democracy (reflecting the people’s choice), and freedom (of the powerful to enrich themselves and do what they like), have become especially poisonous. To the biosphere as…

Guided Randomness

I've often asked myself "Do you believe in God?" but never got an answer, only that it's an unanswerable question. A better one would be "What do you believe in?" One has to search within oneself, but not for some borrowed ideas and expressions, some flag of convenience to sail under and dodge the challenge.…

Face-to-Face

The ghost of Christine Keeler is returning to public view, in the form of a TV series now on BBC, and a forthcoming exhibition in London, which I heard about through Natalie D'Arbeloff's blog, in which she says Christine Keeler was, in that story, simultaneously absolutely powerless and absolutely powerful. She was neither victim nor…

Brexit dream 4

I was going to call this “The Vision of Perfection”, I’ll try and explain later. But then I jotted down the outline of a confused dream I’d just woken from. An interpretation slowly took form. To dream it at all seemed exhausting. There was a great deal of fruitless effort was being made, seven nights…

The Bitter Taste

From Bryan White Occasionally, I like to revisit ideas that I disagree with, to see if I can find a reason to reconsider my position. It's a wonderful thing when something compels you to change your mind. It's like a whole new area of the game board opens up. Suddenly there are all these fresh…

The Free Soul

I've written several times about spiritual writings from the thirteenth century: Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe. Each risked being fingered by the Inquisition as a heretic, and took steps to demonstrate orthodox obedience to the powerful Catholic Church. Marguerite Porete stands out from the others and is the most interesting by far. Almost…

Angels, Chaos, Truth

The last two pieces posted here have left important questions unanswered: What can we really know? What kind of consequences may follow inaccurate assumptions? Do we have any chance of explaining the unexplained, and should we even bother? Is there a wisdom we can call upon, or allow to reach us, which we can use…

There’s a Grand Scheme of Things

Is there a grand scheme of things? Yes, this is something I do believe. As to what it is, I cannot directly say: only circumstantially, in reference to what we can see with our own eyes. As I said in my last, politics and public discourse are toxic these days. After hearing what passes as…

Talking the Walk

Transcribed from an ad-hoc recording made on December 14th between 12:30 and 13:50, while walking the above route. To hear the audio please click here. It will be played in a new window. There are problems with politics [referring to words rather than deeds]: when it’s diminished to binary options, with clichés replacing awareness when…

. . . Until the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse land at Heathrow

I listened this morning to Peter Hennessy being interviewed by Paddy O’Connell on Radio 4’s “Broadcasting House” (starts at 54:11). His views on the impact of Brexit largely match my own. It took an hour or so to transcribe, but has saved the much greater effort of trying to cover similar ground in my own…

Etty Hillesum

It’s the second day of March, with a bit of blue sky but a biting damp wind. I walk along the Ledborough Road to the bus station, destination and agenda undecided. Why? Because I can. Whatever I can now do, one day I won’t be able to. No one knows the day, or the hour.…

When love conquers fear

While writing in my last about “Secret Strength” I had a strong desire to talk about wartime Holland and its sufferings under Nazi occupation. In particular I wanted to share an aria on YouTube, beautiful on its own account but even more moving for this little piece of history: When the Netherlands were liberated in…

The Unnamed Road

I walked around The Pastures, a hillside north of our house, musing as follows. "The earth is poised and serene, showing through its balanced complexities how intelligently creative it is. Human beings are restless. Prejudice is inborn and entirely natural, though aspects of it are ugly. It is beneficial for us to live in accordance…

Into the Zone: a trip

" /> The Precinct looking west Trip, n(1): 3. A short voyage or journey; a ‘run’. Apparently originally a sailor’s term, but very soon extended to a journey on land. 5. slang (orig. U.S.) a. A hallucinatory experience induced by a drug, esp. LSD. I’ve learned that following others isn’t my way. Nor do I…

At sixteen

With contemporaries: I’m at far right Here is the text of the essay I referred to in my last, as written in 1958. I don’t suppose it is intrinsically entertaining. To lighten it I’ve embedded some group photos in which my face may be seen, and an aerial shot of the place, Swainston Manor, which…

Bin Laden Dies

Ghetu asked me what I thought, as a ‘common Britisher’, of Bin Laden’s recent death. I responded as follows: I’m more of an uncommon Britisher, but I’m pretty sure there are others who think like me. America deliberately chose its fight with Islam after the end of Soviet communism. America it seems has to have…

Back home in Blighty

Whenever I leave the country for a few weeks, something crazy happens to it. I still feel guilty about the Falklands War, which broke out during my sojourn in Kuala Lumpur as a consultant to the Malaysian Ministry of Health, which itself happened for a crazy reason. In such circumstances, we happy band of expatriates…