“Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.” Arthur Balfour (attrib.) It took, it is said, seven days for news of Abraham Lincoln’s death to reach London. This was comparatively speedy – Australia had to wait the best part of a month. By contrast, everyone with a phone or TV learned of the […]
Sublime Indifference Read More »
Second thoughts seem to be a feature of my life. Not, I think, due to chronic indecision or a personality prone to regret, but because that is just the way my mind seems to work. A thought bubbles up, seemingly from nowhere, and then I decide what to do with it. If it is interesting
On Second Thoughts Read More »
Schadenfreude is, we can assume, a universal human emotion. Barely had the first Iranian strikes been launched towards the U.A.E., than some social media users felt the need to point this fact out to the country’s expats. Yes, the weather may be nice, the lack of income tax attractive, but neither were worth finding oneself at
The Lines Were Already on the Page Read More »
Cook Ding was a master, butchering animals with balletic precision. So impressive was his craft that one day his employer, Lord Wen Hui, asked for an explanation. He hadn’t always had the skill, the cook said. When he started, he had seen the animal in its totality, just one big hunk of meat, so he
“You should have stayed at university and become a philosopher,” my Dad told me one day. This wasn’t quite as random as it might sound. We’d had dinner a few weeks earlier and he had told me that he had seen there was going to be a documentary about Wittgenstein on TV. Knowing that I
Sitting at the Mouth of the Cave Read More »
After so many U-turns, we can extend the Prime Minister the charity of precision. Having already committed 15 or 16, the marginal political benefit of pinning another one on him is low and we can, if history is any guide, be confident another will be on its way shortly. Thus, I don’t think we need
The Centre Isn’t Holding Read More »
I hate updating my website. It is a chore. So, I put it off, depriving the literal handful of bots who visit it on a good day access to the latest flowering of my thought. It is not because it is hard – it is one of those off-the-shelf freebies which even idiots can master
Life is like a jailer. As it wanders down the block, large ring of keys jangling on its hip, you never entirely know which cell it is going to unlock, and which memory will emerge, blinking, into the light. Just writing down three numbers the other day instantly shaved decades off my age. For the
Relax. Only a week to go. The Winter Olympics will come to and end, and we will have another four peaceful years in which curling is something some people do to their hair. But perhaps not this time. For it has been an uncommonly good Winter Olympics for team GB. A first gold on snow
The Skeleton Theory of Politics Read More »
What do you want? I don’t mean that in a rude way, like a librarian disturbed from their crossword puzzle, but more generally. What are your desires? I’ll wait. And I’ll probably have to wait for a while. You have many. Even if we set aside the ones you’ll never tell anyone… At the most
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