Monthly Archives: July 2021

Colin Burrow’s essay on Empson’s ‘Some Versions of the Pastoral’ and ‘The Structures of Complex Words’ was unexpected in its lack of reverence for Empson. Having read Michael Wood’s ‘On Empson’ as my introduction to this writer: this led me … Continue reading →

Headline: Marxist congressman named as Peru’s prime minister Sub-headline: Pedro Castillo alienates moderate allies by picking hardliner Guido Bellido The reader need only look at who the Financial Times reporter quotes : “Bellido is a disastrous appointment,” said Rodolfo Rojas, … Continue reading →

Headline: Capitalists can play a vital part in saving US democracy Sub-headline: Asset owners such as pension funds and university endowments must speak out against voter suppression The reader can hardly be surprised by The Financial Times publishing Katherine Venice … Continue reading →

It’s about a newspaper pundit, a would be Technocrat, wringing his hands over Afghanistan, as if the British and the Soviets abandoning their Colonial Projects were not the starkest kind of objects lessons? Not to speak of Reagan’s presenting the … Continue reading →

Mr. Colvile opens his polemic with this paragraph. Yet note the last sentence’s attempt at Oxbridger ‘humor’ of a kind? It’s often said that the British civil service is incapable of acting at speed. That is horrendously unfair. When their … Continue reading →

What to think of writes, reporters, academics who fail to point out that Macron, was not the ‘clear winner’ but a ‘marginal winner’ in 2017. With an abstention and spoiled ballots rate in the mid 30’s percentile range. Sudhir Hazareesingh … Continue reading →

The reach of Mr. Ganesh’s latest essay, from ‘Social Media’ , ‘The Contract With America’, Frank Capra, to the fate of ‘mature democracies’, might cause the reader to wonder how he will construct this rhetorical being? Mr. Ganesh’s cynicism about … Continue reading →

Like his enthusiasm for Emmanuel Macron, Mr. Stephens has found a new politician, that appeals to alleviating his fears of a Leftward tilt to politics, in America and the World. But note that its all very clubby in its opening … Continue reading →

The Rachman’s strategy, here, is to shift from the standard hysterical tropes about China, to jejune speculation and conjecture as in: Does China want to be a superpower? Mr. Rachman invites the reduction to anthropomorphism, that renders ‘China’ into a … Continue reading →

This jejune observation by Mr. Ganesh: opens his latest essay: Nowhere in Europe are universities as central to national life as in the US. Time-hogging is part of it: four rather than largely three year degrees, two as opposed to … Continue reading →