Culture & Society

Ben and Bob: the answer, my friend, really is blowin’ in the wind

Ben and Bob: the answer, my friend, really is blowin’ in the wind

September 21, 2014 at 6:12 pm 0 comments

The answer to this question, that is: Is there any limit to the stupid, subversive, demotic rubbish The Times will publish these days? Ben Macintyre’s article on Bob Dylan unwittingly plucks the answer out of the blowin’ wind and lays it before us. It’s an emphatic no. The article itselfRead More

The rationing society

The rationing society

September 21, 2014 at 5:32 pm 0 comments

There are two types of societies, production societies and rationing societies. The production society is concerned with taking more territory, exploiting that territory to the best of its ability and then discovering new techniques for producing even more. The rationing society is concerned with consolidating control over all existing resourcesRead More

The swag is mightier than the sword

The swag is mightier than the sword

September 21, 2014 at 4:42 pm 0 comments

Forty-nine Turkish hostages, including diplomats, women and children, have been released by the terrorists of Islamic State. The lavish scenes of jubilation on their safe return were prominent on Turkish TV. But did you see the earlier pictures of the fearless men of the Turks’ secret intelligence service, backed by special forces,Read More

Tractatus logico theologicus

September 17, 2014 at 4:09 pm 0 comments

Write this: you can write nothing. No one can, for what is said Is not the thing that is Except in that single case wherein The eternal Word was made flesh And dwelt among us. What is it that the poets are up to then? Only to take us toRead More

IPSO is a facto

IPSO is a facto

September 8, 2014 at 4:17 pm 0 comments

Sir Alan Moses starts work this morning as chairman of the new Independent Press Standards Organisation IPSO and promises that it will not be “a sham.” Indeed it is not a sham: it is a political quango set up in response to campaigns by Hacked Off and Guardian journalists to abolishRead More

Just war Justin

Just war Justin

September 2, 2014 at 4:49 pm 0 comments

On an aeroplane returning from Korea, the Pope was asked if he thought it right for the western allies to bomb Islamic State in Iraq.  “Yes,” he said. The Archbishop of Canterbury was today asked the same question by Edward Stourton on The Sunday Programme. He answered in the usual LambethRead More

Thank God for the newspapers!

Thank God for the newspapers!

September 2, 2014 at 4:31 pm 0 comments

Something is rotten in the state of England. At the highest level, a rigid political policy which declares that ethnic and religious minorities must not be offended has ensured that for decades untold thousands of children have been sexually abused. This means that the largely imaginary crime of so calledRead More

The Dawkins delusion

The Dawkins delusion

June 6, 2014 at 5:11 pm 0 comments

The Dawkins Delusion by Jasper C. Grobbleburp III– published by Twerp House Publishing Ltd 3/6; also Wacky Books Inc 1$ This splendid book brilliantly exposes the primitive myth of Richard Dawkins. Is is astonishing to reflect that in the 21st century millions of people worldwide actually believe that there is aRead More

Expunging the past

Expunging the past

May 20, 2014 at 2:08 pm 0 comments

Totalitarianism or what? The European Court has declared that “in appropriate cases” information should be deleted from articles on the Internet. The example given was of a Spaniard who some years ago received a conviction for debt and he successfully argued that this fact should not be there at theRead More

Invasion of the body-snatchers

Invasion of the body-snatchers

May 14, 2014 at 2:28 pm 0 comments

Picture the massed crowds turning out for Hitler at Nuremburg, vast, faceless, more like a geometrical object than a gathering of human beings. Ditto the parades for Mao and for the Great Leader in North Korea. It is the trademark of totalitarianism and its aim is the obliteration of personality andRead More