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Meta
Category Archives: Blather
a throwaway line
All civilisation depends on two things: self-restraint and hope for the future. That’s why it can survive some wars. But if they go, it goes.
Posted in Blather
4 Comments
A glimpse of hell
Perhaps because I am feeling depressed by illness, unable either to walk or work as hard as is normally needed to keep low spirits away, the world seems horribly meretricicious. I watched an episode of the Wire last night, in … Continue reading
Posted in Blather
5 Comments
Four weeks
Tomorrow it will be four weeks since the bloody ear infection started, which explains the infrequency of posting. In that time I have never known whether some sudden injudicious gesture, like wiping a sweaty forehead on my sleeve, will convert … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, Housekeeping
Comments Off on Four weeks
Book reviews
I am exhausted from a rather wonderful launch party last night, but the first review of Fishing in Utopia is up, in the Economist. Very gratifying, with just the right touch of vinegar to keep it from being cloying—did you … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, Journalism, Literature
5 Comments
Publicity
I didn’t do this. And I am opposed to self-linking. But it’s very funny. See what the FWB has made!
Posted in Blather, Sweden
6 Comments
Three words that should be river names
The PrannockThe WazzockThe Twunt I imagine they are all in the West country somewhere. The Prannock is a chalk stream, with a small watercress farm on its lower reaches. The Wazzock is slow, with pike-filled eddies. The Twunt splashes hastily … Continue reading
Posted in Blather
2 Comments
Muslim slave raiders
According to MacCulloch, (p 57) On the eastern and southern rim of Europe, Islam remained a threat until the end of the seventeenth century. Even when the activities of the Ottoman fleet were curbed after the battle of Lepanto in … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, God
2 Comments
Getting better
I have been reading Dairmaid Dermot Diarmaud Diarmaid MacCulloch’s rather wonderful Reformation; this clears up a lot of confusion about the roots of the Church of England and its model of authority. In modern political terms, all Henry VIII did … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, Literature
2 Comments
Silence getting old
I know, I know. I have an infection of the middle ear, which has been on for nearly a fortnight now. The symptoms are tedious, and involve unpredictable and incapacitating giddiness, rising to occasional vomiting, and steady, well-established stupidity even … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, Housekeeping
5 Comments