Inside: Gary Lineker's last act, Wes Anderson's return to form, Thatcher's children, the escalation in Gaza, the slow death of the semicolon and David Tenant in conversation with Gordon Brown.
The Guardian having become a more or less unreadable cosmo-comic, and The Observer having been more or less obscured along with its best writers, you fine people offer a warmly oaked port within which one may moor a leather wingback and briefly forget our extending anachronism.
'Charlotte' from the estate agency called yesterday. Upon my answering with a simple 'hello', she set herself off like a Radio 2 teenager who sounds perpetually on the verge of climax: 'Hiya, y'alright... I've spoken to... blah blah...', after which, having no idea, I disarmed her with a long pause and 'excuse me? Who are you?'
For some reason, it is un-politically correct to call out how dismal this country has become, and thus its trajectory. But I'll do it anyway. Farage is coming. The New Statesman makes it all better for a bit. So, ta very much, mate, as I'm sure is now the English tutors' vernacular from whence I hailed. I shall imagine Mr Simpson looking down upon me now smiling wise counsel and rubbing his yellow fingers in catholic delight. Sorry to rant. "Je suis Nicholas".
By the way, the BBC has been playing the "impartiality" card for so long that were this country not split into its supporting feudal overlords, and (sub)urban bumpkins, it would have been held to account. The rot is entrenched; the BBC has been discernibly (albeit with nuance and requiring a basic level of critical contortion) far from impartial for at least one decade and arguably two.
For as long as publicly identifying someone to their face as a shameless liar continues to be perceived as worse than goat buggery we shall get what we deserve.
Indeed, the BBC seems to have forgotten the part of Section 4 about holding power to account; allowing blatant lies to be impartially muted does not achieve the aim of creating clarity.
"He did not seem to understand that the issue here was not one of free speech or even his trenchant opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu; it was about his role at the BBC and its charter commitment to impartiality"
The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death knell of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.
What is happening today in Gaza is unbridled genocide. Yes, genocide! And that truth has been exiled from the manifold mouths of western governments for way too long! And the monster’s claim being screamed the loudest, that it has the right to defend itself, expired with all the innocent deaths its genocidal agenda has strewn.
Two wrongs ne’er did a right make.
The monster incarnate, we, the western world, helped create out of shame for a past generation’s inaction towards another massive genocide of a people. The monster’s very own people.
The very real and very brutal irony of it all stings the hardest.
Monsters come in all shapes and forms, identifying one when it raises its ugly head therein lies the crux of it all. Does it not? For humanity’s most fervent yearnings for aequus…
Not in my name?
Aye, NOT indeed.
And when it shall all be over with and victory shall have been wrested from the last skeletal Palestinian dead hand. When the monster shall have won, its thirst finally sated, they’ll measure the bloody toll and heads shall weep and hang in shame yet anon. Victory but at what price?
"Ne’er anon." They shall all once more declare.
Tis people who make and transform promises into hollow meaningless shell-casings bereft of any and all sense. The very same people who allow for monsters to thrive and in thus doing not realize they are monster become...
The Guardian having become a more or less unreadable cosmo-comic, and The Observer having been more or less obscured along with its best writers, you fine people offer a warmly oaked port within which one may moor a leather wingback and briefly forget our extending anachronism.
'Charlotte' from the estate agency called yesterday. Upon my answering with a simple 'hello', she set herself off like a Radio 2 teenager who sounds perpetually on the verge of climax: 'Hiya, y'alright... I've spoken to... blah blah...', after which, having no idea, I disarmed her with a long pause and 'excuse me? Who are you?'
For some reason, it is un-politically correct to call out how dismal this country has become, and thus its trajectory. But I'll do it anyway. Farage is coming. The New Statesman makes it all better for a bit. So, ta very much, mate, as I'm sure is now the English tutors' vernacular from whence I hailed. I shall imagine Mr Simpson looking down upon me now smiling wise counsel and rubbing his yellow fingers in catholic delight. Sorry to rant. "Je suis Nicholas".
By the way, the BBC has been playing the "impartiality" card for so long that were this country not split into its supporting feudal overlords, and (sub)urban bumpkins, it would have been held to account. The rot is entrenched; the BBC has been discernibly (albeit with nuance and requiring a basic level of critical contortion) far from impartial for at least one decade and arguably two.
For as long as publicly identifying someone to their face as a shameless liar continues to be perceived as worse than goat buggery we shall get what we deserve.
Indeed, the BBC seems to have forgotten the part of Section 4 about holding power to account; allowing blatant lies to be impartially muted does not achieve the aim of creating clarity.
"He did not seem to understand that the issue here was not one of free speech or even his trenchant opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu; it was about his role at the BBC and its charter commitment to impartiality"
How can anyone be impartial about genocide?
The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death knell of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.
What is happening today in Gaza is unbridled genocide. Yes, genocide! And that truth has been exiled from the manifold mouths of western governments for way too long! And the monster’s claim being screamed the loudest, that it has the right to defend itself, expired with all the innocent deaths its genocidal agenda has strewn.
Two wrongs ne’er did a right make.
The monster incarnate, we, the western world, helped create out of shame for a past generation’s inaction towards another massive genocide of a people. The monster’s very own people.
The very real and very brutal irony of it all stings the hardest.
Monsters come in all shapes and forms, identifying one when it raises its ugly head therein lies the crux of it all. Does it not? For humanity’s most fervent yearnings for aequus…
Not in my name?
Aye, NOT indeed.
And when it shall all be over with and victory shall have been wrested from the last skeletal Palestinian dead hand. When the monster shall have won, its thirst finally sated, they’ll measure the bloody toll and heads shall weep and hang in shame yet anon. Victory but at what price?
"Ne’er anon." They shall all once more declare.
Tis people who make and transform promises into hollow meaningless shell-casings bereft of any and all sense. The very same people who allow for monsters to thrive and in thus doing not realize they are monster become...
Shame.
I fully concur with Nicholas's comments on the semicolon.
Not long ago I read an excerpt from Richard Wright's book The Outsider and took note of his skillful use of this punctuation.
The late Ursula K. Le Guin had a relevant comment about one of the writers most responsible for the decline of the semicolon.
https://gnatswatting.tumblr.com/post/694842858202611712