I've seen several reports over the last week or so about the ongoing situation in Ukraine and the general vibe seems to be "its looking increasingly like its going to be a stalemate". The fact that Ukraine hasn't been able to make the widely anticipated gains - no matter how unfair this is to Ukraine - has allowed detractors of Ukraine to ( Read more... )

There have been several significant health-scares among my friends & family recently: aside from my wife (infected finger & near-death experience until the antibiotics kicked in & dealt with the sepsis), a good friend of mine had a stroke, whilst my sister was rushed to hospital yesterday ( Read more... )

A daft & entirely theoretical question, but one I have turned over repeatedly given the whole MAGA/Fascist/Trump thing in the US. Is it better to want Trump & MAGA be stopped from ever being in power - or is it better that these be experiences be endured & learned from?

Obviously this is entirely theoretical - its not as though someone has a magic ( Read more... )

Specifically, I'm missing the cheap & convenient (though at the time none of these seemed to be the case) of being able to hop on a plane at Schiphol & be with my friends in Leeds 90 minutes later ( Read more... )

Thoughts about Ukraine & nuclear weapons (apologies for my wittering. Please skip if you don't want to be depressedI’ve seen it said several times over the last year that NATOs response to a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine would be sanctions and/or a conventional attack on the site that perpetrated the attack ( Read more... )

Astonishingly I'm still here, despite everything. Things haven't got any better since last I posted (what with the roiling disaster that is Johnson as a corrupt-as-hell PM during a pandemic & climate catastrophe), but I've managed to keep body, soul, family & finances together thus far ( Read more... )

As part of the ongoing Brexit turmoil , I have to report that I have been to the doctors due to stress-related symptoms. Whilst I'm not in any danger, I had a few scary moments related to pains in my chest which set some alarm bells ringing as they couldn't eliminate the possibility of heart problems ( Read more... )

Another day ( Read more... )

Calling something a compromise doesn’t make it a compromise - though it does allow you to paint your opponents as being intransigent & reasonable in the court of public opinion. After all, if they won’t accept a compromise then it’s not our fault - but let’s ignore the fact that the ‘compromise’ still requires unicorns.

The Malthouse Compromise isn’ ( Read more... )

Another very interesting video of Peter Hitchens who makes the point that he has gone from being regarded as an anti-EU extremist (because he wanted to leave the EU when it was an unpopular sentiment) to being a pre-EU quisling because he doesn't want a damaging 'hard Brexit' which is now all the rage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y5EVLJXYi4S