You keep using that word “economy”. I do not think it means what you think it...
“UK green economy has shrunk since 2014”, laments the Guardian. The number of people employed in the “low carbon and renewable energy economy” declined by more than 11,000 to 235,900 between 2014 and...
View ArticleHas the BBC stopped putting bromide in its actors’ tea?
First it was Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes. Now actor-songwriter Laurence Fox has veered off the script as well. A few days ago Fox appeared as the token sleb on the BBC’s political panel show...
View ArticleHeresies of our time: that children should be taught to read music
As Trotsky never said about war, and only maybe said about the dialectic, “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.” Richard Morrison is the music critic of the Times...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day
Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt! Be embraced, Millions! This kiss to all the world! – Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy, Beethoven’s setting of which is the Anthem of Europe. Sing...
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Who is Dr. Li Wenliang?
Seen on a wall in Prague earlier today. Powerful, because most of us do indeed know who Dr. Li Wenliang is, or rather… was.
View ArticleWhat joining a union can do for you
In Laurence Fox’s case, get you Officially Denounced – and then a payout for being denounced. In the midst of a pandemic, this story, comparatively trivial but not without consequences, may have passed...
View ArticleWokeness is toxic to show business. And yet…
I am so over the Star Trek franchise. Star Trek, like Star Wars, is an intellectual zombie, a parody of when it was alive, before it was bitten and infected with a virus. Consign the wretched thing to...
View ArticleKeep your eyes peeled
Julius Caesar, Act III Scene III: CINNA THE POET: Truly, my name is Cinna. FIRST CITIZEN: Tear him to pieces; he’s a conspirator. CINNA THE POET: I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet. FOURTH...
View ArticleHey, let’s make it a three-way racial grudge match!
“The purity of a revolution can last a fortnight” – Jean Cocteau I thought from the start that most of the “solutions” the Black Lives Matter protesters demand would make the lives of black people...
View ArticleVIDEO: Boris Johnson with two naked men
No, this is not one of my clickbait headlines. The video is from 2000 and at 1:03 we see a younger, slimmer Boris express commendably libertarian views on the right to be naked in conversation with two...
View ArticleThe political purity spiral as experienced by the Instagram knitting community
I cannot knit and I am not on Instagram, but as someone who sews and is into politics, I cannot think how I came to miss this article from Gavin Haynes when it came out in January of this year. After...
View ArticleBook news
Andrew Doyle reports: Titania McGrath has written a book for children in order to teach them how to resist indoctrination and think exactly like her. Doyle has done more than anyone else to publicise...
View ArticleThe choir
“For centuries, the cherubic faces of choirboys in white ruffs have been part of church culture”, said the Guardian. Whenever a news report begins by saying that a tradition has endured for centuries...
View ArticleThe culture wars, ctd
“Speaking personally, I am getting a little fed up with the shoe-horning of George Floyd into every aspect of our lives. The Minnesotan policeman accused of killing him is currently in prison awaiting...
View ArticleThe Royal Opera House did not perform as expected, and nor did a woman...
Sometimes I start to make a Samizdata post and then that silly business of Real Life gets in the way and the post is left to languish as a draft. And sometimes Real Life comes back months later and...
View ArticleGary Lineker’s own goal
BBC football pundit Gary Lineker just brought the end of the BBC licence fee measurably closer. In this tweet he quoted the BBC Press Office saying he had signed a new five year deal with them and...
View ArticleArt for art sake
I recently saw the question asked (and answered very haltingly): can you separate the art from the artist? Having watched, read, listened to works by variously kinds of socialists, racists, religious...
View ArticleResign, then.
The Times reports, Staying neutral impossible after Black Lives Matter, says National Gallery chief The head of the National Gallery has said the Black Lives Matters movement meant it was no longer...
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