Well done. Every word down is a victory.

Very nearly the best research institute in the workd

www.bofit.fi/en/

Very hard to make anything happen if you don’t know what you want to do in the first place

… cannot dream of and instinctively recoil from
3) Academia is a vocation, not a career. Anyone who enters in search of wealth, fame or power is committing a category error.
4) Those who _need_, not just _want_, to be academics should try. But prepare to have your 💔. Cos’
5) it really is tough.

There’s no getting away from the fact that times are exceeding tough. But:
1) the only constant in every decade of my working career - in every industry - has been that things were always better 10 years ago
2) Change is Good for the young and new entrants. They will get opportunities the old…. 1/2

Come back, Sir Julius Caesar, we need you!

There are ways to target the Russian economy with punitive economic weapons but they are better directed at creating and exploiting cracks within the ruling elite than aggregate growth

So long as he can finance his war, he’s happy.
That’s primarily a ruble problem, not a foreign currency one, so at the limit he can print the rubles to pay for it, relying on police and security forces to keep a cap on inflation and if necessary repress domestic dissent.

Yes but the mistake we Westerners continually make is to think that, because we would care about this, Putin does too.

I will have to look the full review out. I reviewed the Westad for @thespectator1828.bsky.social and thought it problematic

Can’t read the whole article but from that first section it seems this might be the first time ever I’ve agreed with Zelikow, P., about history

Jokers

And Robbins guessed/knew that - so didn’t tell them. He did exactly what a good civil servant is supposed to do.

It’s a picture of attitudes in rural Greece 70+ years ago, yes - and the film condemns those attitudes, if I remember correctly

It makes the Govt look incompetent at best and possibly dishonest at worst.
Hiding behind legalism can only protect a Govt for so long - as Johnson found out.

The main thing about the Mandelson scandal is not the pernickety detail of who was told what then - which the Govt is trying to use as a defence.
It’s that evidently common sense was not applied and conversations which should have taken place did not. It fails the basic sniff test.

Well obviously we need AI to trawl CCTV feeds from supermarkets and authorise tactical nuclear strikes on supermarkets where shoplifting is taking place.
That will learn them.

*Only out-of-town hypermarkets, not Sainsbury Locals, obviously. I mean, I’m not mad.

Filmed in Elounda although inevitably it is much changed now

Zorba the Greek.
Film as good as the book (and with better music)
Alan Bates: ‘Are you married?)
Anthony Quinn (Zorba): ‘Am I not a Man? And is not a Man stupid? I am a Man. And so…I married. Wife. Children. House. The Full Catastrophe!’

Was the V1 the UAV that revolutionised warfare?
Or was that the bullet?
Or maybe the arrow?

One might think that their consciences might have kicked in; or they might have clocked that they are backing a loser; or, if nothing else, that they’d have got plain tired by now

Saw this Weds night and it was terrific.
We went for a nightcap afterwards and she walked into the bar: another round of applause there #netrebko

We need to find a way to recast European (+Canada?) defence to integrate military deterrence of Russia and terrorism with the economic and trade superpowers UK and Europe possess, all while avoiding the worst weaknesses of both EU and NATO.
Leadership required urgently on this

Unfinished Photograph

Hear hear

In 1775-83 England tried to use military means to achieve an end-state which force alone could never hope to achieve; and alienated every major power in the rest of the world.
Spoiler: it didn’t end well for the English; the USA is 250 years old in 3 months.
Shame it seems to have learnt 🥯0️⃣👌

And MoD needs to be able to deliver more effectively. There’s no point in pouring money down the drain, which is what seems likely to happen without significant reform.

. NATO needs to have a sensible strategic discussion about national contributions within an alliance framework of credible multi-dimensional deterrence. Whether that is possible with DJT in power: I dunno.
The U.K. could and should be leading such a debate (but doubtless won’t).

Although I am reading and very much enjoying Ferdinand Mount’s ‘Kiss myself Goodbye’ which @tricksterprince.bsky.social put me onto