Surely one of your huge sons could make use of it.

Orban’s regime underpinned the right wing networks that have been trying to rehabilitate British colonialism as a moral enterprise, while pretending to analyse it impartially. Some of the connections mapped here:

religioninpraxis.com/from-budapes...

Nov 6 2024 was a really bad day. The only glimmer of hope I found at the time was that an unrestrained Trump 2.0 might be so appalling as to dissuade European electorates from continuing down the Trump/Orban path, seeing where it led. Maybe we are now seeing that effect starting to take hold.

So many good things in this piece, which is by no means Pollyanna-ish but summarises a huge potential momentum change in western geopolitics. The tectonic plates may be shifting...

The result is huge. Vast in its consequences. Orban was the inspiration to all those who came after him. He served as Putin's puppet, undermining Europe from within and Ukraine from without. He funded a vast network of fascists around the world. It's all vulnerable now, or falling apart entirely.

Steve.

Tricky times for the content creators, life coaches and right wing journalists who left Britain shrieking claims that it was becoming an authoritarian state

A wide-ranging and detailed update from Prof O’Brien. Something that smells a bit like hope amidst the bravery and suffering of the Ukr people. Four years of the world underestimating Ukr capabilities and expertise - can Europe adjust to the new transatlantic reality and grasp the opportunity?

I’m English, with only the sketchiest appreciation of baseball, and it’s one of the passages of literature that pops into my head quite regularly. A tour de force.

Robert Jenrick calling Palm Sunday 'Psalm Sunday' reminds us once again that dim witted rage baiting populists never know the slightest thing about what they are purporting to defend.

French actress and singer Alice Delysia by Bassano, Ltd., whole-plate glass negative, December 3, 1918. She wears a whole chicken on her head and an entire rooster on her dress

A Leaping Cockerel  by John Robertson, 1992 - A morris dancer dressed as a rooster leaping in the air

Things I found on my laptop, Spring edition

Hello Nursie, I like it firm and fruity!

UK launches operation to support thousands of Britons in Middle East Officials are understood to be working on plans to evacuate British nationals, should airspace remain closed.

What's happening in Dubai bolsters the argument taxes should be based on people's nationality, not just their country of residence (ie the US model).

If Brits living abroad can expect to be airlifted out by virtue of being British, they should pay some tax towards that.
www.bbc.com/news/article...

I wonder if he was berated for not wearing a suit?

That’s ‘The Award-Winning Steven Poliakoff’ to you, pal. It got to the stage where I assumed the prefix had been added by deed poll.

We are Christopher Isherwood, watching the intimidation and interference at a Berlin polling station from our apartment window above.

This is a great piece by @phillipspobrien.bsky.social on why it is the President and not his evil counsellors that is to blame for ICE and its excesses - and why the media are pretending otherwise.

We are Christopher Isherwood, watching the increasingly alarming scenes in the Berlin street below from our apartment window above.

Screenshot from BBC News live text coverage of Trump press conference: 19:27 This news conference could go on for a very long time (byline: Gary O'Donoghue, Chief North America correspondent at the White House) This is the president in his most enigmatic and expansive mood. During the campaign this used to be called "the weave" – meandering from subject to subject, often the connections not immediately obvious.

going to use "at my most enigmatic and expansive" to describe the next time I have a few too many wines

Um…

People Are Still Not Getting Trump Right His Letter Was Not And Is Not The Story

Trump sent out a batsh!t crazy letter yesterday and people once again fell for it. The real story is not the letter, its just another tactic to get what he wants. It shows how he despises Europe and is helping Putin. Yet people comfort themselves by mocking him. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

"It wasn't murder, and if you say it was murder we will kill you, which again will not be murder."

Quite.

Your regular reminder that 'Lust for Life' - era Iggy Pop was indistinguishable from Melvyn Hayes.

I'm afraid there *is* an obvious answer: it can't.

The cynics think today's attack on Venezuela is staged and transactional. Maduro is allied with Putin, but in 2019 Putin offered Trump a swap: Russia cedes Venezuela and gets Ukraine. (See Fiona Hill's testimony in Trump's first impeachment trial, h/t @davetroy.com). Even Maduro may be in on it. 2/

The current UK government has been in power since 5 July 2024, so he had over 16 months of spouting-off time.

23rd November, not November 2023.

If there was any doubt, test match cricket is the greatest game that humans have invented, and possibly the high point of evolution.

Outstanding work.