Chess by Stefan Zweig is a wonderful novella about an Idiot Savant chess player who is challenged while traveling on a passenger liner.
It's a novella about obsession, madness and, of course, chess. It's best summed up in these two quotes.
Highly recommended!
20) Chess- Stefan Zweig (Austria 🇦🇹)
Really reassuring how the whole area has changed so much and that hasn't
Really daft, really fun
19) The High Crusade - Poul Anderson
18) Standing Heavy - GauZ (Ivory Coast 🇨🇮)
Good example of the sort of bind the BBC is regularly in.
I sort of instinctively agree with this point, but then if the BBC don't do anything about it and legal action does happen, the Beeb ends up facing questions about what they knew and when. Structurally can't win
In response to the Fingleton Review, the Govt didn't commit to legislating to fix the Habs Regs to avoid things like fish discos/bat tunnels.
However, they are legislating to do just that for offshore wind.
Why is it one rule for wind and another for nuclear?
www.samdumitriu.com/p/if-its-goo...
Agree a cut would do little in policy terms, but disagree it's a trivial political debate.
Last Budget was balanced in part by adding 5p to fuel duty in 26/27, if that's not an option it's a headache for the next budget.
The government is right not to budge (yet) but there is a debate to be held
17) Voyage of the Dawntreader - CS Lewis
Absolutely love the Narnia books, but I find it very funny that by the Voyage of the Dawntreader they're basically like:
'"I'm jesus btw lol", Aslan said Jesusly'
Freaks my nut out that 300 years ago monarchs would die from something as daft as a broken collarbone
Reinforces my view that semi-contra Effective Altruism, I think some of the most effective stuff you can do as an individual is hyper local.
Went to go and do set up at the playgroup my daughter does on a Friday this morning as their normal volunteers were away, and it really does bother me how much of actual existing volunteering and civic society is held together by women in their 60s and 70s.
16) Down With The System- Seen Tankian
Disability pay gap reporting is another great example of this government pursuing policy in two contradictory directions, in that it directly rubs up against their stated policy aim of getting more disabled people into work.
A company that hires disabled people at the bottom of the pay pyramid, which is what you'd expect they'd be doing if they hired someone long term unemployed, will end up looking worse on their pay gap reporting!
Disability pay gap reporting is another great example of this government pursuing policy in two contradictory directions, in that it directly rubs up against their stated policy aim of getting more disabled people into work.
If you are 21 in 2026, you were 5 when the coalition first came into power
A striking chart
The average first-time buyer age in England has risen from 29 in 1994/95 to 34 today- and 35 in London.
Meanwhile, the share of buyers under 25 has collapsed from 23% to just 6% over the same period.
15) Delia's Way- Olga Berrocal Essex (Panama 🇵🇦)
They’re telling me a great empire will be destroyed if I attack Persia. Even the oracles who don’t like me very much, very nasty, they all said to me, “Sir, it’s one of the great empires, and it’ll be destroyed. And all because you attacked Persia.” That’s what they’re telling me.
Britain is the most expensive place in the world to build a nuclear power station.
Labour have just announced an extremely ambitious supply-side reform agenda to change that.
Here's my analysis of what just might end up as the Starmer Govt's proudest legacy.
www.samdumitriu.com/p/how-seriou...
Westminster Hall is several hundred years older than Machu Picchu
Always blows my mind that the Inca empire only really came into existence in the century before Spanish colonisation of South America
Think this kind of messaging is just self-sabotaging, reinforces the mad meme that “energy costs go up when supplies of energy drop” is about wicked profiteering and not a literal resource constraint, makes government look weak when nothing happens.
Parenting update: my three year old just had a tantrum because I don't have two hands
Yeah and I think while not sophisticated, it was very clear who it was *for*, but the case for this is much less clear.
(I tell a lie, they clearly think it's for a centre right voter like me, who finds the bank note thing annoying, but, like, I don't actually care very strongly)
I disagree on sewage because it was a very neat "these guys who run the country and currently represent you have failed" issue. Like it was made in a lab for them
Remarkable now to think that Steve Bray wasn't sure how to vote when the referendum was announced.