Why do positive things happen today? In good part because previous generations have acted ruthlessly to suppress the forces of destruction – to establish the principle that for good behaviour to spread, really bad behaviour must have really bad consequences. Hence for a long period piracy on the high seas was […]
Ever-alert reader Ken Buxton picks up my posting about dying expressions and points us all to this excellent site about Eggcorns, words and phrases whose use is mutating mainly but not only through ignorance: In September 2003, Mark Liberman reported (Egg corns: folk etymology, malapropism, mondegreen, ???) an incorrect yet particularly […]
Some Good Friday thoughts. Most people (including until yesterday myself included) do not know that it is only quite recently that the USA established full diplomatic relations with the Vatican, namely in 1984 under President Reagan. The issue was controversial in US domestic terms and even provoked litigation. Did establishment […]
President Obama has called for a world free of nuclear weapons. But he accepts that it might not happen in his lifetime. Why it is so difficult to scale back these systems once they are there? Basically, nuclear weapons are ghastly because they can not be used on any scale […]
You are no doubt wondering what a condemned man might look like after being tied to a stake then shot at by a few hundred people with machine guns. The answer? Not much left except a dark red bloody splodge and a strong smell of singed meat. With that thought […]
Is here, hosted by Trixy at Is there more to life than shoes? A question which goes unanswered, at least explicitly. It links inter alia to the most important posting former Ambassador Craig Murray has ever posted, even if he says so himself. The subject is Torture and what he says […]
Max Atkinson has picked up my comment as posted on his site about what makes a speech memorable and had a look at the famous speech by Sir Geoffrey Howe seen as a pivotal moment in the events which led to Mrs Thatcher’s resignation as Prime Minister. He asked if […]
Rummaging through my career files today I read again the 1997 letter to us from Diana, Princess of Wales expressing thanks for what the Embassy had done to help her on her visit to Bosnia to highlight the dangers of landmines – as it tragically turned out, the last public […]
Anne Applebaum says that the Obama/Clinton reset button for US/Russia relations is not working: Anyone who doubts the truth of this need only look at remarks Lavrov himself made last weekend in Brussels … The transcript of his remarks, and those of other Russians attending the same conference, do not capture […]
I have been busy tweaking my trail-blazing interview for the British Diplomatic Oral History Programme. This is an exercise in getting senior diplomats to talk for some hours about their life and work and then publish the transcripts for the edification of future generations. Lots of famous names already there, […]
