Picking up the theme of the previous posting, I might add that after the St Albans School prize giving this week a smart young pupil asked me for a couple of lessons learned from my diplomatic career. Gulp. Where to start? I offered only this one. Back in Belgrade in 1981/82 […]
Yet more UK pupils are getting A grades at A-Level. Since on the face of it there is no evidence that our progeny are smarter than we are (and plenty pointing in exactly the opposite direction), is the only explanation that the exams are getting easier? Thus: A survey found that […]
Ha. Fooled you. You thought you were getting BBRU at Suz Blog hosted by LibDem tough blonde ‘cookie’ Susanne Lamido. But we swapped. So you have me instead. All the best BBRUs try witty themes, or at least cogent categories. This helps those who want to skip the political […]
One of the fantastical and perverse features of modern government is its reliance on ‘consultants’. Having created sprawling systems of such obscurity/complexity that they are unable to do anything well, civil servants and Ministers then call in consultants to try to sort things (and themselves) out. The FCO has reeled under the […]
e-Diplomacy in action? Or e-Diplomacy inaction? Here is a version of the piece I wrote for the latest issue of DIPLOMAT magazine on how I invented e-Diplomacy and tried to put it into effect in a nervous FCO, too many years ahead of my time… e-Diplomacy: Who Isn’t My Neighbour? Where Julius […]
An ever-alert reader picks up this curious sentence on the usually well written Samizdata, where Paul Marks is laying in to an Economist article (emphasis added): Still the Economist does not let the truth stand in the way of its articles, so it then outlines its position. "Starting from scratch their (sic) […]
Here is John Simpson of the BBC opining on Iran. He used to be a good journalist before he got himself tangled in knots trying not to be judgemental about tyrannies, forgetting his grammar in the excitement: This was not, of course, the result the West was hoping for. But political chaos […]
Recent media reports have it that my old FCO ‘line manager’ Nicola Brewer has stepped down as CEO of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to replace Paul Boateng as High Commissioner (Ambassador-equivalent in a Commonwealth country) to South Africa. The credibility of this Independent report is wrecked by claims that […]
When I saw the Prime Minister’s letter to Sir Gus O’Donnell about the McBride affair I at first thought it was a spoof as it was so oddly drafted. But it turns out to be real. What’s odd about it from a literary and substantive point of view? Various things. […]
Here is a wannabe high-browish piece about Grand Theft Auto, a cleverly violent computer car-based game appealing to most boys of all ages. The hero of the game is one Niko Bellic, a computerised Balkanite tough egg (Serb?). I suspect that no Serb/Balkan name has a double ll in it […]
