A few days ago I recommended The Historian, a long and elegantly intelligent modern reworking of the Dracula story with lots of well-tuned Balkan detail: Here for those who want More is a gripping look by Andrew Stuttaford at one of my favourite films, Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre: Stuttaford describes how Herzog develops […]
My various blog posts on the Kaminski story have caught a wider audience. So I have decided today to come out. Back in May this year I, like everyone else, was revolted by the goings-on in Parliament and Government over expenses and other abuses. What especially annoyed me was the […]
The Comment function is playing up. Here is a good one from Victor Meldrew: Judging from this blog, I think you should be cloned and stand in every available seat. Your use of the phrase "the operational management of complexity" strikes a particular chord. This is a lost art in […]
Remember this move by the so-called UN Human Rights Council to get global action against ‘negative stereotyping of religions’? The only question is, what does it mean in practice? As far as I know, a Resolution by the Human Rights Council means nothing at all in itself in formal legal […]
Update: Welcome co-conspirators. Guido is on the case. * * * * * The Labour Party are now officially making a total fool of themselves over Michal Kaminski. Young British diplomats are taught that it is poor technique (and, worse, stupid) to quote someone’s words from a magazine without checking that that […]
The BBC is putting out a deft series of short radio programmes about FCO Valedictory Despatches: Parting Shots. Here is Part Two. Featuring various former Excellencies. Myself included, recalling on radio my magnificent suppression of Freedom of the Press.
Welcome Iain Dale readers. * * * * * One of the points made by Labour against Kaminski is that he was in effect playing an anti-semitic card by arguing against the apology by then President Kwasniewski for the Jedwabne massacre. It’s obvious! Any Pole arguing against the form or […]
Folks. Drop what you are doing and spend just a few minutes to look at this magnificent, grim tirade from Anna Racccoon on the history and workings of the Court of Protection in England – a creepy and (she asserts) stagnantly dirty and unjust legal backwater inherited from days of […]
Update: since I pointed out the egregious mistake on the FCO website as below, the error has been corrected. Glad to see that someone is reading this blog with an eagle eye. But I’ve left the original blunder quote up for the sake of accuracy. * * * * * The FCO […]
A busy day researching for an article in DIPLOMAT the manifold examples of people entering Embassies to seek refuge. The article is prompted by the tragi-comic opera scenes of former President Zelaya as impertinently parked in the Embassy of Brazil in Honduras. As one unimpressed Brazilian diplomat has put it to me, […]
