Tintin inspires a lot of metaphysical musing these days. Such as the allegedly overwhelming case for his gayitude. Ou peut-être non. And here is Tintin compared to great literature with psychological depth: … the peculiar brand of obscene surrealism that marks the Pynchonian fantasy is not so far away from […]
The latest Britblog Roundup is here. A couple of links to posts by me on the Hama Massacre and the WTD. Lots of excellent and challenging material, such as this posting about new British legal prohibitions on photographing police officers. Blimey.
David Miliband’s protocol problems in India (the risk or otherwise of annoying senior Indian interlocutors by being too ‘familiar’) raise an interesting operational point. What is the role of the in-country Ambassador in such circumstances? In particular, how far should he/she go to brief the visiting Minister on how to […]
Blush prettily as I do to link to it, here is the Independent: Despite reading it closely, I’m still not convinced of how on earth Charles Crawford is allowed to blog as he does. Which recalls this memorable exchange, when sardonic architecture student Howard Roark is being expelled for insisting […]
A reader writes about FCO blogs: FCO bloggers try to keep to policy areas they have responsiblity for. Diverging from this has caused the odd frantic call from London to the offending blogger. There is nothing to say that staff cannot advance national interest behind closed doors AND engage in […]
There’s a lot of it about now. The FCO has a goodly bunch, albeit with tone of unrelenting ‘corporate’ cheeriness, eschewing anything controversial/awkward in policy or philosphical terms. When I was in Warsaw the FCO timidly experimented with some blogs for internal FCO consumption only, allowing some of us a […]
The UK MP who is most frugal on his expenses is, says the BBC, Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering in Northamptonshire. Affable article. Over 1130 words long. Just one minor point. It does not say which political party he belongs to. The Conservatives, in case you were wondering. Nice work, BBC […]
A brisk view from Mark Steyn on how our aging self-important rock stars are very protocol-obsessive: A decade or so back, Sting had to issue a formal apology because at one of his big save-the-rainforest banquets at his country pile he committed the ghastly social faux pas of seating Jools Holland […]
Simon Heffer takes a polemical pot-shot at David Cameron, accusing him of succumbing to socialism in his recent Davos speech: … one of the most shallow speeches by a supposedly serious politician that I have ever read. It should also terrify anyone who might feel he or she should vote […]
Back to earth with a bump. Here is a startling puff-piece for radical communism in the Independent. It is all about a neo-Trotskyist postman, one Olivier Besancenot, who it is claimed ‘defies the Trotskyist stereotype’ by having short hair and wearing well-fitting jeans and a black or white T-shirt. His […]
