Before the Internet how would we ever have been able to read a magnificent analysis by James Daily of the contract presented to Bilbo by the dwarves? The contract in the book is short and to the point. The film version (for padding) is far longer and a lot more […]
Here is an elegant bit of work by Jonathan Golub (golub means pigeon in Serbian, by the way) attempting to measure which EU member states are better at getting their way within the system. I could add all sorts of glosses, but read the whole thing and see for yourself […]
If you like words and like to think, kiss your life goodbye and get the Spelltower app. Basically, it’s an 8×12 grid (on one’s iPhone), where a range of letters start across the bottom of the grid. As you complete words by linking adjacent letters in as complex a pattern […]
It’s always worth reading anything written by the prolific and perceptive Walter Russell Mead. Here he is on how we need to invent Liberalism 5.0: Briefly, the idea is that after World War II America was organized around a group of heavily regulated monopoly and semi-monopoly companies. AT&T was the […]
UPDATE: More fine examples added – see below Unless you have really been paying attention for a very long time, you will have missed my various attempts to share examples of diplomatic themes appearing in great rock lyrics. And the time has come for a former senior diplomatic practitioner (ie […]
Just when you thought it safe to return to the water, here’s me over at Commentator on the astounding idea of the Consent of the Governed: Back in Europe the many issues arising from the UK/EU debate are no less far-reaching, and boil down to this ‘consent of the governed’ […]
Imagine you’re a member of the public mulling over EU issues and the future of the UK/EU relationship. Your heart must sink at the prospect of assorted former Ambassadors hooting mournfully at each other on these questions. Over at Telegraph Blogs is my latest piece on this subject, pointing to […]
If you shoot someone and kill them. you are said to shoot them dead. But this can cause all sorts of grammar difficulties: “Police shoot dead homeless man“. Does that mean the police shot a homeless man and killed him? Or does it mean that a homelsss man was dead […]
I have been away from here for a while, mustering my thoughts and surviving Christmas. Basically, I now have to work for my living. Various happy schemes and arrangments that I enjoyed when first I left Poland at the end of 2007 have fizzled out, so I find myself in […]
As I plus dawg plodded through the sodden fields this Christmas morning (after yesterday narrowly being missed by a falling waterlogged tree as it crashed on to the road), somehow I was reminded of this, from back in April: Head of water resources at the Environment Agency Trevor Bishop said: […]
