It really is something to see politicians, commentators and media outlets whose whole identity is based on being so-called ‘patriots’ frothing with excitement as they line up to back a deranged megalomaniac who consistently attempts to belittle and bully the country they claim to love
Trump and the UK have much in common - both avoided getting involved in the Vietnam War.
Alan Bleasdale's incredible Boys From The Blackstuff is now on BBC iPlayer. I cannot stress how brilliant this show is, how gut wrenching and heartbreaking and laugh out loud funny it is too.
Those that know it will rush to rewatch.
I envy those watching it for the first time. #GisAJob
My husband @mjowen174.bsky.social is very down and it’s difficult to see.
He had a thriving writing business until AI came along but now he’s struggling to find work.
Please repost this far and wide in the hope that he can find some writing work.
www.mathew-owen.co.uk
At tax payers expense.
“Get it all on record now — get the films — get the witnesses — because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, after visiting liberated concentration camps in April 1945
Trump’s Greenland speech at the WEF except it’s the voice of Pingu
He was an incompetent fraud. His elder brother Bill and ‘Paddy’ Mayne were more responsible for the founding and success of the SAS.
Two brilliant actors and two lousy ones. The older the better in this case.
What can history teach us about what happens when a populist strongman with an idiosyncratic taste for low interest rates undermines central bank independence?
The best Dr Who we never had.
Today's walk took me from Lower Heswall to Parkgate, then on to Neston, for the train home. Lots of bright sunshine 🌞
‘Out of the north parts’, bronze ranks of marching soldiers in relief
A child lays a flower at a War Grave bearing the badge of the King’s Liverpool Regiment
The drawn faces of mourning parents
An elderly father looks on, tired and drawn, his hands clasped together
Details of Tyson Smith’s bas relief panels from Liverpool Cenotaph. On one side the armed men from Liverpool in angular, tight ranks, stern faced; on the other the drawn faces and stooped figures of the families
The bronze brooding soldier, dressed for frontline service and holding his rifle in front of him, towers over a discarded picklehaube helmet
Bronze figure holding a crown of thorns and the broken chains of tyranny
Detail of the soldier’s equipment
Detail of the soldier’s water bottle, sculpted from experience of frontline use
Hoylake & West Kirby War Memorial with sculptures by Charles Sergeant Jagger, a frontline soldier wounded in action. The sculptures are dark, intense: a brooding soldier and a mourning figure with a crown of thorns. Away from the busy street, this monument, rich in detail, depicts a deep wound
No Ian Ward thankfully.
I would say you need to get out more, but it appears you’re hardly ever in.
Russia has joined the attack on the BBC. It's becoming clear that what is happening is not a criticism of a mistake by the BBC, but an international fascist attack on British democracy. You only have to see the extraordinary number of trolls unleashed on X to know that's what is happening.
Beautifully written.
A picture of sir Robbie Gibb’s network of influence
This was a diagram illustrating a piece I wrote in @prospectmagazine.co.uk in January 2024. Some faces have since changed but you get the general gist …
He’s just embarrassing now.
