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Articles by Lavinia Thompson

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About Lavinia Thompson

A university lecturer for many years, both at home and abroad, Lavinia Thompson retired in 2008 and has since taken up freelance journalism. She is currently studying for a distant learning degree in geo-political science and lives in Norwich with her partner. More Posts

A worthy read

Occasionally in this life you has to acknowledge the amateur’s humble truth, an echo of that tried-and-trusted peddled by businessmen and careerists (“People who can, do – people who can’t, teach”), i.e. there are some operating in your area of special hobby interest [...]

February 26, 2017 // 0 Comments

The Trump effect

One columnist whose pieces I always find worth reading – though I don’t necessarily agree with them – is Patrick Cockburn who currently pens his most often for The Independent. Here’s a link to the one that appears on the website of said newspaper today, discussing press [...]

February 18, 2017 // 0 Comments

Window on the new world?

Very strange mix of thoughts and feelings yesterday as I strapped myself in to watch the Trump inauguration on Capitol Hill on BBC1 from 4.00pm UK time. My original plan had been to take exercise of some sort in the afternoon because I had been confined to my home engaged upon domestic and other [...]

January 21, 2017 // 0 Comments

The honeymoon is over – so where’s the beef?

One British political myth – or is it truth – combining both received opinion and straight history is that, whereas the Labour Party is at continual war with itself over ideological issues and in particular engages in prolonged leadership battles, the Tory Party is eternally better off because [...]

December 29, 2016 // 0 Comments

Phew! It’s tough even keeping up

We live in what can be described as ‘interesting’ times – what with Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party, the EU Referendum and Brexit, Donald Trump becoming US President-elect, Mr Putin’s Russia continuing to flex its geo-political muscles and European potentially entering a [...]

November 23, 2016 // 0 Comments

The art of modern politics

There is a cute but erroneous notion going the rounds that we only let the Rust’s political columnist Simon Campion-Brown out of his box now and again for fear of alienating readers of a sensitive disposition (not least our own staffers) with some of his hairier views upon those who inhabit the [...]

November 20, 2016 // 0 Comments

On having a good old age

One doesn’t like to get morbid about things unnecessarily – or perhaps at all – about the nature of old age and human mortality but sometimes it’s good to talk. Or at least face up to some of the realities. I don’t find the prospect daunting in the slightest. Some tough-ish things [...]

October 30, 2016 // 0 Comments

And suddenly – we voted Brexit, folks (apparently)!

Overnight I visited the website of The Independent and suddenly felt that I’d fallen into a parallel universe in which Brexit had suddenly become the only topic of the moment. Flicking to the equivalents of the other what-used-to-be-called UK broadsheet ‘serious’ newspapers and normality [...]

October 19, 2016 // 0 Comments

Strange times or perhaps maybe not

It is difficult to avoid the view that we live in interesting times, but then in reality all times are ‘interesting’, irrespective of whether they appear to be hosting a bigger number of earth-shattering or iconic events that one might normally expect. Right now we’re approaching getting the [...]

September 12, 2016 // 0 Comments

Did I just dream that?

The act of dreaming is a fascinating and complicated phenomenon. I believe I rarely dream, but several people I know contend strongly that I’m completely wrong in this view, asserting instead that everyone dreams every time they sleep and that maybe it’s just that I don’t remember my mine. [...]

September 9, 2016 // 0 Comments

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