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World Affairs

Seven days from now, seventy two years ago

Yesterday I went for a pub lunch with my ancient father and George, a pal he’d known since prep school – I’m justified in using the adjective ‘ancient’ because both are nonagenarians. George, who is a D-Day veteran and had a ‘good’ WW2, told a fuller version of his hilarious tale of [...]

June 8, 2016 // 0 Comments

Power and democracy

Observing developments in the forthcoming US Presidential Election on top of those in Britain since 2015 (the Coalition Government, the 2015 General Election and now the EU Referendum) there certainly seems to be something in the theory that there is a growing ‘disconnect’ between ordinary [...]

June 7, 2016 // 0 Comments

WORLD AT WAR ( IN COLOUR)

On Saturday I had a sudden craving to watch The World At War as produced by Jeremy Isaacs and narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier. My efforts to download were frustrated and frustrating but I was directed to another version narrated by Robert Powell which I had never seen. It differed as there were no [...]

June 6, 2016 // 0 Comments

On the downward slope to the finishing line

So with less than three weeks to go to the big vote on 23rd June I settled down yesterday to watch Sir John Major’s extraordinary appearance on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show. Lest we forget, Sir John was the British Tory prime minister from 1990 to 1997, now probably most well-known (or at least [...]

June 6, 2016 // 0 Comments

The Greatest

It had been a long time coming but the news of Muhammad Ali’s passing will rock the world for a while. Like millions of others I shall spend this weekend listening to, reading and watching the tributes to his life and career in a state of numbed fascination and wonder. I shall feel entitled to do [...]

June 4, 2016 // 0 Comments

Counting down …

Now with just 19 days to go to the EU Referendum, it seems that both the Remainers and Leavers campaign have finally settled into their respective comfort zones – the economy versus the ‘leap into the dark’ for the former, ‘Let’s get our country back from the twin evils of an unelected [...]

June 4, 2016 // 0 Comments

Picked up over the long weekend

Two items from me today:   TRANSATLANTIC TRADE AND INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP Here’s a follow-up to my spot of a report in The Independent yesterday about the leak of pages from the highly-secretive and positively disturbing EU/US trade agreement entitled ‘TTIP’ currently being negotiated. [...]

May 3, 2016 // 0 Comments

Done up like a kipper!

If the recent revelation by The Independent of the leak of hundreds of documents related to the highly-secret and controversial Transatlantic Trade an Investment Partnership (‘TTIP’) being negotiated between the EU and the United States of America is not a potentially decisive game-changer for [...]

May 2, 2016 // 0 Comments

Recalling memories from the past

Down at the coast, spending some time with my father, yesterday I came across an example of a common experience with elderly people, i.e. that their memory of recent events can be sketchy but their recall of events long ago pretty pin-sharp. My mother, who spent the last years of her life in a [...]

April 19, 2016 // 0 Comments

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