Some time ago I visited the Tate Britain gallery in London with my family. Finding the lift out of order, a gallery assistant kindly offered the use of the staff lift which is not usually available to the public. She led us through the areas that were setting up for the Turner Prize. Variously described as “a barometer for the…
Category: Politics
Kicking the ring
When I was at Sandhurst, the British Army’s officer training establishment, Wednesday afternoons were given over to ‘Academy Sport’. This was an opportunity for us bright, young hopefuls to pursue whichever physical activity was our personal favourite. Almost every sport imaginable was on offer, providing myriad opportunities to get sweaty. Also available was golf. Not being…
Words as weapons
Actress Shirley MacLaine has caused outrage with comments in her memoir suggesting holocaust victims were “balancing their karma from ages before” (see here). The book includes in the sub-title ‘A lifetime of questions, speculations…’ and so on, leaving a lot of caveated wriggle-room. So this might be nothing more than a ham-fisted example of the old…
Goodbye to all that
The British government recently announced that a national service of commemoration will take place on March 13th to mark the end of combat operations in Afghanistan (link here). Bookended by the campaigns in Iraq (the latest of which continued to be busy last weekend, see here) the last decade or so of fighting has seen the purpose and…
Back to the future
Update in light of the House of Commons Report This post first went up on January 22nd. I update it now as Britain’s House of Commons Defence Select Committee has released a report today criticising Britain’s limited military involvement in the fight against Da’ish (also known as Islamic State). Reinforcing the concerns I raised in the…
Not in front of the children
The public inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko starts tomorrow in the Royal Courts of Justice in London (details here). Litvinenko was a former KGB officer, openly critical of Vladimir Putin and reportedly in the pay of MI6. He was allegedly murdered by two Russian nationals, Andrei Lugovoy and Dimitri Kovtun, both of whom…
addingtonWord 