History
Still in business, after all these years
I don’t know how fast you can cycle from Land’s End to Berwick. I dare say there will be a few people who have done it in two or three days, or even 24 hours. [more…]
Articles by Joe Slater
Christianity
Korea, Suwon, Part 3
Attending a Korean Mega-Service Towards the end of my stay in South Korea in 2017, I attended one of the mega-services Korean churches specialise in. It was a meeting of the Baptist Church, which, the [more…]
Christianity
Korea, Suwon, Part 2
Christianity in Korea—Just Why? The Catholics formed the vanguard of Christianity’s march into East Asia. They first arrived in Korea in the late 1700s, and met with the same hostile reception as they had in [more…]
Hobbies
Korea, Suwon, Part 1
Samsung City Suwon is a city of about a million people, about an hour south of central Seoul by train. I suppose you could call it a scaled-up Korean version of Guildford, on the edge [more…]
Arts
The (Postwar) Fall of France, Part Four
A sure-fire way to spoil the mood at Paris dinner party is to airily remark, when the conversation turns to literature, that you have read and enjoyed Le Grand Remplacement (The Great Replacement), by Renaud [more…]
Arts
The (Postwar) Fall of France, Part Three
Note: This text is not a translation, but is largely based on Le Suicide Français by Éric Zemmour (2014), from which it quotes heavily, both directly and silently. The analysis is Zemmour’s, not mine, and [more…]
Arts
The (Postwar) Fall of France, Part Two
The black and beur (French-Arab) communities have always had complicated ties with France. The early waves of European immigrants — the Italians, the Spanish, the Poles — came from proud, independent peer cultures, and the [more…]
Arts
The (Postwar) Fall of France, Part One
Has there ever been a stranger accession to power in a western democracy recently than that of Emmanuel Macron? In 2014, he rose from nowhere to Minister of the Economy and then in 2017 was [more…]
Arts
A meeting with an illegal migrant
Liège, autumn 2018 It was pouring with rain in Liège, so I decided to store my backpack in a station locker before spending a few hours traipsing in the wet around the place. Unfortunately, the [more…]