Arts
Four Weeks One Summer, Part One
Our four weeks begin on Thursday the 30th July 2015, the concluding day of Regina versus Fellows at the Old Bailey in London. In a witness statement, Ben Fellows had claimed that Kenneth Clarke MP [more…]
Journalism
Arts
The Disastrous Failure of Post War Media
In a parliamentary democracy offering only two political parties the press have played a significant role in questioning government policy & more importantly holding that policy outcome to account. Not always admittedly for the common [more…]
Authoritarianism
Re-reading 1984
from Imgflip Meme Generator I first read George Orwell’s 1984 sometime around 1990. I recalled it as a bleak science fiction story about one man, Winston Smith, who attempts to rebel against a particularly evil [more…]
Arts
Have I got news for you
My adopted father, now probably long enough in the grave that there are no physical remains bar a simple skeleton, had a down to earth approach towards the idiot lantern. If he didn’t like what [more…]
Democracy
A particularly insidious form of evil
There are moments in life when one remembers exactly where they were when a particular event occurs. The death of JFK, the moon landings, Hillsborough, the death of Diana, 9/11. For all these events I [more…]
20th Century
Hunter S Thompson: Thou shouldst be living at this hour
Before he shot himself in 2005 after decades of cocaine & booze self abuse, HST produced some of the most remarkable commentary on the modern US political process. With insider access to the players involved, [more…]
Arts
In praise of journalists, or perhaps not
I am not a journalist, the closest I have ever been to them is while I was working at News International’s fortress in Wapping during the move from Fleet Street to Docklands in 1985/6. I [more…]
Arts
AWS, News at Ten, in Church
Dong! Puffin reads in church. Dong! Puffin makes a mess of it. Dong! Puffin advised not to look at the comments. As the rules for such things changed yet again, and as such a thing [more…]
America
Some of my best friends are……..
All the media focus on Black militancy and publicity about BAME deaths due to coronavirus is turning my natural liberal, anti-racist core from Zero towards Six towards the Right-Wing/Conservative scale. Given that broadcasters suppress comment [more…]