Arts
The Great Escape, Part One
Facts: Have been not reading the comments on here for some time; ignored the MSM (for facts) for longer. Have a house in England and, thanks to a modest inheritance from my wife’s uncle, we [more…]
France
20th Century
A Massacre of the Innocents
Introduction On Saturday 10 June, 1944, while heading north towards Normandy to help counter the Allied D-Day invasion, German troops of the Der Führer Regiment of the SS Panzer Division Das Reich, committed an unthinkable [more…]
Authoritarianism
The Great Confinement
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. C.S. Lewis Greetings [more…]
19th Century
A Labour of Love
Introduction Hidden away in the heart of France’s Drôme region about 50km south of Lyon is a little known yet magnificently eccentric example of naïve architecture that is well worth a detour or, in my [more…]
Conservatives
Globalism v. Nationalism Part 6
Hello again, friends. Last time out we looked at the state of the parties and the Tory leadership race. Since then Boris Johnson, as was widely expected, has become Prime Minister. Trump has gone into [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 16
I’m thoroughly enjoying life in Davao City on one of the Southernmost islands of the Philippine archipelago, Mindanao. It is election time and our candidates are (General) Fidel Ramos for president and Rodrigo Duterte for [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 15
As with America, I went back and forward, back and forward to the Philippine Islands for about five years, but will tell the tale as one continuous story, in situ over there, perhaps including an [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 13
Over chai in the subcontinent, balut in the tropics or roast swan in an Oxbridge refectory the topic of conversation might turn to ‘given the chance, would you kill baby Hitler?’ In Latin this would [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 12
I had an uncle who was an excellent chap from a very proud, hardworking but rather modest background. He’s the one who was on the railway (a reserved profession) during the war but managed to [more…]