alunephraim.bsky.social
History PhD student, bookseller, artist and problematic crank.
8,209 posts
1,045 followers
166 following
Getting Started
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He understood that great artists need (usually!) a hinterland, and his was immense. Listen to his Beethoven (no, seriously, listen to his Beethoven), but also read The Lady from Arezzo, his delightful and beautifully written book about Dada and kitsch.
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I would combine this with tighter ballot access restrictions. They're far too lax at the moment.
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I hate* to be that guy, but it's often the way over housing that you have to quietly note that a lot of this crowd have various vested interests in the issue.
*A lie and I was never any good at lying.
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I mean, I'm biased. I have a huge affection for Edgbaston: Tolkien, Joseph Southall, my successful transplant, etc.
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And is easy to get to! The trouble with having anything in Inner West London is that... uh...
(fine with having a tournament there - that's not the issue - but I don't like how it has been done)
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Yeah. The internet is a cesspit, but one can use manure to grow roses, right? That's the only way to look at things.
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(Edgbaston also has better courts...)
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I'm just interested as to how, exactly, this helps the development of the game in this country at a grassroots level, as we are assured it does? I understand why it is preferable for our country's sports journalists and broadcast teams, of course.
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I've tried others over the years. Wordpress was good but then got awful and fiddly, Substack has some positive elements but feels like an MLM scam.
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How is medium to use, in practical terms?
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The DE Greens (who have a very specific history in any case, quite unusual) are basically a left liberal party. Given the present absolute state of whatever is left of the FDP, you could argue that they are the liberal party of record full stop.
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does Wagner count
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I have come to the view (which I did not used to hold) that we are, as a People, probably petty enough to make proper STV work.
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bsky.app/profile/did:...
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He was a notoriously cruel martinet on his estate, harsher than usual. Any points he gains for not being a Fire Eater, he loses for that.
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Are we quite sure that Mel Stride is not actually a semi-disgraced National Party MP for somewhere in rural Victoria?
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He wasn't an active local MP by current standards, but e.g. Dick Crossman lived near his Coventry constituency, visited pretty often and kept in close touch with CLP figures. This grounded him somewhat, and he was a man who always needed that.
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I support PR, but am adamant for this reason that it needs to be a version that maintains some form of that, as it leads to better policy.
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Peter Bowles was a wonderful actor. Especially recommend his turn as a prosecuting barrister in Pennies From Heaven if you ever get a chance to see it. Really, really, outstandingly hilarious performance.
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We all know how this film ends* the question is the runtime and what happens in between.
*Well, all right, actuarial stats mean it's more a case of 'we all know of a range of possible endings'.
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(Plus o/c really good things that have been on there for a while, inc. The Singing Detective, Citizen Kane and so on).
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In another life I was a regular bus commuter, and I'd have happily paid quite a bit more for nicer and more reliable journeys.
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*Metropolitan Boroughs. But they had the same powers as Municipal Boroughs elsewhere (i.e. very few).
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And the boroughs had more clout even on other issues than the old Municipal Boroughs, which were basically glorified parish councils. The old system needed updating but it worked. What followed...
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Significantly so.
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Absolutely agree: Le Carre's best work is high end literature, full stop. Forsyth never hit that, but his books are nonetheless better written than quite a few attempts (often highly praised) at high end literary fiction...
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I note that he made an absolute tit of himself over blast furnaces as well today and that while the reporting of that isn't quite where it would be with literally anyone else yet, it's closer in tone than it would have been a month ago. We shall see.
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The former yes, the latter... actually no. Anyone who thinks that way already has a party to vote for and it's a minority view. Finding out ways to get more money of them for localities would be different (and potentially very popular).
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I will quietly note wrt the Senedd elections (still basically a year away journalists, please do note this!) that while the trial of Nathan Gill starts shortly afterwards, it's not going to not be... uh... *there*, so to speak.
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Doing this would actually be very unpopular: open pit developments (which are the only theoretically commercially viable ones outside the small Anthracite region) are widely hated in South Wales.
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Think the problem with the latter is residual (genuinely: everyone has probably forgotten why they think like this, but they do anyway) mistrust of a more powerful form of London Government because of how much of a fiasco the GLC turned out to be.
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Things like this are what convinces me that STV is probably the 'natural' voting system for Great Britain every bit as much as it is for Ireland.
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You know, I have genuinely no idea what the picture refers to in any way whatever and rather like this fact, I think.
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Right. A century ago I'd be dead several times over. And at least once over forty years ago. I'm dubious about the concept of Progress in most fields, but it is absolutely a real thing in medicine.
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As far as actual governing is concerned there have been some recent shifts that are suggestive of coming to terms with that (or starting to etc), but the wider discursive landscape...
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A useful sobering statistic to use if you want to throw it at anyone over this and as I'm always happy to be a rhetorical arms dealer: four years is roughly five per cent of the average British adult's projected lifespan. It really isn't 'practically tomorrow' at all.
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'Pickle mayonnaise?' well why not I thought to myself and have not looked back.
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Useful player, yes.
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The tendency is not to understand the importance of structure. Or to be even aware of it as an issue.
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oh no
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Wonderful premise for a Morse episode, I thought. A delightful read.