137 days ago
My current reading, the semi autobiographical Battlefields and Playgrounds by Janos Nyiri has the young Hungarian comparing BBC News in 1940 to that of the Hungarian state radio broadcaster. The BBC was always right, it always told the truth. I suspect that, where he still alive, Janos might take a different view these days. I could imagine him shouting “they’re BOTH lying” and throwing the cat at the radio. This brings us to news that abject failure Sharon Lewis is to walk the plank at John Lewis.
137 days ago
I start with a fascinating supper party last night, the phrase “he fought the Russians” and a book I am finally reading “Battlefields and Playgrounds” by Janos Nyiri. Then onto the conflation of a share price being pumped and the idea that creates value – yes ECR Minerals (ECR). Finally Kefi’s (KEFI) biggest critics have clearly ever run a company or even a whelk stall.
457 days ago
Its 2023 so everything has to be a political statement about what is happening now, even when it is remembering events of 78 years ago, the liberation of Auschwitz. And so, on Holocaust Remembrance day we all look back and remember.
519 days ago
In these days when every comment about Ukraine can see one black-listed by someone, I find myself having to preface this article by saying that I am no apologist for either President Putin or for Joe Stalin. However, having tried for the past year to re-write the present with the ghost of Kiev, the Auschwitz style gold teeth and other spoofs, Ukraine is now trying the most monstrous rewrite of history, a claim that the Holodomor was an act of Russian genocide. The clear implication is that Russians like genocide against Ukrainians. The tweet below sets the case.
566 days ago
A kind reader sent Joshua some old fashioned postcards of railway trains. Half of them are now framed and sit at the top of the landing. Beneath them are just some of the books written by family members. One has a very famous pair of pants.
1022 days ago
We can talk of awful fouls and the penalty curse but should not deny that Italy played better football and deserved to win the European Championship. No doubt many of us are still in denial on that matter today but the statistics do not lie. I say this as someone who came into the tournament not supporting England for a range of reasons but who was won over by the charm of the young squad and of the manager and by the way it seemed to unite and give joy to the whole country. All of those involved in England did their country proud. I shall now go back to supporting Northern Ireland, but in this tournament the match against the Hun was the key turning point for me.
1553 days ago
I wonder if, in places like bourgeois East Oxford where at least one house in every street flies a Palestinian flag all year round, how many candles are burning this Holocaust Memorial Day. I suspect rather more will be burning on Friday as the chattering classes mourn our exit from the European Superstate founded a few years after the last failed attempt at European unification.
1917 days ago
As each anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Holocaust Memorial Day, comes about I find it more and more depressing and painful. I think of the relatives of two of the godparents of my daughter Olaf.
2283 days ago
Today is HMD and I reflect on four folks I know or knew who were not killed for various reasons: the author Janos Nyiri - who I remembered here, my daughter's godfather Joe Levy from Corfu (see here), her godmother Iska and also Moya Carter/Waterfield. I look at more recent examples of genocide and also at the inexplicable acceptance of antisemitism as almost acceptable in some circles today.
2365 days ago
BBC4 is one of the least watched of the channels of the State funded fake news broadcaster and its "edgy progressive" content really only appeals to die-hard Guardian reading hardliners. Just occasionally I stop by as I flick the control onto the channel next door, ITV3, home to Midsomer Murders and Lewis re-runs. And thus last night I started to watch a programme about erecting a statue to Friedrich Engels in Manchester. After 15 minutes my will to live was almost exhausted.
