“The history of repression is filled with dissidents fleeing, hiding, disappearing, dying. Only usually, we don’t get to see the haunted look in their eyes.” Diana West I was hugely relieved when Karen Kingston turned up alive and safe. And the hat looked great, by the way. But those who admire and appreciate Kingston were […]
This is still my main site, where I publish new work, but I’m archiving selected pieces on Substack (including that memory-holed piece). Seems sensible to diversify a little, and try to expose my rather diverse lockdown writings. In the winter of 2019 I was melting my boots in brushfires in Isan, and writing about climate. […]
“The most striking difference between ancient and modern sophists is that the ancients were satisfied with a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth, whereas the moderns want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality.” Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) (p9) Our lives have been hijacked by insane […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 16 https://nerdist.com/article/leather-alien-facehugger-mask/ I’ll never forget the first time I saw Riddley Scott’s Alien. In 1979 I was in London, studying for a PGCE at a college in Richmond, and having a free afternoon I took a train into the centre to watch a movie. I’d been attracted by those posters featuring that weird […]
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the […]
OR, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love CO2 James Ephraim Lovelock was the much honoured British scientist famous for a beautiful and irresistible idea known as the Gaia hypothesis. Dr Lovelock was a self-made man in the best tradition of scientists of a previous age. His parents were poor, and he financed his […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 15 It’s not surprising, I suppose. To look squarely at what is happening in the world at this time is extremely disturbing, and people have quickly evolved reasons for not doing so — even in my unvaccinated circles. At least a couple of people — one vaccinated, one not — have asked me, […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 14 And let us not speak falsely now, for the hour is getting late. –Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower In the garden at Bohemia there’s a brick circle laid into the gravel, and some months ago a young man called Theo fashioned a perfect yinyang inside it, using pale brown pebbles and […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 10 Chiney has friends, if you know what I mean, and he can get away with some things, to a degree. He would never boast about it, and knows the wisdom of making yourself seem smaller than you are. He had to close during the draconian lockdowns of 2020, and was forced to […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 8 My life is a dream. That’s what it feels like, more and more. Has done for a while; the last few years, at least. Paradoxically, I think that’s how life should feel; how reality feels if you are actually in it. It’s a measure: the more you live in reality, the more […]