The Duke of York will no longer use his title, the Palace has just announced

When I heard he was being stripped of his dukedom I felt this was absolutely wrong. Titles of honour are a form of land. 

Lord Melbourne liked the Garter because there was no damned merit in it.  

The same should go for dukedoms. 

Actually I'm pleased to say, the Duke will not cease to be a duke but will be called simply Prince Andrew. 

He will be stripped of the Garter though. 

I shared a tiny room in the House of Lords, with no natural light, with a very lovely man, John Bartrip, whose job it was to have custody of the Great Seal and place it on the document that created this dukedom. 

He kept the secret from me admirably. 

Forty years later...

To Hades with that harridan Emily Mathis, whom I am very ashamed went to my college. Her interview with the Duke which got him into this mess was sadistic.

Is my old friend Andrew Lownie's new book the proximate cause of this? I expect so.  

Rod Liddle was right when he said Prince Andrew had the IQ of a corgi. That was a propos  an embarrassingly  stupid speech he gave to a British Chamber of Commerce in some remote country in which he said everyone bribes. 

But dukes don't have to be pleasant or intelligent, though some are.  

Our monarchy sadly is democratic. 

England becomes more and more egalitarian. 

American but without America's buzz, though happily without America's huge corruption.

Life and Death

SIBYLS and prophets have already spoken their inexorable decree, as Goethe has said, on the day that first gives the man to the world ; no time and no might can break the stamped mould of his character ; only as life wears on, do all its aforeshapen lines come into light. ... The leaden chains of use bind many an ugly prisoner in the soul; and when the habit of their lives has been sundered, the most immaculate are capable of antics beyond prevision.

John Morley

'SUPPOSE the worst to happen, I said, addressing a portly jeweller from Cheapside; 'suppose even yourself to be the victim ; il n'y a pas d'homme nécessaire. We should miss you for a day or two upon the Woodford branch : but the great mundane movement would still go on, the gravel walks of your villa would still be rolled, dividends would still be paid at the Bank, omnibuses would still run, there would still be the old crush at the corner of Fenchurch Street.' All was of no avail. Nothing could moderate, in the bosom of the great English middle class, their passionate, absorbing, almost bloodthirsty, clinging to life.

Matthew Arnold. [I knew Fenchurch St and it's unfashionable railway terminus very well and this is the second reference to it I have read in literature in the widest meaning of the word, the first being a detective story by Baroness Orczy which I recently reread.]

If the nearness of our last necessity brought a nearer conformity unto it, there were a happiness in Hoary hairs, and no calamity in Half senses. But the long habit of living indisposeth us for dying; when Avarice makes us the sport of Death; when David grew politickly Cruel, and Solomon could hardly be said to be the Wisest of men. But many are too early old, and before the date of age. Adversity stretcheth our days, Misery makes Almena's nights, and Time hath no wings unto it. But the most tedious being is that which can unwish it self, content to be nothing, or never to have been; which was beyond the Male-content of Job, who cursed not the day of his Life, but his Nativity; content to have so far been, as to have a title to future being; although he had lived here but in an hidden state of life, and as it were an Abortion.

What Song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among Women, though puzzling Questions, are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of these Ossuaries entred the a∣mous Nations of the dead, and slept with Princes and Counsellors, might admit a wide Solution. But who were the proprietaries of these Bones, or what Bodies these Ashes made up, were a question above Antiquarism, not to be resolved by man, nor easily perhaps by Spirits, except we con∣sult the Provincial Guardians, or Tutelary Observators. Had they made as good provision for their Names as they have done for their Reliques, they had not so grossly erred in the art of Perpetuation. But to subsist in Bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in Duration. Vain Ashes, which, in the oblivion of Names, Persons, Times and Sexes, have found unto themselves a fruitless Continuation, and onely arise unto late Posterity as Emblems of mortal Vanities, Antidotes against Pride, Vain-glory, and madding Vices! Pagan Vain-glories, which thought the World might last for ever, had encouragement for Ambition, and finding no Atropos unto the immortality of their Names, were never dampt with the necessity of Oblivion. Even old Ambitions had the advantage of ours in the attempts of their Vain-glories, who acting early, and before the pro∣bable Meridian of Time, have by this time found great accomplishment of their Designs, whereby the ancient Heroes have already out-lasted their Monuments and Mechanical Preservations. But in this latter Scene of Time we cannot expect such Mummies unto our Memories, when Am∣bition may fear the Prophecie of Elias and Charles the fifth can never hope to live within two Methuselah's of Hector. 

And therefore restless inquietude for the diuturnity of our Memories.

Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial

These come from a good book with three extracts for every day that I sometimes read, Words and days : a table-book of prose and verse by Bowyer Nichols (1895) which I bought when 19 second hand. 

How much better so very many things were in 1895 than now.

Calea Mosilor, Bucharest in 1935 (photograph Nicolae Ionescu)

 

Quotations

“Education perverts the mind since we are directly opposing the natural development of our mind by obtaining ideas first and observations last. This is why so few men of learning have such sound common sense as is quite common among the illiterate.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

"America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up". Oscar Wilde

"Like the old Austro-Hungarian empire, the EU continues because it cannot be either reformed or replaced." Robert Tombs

"The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age.... And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house." St Augustine

“It’s all been rather lovely.” John Le Mesurier's last words. Two of his wives betrayed him, the first was an alcoholic but so I suspect was he.

"Drugs are instead of people." Eric Berne

Books

“What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.” Thomas Carlyle

“I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find – at the age of fifty, say – that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about… It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.” Dame Agatha Christie, An Autobiography, 1977

“... one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do no have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous achievement of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is - a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed) - a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book.” Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.” Robertson Davies

Joe Biden could have made this Gaza deal 2 years ago but deliberately chose not to, saying to Kamala Harris "I am a Zionist". I remember when I thought that Biden was not quite as bad as Putin.

I recommend this podcast with the very well informed Max Blumenthal. It's full of plums. 

An excerpt: 

<And what [Gershon] Baskin has said, and he wrote
this in the Times of Israel recently, is that in September 2024,
the same deal that was just made, but tens of thousands of lives lost later
was on the table and it was not only on the table. Every side was ready to commit to it except the Biden administration wasn't pushing
Netanyahu or Israel. Why? What else was
happening in September 2024? That's when Israel began its campaign to maul Hezbollah, to begin to assassinate all of its leadership, to assassinate Hassan Nasallah as he was negotiating a ceasefire as he was working on negotiating a cessation of conflict in the south of Lebanon and they killed him. And the Biden administration, the
people around Biden, especially Brett McGurk, who today is working for the Saudis in a series of Saudi arms industry linked tech firms, Brett McGurk became so enthralled with the idea of destroying Hezbollah along with Amos Hochstein, the Israeli born negotiator for Lebanon for Biden, that Biden sat around and did nothing.

"Ukraine hit Russian energy sites with US help"

Russia knows that the Americans are directing the Ukrainian operations against them. It is not so far from a hot war. Trump wants to bring Putin to offer reasonable peace terms and I hope he succeeds, but this is dangerous. Luckily Putin is not a hot tempered man like, say, Saakashvili whom he provoked into attacking Russian forces and starting a hot war.

From the FT:

Ukraine hit Russian energy sites with US help. Trump administration has supported Kyiv’s operations since summer in a co-ordinated push to weaken Moscow.
The US intelligence helps Kyiv shape route planning, altitude, timing and mission decisions, enabling Ukraine’s long-range, one-way attack drones to evade Russian air defences, said the officials familiar with the matter.

The infantilisation of Western Grand Strategy – and the rise of Eurasia

'At its core three things now define Westernism: a rejection of the international laws and norms that the Americans themselves played so vital a role in establishing after WWII, a repudiation of diplomacy in favour of unilateralism and bullying, and a determination to maintain a primacy in world affairs that it has already effectively lost.' I agree with most of this article from New Zealand, except that I am agnostic about whether Russia is going to defeat Ukraine. I hope not.

Pavel Durov

Pavel Durov posted this just now on Telegram, the site he created after his earlier creation VK.com was taken away from him by Russia.

I’m turning 41, but I don’t feel like celebrating.

Our generation is running out of time to save the free Internet built for us by our fathers.

What was once the promise of the free exchange of information is being turned into the ultimate tool of control.

Once-free countries are introducing dystopian measures such as digital IDs (UK), online age checks (Australia), and mass scanning of private messages (EU).

Germany is persecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials on the Internet. The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets. France is criminally investigating tech leaders who defend freedom and privacy.

This sounds like me

"The people on the right make me hate the right, the people on the left make me hate the left. In fact, with a man of the right, I am on the left; with a man of the left, I am on the right."

Emil Cioran

Sic transit Jilly

Dear old Jilly Cooper has died, which saddens me. I was thinking of her the day before she died and almost opened one of her silly, charming novels. She was Rishi Sunak's favourite novelist, but he is now forgotten. Her book on class influenced me and my generation at Cambridge in the 1980s. I read lots of the light soufflés that she wrote,  before she produced paperbacks like bricks for secretaries on trains. 

Her child told her neighbours' child "Mummy says it is better to say f-ck than to say pardon" and this caused grave offence when repeated to said neighbours.

I do not believe in this peace in Gaza

There is actually no agreement. Israel wants Hamas to disarm and destroy the 50 percent of tunnels the IDF have not entered (so much for their destroying Hamas). I can't see that this is going to happen however much pressure the Gulf monarchies put on Hamas. In return has Netanyahu agreed a Palestinian state? I do not believe that. I imagine it's a ploy by him to get release of Hamas's hostages. The bright side is that American opinion is no longer pro Israel and the world sees that Israel came nowhere close to destroying Hamas, which fools thought was the reason for the killing.

Quotations

"But above all, in order to be, never try to seem." Albert Camus

“The perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to launch out into life is readily explained by his desire to stand aside so as not to get involved in the dangerous struggle for existence. But anyone who refuses to experience life must stifle his desire to live—in other words, he must commit partial suicide” Carl Jung

Quotations

"I would suspect that I would describe my approach to this issue [abortion] as pro choice rather than pro live [sic]." 

Sarah Mullaly, about to be Archbishopess of Canterbury 

“We cannot enjoy peace in this world unless we are ready to yield to the will of God in respect of death. Our times are in His hand, at His sovereign disposal. We must accept that as best.”
John Owen, Oliver Cromwell's chaplain

"The Israelis have been debating the plan... moving the bulk of the Palestinians [in Gaza] to the Sinai Peninsula. The problem is that the people of Gaza don't want to go." 
Life Magazine, June 1970.

"Having rid his party of conservatives, that self-described “Heir to Blair”, David Cameron, condemned the Tories to share Labour’s fate: the collapse of the two parties, viewed in narrow partisan terms by the Westminster lobby, is more accurately the collapse of the shared ideology they undertook, between them, to impose on Britain."

Aris Rousinos

"'From the river to the sea' is in the original charter of Israel's Likud Party and is the stated policy of Israel's current government. So how can it be antisemitic?"

Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola

Terrorism and making terms with murder

"Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat. We are very far from having any moral qualms as far as our national war goes. We have before us the command of the Torah, whose morality surpasses that of any other body of laws in the world: ‘Ye shall blot them out to the last man.’

"But first and foremost, terrorism is for us a part of the political battle being conducted under the present circumstances, and it has a great part to play: speaking in a clear voice to the whole world, as well as to our wretched brethren outside this land, it proclaims our war against the occupier."

Future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (Likud) in 1943, when he was one of the leaders of the Stern Gang.

Sigmund Freud

“America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.”

“Smoking is indispensable if one has nothing to kiss.”

Foreign states putting propaganda on Wikipedia

Obviously the CIA and MI6 largely control Wikipedia from behind the scene. 

You knew that. 

M16 took control of the British press in 1939 and has never let go.

The Russian government uses social media extensively for propaganda, as we are constantly told by the people who do so even more extensively. 

Are the IDF in Gaza heroes or cowards?

Mr. Dajani, the manager of the oldest hotel in Jerusalem the New Imperial, told me on my last visit some years ago  that he looks at young Israeli men and sees that they are softer than the ones  he vividly remembers conquering the old city of Jerusalem in 1967. 

I love that man and wish I knew his thoughts about what is happening now but they are not hard to guess. 

I think the tens of thousands or, according to an Israeli investigator working for the UN, hundreds of thousands of killings (mostly of civilians) in Gaza show the weakness not the strength of the IDF. 

The killings are not the actions of heroes.

I understand their reluctance to enter tunnels. 

Killing people on the surface is much safer but those people are not usually Hamas.

Quotations

Caitlin Johnstone@caitoz
If I looked out my window and saw people massacring children, I'd probably think thoughts like "That's horrible!" and "How can I stop this?"
The furthest thing from my mind would be thoughts like "What religion are they?" or "Their religion is very relevant to any discussions we might have about this massacre" or "We should definitely be very careful about discussing this massacre because we don't want to offend people who have the same religion as the people doing the massacre." It would never occur to me to consider such things, much less that such considerations should be central to all discourse about the massacre for years on end.

"I was looking at my dog tonight. She has no idea she's now quite old, surely one of the many advantages of being a dog." Dominic Johnson

The Wailing Wall

 

Marco Rubio this month at the so-called Wailing Wall

'I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives.' Sigmund Freud in a letter dated 26 February 1930 declining a request to sign a petition condemning the Arab riots of 1929, in which more than 133 Jewish settlers were killed by Arabs.

Quotations

"Everything is theatre" 

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

"Injustice never rules forever."

Seneca 

41.2% of pupils in Vienna's primary and secondary schools identify as Muslim

 

April 2025 — 41.2% of pupils in Vienna's primary and secondary schools identify as Muslim. A year ago, this figure stood at 39.4%. Viktor Orban sees Islam as a threat to Hungary.

Anti-Semitism

As a pedant I feel like saying the IDF is very much more anti-Semitic than Hamas measured by the number of Semites it kills.

Israel is the most anti-Semitic country in the world, if words are used accurately.

I dislike false pedantry - for example I try to say England to mean UK - but I think this useful pedantry.

It even hints that all Semites are equally important.

Another talk between Chas Freeman and Pascal Lottaz

Charles W. Freeman Jr. is 2 and was the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia at the time of the Gulf War.

The shock within the EU and NATO and especially in the UK is the result of the fact that we've all been living in the midst of the most intensive information war the world has ever seen.  

You have people who think, who thought that it was a good idea, this is the Biden Administration, not to discuss anything with the adversary on the battlefield. How that was supposed to accomplish anything is unclear but there was no diplomacy at all, there was only fighting.

Quotations

Voltaire:

"Every man is a creature of the age in which lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of time."

I constantly try very hard to do this.



Whitney Webb in 2019:

Claims of Epstein’s links and his involvement in a sophisticated, well-funded sexual blackmail operation have, surprisingly, spurred few media outlets to examine the history of intelligence agencies both in the U.S. and abroad conducting similar sexual blackmail operations, many of which also involved underage prostitutes.

"We have gone down into the mud with Israel and I don't think we're going to get out." Former US Ambassador Chas Freeman talking to Pascal Lottaz

A very interesting talk on Neutrality Studies. All the talks on Neutrality Studies that I have heard are. 

The message: the USA is behaving like a rogue state and the West has lost its moral standing. 

I could not agree more.

Trump on dead babies tonight

Evelyn Waugh said Churchill was “simply a radio personality who outlived his time”. What a great television personality Donald Trump is. 

His inaccuracies are somehow not lies but not accidental. He was just asked this in a press conference in the Oval Office.

REPORTER: Is Israel committing genocide?
TRUMP: Did anyone commit genocide on October 7th? What do you think about THAT? THAT was genocide, at the highest level. Murder, genocide, call it whatever you want. Babies chopped in half, heads cut off, arms cut off.