Russia might now intervene in Ukraine. Only Putin knows, unless he has not decided.

I said that Russia would not invade Ukraine a few days ago but things have changed. Then she did not have enough troops in place (so people who know say) and had made no attempt to prepare Russian public for an invasion. Now they more troops at the border, despite saying they were reducing the number, and the media in Russia is talking of provocations. Tass thinks there will be a war. One started by Ukraine. I think we can no longer know. Either only Putin knows or even he has not decided.

I can't imagine he would be so stupid as to seize Kiev and most of Ukraine

It would achieve everything he most wants to avoid.

But an intervention in Donbass or Lugansk is possible. 

Or the mercenaries of the Wagner Group could do something deniable.

Or this stand-off could continue for years. 

It serves some purposes for Putin. 

Der Spiegel reported yesterday that US political scientist Joshua Shifrinson found a note in the British archives, revealed under the 30 year rule, supports the Russian claim that the West violated promises made in 1990 to limit NATO's eastward expansion. "We have made it clear that we will not expand NATO beyond the Elbe," wrote German diplomat Jürgen Chrobog of a March 1991 meeting of the United States, Britain, France and Germany. This document confirms Russia's view of eastward enlargement. A promise was made to the Russians which wasn't kept. Another promise not kept is that made by Russia to guarantee Ukraine when she foolishly gave up her thousands of atom bombs in 1992.

Whatever happens the European Union and the Nato alliance have been shown to be very disunited. 

An EU army after this? 

To do what?

Why doesn't the UK get out of a pointless military alliance and concentrate on trade?

The Dâmbovița and Pasajul Englez yesterday

 

The Dâmbovița is an unimpressive river which looks like a canal. Bucuresteni forget it exists but I pass it every morning and esteem it.

Calea Victoriei, which I walk up each day, is becoming shockingly posh, but Pasajul Englez is a hold out from the film noir city I knew in the 1990s.

How dangerously ignorant Westerners are of recent history - Eastern Europeans are more astute

I am depressed at how many people think Germany might have invaded England in 1940. What people understand of world history from 1939 onwards is largely mythology. And before 1939 too when it comes to American history, which is political myths from start to finish.

In 1940 Churchill sometimes thought an invasion possible and sometimes not. But there is no excuse for people nowadays who say that were it not for victory over Hitler we'd all be speaking German. 

The end of British Christianity

I attended a godless state grammar school in Westcliff-on- Sea, Essex, across the road from a Catholic secondary modern school called St Thomas More's. 

I thought  at the time that I would have killed myself had I attended a secondary modern or comprehensive. I wouldn't, but some sensitive children do.

A couple of days ago a Catholic friend of mine, who lives in my home town, sent me this letter produced by the headmaster of St Thomas More.

I reread and commend to you this article by Damian Thompson from 2015 headlined 

2067: the end of British Christianity

I 'went against' Facebook's standards on hate speech and inferiority by mildly teasing an American friend

I think this is my first (and very mild) punishment by Facebook. 

Shortly after that someone posted this.

I was once warned that sharing something about Covid from some epidemiologist would result in fewer people seeing my posts. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and chose to step back in order to spring forward further in the future.

I was also once prevented by Twitter from replying to tweets for 12 hours after I regretted that we did not succeed in hanging George Washington.

These rich, progressive American young people who run these companies are spreading their ideas to the whole world. Even Eastern Europe is affected. 

And not just the social media. This suppression of ideas and of the public is part of one big thing, from Justin Trudeau persecuting lorry drivers to Macron persecuting the yellow jackets and on and on and on. 

It is driven by fear - fear among well educated and often rich people of fascism. 

And yet fascism scarcely exists.

If they carry on like this the authoritarian right will have an almighty resurgence. At the moment it is the poor libertarians who are being clobbered.

From Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy

I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c., daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies and sea-fights; peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms. A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances are daily brought to our ears. New books every day, pamphlets, corantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, &c. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical, then tragical matters. Today we hear of new lords and officers created, tomorrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned; one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, &c. This I daily hear, and such like, both private and public news, amidst the gallantry and misery of the world; jollity, pride, perplexities and cares, simplicity and villainy; subtlety, knavery, candour and integrity, mutually mixed and offering themselves; I rub on privus privatus; as I have still lived, so I now continue, statu quo prius, left to a solitary life, and mine own domestic discontents: saving that sometimes, ne quid mentiar, as Diogenes went into the city, and Democritus to the haven to see fashions, I did for my recreation now and then walk abroad, look into the world, and could not choose but make some little observation, non tam sagax observator ac simplex recitator, not as they did, to scoff or laugh at all, but with a mixed passion.

From Robert Burton's WONDERFUL Anatomy of Melancholy. Acknowledgements, Colin Cavendish-Jones

Did slavery or colonies make Britain rich? No.

An article in the Spectator by Sam Ashworth-Hayes shows that neither slaves nor colonies made England rich, should you have thought they did.

"And for the country as a whole, the Caribbean colonies were not profitable. They functioned because the government levelled tariffs on cheaper sugar produced by competing European powers, and because the costs of naval protection were borne by the taxpayer. British national income would arguably have been considerably higher if the colonies had been given away; this is a story repeated across the old Empire. So why did Britain bear these costs? Put simply because the interests of wealthy plantation owners and traders were well-represented in a Parliament where seats could be bought."

John Mearsheimer is pretty well always right

Professor John Mearsheimer the famous American foreign policy realist, talking to an idealistic left-wing journalist on The New Yorker.  

"The question on the table is: who bears responsibility for this crisis? Is it Russia or, let’s be honest, is it the United States? The Russians made it manifestly clear after the Bucharest declaration in 2008 that they were adamantly opposed to nato expansion into both Ukraine and Georgia, and that it was not going to happen. They made that point manifestly clear after February, 2014. Throughout this crisis, they have emphasized time and time again that it is not going to happen. .... The only way this can be resolved is with the U.S. and nato saying that Ukraine will not become part of nato. The Russians want it in writing. And I think this crisis will go away once this happens.”

'The Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism'

The United States used to be a strong society that the Chinese respected when it was unicultural, defined by the centrality of AngloProtestant culture at the core of American national identity aligned with the political ideology of liberalism, the rule of law, and free market capitalism. The Chinese see multiculturalism as a sickness that has overtaken the United States, and a component of U.S. decline.

From a 2013 Pentagon report, The Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: A Strategic Asymmetry for the United States, recently published following an application court under the Freedom of Information Act 1967.

"Europe doesn't matter any more"

"And Europe doesn't matter any more. Europe is basically a giant museum; that's why you all go to Europe. It's a museum." So said the great Professor John J. Mearsheimer. 

Historian Jeremy Friedman said the same thing about European cities when I shared a sleeping wagon with him going to Belgrade 13 years ago. 

Then I was shocked - now it is obvious. 

He made an exception for London, which he said was as alive as an American or Chinese city.

But then England is not in Europe.

The Englishman's proudest boast is that he never brags

"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first place in the lottery of life."

Cecil Rhodes

"It is, I believe, a very just observation that men's ambition is, generally, proportioned to their capacity. Providence seldom sends any into the world with an inclination to attempt great things, who have not abilities, likewise, to perform them."
Samuel Johnson. Gordon Brown proved Dr Johnson wrong. Some would add Boris Johnson but that's not (quite) fair.

"Jesus Christ said, 'Many are called but few are chosen', but devout Christians think this is the rhetoric of Jesus Christ."
Henri De Montherlant

Interviewer: Could I ask you what failings in individuals, in others, you could most readily excuse?
Evelyn Waugh: Drunkenness.
Interviewer: Any others? Or are you so severe?
EW: (Slight pause) Anger. Lust. Dishonouring their father and mother. Coveting their neighbour's ox, ass, wife. Killing. I think there is almost nothing I can't excuse, except perhaps worshipping graven images. That seems idiotic.

Facebook reminds me of things I posted on this day in other years

2010. In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, 'Let there be Light.' And there was still nothing, but you could see a bit better

2011. Romanians are theologians who understand original sin. They are also metaphysicians who know that time and space do not exist.

2011. "The Irish are a very fair people, sir. They never speak well of one another." (Dr. Johnson.) He might be talking about Romanians.

Seventy years a Queen

Today Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has been on the throne 70 years, more than 6 years longer than Queen Victoria and almost 10 years longer than King George III. Send her victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us, God save the Queen!

I walked past this place for fifteen years - picture Davin Ellicson

 

Nationalism and love of country

Nationalism in the French Revolutionary sense - a derivation of 'fraternité', implies people have the right to rebel against a foreign monarch or ruler. It is something I reject. All Christians should - we are called to be submissive to the lawful authority placed over us (think the Emperor Tiberius). It leads to all sorts of bad things like the American revolution and other insurrections. It leads to people like Gandhi, Nehru, the Stern Gang, etc. People sometimes nowadays seem to confuse nationalism, a revolutionary doctrine, with putting the nation in first place in one's list of political priorities, something all patriots do.

Early morning, Dâmbovița

 

The things that we love tell us what we are

The things that we love tell us what we are.
St Thomas Aquinas

“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.” 

James Joyce, Ulysses

"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways." 

Sigmund Freud

Nicolae Bălcescu: "Freedom can be easily regained, if it is lost, but not ethnic identity.”

Nicolae Bălcescu, the Romanian revolutionary of 1848: 

“For me, the question of ethnic solidarity is more important than the question of freedom. A people can use freedom only when it’s able to survive as a nation. Freedom can be easily regained, if it is lost, but not ethnic identity.”

In South-Eastern Europe the French revolution and Robespierre's revolutionary principle of Liberté was understood as national freedom or at least, for those Greek Phanariots like Alexander Ypsilantis who wanted to revive Byzantium with the Tsar's support, freedom from rule by infidels. 

Ypsilantis's revolt was defeated after failing to win the support that he expected from Romanians, who cared not a fig about Greeks. Thereafter Balkan history was about ethnic solidarity and identity.

Quotations

"What you are is determined not by a cheery self-assessment of the ‘real you’, still less by what you want for yourself, but by what you have done."

Andrew Mckie reviewing a book by William Trevor in the Spectator

"Be content to remember that those who can make omelettes properly can do nothing else." Hilaire Belloc

"Christians have killed each other, quite persuaded/That all the apostles would have done as they did." Byron's Don Juan

Quotations

"As a child, I wanted to be a physicist. I begged my mother to let me go to Tokyo to study physics. I promised I would win the Nobel Prize in Physics. So, 50 years later, I returned to my village and said to my mother, 'See, I have kept my promise. I won the Nobel Prize.' 'No,' said my mother, who has very fine sense of humour, 'You promised it would be in physics!''

Kenzaburo Oe, awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature.

"Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you ...want to do." 

Richard Feynman

“I am afraid that woman appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated.”

Oscar Wilde