Quotations

"To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up."
Ogden Nash's words apply not just to marriage but to life in general. Please never say 'I told you so.'

What the British thought about immigrants ten years ago

The British authorities blame the far right for the recent riots, but 67% of British people think immigration policy in recent years has “a great deal” or “fair amount” of responsibility” for the unrest, according to a new YouGov poll. 

The British Future survey, which had a very large sample, was published in December 2014. It showed that 25% of British adults thought that all immigrants, legal or illegal, should be repatriated. 52% disagreed and 23% didn't answer. 

These figures are here at p.17.  

23% of the population back then were very far right indeed and the silence of another quarter is eloquent.

Quotations

"I am never more serious than when I am joking." Robert Frost

"I’m incredibly proud of my brother. Selfishly I will have him back to enjoy whatever time we have left.” Frank Biden talking to the TV channel CBS, making it sound like Joe Biden is very far gone, but we knew that.

Trump is at war with MI6

“Trump buys the Putin view that big countries get to call the shots in their own back yard.” Former MI6 Chief Sir Alex Younger talking to Robert Peston on Wednesday March 10. 

I immediately thought of the invasion of Panama.

General Noriega of Panama (known as old pineapple face because of his acne scars, adorned his bedroom with posters of Marylin Monroe and Adolf Hitler. To be fair to the USA Noriega, expecting he would be overthrown by the US, declared war on the USA, the first man to do so since Admiral Horthy of Hungary after American troops 


John Helmer, the veteran left-wing Australian-American Moscow correspondent says:

Trump's suspicion bordering on hatred for MI6 is well known. One driver of the minerals agreement was Trump's suspicion that the British had already signed up mineral concession rights in Starmer's "100-year pact" signed on January 16. 

Revolt

“A riot is the language of the unheard.” Martin Luther King

'If there is hope it lies in the proles.' (George Orwell, 1984)

'These riots are a great opportunity for the Government in future to label any person who questions mass immigration (or progressive values in general) as supporters of violence.' Peter Totman

End times

You are dying. I see in you all the characteristic stigma of decay. I can prove to you that your great wealth and your great poverty, your capitalism and your socialism, your wars and your revolutions, your atheism and your ­pessimism and your cynicism, your immorality, your broken-down marriages, your birth-control, that is bleeding you from the bottom and killing you off at the top in your brains—I can prove to you that those were characteristic marks of the dying ages of ancient States—Alexandria and Greece and neurotic Rome.
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West

Understanding

John Simpson
@JohnSimpsonNews
These mindless riots are doing untold damage to the UK’s reputation right across the world. And yet the secret sympathisers still say ‘Of course I disapprove of what’s happening, but…’ And then they make the racists’ case for them.

 

John Simpson says in BBC World Service TV ads that the BBC presents the news with absolutely no spin, but makes no secret of his dislike of Brexit and Trump. Today he completely fails to understand what is happening in the riots. I understood why September 11th happened without thinking the killings justified. I understand now - though I didn't straight away - why Putin invaded Ukraine and see stupid US diplomacy provoked him. I say this without justifying the invasion. I completely understand why the Taliban defeated the  corrupt American collaborationist government.

Tyrannies prefer foreigners to citizens

"It is also a habit of tyrants to prefer the company of aliens to that of citizens at table and in society; citizens, they feel, are enemies, but aliens will offer no opposition.” Aristotle on Tyranny. I am ashamed that I have not read it and will quickly. Clearly it is highly topical.

Today is the late Queen Mother's birthday

Today is the birthday of the late Queen Mother, who was born in 1900 and died in 2002. Here is a painting of her by Laszlo from 1925 when she was Duchess of York. 

She was a close friend of my beloved Mgr Alfred Gilbey who was born in the same year, 1900, and each year they competed in a race down the stairs of the Travellers' Club which by convention always resulted in a tie. 

The Duke of Windsor, Edward VIII, who by his abdication made her queen, referred to her as Cooky. 

The Queen was a good Queen to the King and his subjects. She was heartily loved, especially for her liking for alcohol and racing. 

She was very slightly a royal edition of Giles' Grandma.

She had very old fashioned views about race and inaugurated the statue to Bomber Harris erected with money raised by the public.

At a country house Friday to Monday, discussing P.G. Wodehouse, she said 'People say he's not true to life, but look around you.'

She said the BBC radio soap opera 'The Archers' was the only way she had to know how the middle classes lived.

The Duchess of Windsor never loved the man who gave up the throne for her and deceived him with the former champagne salesman Ribbentrop, whose views on Jews she largely shared. He remains the only member of the Travellers' Club to have been hanged.

A droll headline in the Wall Street Journal