A Political Refugee From The Global Village

An Englishman in love with Bucharest's blowsy charms

Saturday, 21 May 2022

Bucharest morning

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  The new cathedral, next to the biggest building in Europe. Antim monastery. Cismigiu Park and the city hall, seen obliquely.

The Colțea church, 1695-8, a good example of Brâncovenesc architecture, a style unique to Wallachia.

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Things I read

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Scott Ritter, the American weapons inspector who told the world, before the US invasion, that there were no WMD in Iraq, has stopped thinkin...
Thursday, 19 May 2022

The Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul

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The church is not far from the bottom of Calea Victoriei, south of the river. I took the picture around 7 tonight in the lovely evening ligh...

Quotations

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Lee Marvin - One of the good things about getting older is that you find you're more interesting than most of the people you meet. Seen ...

Erratum

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George W. Bush, speaking in Dallas yesterday, described the invasion of Iraq as "brutal" and "unjustified" before correc...

What a void she will leave when we lose her

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Queen Elizabeth II opened the Elizabeth underground line at Paddington Station in London, the day before yesterday. How lucky England is not...

Taxi driver

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I asked the taxi driver who drove me home last night what he thought about Ukraine.  He said it was half the fault of Russia and half the fa...
3 comments:
Wednesday, 18 May 2022

More joy in heaven

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During an interview to plug a book two weeks ago, Bill Gates, who has been a noisy Covid alarmist, said this of Covid.  “We didn’t understan...
5 comments:
Tuesday, 17 May 2022

Putin is micromanaging his war

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" We think Putin and Gerasimov are involved in tactical decision making at a level we would normally expect to be taken by a colonel or...

Quotations

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"For my part, I've always considered feminists to be amiable dimwits, harmless in principle, but unfortunately made dangerous by th...
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Early morning thoughts about the Ukraine

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I couldn't see the date of the Sky News Australia interview with Colonel Richard Kemp to which I linked, a couple of days ago, but in ye...
3 comments:
Monday, 16 May 2022

Sunday morning

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Divine liturgy at the tiny Greek Catholic cathedral of St Basil the Great in Str. Polona. Women don't cover their heads any more, despit...

Vaccines don't stop spread of Covid

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Almost everyone in Portugal has been vaccinated and the country has one of the highest rates of Covid cases in the world.  The jab doesn'...

Patrick Cockburn

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Patrick Cockburn is the son of Claud Cockburn, the British Communist journalist, whose saying "believe nothing until it has been offici...

I largely agree with him

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"I just want to see the universities closed down, except for Oxford and Cambridge. I think they have all been a terrible mistake."...
Sunday, 15 May 2022

Col Richard Kemp: Russia will capture eastern Ukraine and the whole of the Ukrainian coast

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Colonel Kemp thinks the British media mostly simply repeats Ukrainian propaganda and the Russians will probably take eastern Ukraine and th...
6 comments:

The Church of the Saints, (Biserica cu Sfinți), Calea Moșilor, 1728

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Madness reigns

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In individuals, insanity is relatively rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Nietzsche
Saturday, 14 May 2022

Professor Robert Tombs yesterday

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"Britain’s newly active role is confirming the view of the Cambridge international relations specialist Professor Brendan Simms that Br...
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Wisdom

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Lichtenberg said: "A book is like a mirror: if a monkey looks at it, he sees himself reflected, not an apostle. We have no words to spe...
Friday, 13 May 2022

Russia only understands force

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That cartoon is from today's Times. Nobody over dinner on Wednesday thought Biden was to blame for diplomatic ineptitude that led Russia...
4 comments:
Thursday, 12 May 2022

Sweet, very warm evening, Calea Șerban Vodă.

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May evening, Calea Șerban Vodă, walking home from Dr Andy Taylor's book launch, where I tossed and gored two professors who pontificated...
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Illegal immigrants

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Illegal immigrants are the only invasion threat. The Russian soldiery are illegal immigrants in the Ukraine.
1 comment:

This beautiful May morning, Strada Schitu Magureanu

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Quotations

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TWO VERSIONS OF SELF-LOATHING 1. The kind Douglas Murray rightly rails against - hating your own culture and history 2. The conservative’s l...
1 comment:
Tuesday, 10 May 2022

Little Havana in the Little Paris. My favourite part of Bucharest, beside Piața Sfântul Gheorghe.

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Old St George's

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I lived 200 yards from the well known St George's New Church since the turn of the century but only recently discovered the nearby and w...

'Colourised' picture of British soldiers long ago, in a more innocent and less innocent age

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The Răzvan Church. Originally built around 1597 of wood, rebuilt in stone in the 17th century.

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Dusk Friday

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Henry Kissinger at the weekend

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  Quotations from Henry Kissinger in an interview  in yesterday's FT. In principle, the [Sino-Russian] alliance is against vested inter...

Quotations

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' Failure is not the only penalty for sloth. There is also the success of one's friends.'

Ruskin said he was a Tory of the old school, the school of Homer and Sir Walter Scott, but I think Scott overrated

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Facebook tells me that I posted this 10 May 2016. I'm not a conservative in the Thatcher Reagan sense, though I have come to see their g...

Europeans are like elephants

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'To me women are like elephants. I love elephants very much, but I don't want to have one.'  I am quoting some Frenchman. The ne...
Sunday, 8 May 2022

More thoughts on my last post, on Charles Moore and 3 former ambassadors

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Lord Moore wants regime change in Moscow and so he hints does Sir Andrew Wood. So do I, but we should discard that idea and hope for a negot...
10 comments:
Saturday, 7 May 2022

Three British former ambassadors take very different views of the war in Ukraine.

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Here  Sir Andrew Wood former ambassador to Moscow, two days ago, Peter Ford formerly our man in Damascus  here  on 26 February, when he and ...
1 comment:

Waiter, waiter, perculator!

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  Coffee in the morning is the best part of life, to people like me who prefer the potential to the actual and the Platonic essence to the e...

Saturday morning strolling in the sweet May sunshine

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This is the part of Bucharest that narrowly escaped destruction in the redevelopment inspired by Pyongyang. Don't forget that Ceaușescu&...
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Quotations

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"Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't s...

'Whitehall was horrified by Brexit’: an interview with Australia’s departing high commissioner

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Australia's departing High Commissioner [ambassador] in London says,  in an interview , that the British civil service detests Brexit an...
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