Early tweets seen
I have never been to the south of Cyprus. I have been, though long ago now, to Northern Cyprus, at that time (the winter of 1999-2000) not as popular with visitors as it now is. I was able to hire a car and drive all over on empty roads, once right along the Karpat Peninsula, the eastern end of which is only 60 miles from Latakia in Syria.
I went to the Castle of St. Hilarion (a Crusader fortress) and to the ruined castle of Buffavento (a 2+ hour trek up a mountain path); that one, on the very summit of a tree-clad mountain, really deserved its name (“buffeted by the winds”).
I also visited most of the small towns: Kyrenia, Famagusta, Guzelyurt, as well as the capital, Nicosia, then split in two, completely demarcated and guarded, like Berlin before the fall of socialism. I remember going to the “Museum of Barbarism”, a memorial to the young daughters (and Greek Cypriot wife) of a Turkish Cypriot officer of the (British) militia force. They were murdered right there by a sectarian gang led or directed by (I think) Nikos Sampson [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Sampson]. You can see the holes in the wall left as the submachinegun rounds struck, including holes in the wall of the bathroom, where one of the victims, a girl of 9 (if I recall aright) had been hiding when she was shot dead.
Sobering. If only our Empire and all other European empires had not been given away… The result of that withdrawal from Empire, even before it fully happened, was chaos across much of the world. In Cyprus, displacement of populations, and division of the island after the invasion by Turkish forces in 1974, which division continues today, though I believe that tourists can now go from one side to the other easily enough.
A land, as I remember, of warm winter sun, just about warm enough for a quick swim in a not very warm Mediterranean, at a completely deserted beach somewhere west of Kyrenia. Not bad for January. A land of both olives and oranges, the latter colourful but unripe on the trees (my then girlfriend picked one to taste it). A land of (also deserted) ancient Greek amphitheatre ruins. I rather liked it. Warm during the day (despite a cool breeze at times), though rather cold at night.
“Boris Johnson is a blatant liar...”. Meanwhile, in other news, a wolf was seen in a forest…
So far, no indication as to whether such manifestations will develop into a real political movement. Similar ones in the past, mostly not. The Hard Hats [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Hat_Riot] of 1970 faded away immediately, and the same has happened elsewhere: the Gilets Jaunes of the very recent French past [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement], and (on the pathetic level) the English Defence League [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Defence_League].
Yes. Well worth reading, though the content is not news to me; nor, I apprehend, to many many others:
“Our Politicians Must have Passed an Examination in Stupidity to obtain their Positions.“
“In 30 years, it will be much easier to say this, but this must be the stupidest era there has ever been in British politics. Oh, yes, some modern politicians can make classical allusions or dance nimbly about when interviewed.
But they do not really know anything, or understand anything. They live entirely in the present. They know little of other countries and less about the past. They idolise Winston Churchill but are in fact ignorant about him or his era, and the huge price in power and wealth which he rightly paid for our survival in 1940. Worse still, they think they are clever.
This has something to do with the way we pick our leaders. I have long suspected that they have to pass an examination in stupidity before being allowed into Westminster. But in fact the selection procedures of the major parties achieve the same thing. They demand servile conformity with the idiotic beliefs which now govern our country. Show the slightest sign of spirit or independent thought, on any topic, and you are out.
So here we are, fresh from six months of determined self-harm and illiterate panic over the virus, on the brink of making it even worse.
Anyone who knew anything about the EU issue said years ago (as I did) that our best way out of Brussels rule was to copy Norway – stay in the Single Market and get rid of all the political and legal baggage.
Zealots, who treasure the delusions that we are still a major power with a thriving economy, derided this. No, they said, we must have a total breach, and then we will soar free, our Victorian greatness restored. Few of them ever grasped what it will mean to leave the Single Market, into which our economy has been totally integrated for decades, and they will shortly have a fascinating lesson in that. The trouble is, the rest of us will have to have that lesson too. And it is hardly surprising that France, which has so long resented our standing in Europe and the World, sees this as an opportunity to take us down a peg or two. But remember, before complaining, that we gave them this chance.” [Peter Hitchens, in the Mail on Sunday].
Some people have asked me whether I “support” Patriotic Alternative. My response: I would not say that I “support” PA directly or wholeheartedly, but they are at least mainly on the right track, in my view. Also, it is good to see young people (including a considerable cadre of intelligent young women) coming to social nationalism, which should not be solely the preserve of middle-aged Kirsch-drinkers like me!
Such closely-representational art is not the only kind of painting which one can esteem, but it is certainly a breath of fresh air after the msm lionization of frauds or scam-artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, whose prominence was bought by Jewish backers such as Saatchi.
So many non-Europeans, in this case half and half, his father having come from Borneo [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wong_(ethnobotanist)] seem to hate us, even if (as in this case) the individual was born in the UK and had every advantage here…
There is a huge hostile bloc of varied type within the UK.
Batten is quite wrong, though, in agreeing to “moderate and appropriate” immigration into the UK. Britain needs no immigration at all. Now, if the British person wants to marry a foreign person, and it is a genuine connection (not a scam), and if that person is not unsuitable for whatever reason, then come here.
Likewise, if Britain needs a particular and truly highly-qualified scientist, then yes, come, even with immediate family, and help us advance to the future.
One person, a few dozen, even a few hundred (especially if of European descent), but not thousands, let alone millions, of non-Europeans.
Batten was briefly leader of UKIP. You can see why UKIP failed. Not because of Batten, as such, but because people like Batten always want to be “moderate”, “respectable”, “lawful” etc. No go. It does not work.
Still, Batten was one of the better UKIP people, albeit no intellectual.
Sounds like the Franco-British dispute could go nuclear; not literally, but with tit-for-tat reprisals, eg on UK citizens living (as I once did) in France. I foresee a collapse in French property prices in Brittany, Normandy, maybe elsewhere, once British purchasers dry up.
Already, since 2016, there has been little interest. In fact, when I was last in Brittany, sometime in 2015 (I think), I was told that British people were finding it hard to sell property, especially inland from the coastal towns such as Roscoff. Example: a house and bar with B&B rooms (maybe half a dozen or so bedrooms in all, including owners’ accommodation), about 15 miles inland, in a quiet hamlet, unsold despite having been on the market for only around £70,000; on the market for 5+ years. I spent a couple of days there myself, the only guest.
The above academic termite, enemy of free speech, enemy of the British people, has obviously never read my blog! I suppose that my voice is not “loud” enough! Hardly surprising when I have been expelled from Twitter and am not able to publish my views on any msm platform…
So take the bitch at her word— fire her.
John le Carre (David Cornwell)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_le_Carr%C3%A9]
The writer John le Carre has died. I regret now that I was not able to hear him speak in the early 1980s at the GB-USSR Association, a now-defunct para-diplomatic body funded by the Foreign Office, and of which I was a member. I was told that it was the best talk anyone could remember having been given there.
Late tweets
I wonder whether, with the likely increase in home working (for adults), and also unemployment (for various reasons), and also now that we have the Internet, many TV channels (some of which could be repurposed) etc, the school, as an institution, needs to survive at all.
In the Soviet Union, most boxes of chocolates contained individual chocolates of several different shapes, but were identical inside; the filling was the same for all. Apply to UK System political parties…
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 