Bergamot soda - “green gold of Calabria”
2023
Over the decades I’ve been taking the train south from Napoli Centrale, the station has got busier and busier. And like other European cities, the growth in the number of homeless people living around the station is shocking.
Naples Central Station
Starhotel Terminus, Naples, Italy ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I accidentally one-click bought some climate denialist garbage on Amazon by swiping too hard. I hesitated for a second before returning. Perhaps I should consider alternative viewpoints. I didn’t want to give the crank any money, though. Have I just cancelled?
I’ve got superstitious over the years over the order I put the vegetables into a ciambotta.
Mitigating the risk of extinction from an out of touch and amoral billionaire class should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.
Your occasional guide to understanding the right:
- Classical Liberal = over-credentialed incel reactionary.
- Free Speech Absolutist = loves sound of own voice. In a sexual way.
- Contrarian = broken down boomer journalist desperate for clicks.
A coot among the pigeons
The bourgeois populist press coverage of inflation and interest rates is as howlingly vacuous as the national populist press coverage of immigration and “small boats”.
The already awful Horizon scandal that saw innocent sub-postmasters gaoled because of computer system errors gets worse and worse. Shocking, depressing, it lays bare Britain’s dark side.
Post Office Horizon inquiry used racist term for Black people, documents show
I’ve noticed that elites tend to use “intelligent” as a shorthand for “narcissistic, Machiavellian, self-serving” rather than, say, “insightful, inventive, clear-thinking”. This informs elite views of “artificial intelligence” - both what it is, and how it will be used.
The staff canteen has been replaced by a staff food-bank. You know when you’ve been Toried.
Still wrestling with a working (and workable) definition of political centrism. My latest is “bourgeois populism”. I know it’s an oversimplification - centrism applies to the credentialed elite more so than the wider bourgeoisie - but an ever-increasing share of the bourgeoisie is credentialed.
From the media round today, it seems Keir Starmer has decloacked. Disappointingly but unsurprisingly he’s a “centrist dad” neoliberal.
Citadel. OMFG. I don’t think it’s ironically bad, just absolutely, utterly terrible. Still, attractive leads - though Richard Madden’s brain-wiped character is rather grating. I’m sure if I get the lobotomy and watch the season the sexism will be re-upped with racism, homophobia and transphobia.
I can recommend Belvoir - pronounced Beaver - Farm Ginger Cordial. I make it at double strength with sparkling water. It’s lovely.
I don’t get the mint business. Does it really make sense to airlift bagged sprigs of mint from Ethiopia to Blighty?
When I see people with their Instagrammable dogs, I think of chickens - 3600 years from prestige pet to discarded bones in a polystyrene box with chip-bits picked over by pigeons.
Schrödinger’s civil service is both woke, lazy and incompetent, and orchestrating a devastatingly effective deep-state conspiracy to frustrate Brexit and derail the Tory government.
Fox News has collapsed beyond degenerate matter and, spinning wildly, has become a griftar.
The 0816 Overground from Stratford always leaves late. Except when the next three trains are cancelled. Then it leaves 2 minutes early.
If government has to give incentives to business to invest, doesn’t that imply poorly-regulated and uncompetitive markets?
Coots are one of nature’s great bricoleurs. This coot is one of a pair who’ve built their nest entirely from rubbish thrown into the Royal Docks from visitors to the IFSCloud cable car.
A young female pigeon (I think - not 100% expert at pigeon sexing) is roosting on the patio door handle. I know they can be messy birds, but she seem so precarious - landing there can’t be easy - I don’t want to disturb her. She can rest for the night as the police helicopters clatter overhead.
Hello journalists! Voter in a democracy here. Sunak’s government is not the one that made the manifesto commitments in 2019. So, what key pieces of legislation do the Tories intend to get through before the next general election? And why?
🐦⬛A blackbird is singing over the hiss of the traffic. In the dark. In the rain.
Poverty and the political right
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
If the right wanted a low-tax small state through democratic means, it would tackle poverty. The poor derive more direct benefit from public services than the rich. This is why the right, who want a low-tax, small-government state, deny structural poverty and claim the poor are lazy, feckless spendthrifts - basically that they choose to be poor. Public services are, then, the problem: a reason the poor stay poor. A more rational, less dishonest approach from the right might be to tackle poverty by understanding that poverty isn’t a personality defect but a shortage of money.It’s kind of pathetic watching successive senior Tories do their “Chemical Ali” turn over Brexit border chaos.
Suella Braverman denies Brexit to blame for Dover queues of 14 hours
Struggling to get my palm rest out of the packaging because my wrists are so bad.