Slugs are remarkably resilient creatures. If a snail falls from height onto a hard surface, it might well crack its shell and perish. A slug falling the same distance will absorb the impact in its springy flesh and slither away unharmed, eye-stalks jauntily re-extended. A Fraudster Bounces Back Did Denis “The Slug” MacShane draw inspiration […]
Here’s a quiz about Israeli politics. Are there any strongly identified Muslim or Christian Arabs high in Israel’s ruling conservative party? Do those Arabs write for Arab newspapers setting out the central principle of their lives: “Arabs must come first”? Finally, do those Arabs lavish praise on an opposition leader who opened Israel’s borders to […]
The British Isles have given more than their share to science, literature and philosophy. But in other ways they have done less well, as the great Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) noted in one of his short stories. This is a German woman talking to the English spy Ashenden: “You English, you cannot paint, you cannot model, […]
If you think that the recent attack by a Black terrorist in London says anything about the harm done by mass immigration, then think again. A great liberal intellectual called Matthew D’Ancona has crushed such racist nonsense with these lines in the world’s greatest newspaper: As we now know, the attacker, Khalid Masood, was British, […]
If you’re a stale pale male of a certain age and intellect, John Peel might at times have been the most important person in your life. Indeed, he may still be. He was the BBC disc-jockey who reigned as Britain’s musical arbiter elegantiarum from the late 1960s until his premature death early in the twentieth-first […]
If grovelling ever becomes an Olympic sport, Britain has a potential world-beater ready and waiting. He’s called Stephen Crabb, and he was a minister in David Cameron’s Tory government. Here he is displaying his skills before an appreciative audience at Finchley Synagogue in London: Israeli Independence Day: Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb leads UK […]
Was haben Schach und Pfauenfedern gemeinsam? In der Geschichte der Menschheit gab es auf eine derartige Frage lange Zeit keine vernünftige Antwort. Heute können wir antworten: „Sie können beide mit Hilfe eines Zweigs der Mathematik, nämlich die Spieltheorie, analysiert werden. Bei Spielen wie Schach geht es um Wettbewerb, um Strategien für mehr Erfolg und zur […]
