Occasionally you have to take yourself aside for a good talking to, I find.
Page 2 of 10
The New Age of Empire, Kehinde Andrews (2021), Allen Lane.
‘Capitalism is racism.’ That’s what it says on the inside of the dust cover.
The Band had the Big Pink, Eric played dominoes at 461 Ocean Boulevard and Mr Stills had a whole railway station, whilst The Bad Dads (well two thirds of them) had Dock Cottage. It was all the rage in the 70s, bands would go all residential in big rambling houses in remote or exotic places in order to craft their next album, largely un-interrupted by the outside world. These sojourns would typically last for months with music being made at any time day or night – as the inspiration took them (or as Calvin Samuels, bass player in Manassas, put it ‘whenever the boss said so, as he was paying’).
You know how it is. You’ve let things slide a bit, taken your eye off the round bouncy thing, failed to keep across it all etc etc and now there was going to be a reckoning …… and consequences.
This Land, The story of a movement
Owen Jones (2020) Allen Lane
It is a year since Boris Johnson’s Tory Party won the 2019 general election with an 80 seat majority – a ‘landslide’ for the Right and a ‘disaster’ for the Left. In our current covid crisis this all feels a long time ago and rather difficult to think about – but the consequences of the defeat will be with us for a long time and so this seems like an appropriate time to review a book that covers the Left’s leadership of the Labour Party in the five years preceding this.
Episode 18 (of 18)
Geoffrey was waiting for me, sitting in his car in the yard. I checked myself on the path, just inside the foliage that surrounded the clearing and stared apprehensively at the back of his head. What did he want now?
Episode 16 (of 18)
Yuri leaped from the cab of what looked like a small coach and ramming his fedora on to his head walked briskly towards my open door and a half dressed me.
‘Quick Boryslav, we must move quickly.’
‘Oh yes … please come …’
Yuri swept passed me and straight into the ‘office’.
Episode 15 (of 18)
Then I got really, really, lucky, although at the time it seemed like a rather mixed blessing.
