of arts sponsorship is in focus today as authors request the Edinburgh Festival to refuse to take money from a company investing in the West Bank Settlements. When and if arts organisations decide to do without funds in this way it is incumbent upon them to get all the facts and hear all the sides….
Month: May 2024
Taylor Swift
There is a movement among the pro-Arab groupings to try to force Taylor Swift to condemn the war in Gaza. I realise they are are just want her to speak up but actually they want her to condemn Israel. Her duty as a human being is to condemn all war – in Sudan, in Yemen,…
Let’s Be Honest
All war is vile and barbaric. There should be no wars, no armies no weapons and no arms industry anywhere in the world. Every reason for ever going ton war (not going to defence) have been bad reasons or at best never any good reasons. Yet there is no history without brutal conflict. This is…
Where is Objectivity?
We are told that very often people fall in love with people who broadly ‘look like them’. It is an interesting and rather unsettling fact. The same social strata makes sense as you only ever marry people you have met (even in that bizarre and stupid TV show). It is also said we are tending…
So You Think You Can Dance?
I watched this for several years on youtube, so obviously never saw an entire programme from beginning to end. It was (and is) an enjoyable diversion of movement and music, often to moments of perfection given by young people most of whom are Americans. Humanity has always loved to dance but these movements have changed…
Discipline
Today’s suggestion that the ills of youth will be overcome through national conscription for 18 year olds – or social volunteering – are a nonsense. There are, of course, people of all ages who think what they think and do what they do because of the influence of the local community they never leave. But…
St George
I have just written my piece about St George and the dragon and a few things occurred to me. The first and obvious is that these myths often include the saving of a princess. The woman who would marry the next king and give birth to heirs, so in effect the saving of the princess…
The War of Words
The conservative party calls them migrants, not refugees because refugees have an international legal status. The UK would be bound by treaty to take them in and look after them. The fact is though, those running from war and dictators are not migrants. The UK doesn’t care. The judges call Gaza a genocide because there…
Safeguarding
I thought that this was all to do with the DBS check to make sure you ere not on any registers for criminality or other offences but I was wrong. It is an estimation of who you are based on everything you have done in your life, who you have been answerable to, what responsibilities…
Infected Blood
The HIV infected blood plasma given to haemophiliacs is one of the more perfect examples of why the American capitalist system is not one to be followed without rectification. Here you had a company supplying a medical need and to cut corners or just to increase profit they sourced the blood they needed from prisoners and…