Most recent activity
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I'm just finishing off Jude the Obscure.
It was quite bleak but also fascinating, but it's just taken an even darker turn which I should have seen coming given how miserable Hardy is.
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I would recommend The Lion and the Unicorn for some more bizarre political theorising from Orwell.
Again it combines a lovely turn of phrase with a weird kind of elitist egalitarianism. I'm pretty sure that at some point he talks about "conservative socialism" as being the kind that could win over the British public (idea: have a socialist revolution but keep the monarchy).
It's written during WW2 and based around how it coule potentially be a catalyst for real social change (which in a way, it was). Even though it's mainly interesting as a historical document it's quite perceptive about the English character at times:
"In all countries the poor are more national than the rich, but the English working class are outstanding in their abhorrence of foreign habits. Even when they are obliged to live abroad for years they refuse either to accustom themselves to foreign food or to learn foreign languages. Nearly every Englishman of working-class origin considers it effeminate to pronounce a foreign word correctly."
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I'll also never understand that '20 points ahead' slogan. Saying 'any other leader would be 20 points ahead of Theresa May's mess of a Tory party in 2017' is one thing - not helpful, possibly, but legitimate.
Really?
What position would you have advised Labour to take that would have balanced urban remainers and small-town leavers just a year and a half after Brexit?
Corbyn was a poor leader who should have been clearer about Brexit - but I think Labour were stuck between a rock and a hard place then, and I don't think there was any way they could have been 20 points ahead then just because it would have been impossible to triangulate between those positions.
I think there's more mileage in a "fine, we voted for Brexit, but we don't have to do it this badly" position now, but I also don't think there's 20-point lead potential now. I think Starmer is actually being quite sensible in not making more of Brexit given that there's any easy riposte of "you didn't want it anyway, so you would say that, you don't understand your old core voters."
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Not just an MP, an Education Secretary - Nadhim Zahawi set it up.
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Imagine being (momentarily, hopefully) disappointed with second place in your first ever P-R in your first pro season.
Really great ride.
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We Have Always Lived in the Castle is very good too. Even the title is creepy.
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Great advert for what P-R takes out of you.
"I'm so pleased for Sonny, I'll have a beer and then we'll go for it and celebrate, but right at the moment... I'm just so broken that I can't really be that happy. I mean, my eyes, I can't even really see."
If I was him, shower then bath then bed.
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I've got a lot of time for Colbrelli and I'm glad he won. Marred it a bit by saying this is his #2 dream race after Flanders.
One of the highlights for me was his reaction to the gel he had with 6.5km to go. It might have been that that got him over the line, but he did not enjoy it one bit.
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Probably a TV or race director telling them to get going again. Or maybe the sponsor who paid for the bikes.
fka tommmmmmm