ofthewedge

rooting around for grubs in diverse soils

  • Nothing is too good for asylum seekers

    There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat . But when his disciples saw it , they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to Read more

  • Secrets and Fictions (II)

    Rarely you read something that alters how you look at the world around you. Yuval Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity was one such book for me. It is not a masterpiece. It relies on the familiar large-fonted, sweeping sensationalism which is now the stock in trade of paper publishing, and a lot of his Read more

  • Secrets and fictions (I)

    Exploitation does not pertain to corrupt or imperfect or primitive society: it pertains to the essence of the living thing as a fundamental organic function, it is the consequence of the intrinsic will to power which is precisely the will of life. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil Close readers of this blog may have surmised Read more

  • Falling slowly. Good.

    It takes a peculiar sort of arsehole to want to be a politician Quote from a friend  of mine, circa 2000. I am one of those landlubbing devotees of the Shipping Forecast. Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight. It’s a litany of just-fathomable poetic code, a ritual Stations of the Coast, the ticking Read more

  • On television

    On the eve of the time of penance, take a moment to genuflect before the BBC. I watched a repeat of The Story of the Twos, broadcast on BBC2 last year to mark its own fiftieth birthday. Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse scorch the very earth that fed them, laying waste to the pipe-puffing patricians Read more

  • Greek stuff, or, Hélas Hellas

    Once I went to a post office on a Greek island. I asked the man at the counter whether he spoke English. Looking at me blankly with bored, heavy eyes, he lifted his chin with a slow jerk: όχι. No. A younger me would greet the triumph of Syriza with unalloyed glee. With my more Read more

  • The ineluctable modality of the Arsenal

    Never mind a DVD of goals of the season, the corporate merchandise I most want to see right now is a compendium of self-induced footballing implosions, what future generations might refer to as ‘arsenalisations’. It would review the variable confection of sendings-off, long term injuries, defensive panic, own goals which characterise the era of late Read more

  • My high charms work And these mine enemies are all knit up In their distractions

    This is not supposed to be a blog about the EU, and I’m not one to say told you so but…. During the week that was the Brussels commentariat is coming alive to the self-aggrandising chicanery which these pages foresaw a couple of months back. First, there was the leaked memo spelling out in Teutonic detail how Read more

  • L’Union? C’est nous.

      A friend of mine recently told me that the artificial Brussels construct – of the EU institutions by day and the polite socialising by night – makes for relatively boring fayre, replete with platitudes, when compared to the bonhomie enjoyed with educated peers from his native Portugal. The air of society in the bubble Read more

  • The Juncker Class

    I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” Boswell, Life of Read more