Sunday, September 25, 2022

The Joy of Six 1077

"Nothing like this has happened before in Britain’s most multicultural city. In recent months, though, something has changed. Hindu nationalism has come to Britain." Peter Oborne and Imran Mulla set out to explain recent events in Leicester.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft says the United Kingdom has given a range of financial crimes a sheen of respectability: "The story of Britain’s transformation into an oligarch’s paradise has its origins in the country’s earlier decline. Once upon a time, English banking and broking prided itself on its integrity."

Jules Evans on the crackpot philosophy Putin has fallen for.

Musicians and crew could find themselves unemployed en masse because of Brexit, representatives from the New Musical Express warned a House of Lords hearing. Read the report by Andrew Trendell.

Boak & Bailey investigate the decline in quality of pub food: "We don’t think we’re seeing as many people eating in pubs that offer food. And the other week, we wandered into a pub that’s usually full with diners at lunchtime on the weekend and found it mostly empty."

Peter Ackroyd's biography of Charles Dickens appeared in 1990 and was reviewed by Bryan Appleyard: "He remarks at one point that Dickens is perfectly capable of being as self-consciously Dickensian, as artificially as his public self, as any of the pubs or people who have earned that epithet since. The myth is an essential element."

3 comments:

Frank Little said...

You have excelled yourself in selecting the nuggets which reflect the current state of the nation.

Phil Beesley said...

My recollection from diagonally across the city from the Leicester disturbances is that there have been racial/national street fights every summer for the last 20 years. They'd usually kick off in July, around about the time school/college holidays start. The participants would be young (<25 years) and the disturbances would be quelled after a couple of evenings. More about young men's hormones than a misguided sense of identity.

What seems to have changed this time is the timing and the age of those arrested, some in their 30s. Involvement by organised groups is new and not to be ignored, but I think there is comfort that the events have not been copied elsewhere. It shows how small in numbers the extremists are.

Jonathan Calder said...

Thank you, Frank! And thanks for your comments as ever, Phil.