In the coming weeks, a major calamitous lifestyle disruption will befall me, and there will be some ‘off’ days owing to associated tedious Things to Do. This is one. (Clue: if anyone wants to buy an apartment in an old walk-up right next to the Escalator in Soho…)
Recommended reading: Atlantic’s James Fallows elegantly summarizes what we already know or assume about China’s Great Leap Backward.
In the interests of fairness and balance, perhaps, there’s this – the phrase ‘read it and weep’ suddenly becomes vividly real…
Because it sounds better than ‘Vicious Leninist paranoid totalitarian kleptocrats have to explain basic facts about planet to democratically elected incoming US President/leader-of-free-world’.
On a lighter note, isn’t the slogan highlighted in this suddenly-everywhere ad campaign…
…just another way of saying ‘Pointless stuff you don’t need’?
Congratulations on your upcoming marriage!
Hip replacement?
Yesterday I mentioned ‘evil omen’ and today we hear that Hemlock is going to sell his mansion “next to the Escalator” (hum), and at the top of the market no less, so that he can escape to South America with his loot, and never be heard from again.
So you are selling up and moving back to Sussex? It’s perfect for retirement if you grease a few palms and get to the top of the liver queue. I did warn you about the box wine seltzers. They can do wonders nowadays. But watch out. Old Jack Holloway, the Archers actor, on Lantau went for a scan in London, was given the all clear and was dead as disco in the Matilda within a year. Good luck and Bon Voyage.
Meanwhile, I doubt Donald Trump’s efforts to pull together a cabinet will be put on hold, whilst he deals with Joshua Wong’s call to protect human rights in Hong Kong. Can somebody tell young Joshua that Donald is going register Muslims, build a wall to keep Mexicans out and is in favour of water-boarding. The demands of a spotty OU student from Hong Kong, are likely to go unheeded.
Although Fallows’s article is effective in showing the failures of previous US attempts to deal with China, it has little to suggest to counter its current “badness”, apart from a nuanced but mistrustful approach — on only one of which counts Trump is likely to be stronger than poor old Obama.
Congrats, Hemlock, on your perfectly-timed decision to sell your flat! But be aware that all the foreign books are likely to put most people off.
Packed up north for re-education? About time.
America, you’re not selling this whole “democracy” thing very well right now, are you? All the world’s satirists need to resign on masse right now, you can’t make this stuff up. Trump’s cabinet is shaping up to be a clown car of cronies, cranks and conspiracists (how’s that for alliteration?) So much for “don’t worry, he’ll have reasonable advisers”.
how much? (you can leave the books if you wish)
I must add, this is a good decision all around. With the kid due in January, you need the extra space, and now that she’s 18, she has the maturity required for a successful marriage.
@Cassowary – America’s attempts to sell democracy to the rest of the world might be more believable if the US government didn’t have a habit of subverting democratically elected regimes it doesn’t like – sometimes successfully (Chile, Egypt, Hamas in Palestine, Ukraine), sometimes unsuccessfully (Venezuela, and probably others I can’t recall right now – they’re probably working on Duterte at this moment).
Didn’t know you were pregnant Hemmers, good luck with the delivery :)!
Yes, well, anybody who was hoping a Trump administration would stay out of other countries’ business is not going to like the bottom-of-the-barrel neocons he’s dredging up. The hope that he would pursue an isolationist foreign policy rested on two unfounded assumptions – one, that he had coherent opinions about foreign policy, and two, his hiring criteria extended to any qualities beyond personal loyalty and displays of machismo.