In which I, ASH Smyth, High Anglican atheist, descendant of Huguenots, dissenters, Presbyterians, Church of Ireland types, and maybe even Quakers, make my Catholic press debut, on Phil Klay’s Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. — For The Catholic Herald
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Afghanistan, Americans, Barack Obama, books, Catholicism, citizenship, Iraq, Jesuits, John McCain, Journalism, Libya, movies, Navy Seals, Niger, non-fiction, Pakistan, Penguin, Phil Klay, politics, Somalia, St Ignatius, Syria, The Catholic Herald, Ukraine, USMC, veterans, war, writers, Yemen
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The second (Stanley) instalment of my exchange of Falklands War/1982 letters with Dominic Hilton in Argentina. — For The Critic
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged .1982, ABBA, Adam Godley, Argentina, Armed Forces' Day, Battle Day, BBC World Service, Ben Fogle, BFBS, birthdays, Bob Peck, Buenos Aires, coincidences, complaints, condoms, Dire Straits, Dominic Hilton, Don Williams, Falkland Islands, Falkland Islands Defence Force, Falkland Islands Radio Service, fishing, fruit, Government House, Graham Bound, horse-racing, Ian Richardson, John Simpson, letters, Major Mike Norman, Mantovani, Marc Warren, Mike Grady, MLA Gavin Short, music, Patrick Watts MBE, PTSD, Richard Brautigan, Royal Marines, senior citizens, sheep, Sir Rex Hunt, South Georgia, Stanley, submarines, The Critic, The Falklands War, The Penguin News, the West Store, The West Wing, tourism
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On Tate McRae, Tonella McGowan, and the terror threat. — For The Emigre
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged Antarctica, doctors, driving, finance, food, IBM, London, monkeys, mountains, Nelson Evening Mail, news, Northern Ireland, nutmeg, pelicans, religion, satellites, satire, Scotland, Sevastopol, Swedes, Tate McRae, terrorism, The Penguin News, Tonella McGowan, tools, wind, wine
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… my diaries relate a (very positive) diplomatic incident from 15 years ago. — For The Emigre
Filed in correspondence, Journalism
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Also tagged Afghanistan, Australia, Basildon, Burundi, Canada, China, diplomacy, drink, finance, Gary Busey, Guinness, Ireland, London, Malaysia, marijuana, Myanmar, oaths, Queen Elizabeth II, Red Bull, Russia, Rwanda, school, Soho, Somaliland, South Sudan, Suriname, Tanzania, The Commonwealth of Nations, The Emigre, the Falklands, Zimbabwe
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Saturday, December 25, 2021
‘The Journal of Victor Emmanuel Smyth, made on a Voyage to Australia’ . Ever since I found a battered typescript in my parents’ house, about a decade back, at this time of year my thoughts quite often turn to Victor Emmanuel Smyth (1856-1947), the younger brother of my great-great-grandfather, who in 1875, set out on […]
Saturday, August 21, 2021
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner Canongate, £16.99, pp576 . In 1928, modest young blue-collar English lecturer Mildred Fish arrives in Berlin to begin her PhD in American Literature. In the febrile, polyglot atmosphere at the […]
Filed in Journalism, review
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Also tagged Adolf Hitler, Berlin, biography, Canongate, capitalism, Communism, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, France, Goethe, Great Britain, history, Hjalmar Schacht, Jews, John Dos Passos, Joseph Goebbels, literature, Lufthansa, Mildred Harnack, non-fiction, Operation Barbarossa, Operation Walkyrie, Plötzensee Prison, propaganda, Rebecca Donner, Rebecca West, spies, Stalin, the Soviet Union, The Spectator, Theodore Dreiser, trench coats, Winsconsin, WW2
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Interview with members of the George Formby Society, as they attempt to break an online ukulele-playing record. — For The Critic
Filed in feature, interview, Journalism
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Also tagged Alastair Cook, army, Australia, banjos, Batley, BBC, Bette Davis, bingo, Blackpool, Canada, Covid-19, cricket, Cyprus, dating, Ed Balls, Facebook, Falkland Islands Radio Service, France, Frank Skinner, friends, George Formby, German, Germany, grandmothers, Guinness, Gyles Brandreth, Harry HIll, Hawaii, Humphrey Bogart, Italy, jellyfish, lyrics, mental health, music, naturism, nuclear power, proletarians, Queen Elizabeth II, records, Royal Albert Hall, Russia, Simon Rose, smut, Swahili, The Critic, The Daily Telegraph, the George Formby Society, the Queen Mother, the RAF, Tottenham, ukuleles, Warrington Museum, Welsh, windows, WWII, Yorkshire, Zoom
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. Only six percent. of all paper produced is used for making books. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Monday, February 18 1907 . The Bombay Harmonium Company are neither from Bombay nor do they manufacture or stock harmoniums. Thor Heyerdahl was right. Only 38% of Netflix content is available outside the US. Penguins can shoot […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged anthropology, Ayn Rand, Bombay, books, Carlsberg, Denver, food, harmoniums, Hungary, literature, London, money, Nelson Evening Mail, Netflix, news, paper, Patrick Harrington, penguins, pigeons, Ringo Starr, satire, shit, tea, Thor Heyerdahl, Venezuela, Venice, yoga
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. In the United States only one about one building in three thousand is even nominally fire-proof. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, March 14 1907 . Ellis Paz has become the first man in history to be awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford while wearing just his pants. Matthew Perry once entered a Vanilla Ice lookalike […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged Air India, air travel, bears, biography, birds, BMX, books, construction, Covid-19, Edinburgh, Ellis Paz, Emma Bunton, emojis, fire, health, homosexuality, Matthew Perry, Mussolini, nature, Nelson Evening Mail, Nigeria, Oxford, Oxford University, Parsees, Pashto, Poetry, satire, Tamil, trypophobia, underwear, Vanilla Ice
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. A banker’s license in the United Kingdom costs £30 per annum. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Friday, July 17 1908 . Sri Lanka has only 500 cases of the Coronavirus. Germany has no elite universities. There are a lot of porno videos featuring Scarlett Johansson’s face. Mexico City is a good place to be an […]
Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE
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Also tagged army, boys, Chaucer, coronavirus, Danes, education, finance, Genghis Khan, Germany, Hamlet, health, Journalism, Mexico, Muslims, Nelson Evening Mail, Olympics, pornography, potatoes, satire, Scarlett Johansson, Scooby-Doo, Simone Biles, space travel, sport, Sri Lanka, Søren Kierkegaard, the internet, the Maldives, The Spectator, the UK, writers
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