Saturday, May 16, 2009

I'm late getting to this ...

... but it is excellent (no surprise there): Apocalypse now. Is the end of the world nigh?

Bryan, as we all know, has some apocalyptic tendencies of his own. You'd never know it from this review, which is what makes Bryan such a great journalist. Like mon semblable, mon frère Nige I am increasingly skeptical of the global warming prophets (I used to be just agnostic). But I can go along with what Overy says. I already have a daintier carbon footprint than the bloviating Gore, and always have. To begin with, I don't drive. And I certainly don't fly on private jets. Or have a huge houseboat.

Overy left the Labour party in 1997, when Blair was elected prime minister, and now describes himself as a nonaligned member of the (nonexistent) sceptical party. His central political position — which is not really right or left — is that we need to resist the overweening claims of the state.
Sign me up for the "sceptical party," please.

2 comments:

  1. The concluding 'graph on this piece approaches poetry, IMO. It reminded me why I so admire this guy's prose (or, bluntly? When I read something I wish I'd written, I know I'm made privy to drool-worthy greatness-in-the-making).

    Think BA ought to put together a book of essays with subjects such as cricket versus baseball; Flaneurs; balloonatics (Sam Leith's coinage); high heels; Nigenecessities; "Hallelujah" (which already exists); the myth of closure; Canadian veneers (and, no, I don't mean teeth although, in a way, I guess I do, if you're thinking shark-chomperings); rather, the sheen of niceness that really represents the tip of the sliceberg, the nine-tenths unseen that really runs mean and LC's music contains enough pointers to craft a good one; plus, it would be so Un-PCeistic, it would get lots of press and sell a mill (with or without flossing); and, then, he could send me one-percent and I could live another year :)).

    Well, I'm procrastinating, what else does one do but think of work for others to pursue?

    Which explains it.
    p.s. For me? I shall write a book of poems with titles based on word-veri thingies, starting now with probilit :)
    p.p.s. No, I won't include Darth Vader nor anything to do with Star Warps!<---- That's 4 FDL :)

    ReplyDelete