The Joy of Curmudgeonry

The present day. A large town-house in Hampstead. In the lounge are seated four persons: Dr and Mrs Ashmarr, he, an academic, she a publishe...

In that famous slogan that fell from the demagogic lips of Abraham Lincoln — “government of the people, by the people, for the people” [1] —...

“Some Mens Heads are as easily blown away as their Hats.” George Savile, First Marquis of Halifax, “Of Vanity”, A Character of King Charles ...

“They are idiots — intelligent people don’t do God”, [1] says some fellow, whose proposition has inspired me to compile an incomplete list ...

Scepticism is an important tool in the journalist’s toolbox. It looks fine and well-kept next to the space where the ratchet of public expec...

I cannot say I am utterly at home with Voltaire’s works, though, being no great admirer, I confess I have little desire to change this state...

Readers will have noticed the decline of activity in this backwater of Blogland. I have been a little lazy and largely diffident in posting....

“Given that Homo sapiens originated in Africa it would be true to say that 100% of Britons have immigrant ancestors.” [1] Not only would it...

Knowledge is the means by which we deepen mystery. There is, I suppose, an end to it, but that would require either omniscience or shallowne...

Falsification can begin anywhere, but it must begin if “explanation” continues where a fundament is reached.

“If I concentrate hard enough on why I believe there is a tree in the Quad, I cease to assume that there is a tree in the Quad, and treat th...

“Young people only appear in the media to receive the blame for breaking Britain, and as the subject of longwinded tracts that label us apat...

“We wrongly adduce the honour and beauty of an activity from its usefulness, and our conclusion is wrong if we reckon that all are bound to ...

“A Government-office is like an inverted filter: you send in accounts clear and they come out muddy.” Sir Charles Fox, as reported by Herber...

“The French Revolution was a vast act of political destruction at the heart of previous society: let us fear lest it creates a more fatal ac...

It is said that a Roman dux was accompanied in his triumphal procession by a slave whose task was to remind him by a constant whispering in...