Richard FarrJun 3Tim Allen and the doorknob questionRecently I was sent an opinion-piece written by the comedian Tim Allen; it defends (or anyway announces) a list of "conservative" apercus...
Richard FarrMay 30Lopez Island circumnavigationI'm back in Seattle after a four-day adventure in my trusty kayak, circumnavigating Decatur, Lopez, and Shaw Islands in the San Juans. Pr...
Richard FarrMay 22Optimism - and my new favorite news siteDoing some research on iconic speeches in times of crisis, I am struck by the common thread: all of them - Lincoln's Second Inaugural, Ch...
Richard FarrMay 11Privacy creepAs Orwell almost said, Little DoubleThinker Is Scamming You. This morning The New York Times treated us to a piece by one of their editor...
Richard FarrMar 17Testing, testing ... coronavirus and a dangerous drug called FictionA lot of people are being tested for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. (Not enough in my neck of the planet, thanks to our comm...
Richard FarrJan 3It was a peach while it lastedFor three years now, an oily moral poison has been leaking from the wrecked hull of that stately grand dame of the democratic oceans, the...
Richard FarrNov 25, 2019Italo Calvino on how to be an efficient writer“Every morning I tell myself, Today has to be productive—and then something happens that prevents me from writing. Today . . . what is th...
Richard FarrNov 23, 2019Happy birthday George Eliot!One of the most luminous, most humane intelligences in history was born two hundred years ago today: But the effect of her being on those...
Richard FarrNov 18, 2019English and its HistorieWhy is English so much simpler in grammar and richer in vocabulary than so many other languages? (Why does the OED need twenty volumes?) ...
Richard FarrNov 5, 2019Borne back into the pastApparently the new season of The Crown will take us into the 1960s and actor David Wilmott will play union leader Arthur Scargill. This i...
Richard FarrNov 4, 2019Macboris: a fragment from a lost play about power and nihilismDiscovered recently among the manuscripts of that great English dramatist Willie A. Peakshamers: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Cre...
Richard FarrOct 26, 2019Rammed with tourists?Today the Guardian – or Grauniad, as we lovers of its many typos call it – recommends the lovely Devon village of Tavistock as “not ramm...
Richard FarrSep 20, 2019Climbing Pen y FanThe highest point in the Brecon Beacons, and Wales, and southern Britain. It was supposed to be raining. The wind was ferocious, but we c...
Richard FarrMay 17, 2019The time traveler’s dilemma and techno-cultural prejudiceWhat if you had to move – not to another city or country but to either the future or the past? I ran across this Rawlesian thought experi...
Richard FarrMar 1, 2019Those who would be kingAuthoritarianism is on the rise … measurably. Nobel prize-winning economist Angus Deaton has said that one of the most fundamental determ...