Richard FarrFeb 23, 2021Feb. 23, 1821. Definitely not writ in water.John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome, aged 25, two hundred years ago today. Requiescat in pace. Whenever I think of famous dead...
Richard FarrJan 9, 2021Footnotes to Plato?Alfred North Whitehead is often (mis-) quoted as saying that all philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. I was asked the other day...
Richard FarrDec 14, 2020RIP John le Carré - brilliant and underrated to the lastI met him when I was eleven or twelve, because one of his sons was in my class. He arrived in a Rolls Royce, talked affably in the...
Richard FarrDec 9, 2020Time's wingèd chariotI was amused and a little disturbed recently to stumble upon both a couple of life expectancy calculators (here's one) and a page on the...
Richard FarrOct 12, 2020It's a Humpty Trumpty WorldLanguage matters; three words that matter more than most right now - because our politicians are encouraging us to get it all wrong about...
Richard FarrAug 27, 2020Conservative hysteria about left-wing hysteriaAt the GOP convention, Mike Pence has been winning back some nervous Wisconsin voters by promising that Donald Trump, man of Law and...
Richard FarrJul 22, 2020First names and social distancingNot being of the Fascism-Curious Party, I will vote for Joe Biden in the Fall. Being sufficiently revolted by the FCP that I have...
Richard FarrJul 16, 2020Spartan talkAbove: Edgar Degas and Jacques Louis David with competing erotic visions of the Spartans. Or Lacedaemonians. Rooting about in Thucydides,...
Richard FarrJun 3, 2020Tim 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"...
Richard FarrMay 11, 2020Privacy creepAs Orwell almost said, Little DoubleThinker Is Scamming You. This morning The New York Times treated us to a piece by one of their...
Richard FarrApr 30, 2020Absolutely incredibly modifiedCaptain Tom Moore, NHS fundraising colossus, has been promoted to Colonel on his 100th birthday. The defence secretary, Ben Wallace,...
Richard FarrApr 20, 2020Alice in FreedumlandJefferson's house has been set on fire. Ignorance is one of the chief accelerants. But perhaps that cuts two ways. (1) At the Michigan...
Richard FarrApr 10, 2020Letting it all dangle out at The GuardianBreaking news: the Dutch Province of North Holland may be safer than cars and more environmentally friendly than planes!! Eh? Oh wait....
Richard FarrMar 27, 2020The Pied Piper of Pennsylvania AvenueWe received this frightening little postcard yesterday. The contrast between the front and the back says so much. On the back there is...
Richard FarrMar 27, 2020The uselessness of Eric AmblerIn the years leading up to the Second World War, Eric Ambler wrote some of the most influential thrillers ever published - more or less...
Richard FarrMar 17, 2020A storey on or about dinasuors in Teh GrauniadI love The Guardian: it's one of the best news sources in the world. I feel guilty about The Guardian: I use it every day and ought to...
Richard FarrFeb 27, 2020Nasty viruses and a question about precisionListening to NPR yesterday, I was informed (is that the right word?): "There are only 60 confirmed cases of infection by the Covid-19...
Richard FarrFeb 18, 2020Kafka's progressToday's quote of the day from The Browser - which I recommend to everyone - struck a cord for me. It's a commonplace in our culture to...
Richard FarrJan 31, 2020American politics: the mistake of the ModeratistsMy old friend Aristotle is well known for the claim that moderation is a virtue - indeed, that we can locate virtue at the point of...
Richard FarrJan 3, 2020It 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...