Tag Archives: Charles Dickens

malthus: whimsey for the sullen men of property

Malthus. The theory that, essentially, the poor should not reproduce as they strain the food supply, which will be outdistanced, inevitably by population growth, leading to that final leg of human misery: famine, starvation and death. Alas, the flesh being … Continue reading

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feeling of a statue

Iconic photograph from Bruce Davidson in Britain in 1960. It eye was caught by scenes of a newer Britain, the Britain of the welfare state and the vanishing empire, of peace marchers, and teddy boys and Room at the Top. … Continue reading

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karl marx: romanticism of the angry moralist

The many faces of Karl Marx. We know of the revolutionary, the prophet, the historian and the philosopher. But he had one another: the romantic idealist exhorting man to triumph over the things he manufactures… Karl Marx…But ultimately of course, … Continue reading

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banking: its parapsychology to most

Banking as parapsychology. The astounding world as interchangeability, both lucid and independent presents itself. Opaque transactions rupturing the integrity of the field; a field that is ecumenical rather than exclusive, and quite able to absorb pi research as part of … Continue reading

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tasmania: leave it to george the pied piper

The final solution down under in Tasmania…. George Augustus Robinson. The type who would run a reformatory for reclaimed London hookers out of Dickens’ Hard Times. He was tireless, humorless and untiring. Also uneducated, dogmatic and his bent was to … Continue reading

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tasmania: soldiers that can’t shoot straight

The final solution down under in Tasmania…. …Sometimes they did see an aborigine- once they briefly glimpsed a party of forty. More often they mistook clumps of trees, or black swans, or the rustle of leaves, or kangaroos, for the … Continue reading

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boys with bats

A wicket in the basket?  “If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt”.It is a bit self-righteous, but historian George Macaulay Trevelyan had a point that was bit … Continue reading

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canaletto: one sunny afternoon

Twas’ a sunny day. Canaletto in London. He painted, in 1746, his A View of the Thames from Lambeth Palce; the city of London as it looked on that sparkling summer day in the middle of the eighteenth century. We … Continue reading

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canaletto: capturing the body english

Canaletto and his postcard from London. A little too picure perfect. What was really happening behind those walls and in those narrow streets on that sunny afternoon… On the whole, London was lucky in that the town’s best source of … Continue reading

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canaletto: from venice to the thames

Canaletto’s iconic painting, A View of the Thames from Lambeth Palace is a picture perfect postcard, but behind this idyllic view of eighteenth century London was simply too pleasant. Only a tourist could believe it. In fact, much was happening … Continue reading

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