Monthly Archives: March 2019

March books

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Given the Hugos, and the fact that I’m in the middle of two very long books, this has been a sparse month…

Plays: 1 (YTD 1)
λ1

sf (non-Who): 3 (YTD 15)
ι1
κ1
μ1

Doctor Who, etc: 1 (YTD 4)
Present Danger, ed. Eddie Robson

1,500 pages (YTD 11,000)
1/5 (YTD 12/36) by non-male writers (μ1)
2/5 (YTD 4/36) by PoC (ι1, κ1)
0 rereads (YTD 2/36)

Reading now
A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot
Combat Magicks, by Steve Cole

Coming soon (perhaps):
Troll Bridge, by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran
The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan
De Terugkeer van de Wespendief, by Aimee de Jongh
Dark Lord of Derkholm, by Diana Wynne Jones
A Sunless Sea by Anne Perry
Feersum Endjinn, by Iain M Banks
The Ginger Man, by J. P. Donleavy
Bland Ambition, by Steve Tally
Nebula Awards Showcase 2011, ed. Kevin J. Anderson
In Another Light, by Andrew Greig
Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, by Dennis O'Driscoll
“Goat Song”, by Poul Anderson
The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Graham
1913: The World before the Great War, by Charles Emmerson
The Making and Remaking of the Good Friday Agreement, by Paul Bew
Sovereign by R.M. Meluch
The Weather on Versimmon, by Matthew Griffiths

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  • Fri, 15:52: RT @davidallengreen: The UK will now be leaving the EU by automatic operation of law on 12 April, without a deal, unless something not curr…
  • Fri, 15:54: RT @tconnellyRTE: Breaking: EU source says: Following the negative vote in the HoC today, Art. 50 will now be extended until 12 April as de…
  • Fri, 16:01: RT @MichaelAodhan: NEWS RELEASE NIRC REACTION TO LATEST COMMONS BREXIT VOTE 29/3/2019 Northern Ireland Retail Consortium director, Aodhán C…
  • Fri, 16:05: All 43 Spice Girls songs – ranked! https://t.co/Kwf5eWRwtH Let’s look at the important questions here.
  • Fri, 16:08: RT @mwarhurst: The Westminster bubble – ignorant/uninterested in the EU and obsessed by its own internal conflicts – has been unable to neg…
  • Fri, 16:21: RT @jarwisniewski: Brexiteers reject Brexit on the Brexit day. You can’t make this stuff up
  • Fri, 16:22: RT @JenniferMerode: European commission spokesman: Commission regrets negative vote Article 50 extended until 12 April “It will be for…
  • Fri, 16:34: RT @DmitryOpines: It’s heartrending watching the UK stumbling spasmodically and needlessly ever closer to an abrupt severing of the Europea…
  • Fri, 17:11: RT @Forbes: A photo of 8 of the last remaining Apollo astronauts rocketed to the top of Reddit this week, just a few months before the 50 y…
  • Fri, 17:38: Great thread. https://t.co/LCjsd2MwSZ
  • Fri, 18:41: RT @Mina_Andreeva: .@EU_Commission regrets negative vote in @HouseofCommons. #EU will remain united. Benefits of #WithdrawalAgreemen…
  • Fri, 19:23: RT @UKandEU: Sir Ivan Rogers says he is “probably the least surprised person in Britain” about how this has turned out. #2yrsArticle50 http…
  • Fri, 19:23: RT @UKandEU: “There wasn’t a clear, single, unitary Brexit destination, even among the @vote_leave people,” says UK’s former permanent repr…
  • Fri, 19:23: RT @UKandEU: The earliest a trade deal could be reached would be the “early to mid 2020s,” says Sir Ivan Rogers. “Nobody internalised that…
  • Fri, 19:23: RT @UKandEU: “The prime minister has announced her own mortality. It’s unimaginable to me that the Conservative party would want a general…
  • Fri, 19:23: RT @UKandEU: “Dominic Cummings is right,” says Sir Ivan Rogers, “a second referendum wouldn’t be about Brexit. It would be about the establ…
  • Fri, 19:23: RT @UKandEU: Sir Ivan Rogers doesn’t believe the prime minister would feel mandated by any indicative votes, and adds that the EU is negoti…
  • Fri, 19:24: RT @UKandEU: “If you go to no deal by accident, you’re in a lot of trouble,” says Sir Ivan Rogers. He says both the EU and eurosceptic poli…
  • Fri, 19:24: RT @UKandEU: The ‘yawning gap’ in the prime minister’s deal is about the services sector, says Sir Ivan Rogers. #2yrsArticle50 https://t.co…
  • Fri, 19:38: Optimistic… https://t.co/6MQbeDzuVm

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  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: Sir Ivan Rogers brutal on Theresa May’s Brexit strategy: “You can start with a tub-thumping speech to your party and be de…
  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: Ivan Rogers also criticises the UK’s secretive approach to negotiations: “You can’t run a trade negotiation in a bunker or a…
  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: Rogers contrasts EU negotiating competence to UK’s: “You’ve got to think arond corners.” “Throughout this process they’ve l…
  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: Ivan Rogers says May’s attempt to separate withdrawal agreement from political declaration is undemocratic, as it would leav…
  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: Roger’s on today’s withdrawal agreement vote: “We’d go into the blindest of blind Brexits.This is supposedly in the name of…
  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: Ivan Rogers says a no-deal Brexit is “a very likely outcome.”
  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: Ivan Rogers says the UK is heading for a general election: “I think it’s quite likely the prime minister would refuse to fol…
  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: Should Brussels give the UK an extension? Ivan Rogers: “If we ended up with a more Brexiteer PM, the EU might regret it, bu…
  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: Rogers: There’s “an idea the backstop is some ghastly trap to keep us permanently aligned … If we want to end up with a Ca…
  • Fri, 11:02: RT @tpgcolson: On no-deal, Ivan Rogers says most Cabinet ministers and ex-Cabinet ministers “don’t understand WTO and doesn’t know what it…

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  • Wed, 06:51: RT @SJAMcBride: The implication of this – from the man who for more than a decade was the strategic brain of the DUP’s backroom team & whos…
  • Wed, 09:48: RT @eucopresident: Appeal to EP: You should be open to a long extension, if the UK wishes to rethink its strategy. 6 million people signed…
  • Wed, 10:45: I wrote this two and a half months ago. It is still my view. https://t.co/QDUDHBbDvQ

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  • Mon, 11:43: RT @benwansell: As we enter a key Brexit endgame week, a few thoughts on the ironies of British negotiation. Thread:

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  • Sun, 10:45: RT @NewtonEmerson: Niche David Lidington fact: he’s represented the British government at all meetings of both east-west GFA institutions s…

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A visit to Nashville, Tennessee

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I spent most of Saturday in Nashville last weekend, the first time I had ever been there. I was there in order to speak on Brexit to a professional conference, but applying the Woodrow Wilson principle meant that I had some time to look around town, though not to take in any of its musical heritage. My old friend H had briefed me about one of the most extraordinary things I have seen in America: a full-scale replica of the Parthenon as it would have been in its prime (or as that was imagined in the 1890s).


It doesn't quite have the same dramatic setting as the original, but it's a striking effort. The Nashvillians of 1897 went to the trouble of getting plaster casts of the Elgin Marbles and filling in the bits that they thought were missing as best they could. It's a really striking piece of work.


But then you get inside. And, good lord, the statue of Pallas Athena, reputedly the largest indoor statue in the Western world, which dates not from 1897 but from 1990, well,

It's difficult for a mere photograph to convey quite how disturbing arresting Alan LeQuire has made it.

The detail on, for instance, the goddess's shield is incredible.

That's pretty mind-blowing. The rest of Nashville's monuments are more normal stuff. There is a nice women's suffrage monument (Tennessee's ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 was crucial to getting women the right to vote), again by Alan LeQuire, though the position of the sun made it difficult to get good shots:

Over at the Tennessee State Capitol, I was surprised to discover a dead president. Tennessee was the home state of three nineteenth-century presidents, though in fact all three were probably born in North Carolina. The most obscure of the three (despite the Mexican-American War) is the one buried in the Capitol grounds, James Knox Polk; he had also been governor of Tennessee from 1839 to 1841 before becoming president from 1845 to 1849. He died only three months after leaving office; his wife lived on another 42 years in their family home where he was buried in the garden. After she died, their house was demolished and they were both moved here. Apparently there are plans afoot to move them on again to the Polks' country place, in Columbia TN, 75 km south of Nashville.



The two other local-ish presidents are both commemorated with statues on the eastern side of the capitol grounds. Again, the angle of the March sun gave me some difficulty in capturing them, but here's Andrew Johnson (president from Linconln's assassination in 1865 until 1869), by Jim Gray, hidden in the trees on the southeastern corner:

And there's not much doubt about who Tennesseeans' favourite local president is; Andrew Jackson has a splendid equestrian statue outside the capitol, between the one of Johnson and Polk's tomb. It's a replica of the one by Clark Mills in Lafayette Park in DC (though the plaque at the base suggests inaccurately that it's the other way round), so I wasn't too worried about catching the detail. The capitol itself is rather nice.

So that's Nashville. I don't know if I will ever be there again, but at least I can say I've been.

The trip ended on what I thought was a flattering note: when I requested a glass of wine in the airport bar, I was asked to prove my age! Readers, I turn 52 next month. Alas, my friend Natalie (who actually lives in Tennessee, though at the other end) informs me that all customers are carded by law, so the question was not as complimentary as I thought.

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Marty (1955)

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Marty won the Oscar for Best Motion Picture of 1955, and picked up another three, Best Director (Delbert Mann), Best Actor (Ernest Borgnine) and Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky). Betsy Blair and Joe Mantell were nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Actor respectively, and it also got nominations for Best Art Direction-Set Direction and Best Black-and-White Cinematography. The other contenders for Best Motion Picture were Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Mister Roberts, Picnic and The Rose Tattoo. I haven’t seen any of them.

IMDB users rank Marty 15th or 11th of the films of 1955. Six films are ahead of it on both rankings: Rebel Without A Cause, East of Eden, Lady and the Tramp, To Catch a Thief, The Night of the Hunter and The Seven Year Itch. The only one of those that I have seen is Lady and the Tramp. Others that I know include Guys and Dolls, The Ladykillers, and The DambustersKismet but have not yet watched the film. That’s unusually broad for me – I think the best year since 1942 (soon to be 1943 once I get to the Retro Hugos). Here’s a contemporary trailer, fronted by Burt Lancaster (who we saw two years ago) as the producer; it includes the one scene that perhaps has weathered the years least well.

It is mercifully short, at 91 minutes apparently the shortest film ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture (or equivalent) – that’s less than 40% of Gone With the Wind. It’s the story of the eponymous Marty, a New York butcher who thinks he will never find love, and then actually does. I found it a charming character study and portrayal of a place and time, beautifully shot; not utterly compelling, but convincing enough. I’m putting it between a third and halfway down my list, between It Happened One Night and The Life of Emile Zola (1937). (Technical note: a bit surprised to find yet another black-and-white film made this late.)

Whitewashing: To start with the usual complaint: the black population of the Bronx was not massive in the 1950s – 6.7% in the 1950 census, 11.5% in 1960 – and, sure, the story is mainly set in the Italian community, but I don’t think that excuses there not being a single black person visible in the entire film. (Just for reference: we’ve had two black speaking parts altogether since Gone With the Wind, 16 years ago.)

Plot: Although it’s a romance, I was pleased thatthe film ends before the story does; the last shot is of Marty phoning Clara to ask her out. We are fairly certain that she will say yes, but who knows where their future will lead?The chemistry between Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair as Marty and Clara is very watchable, and nicely filmed.



The two of them are also well located in their respective somewhat suffocating family backgrounds. (I note that Clara’s parents sleep in separate beds, per the Code.)



It loses marks, of course, for the gender stereotypes (though both main characters are shown as trapped by their parents’ and peers’ expectations), and there is one rather skeevy moment between the two principals. That aside…

Borgnine: As the central character, Borgnine is hugely convincing. He does a tremendous eye-roll in his first scene, as various women customers nag him to get married; his punching a street sign in joy after his accidental date with Clara is a lovely moment; and as well as the chemistry with Betsy Blair, he is great with Joe Mantell as his friend Angie and Esther Minciotti as his mother. I didn’t get anything like as vivid an impression of him in From Here to Eternity.

Cinematography: The best aspect of the film for me was its solid portrayal of the Bronx as a place. There are a couple of key moments here – one of them is the opening street scene, set on Arthur Avenue in Belmont, the Bronx. I’m glad to report that the butcher’s shop where Marty works is still extant, now Vincent’s Meat Market at no. 2374.

A more recent iconic video filmed around the same location: Lady Gaga’s Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say).

One scene that particularly intrigued me for its setting was the dance hall. Look at the top there – that’s actually a disco ball! I had no idea that they were around that early, but that only shows that I haven’t watched Casablanca closely enough, because there’s one visible in one of the flashback scenes.

Anyway, it is charming enough. You can get it here.

The film was based on a teleplay – the first such to win an Oscar for best Picture – so there’s no book to read and I don’t think the original script is available (though the shooting script for the film is online).

Next up, after a run of seven films with more or less contemporary settings, it’s back to the nineteenth century and Around the World in Eighty Days.

Winners of the Oscar for Best Picture

1920s: Wings (1927-28) | The Broadway Melody (1928-29)
1930s: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929-30) | Cimarron (1930-31) | Grand Hotel (1931-32) | Cavalcade (1932-33) | It Happened One Night (1934) | Mutiny on the Bounty (1935, and books) | The Great Ziegfeld (1936) | The Life of Emile Zola (1937) | You Can’t Take It with You (1938) | Gone with the Wind (1939, and book)
1940s: Rebecca (1940) | How Green Was My Valley (1941) | Mrs. Miniver (1942) | Casablanca (1943) | Going My Way (1944) | The Lost Weekend (1945) | The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) | Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) | Hamlet (1948) | All the King’s Men (1949)
1950s: All About Eve (1950) | An American in Paris (1951) | The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) | From Here to Eternity (1953) | On The Waterfront (1954, and book) | Marty (1955) | Around the World in 80 Days (1956) | The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) | Gigi (1958) | Ben-Hur (1959)
1960s: The Apartment (1960) | West Side Story (1961) | Lawrence of Arabia (1962) | Tom Jones (1963) | My Fair Lady (1964) | The Sound of Music (1965) | A Man for All Seasons (1966) | In the Heat of the Night (1967) | Oliver! (1968) | Midnight Cowboy (1969)
1970s: Patton (1970) | The French Connection (1971) | The Godfather (1972) | The Sting (1973) | The Godfather, Part II (1974) | One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) | Rocky (1976) | Annie Hall (1977) | The Deer Hunter (1978) | Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
1980s: Ordinary People (1980) | Chariots of Fire (1981) | Gandhi (1982) | Terms of Endearment (1983) | Amadeus (1984) | Out of Africa (1985) | Platoon (1986) | The Last Emperor (1987) | Rain Man (1988) | Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
1990s: Dances With Wolves (1990) | The Silence of the Lambs (1991) | Unforgiven (1992) | Schindler’s List (1993) | Forrest Gump (1994) | Braveheart (1995) | The English Patient (1996) | Titanic (1997) | Shakespeare in Love (1998) | American Beauty (1999)
21st century: Gladiator (2000) | A Beautiful Mind (2001) | Chicago (2002) | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) | Million Dollar Baby (2004, and book) | Crash (2005) | The Departed (2006) | No Country for Old Men (2007) | Slumdog Millionaire (2008) | The Hurt Locker (2009)
2010s: The King’s Speech (2010) | The Artist (2011) | Argo (2012) | 12 Years a Slave (2013) | Birdman (2014) | Spotlight (2015) | Moonlight (2016) | The Shape of Water (2017) | Green Book (2018) | Parasite (2019)
2020s: Nomadland (2020) | CODA (2021) | Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

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  • Thu, 17:11: RT @OfficialBagpuss: “We will find it, we will bind it, We will stick it with glue, glue, glue We will stickle it Every little bit of it We…
  • Thu, 17:15: RT @brexitcountdow1: Brexit is 200 hours away. #brexit
  • Thu, 17:39: RT @AlbertoNardelli: NEW: #EUCO Brexit draft conclusions state: ‘The European Council commits to agreeing to an extension until *22 May 201…
  • Thu, 18:11: RT @AlbertoNardelli: UK PM May presented her views to EU27 leaders at #EUCO. I am told she was “evasive” and “tightlipped”. The prime minis…
  • Thu, 18:11: RT @davidallengreen: The latter, in my view fwiw. https://t.co/cK2yIG7dJB
  • Thu, 18:28: RT @damonwake: Draft European Council conclusions on Brexit: – extension to May 22 – but only if UK parliament approves withdrawal agreem…
  • Thu, 19:04: RT @davidallengreen: We are so used to unfolding of events, we don’t realise how mad UK politics has become. We are down the rabbit hole,…
  • Thu, 19:17: RT @AgiBergman: Bought our ferry tickets for the 28th. No flexi tickets available. 3 younger kids and the dog to France with a car full of…
  • Thu, 19:17: RT @BizPears: Sometimes it feels like we’ve collectively forgotten that a white supremacist murdered a British MP
  • Thu, 19:20: RT @Peston: I don’t believe the official voices of business and trade unions have ever jointly described a looming threat as a “national em…
  • Thu, 19:31: RT @thelindsayellis: It always bums me out when I see @GRRMspeaking tweet because no matter what he tweets about, my first thought is “Ever…
  • Thu, 19:31: RT @thelindsayellis: I genuinely hope that man never writes another word of prose and you fuckers are stuck with naught but HBO. “Fans” lik…
  • Thu, 19:39: RT @rabihalameddine: Sixteen years ago: On March 19, 2003, the illegal, immoral and unnecessary U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began. The world…
  • Thu, 19:42: RT @tconnellyRTE: Breaking: officials are drafting a new text at the #EUCO. I understand the Brexit A50 extension date of May 22 has been r…
  • Thu, 19:47: RT @davidallengreen: Even though legal and historical Twitter provided a host of examples of international agreements without exit clauses,…
  • Thu, 20:47: RT @aqbyrne: May 7th as potential exit date, w’ April 11th as decision point for the UK on whether to request a longer extension has advant…
  • Thu, 20:47: RT @carolinepennock: This is FINE. Everything is completely normal. https://t.co/k1PRxoD3sv
  • Thu, 20:48: This is a good point. Added to that, combining party leadership with senior political office is anyway a mixed bles… https://t.co/W7iWroLkEG
  • Thu, 22:06: RT @nick_gutteridge: EU official says that when leaders asked May what she was going to do if her deal was voted down, she would only reply…
  • Thu, 22:18: RT @davidallengreen: UK could not be in a weaker position about Brexit. There has been complete policy failure. UK so weak EU is sorting…

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The oldest presidents of the United States

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George Washington, born 22 February 1732 (NS), became President 30 April 1789, aged 57 years 67 days;
served as President until 4 March 1797, aged 65 years 10 days (thus becoming the only ex-President)
died 14 December 1799, aged 67 years 295 days,
held the record as longest-lived President for another 3 years, 250 days after his death:
14 years 113 days in total as the longest-lived president.

John Adams, born 20 October 1735 (NS), served as President 4 March 1797 to 4 March 1801.
He outlived Washington on 20 August 1803,
died 4 July 1826, aged 90 years 247 days,
held the record as longest-lived president for another 175 years, 99 days after his death:
198 years 51 days in total as the longest-lived president.

Ronald Reagan, born 6 February 1911, served as President 20 January 1981 to 20 January 1989.
He outlived Adams on 11 October 2001,
died 5 June 2004, aged 93 years, 120 days,
held the record as longest-lived president for another 2 years, 158 days after his death:
5 years 30 days in total as the longest-lived president.

Gerald Ford, born 14 July 1913, served as President 9 August 1974 to 20 January 1977.
He outlived Reagan on 10 November 2006,
died 26 December 2006, aged 93 years, 165 days,
held the record as longest-lived president for another 10 years, 333 days after his death:
11 years 13 days in total as the longest-lived president.

George H.W. Bush, born 12 June 1924, served as President 20 January 1989 to 20 January 1993.
He outlived Ford on 23 November 2017,
died 30 November 2018, aged 94 years, 171 days,
held the record as longest-lived president for another 111 days after his death:
1 year 118 days in total as the longest-lived president.

Jimmy Carter, born 1 October 1924, served as President 20 January 1977 to 20 January 1981.
He has just today outlived Bush.

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Tuesday reading

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Hugos impacting my reading time pretty seriously…

Current
A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot
Combat Magicks, by Steve Cole

Last books finished
λ1
κ1
(In that order.)

Next books
Troll Bridge, by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran
The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan

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  • Fri, 12:19: RT @Dublin2019: In case you haven’t heard… Today is the deadline for nominating @TheHugoAwards. So if you haven’t done so yet it’s time t…
  • Fri, 12:23: RT @DmitryOpines: 1/ – Dmitry’s Guide To Writing A No-Deal Is Project Fear Article – Are you a Tory Lord who once had to share a cab with…
  • Fri, 12:28: Public Prosecution Service spells out in detail Bloody Sunday decisions via @irish_news https://t.co/FJbJVBE7nh Useful detail.
  • Fri, 12:29: RT @drewharwell: The New Zealand massacre was livestreamed on Facebook, announced on 8chan, reposted on YouTube, commentated about on Reddi…
  • Fri, 12:56: An Irish pub born in the Dark Ages https://t.co/3xaP6X9cyJ 1100 years of serving drinks in Athlone!
  • Fri, 13:08: RT @JP_Biz: Silver Hill Foods, the cross-border duck business which featured in the @tconnellyRTE book, has been bought by Fane Valley, the…
  • Fri, 13:39: RT @ChrisGiles_: PUBLIC SERVICE KLAXON Thread below linked to this column provides all the information you might want (and probably mo…
  • Fri, 13:59: RT @TheScepticIsle: I set out a vision for & argued for a “Liberal Brexit” & was openly supportive of free movement & the Single Market. My…
  • Fri, 15:13: RT @jonworth: Making sense of the week – #Brexit diagram V18 ‼ UK requests long extension: 84% ‼ No Deal 15% ⬇️⬇️⬇️ Gen Election 33% ⬆️ M…
  • Fri, 16:05: The power of one country to influence treaty ratification https://t.co/x7A82KP0bk Interesting!

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  • Wed, 16:52: RT @EU_Commission: We spared no effort to try and reconcile UK red lines and demands with our duty to protect the EU, the integrity of Inte…
  • Wed, 17:11: Sci-fiction makes people more open-minded: Chinese writer Liu Cixin https://t.co/AibJHpW7HN Can’t argue with that.
  • Wed, 17:22: RT @JP_Biz: Would the NI no-deal tariff arrangements mean Irish Sea checks? ‘No’, brief UK govt. ‘Yes’, says a slightly unsure Chief Secret…
  • Wed, 17:39: RT @DuncanWeldon: Three types of MP who may vote to keep no deal on the table tonight: 1. People who think it’s a useful negotiating tactic…
  • Wed, 17:40: RT @christinebelled: Now time for DUP reality-check. No deal means difft regime for NI from get-go (not just risk of down line as with WA).…
  • Wed, 17:58: RT @ManufacturingNI: In the space of 12 hours we’ve moved from the potential of the best of both worlds to the worst of all worlds.
  • Wed, 18:29: RT @apcoworldwide: Our @nwbrux comments on Margrethe Vestager and the future of the European Commission via @BW: https://t.co/EXyA0dMXR2
  • Wed, 19:31: RT @JenniferMerode: Brexit quote of the day to Mark Rutte. ‘Voting for no-deal is like the Titanic voting for the iceberg.’ Sabine Weyand…
  • Wed, 20:23: RT @bbclaurak: You’re going to be bored of me saying this, it’s an important political expression, but MPs voted this way in January alread…
  • Wed, 20:43: RT @WritersFrock: One hundred and sixty four of them. https://t.co/0yMJLGzrKd

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  • Mon, 22:31: RT @DaveClark_AFP: Sources say there will be a new-ish thing, but it’ll be a lot like the old thing. Will the thing be enough to convince o…
  • Mon, 22:55: RT @tconnellyRTE: Here goes: Barnier’s offer on Fri that “best endeavours” could be actionable by the UK at independent arbitration level…
  • Tue, 04:00: 100 hours to go to make your Hugo nominations! https://t.co/nFTRHRtVbA
  • Tue, 07:35: RT @KeohaneDan: Two previous examples come to mind: 1) the Bundestag preamble to the Elysee treaty in 1963, which limited potential scope.…
  • Tue, 07:38: Esther McVey deletes embarrassing untrue Brexit tweet hours after defending it https://t.co/YYCaxaNO3l Liar.
  • Tue, 08:03: RT @tconnellyRTE: Last ditch EU-UK package agreed on Irish backstop via @RTENewsNow https://t.co/0tG6ylqajQ
  • Tue, 08:12: RT @pmdfoster: So some quick thoughts on tonight’s docments after chats…. First the UK’s unilatearl statement which is here – it’s not q…
  • Tue, 08:27: RT @Berlaymonster: ‘Legally Binding’ sounds like a less successful sequel to ’50 Shades of Grey’.
  • Tue, 09:12: RT @Sime0nStylites: 9. My view is the changes won’t be sufficient to enable the deal to pass. That is not a difficult conclusion to reach.…
  • Tue, 09:30: RT @DmitryOpines: A Lisbon Treaty clause dictates that from 2020, Brie Larson must play every single character in EU releases of Marvel Mov…

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  • Thu, 12:41: RT @nick_gutteridge: Loiseau again makes the very important point that’s it’s absurd to think EU would actively want to trap UK in the back…
  • Thu, 12:45: RT @GuitarMoog: A serious contender among many thousands of candidates for the title Peak Brexit. The Consultancy firm hired by DFDM Liam…
  • Thu, 12:56: Karen Bradley is speaking to the wrong audience on Northern Ireland https://t.co/yuGhgGbkwX @patrickkmaguire is kin… https://t.co/KLvBuCXtud
  • Thu, 14:36: RT @SJAMcBride: The remarkable thing is that when she came back to the Commons to clarify her remarks, Karen Bradley did not have the polit…
  • Thu, 14:40: “My position and the position of the government is clear” – no it isn’t, because she still hasn’t said that her sta… https://t.co/G4OHpSB854
  • Thu, 17:11: RT @TweetChizone: @Nicole_Cliffe Oh God I can’t even tell this story and not cry. I used to manage an LGBT bookstore, when bookstores were…
  • Thu, 18:18: RT @ivanobp: @nwbrux Oh I think it’s quite clear, Nicholas! She’s not sorry because she can’t see that she’s said anything wrong, just that…
  • Thu, 18:23: RT @georgeeaton: A year ago, Amber Rudd said the new registration scheme for EU migrants would be “as easy as setting up an online account…
  • Thu, 19:20: RT @georgeeaton: The facts have always been the same: 1. You need a permanent customs union or the “backstop” to guarantee no hard Irish…
  • Thu, 20:48: RT @JamesKanag: I’m not convinced that the political parties understand where “Middle England/Wales” exists. Analysis indicates Ipswich, Se…

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