Category Archives: Miscellaneous

The difference between the British left and right

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I’ve just realised that whether we’re on the left or the right of the political spectrum, as Brits we all share one political belief: that the country’s going to the dogs, whoever’s in charge.

The difference between the left and right is just that the British right believes it goes to the dogs slightly less rapidly under a Conservative government, and vice versa.

No-one actually believes any party, even the one they support, can or will do anything to make things better. At best we hope that our chosen party, when it screws everything up, won’t be quite as catastrophic as the other lot would have been.

A machinery of coercion

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Describing the Mughal system of revenue collection on page 179 of The Cambridge Economic History of India – Volume 1, c1200-1750, Tapan Raychaudhuri calls it:

“a vicious circle of coercion helping to maintain a machinery of coercion.”

Never mind the Mughals; this is as succinct and clear a description of statehood itself as I’ve ever seen. And more accurate every day as the machinery of coercion improves in sophistication and reach.

Decaying Green Corpse

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When I first created a website in about 1997, I didn’t have anything to put on it yet. So, as a placeholder while I worked on some proper content, I posted a scanned image of a magazine cutting that I’d found on the floor. I labelled it “Decaying Green Corpse”.

Ever since, throughout every iteration of my web presence, from early GeoCities silliness, via the heyday of the tombell.net galleries, to today’s meagre offering, the Decaying Green Corpse has been there.

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