‘Feelings of hate and despair dwindle as they pass down the generations.’
In spite of the cruelty and suffering they inflicted—well known to anyone who fought in one—wars had a remarkably good press among civilians until some years into the twentieth century. In 1914, as the historian Eric Hobsbawm has written, ‘the peoples of Europe, for however brief a moment, wen…
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‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘Generalisations about the national psyche – supposing there is one – must always be treated with suspicion.’
Ian Jack on the eve of the 7/7 bombings.
‘Always and everywhere, this unequal struggle to preserve and remember.’
Ian Jack recalls the missing buildings of his hometown, Farnworth.
‘It was a peculiar, alopecic landscape of hummocks and gullies, with patches of grass growing on what looked like white earth, and rarely a soul to be seen.’
‘Could grief for one woman have caused all this? We were told so.’
On the death of Diana.
‘Sex Education, like winning the pools, was something that did not happen to us.’
