Scrapbook for March

17.03.2026 – Website changes

This website does not use cookies. It therefore does not need to force its visitors to give consent for the use of cookies, a pointless rule of the EU that has been annoying people for several years now.

This means that we can no longer embed content from YouTube, since such embedded content brings a surprisingly large number of cookies and trackers with it. This would force us to introduce a cookie-consent function. In order therefore to preserve our cookie purity, a few years ago we removed all embedded content and replaced it with a simple link to the relevant YouTube page.

The result is rather bleak, particularly on the music pages. It is not an ideal solution either, since content on YouTube often mutates or disappears, meaning links frequently break.

I have decided to restore multimedia content by hosting the source files on our server, as far as copyright restrictions permit. The changes will take effect from today.

15.03.2026 – Narnia: not my cup of tea

In my recent article on the speaking lion of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations why didn't I mention Aslan, the talking lion in C.S. Lewis' (1898-1963) The Chronicles of Narnia (seven, 1950-1956) books?

The simple answer is that I had forgotten all about him; and I had forgotten all about him because, mercifully, I had forgotten all about the Narnia books. I just can't get into them. Given that the books have sold more than 120 million copies spread across 47 languages worldwide and have been adapted for TV, film and theatre, I am willing to accept that the problem is mine, but I would suggest that much of his popularity arises from his adoption by the evangelical Christians in the USA.

I think the problem may be that, though I can just about suspend disbelief for Tolkien's menagerie of hobbits, dwarves, elves and orcs, the extensive cast of disparate Narnia characters is just too much for me. Is there a magic kingdom at the back of all wardrobes? If not, then why behind this one? And when the house is cleared and flattened to make way for a bypass, what happens to the magic kingdom? Since Aslan is a lion, does he kill his prey and feed like a lion? If not, why not? What's the point of his being a lion? And why does everyone in Narnia speak English? And so on and so forth.

Good stories can require some suspension of disbelief from their readers, but there are limits. Contrast the talking menagerie of Narnia with Kenneth Grahame's (1859-1932) lambent book The Wind in the Willows (1908), which is utterly absurd, but utterly believable. It is filled with rounded characters – we all know a Mr Toad – whereas the denizens of Narnia are little more than personality free cardboard cutouts, even Aslan. Tolkien's main characters are all relatable to readers of any age – we've all had an orc in our lives at some time.

Furthermore, Tolkien brings us in to a coherent world and there we stay. In the Narnia books, the human characters swap in and out of early 20th century Britain and the fantastic locations beyond the wardrobe, including major time shifts, repeatedly testing our suspension of disbelief.

Finally, whilst Tolkien may have echoes of greater things behind his tales, Lewis' work is suffused with preposterous Christian metaphors – a second layer of superstition requiring suspension of disbelief from us atheists. I shall go elsewhere for my talking animals.

04.03.2026 – Compare and contrast

Last October I picked up the story of a young Oxford student (Balliol, even!), Samuel Williams, who took a leading part in a pro-Palastinian demo in which he repeatedly chanted some doggerel that he and his comrades had 'workshopped' which called for the Zio[nist]s to be 'put in the ground'.

I argued then for a free speech perspective and for tolerance towards the young, who are by definition not yet cooked.

The media were happy to make his stupidity more widely public, resulting in his suspension from Oxford, his being arrested by the cops, then charged and put up before the beak.

I have just updated the original story with the news that Sam's court case proper has been scheduled for February 2028, that is, two years from now. I had to read that twice before it sunk in. By the the time he finally gets to sit in the dock, the Starmer government will have fallen and been replaced by an even more anti-Zionist coalition. Sam might even begin his parliamentary career here.

As far as I know, Sam Williams has not spent one night in custody. At every hearing he has attended so far he has been bailed to appear at the next hearing, with some mild restriction intended to keep him away from pro-Palestinian demos. I suspect that, with two years to go before his trial, Oxford may just lift the suspension on the grounds of … whatever.

Compare this with the judicial treatment of Lucy Connolly, the forty-one year old wife, mother of a young daughter, who was moved on 29 July 2024 by the barbarity of the stabbings of young girls at a dance class in Southport to express herself very forcefully on Twitter in support of deporting immigrants. In her anger she said that people could burn migrant hostels down for all she cared. She took her dog for a walk, calmed down and deleted her post about two hours after writing it.

The cops monitoring the unrest on social media picked up her tweet. She was arrested at her home on 6 August and taken into custody. She was charged with 'stirring up racial hatred'. She was bailed to appear and her case was heard in a Magistrates Court on 10 August. She did not enter a plea, but following her four days of freedom she was now immediately remanded in custody to appear at the Crown Court two days later.

Two days of incarceration stretched into twelve days, when her lawyer – slow off the mark – requested bail for her. The request was denied. She pleaded guilty, in the expectation that this would get her free to return to her family, but it made no difference: she remained in prison for another two months until the Crown Court hearing on 17 October. At that hearing she was sentenced to 31 months in prison (= two years seven months in normal language, at least 40 percent of which would have to be served). Ten months later on 20 May 2025, she was denied leave to appeal against the sentence. She was finally released on 21 August 2025, having served in total more than a year in prison. Her childminding business had been wrecked and her customers left to find other providers at no notice.

When we lay the procedure of the two cases side by side, any one with an intact brain will observe the remarkable difference in treatment of the two miscreants. In sum, Lucy Connolly was judicially beaten down at every turn whereas Sam Williams, apart from the minor incovenience to his studies (which he didn't seem to be taking all too seriously, anyway), Sam floated through the judicial process with nary a bother.

You don't think that the so-called independent judiciary, supposedly the domain of the monarch, is in practice the lapdog of the Government and its former Chief Prosecutor, currently Prime Minister, do you?

At some point, a hard rain is going to fall.