People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
The nations do, but nationalism and the belief in self-determination and defined national borders do not. That is a much more modern, and enlightened, concept.
You're a notorious disrespecter of borders when it comes to the migration of people. What does self-determination mean if you treat the population as entirely fungible?
The argument still holds true. Nations are collections of peoples operating under a set of agreed rules and parameters, sharing cultural and language ties. They facilitate the expression of democratic process at a manageable and sustainable level. So long as all the people (or at least the vast majority of them) within the nation are willing to abide by and promote the laws and cultural/societal norms of the nation then there is absolutely no issue with where they come from, where they were born or anything else about them that does specifically clash with the nation they are choosing to call their home.
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
Lots of good pubs in Croydon. Both to the north of East Croydon station and also to the south west around and beyond the shopping area.
I know. Nice place, and borderline affordable, or was a few years ago: too afraid to look now...
Ludicrously expensive like virtually everywhere in Greater London!
I'm not surprised.
If you follow house prices along the railway lines that fan out from London, it's amazing/horrifying how far you have to go to get something affordable near the station. Over the years all the little places that I used to hold close were swallowed up in the big wave of increases. It paused slightly between 2008 (crash) and 2013, but Osborne brought in Help To Buy and it just took off again.
There is a counter intuitive and mysterious aspect to this. SFAICS several million people live in or near London in completely sub optimal conditions and its population has risen massively.
The puzzle is why the normal laws of economics are not working. The general economics response to being unable to pay £850,000-£1m for a £200,000 terraced house is to live somewhere else, for the same reason that you don't holiday in the Ritz.
To which everyone will respond: There aren't the jobs. Except that the economically rational thing to do is to move the jobs as well as the people away from where they are unaffordable to where they are.
There is a strange stickiness about the Great Wen. Is there an economist's account of how this works?
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
It's quite hard to define a nation except by the rather circular definition of 'a group of people who consider themselves a nation'. But you sort of know one when you see one.
And while the concept of a nation is quite old, its importance is less so. Since the iron age, loyalty has more commonly been to a person than a geographic unit; it wasn't necessarily the case that groups A and B who were united by language and geography would see themselves as a coherent group and see groups C and D as outsiders if groups A and C owed loyalty to one prince and groups B and D to another.
I'm quite interested in the concept of nation building. I think we'd largely agree that there are three nations on this island, but how did this come about? It's not ethnicity - we're all pretty similar, genetically, and there tend to be as many differences within nations as between them - and it's not language, which I would argue has followed rather than led differences between England, Scotland and Wales. And why three nations? Why not one, or two, or four, or nine? All were historically just as possible. It certainly seems the case that 2000 years ago there weren't nations here, and 200 years ago there were. But the process by which this came about is a little opaque.
Bede regarded the English as a nation by the 9th century
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
There are details which need exploring, though. Given the likely rates of evaporation, the inland sea would have to be continually 'topped up' from the Med, which would steadily increase salinity over time, without large scale removal of salt.
One interesting idea is to maintain two adjacent lakes, one of much higher salinity, and to have a large scale osmotic power generation plant, in order to provide sufficient power (plus considerable excess) to pump excess saline back to the Med.
I don't know whether any of these ideas have been extensively modelled in recent years, but it would be well worth the investment of some effort now, since all of the enabling technologies have advanced over the last couple of decades.
The author proposes harvesting and selling salt from the lake in evaporation ponds, which would reduce salinity (so long as they could find enough buyers for the salt).
As someone pointed out this morning there might be an issue with localised earthquakes and subsidence, though there's not really anyone living anywhere near.
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Evocative names of course. I think that my Grandfather shipped to Alexandria, and then was part of the fighting up into Palestine and Jerusalem towards the end of WW1 - and then possibly shipped off to Italy. He was in the artillery.
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
The tragedy is that you can see traces of what it was. Crumbling old Greek villas. Italianate houses hidden behind new slums
I’m reading this book which is absolutely brutal on the destruction of Old Alex
Ah you disapoint me. I thought you would have been reading The Alexandria Quartet - one of the finest books ever written in the English language
Has anyone ever read any Egyptian literature beyond the Sugar Street trilogy?
Having read Durrell - and obviously having a different view of it to Leon - I was inspired to read a fair bit of C.P. Cavafy - the Greek poet who spent most of his life in Alexandria. That is about the closest I have come.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing. In 1900, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were a patchwork of different groups. Galicia, for example, had the same city named Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lwiw. Now the Poles, Jews, and Germans have vanished from Galicia.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
The North Coast line is split-personality. To your south is the beautiful North Welsh landscape. To your north is a long string of rubbish towns and villages, a gray sea, and wind farms. A very elongated Thurrock. Oh look, a used-car salesman lot with some colourful pennants. Does not help. The archetype of the County Lines drugdealer corridor. I'm not going to describe the stations because you're not getting out. Sorry BigG, but you're in Anglesey which is nicer
So much to answer for
Liverpool. Nice station. I like Liverpool
Manchester. Rubbish station. I hate Manchester
[narrator: in fact they are very similar]
Good afternoon
I recognise your description, but as soon as you drive down the A55 from Llanddulas you enter a beautiful coastline with the newly sanded sweeping beaches of Colwyn Bay to Rhos on Sea then continuing towards Penrhyn Bay with the Little Orme rising in front, the sea to your right and the wonderful mountains to your left
Driving over the Little Orme you immediately see the fantastic Victorian promenade of Llandudno and the magnificent Great Orme behind
This is where we live and have done for 58 years and to be fair it is not Anglesey which is beyond Bangor and across the Menai Straights
So much has changed in the last few years I strongly recommend the drive down the A55 from Llanddulas to Colwyn Bay, then join the promenade through Rhos on Sea to Penrhyn Bay and Llandudno
I know (and I felt a bit guilty when i said it), but because I travel to most places by train I inevitably see them in the worst light. The North Coast railway exhibits in detail what Wales exhibits generally: absolutely lovely landscape, absolutely rubbish housing. Don't get me wrong it is changing slowly as Mr Barratt and Ms Redrow plant their little estate-eggs everywhere. But the bits near the stations are done last/worst, hence my animus...
(also apols for getting your place wrong: I honestly thought you were on Anglesey)
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing. In 1900, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were a patchwork of different groups. Galicia, for example, had the same city named Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lwiw. Now the Poles, Jews, and Germans have vanished from Galicia.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
It does, sadly
My guide today told me that in the 1930s Egypt had a population of 350,000 Jews (many in Alexandria). Now there is a population of 12
If anyone wants to join me I think the villa next door is empty. £900 a night
Price for 3 adults. Nick Palmer may be interested.
Who cares? NP is one of the most intelligent and insightful people on PB. (Your criticism is Childish stuff)
Er, it wasn't intended as criticism.
I know, but the cheap gain of a point scored against NP isn't worth it. And entirely because it's cheap.
I don't think it's scored against Nick. It's basic saucy amusement. He volunteered the story, and would surely have known the nudges and winks it would trigger.
I think I understand why @Chris is getting so stumped and seeing an apparent contradiction where there is none. He's making the "Incel" mistaken belief that someone else's consent being required is a restriction on your freedoms. It is not.
In a free society you're free to have sex with whoever you choose to have sex with . . . but their consent is still required.
If you want to have sex with Liz Truss @Chris and she says she wants to with you, then the state should not be saying that is forbidden as it would in Iran or Saudi Arabia or other. If on the other hand you hit on her and she says she's not interested, then she's not interested, your rights have not been impeded you were simply rejected.
In a free society you're free to choose, but if your choice requires a third parties consent, then you need the third parties consent. If you get it, then our state should not be getting involved. That is freedom. Demanding others give their consent whether they want to or not, is not freedom.
If you want to have sex with a third party, and they consent, or you want to emigrate to a third party, and they consent, then our state should not be forbidding it. There's no contradiction there, while still allowing people to give or refuse consent.
PB has plenty of wannabe Reply Guys but Barty Bobs is the OG.
Dura _Ace once again displays his vast intellect with one of his, oh so, pithy comments.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Well there is genuinely a slightly madder project proposed, which would involve closing the North Sea off from the Atlantic to protect the low lying European coastlines. Though as the gap between Norway and the Faroes reaches around 300m of ocean depth, it's a bit impractical.
If anyone wants to join me I think the villa next door is empty. £900 a night
Price for 3 adults. Nick Palmer may be interested.
Who cares? NP is one of the most intelligent and insightful people on PB. (Your criticism is Childish stuff)
Er, it wasn't intended as criticism.
I know, but the cheap gain of a point scored against NP isn't worth it. And entirely because it's cheap.
I have no desire to score any points against NP, who is one of my favourite people on here. It was a gentle joke, a knowing reference to PB's finest hour. If we have now moved on from this great moment and humorous references to it are now forbidden then I apologise. I did not receive that particular memo.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
I think someone is already planning on doing that.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Well there is genuinely a slightly madder project proposed, which would involve closing the North Sea off from the Atlantic to protect the low lying European coastlines. Though as the gap between Norway and the Faroes reaches around 300m of ocean depth, it's a bit impractical.
The Yellowstone caldera geothermal plan is another great one.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
There are details which need exploring, though. Given the likely rates of evaporation, the inland sea would have to be continually 'topped up' from the Med, which would steadily increase salinity over time, without large scale removal of salt.
One interesting idea is to maintain two adjacent lakes, one of much higher salinity, and to have a large scale osmotic power generation plant, in order to provide sufficient power (plus considerable excess) to pump excess saline back to the Med.
I don't know whether any of these ideas have been extensively modelled in recent years, but it would be well worth the investment of some effort now, since all of the enabling technologies have advanced over the last couple of decades.
The author proposes harvesting and selling salt from the lake in evaporation ponds, which would reduce salinity (so long as they could find enough buyers for the salt).
As someone pointed out this morning there might be an issue with localised earthquakes and subsidence, though there's not really anyone living anywhere near.
Given the size of the lake, and rates of evaporation, it would need something of greater scale, I think - though no doubt that could be part of the project (mineral extraction from the salt is also suggested).
If anyone wants to join me I think the villa next door is empty. £900 a night
Price for 3 adults. Nick Palmer may be interested.
Who cares? NP is one of the most intelligent and insightful people on PB. (Your criticism is Childish stuff)
Er, it wasn't intended as criticism.
I know, but the cheap gain of a point scored against NP isn't worth it. And entirely because it's cheap.
I have no desire to score any points against NP, who is one of my favourite people on here. It was a gentle joke, a knowing reference to PB's finest hour. If we have now moved on from this great moment and humorous references to it are now forbidden then I apologise. I did not receive that particular memo.
I'll probably get an angry email from NP telling me he needs no defending anyway.
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Evocative names of course. I think that my Grandfather shipped to Alexandria, and then was part of the fighting up into Palestine and Jerusalem towards the end of WW1 - and then possibly shipped off to Italy. He was in the artillery.
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
The tragedy is that you can see traces of what it was. Crumbling old Greek villas. Italianate houses hidden behind new slums
I’m reading this book which is absolutely brutal on the destruction of Old Alex
Ah you disapoint me. I thought you would have been reading The Alexandria Quartet - one of the finest books ever written in the English language
Has anyone ever read any Egyptian literature beyond the Sugar Street trilogy?
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
I think someone is already planning on doing that.
This could quite nicely be combined with a bit of tourism if the consortium think ahead. I know it's windy (that's kind of the point of putting the turbines there) but no more windy than the West coast of Ireland or Scotland, or Western Jutland for that matter, where there is plenty of tourism.
Island hotels, artificial beaches, cycling routes, underwater restaurants, boat trips around the turbines, all in a tax and duty free international zone administered by the 3 governments.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
I think someone is already planning on doing that.
This could quite nicely be combined with a bit of tourism if the consortium think ahead. I know it's windy (that's kind of the point of putting the turbines there) but no more windy than the West coast of Ireland or Scotland, or Western Jutland for that matter, where there is plenty of tourism.
Island hotels, artificial beaches, cycling routes, underwater restaurants, boat trips around the turbines, all in a tax and duty free international zone administered by the 3 governments.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Well there is genuinely a slightly madder project proposed, which would involve closing the North Sea off from the Atlantic to protect the low lying European coastlines. Though as the gap between Norway and the Faroes reaches around 300m of ocean depth, it's a bit impractical.
The Yellowstone caldera geothermal plan is another great one.
If @Malmesbury were around, he'd be wanting to revive the 'Atoms for Peace' project, which planned to build the canal connecting the Qattara Depression to the Med using a hundred or so subsurface thermonuclear explosions.
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
It was in Sparta. And Thebes.
There were instances of homosexuality, not full legal homosexual marriage and Sparta of course was still not Troy
@HYUFD - You could get gay married in the Soke of Peterborough, or Nassaburgh hundred, until the Statute of Kidlington in 1642 during the Civil War, after Cromwell got all upset by it. Peakirk, now a village and civil parish in the Peterborough district, takes its name from "Penis Church", the chapel reserved for gay marrying. It was to gay marriage what Greta Green was to the straights. Sadly lesbians were not given the same dispensation after the sack of Fingringhoe
I believed you. I believed you until I got to "Fingringhoe". Then I went "Oh" and I googled. Uh-oh.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
I think someone is already planning on doing that.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing. In 1900, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were a patchwork of different groups. Galicia, for example, had the same city named Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lwiw. Now the Poles, Jews, and Germans have vanished from Galicia.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
It does, sadly
My guide today told me that in the 1930s Egypt had a population of 350,000 Jews (many in Alexandria). Now there is a population of 12
That’s not a typo. 12
It's interesting to me how uncontroversial this was in 1945. It was accepted that the Germans would have to to be expelled from Western Poland, the Sudetenland, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Likewise, Poles would be expelled from Western Ukraine, and Ukrainians from South Eastern Poland. The expelled Poles would be resettled in the territories taken from Germany. Italians would be expelled from expanded Yugoslavia.
Nobody, Communist or anti-Communist, was much interested in seeing the surviving Jews remain, or return from the camps. It was generally thought they would be better off in Palestine. Around 500,000 Eastern European Jews left, 300,000 for Israel. One can therefore see why the Israelis and Arab States had no qualms about expelling unwanted minorities.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing. In 1900, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were a patchwork of different groups. Galicia, for example, had the same city named Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lwiw. Now the Poles, Jews, and Germans have vanished from Galicia.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
It does, sadly
My guide today told me that in the 1930s Egypt had a population of 350,000 Jews (many in Alexandria). Now there is a population of 12
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing. In 1900, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were a patchwork of different groups. Galicia, for example, had the same city named Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lwiw. Now the Poles, Jews, and Germans have vanished from Galicia.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
It does, sadly
My guide today told me that in the 1930s Egypt had a population of 350,000 Jews (many in Alexandria). Now there is a population of 12
That’s not a typo. 12
It's interesting to me how uncontroversial this was in 1945. It was accepted that the Germans would have to to be expelled from Western Poland, the Sudetenland, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Likewise, Poles would be expelled from Western Ukraine, and Ukrainians from South Eastern Poland. The expelled Poles would be resettled in the territories taken from Germany. Italians would be expelled from expanded Yugoslavia.
Nobody, Communist or anti-Communist, was much interested in seeing the surviving Jews remain, or return from the camps. It was generally thought they would be better off in Palestine. Around 500,000 Eastern European Jews left, 300,000 for Israel. One can therefore see why the Israelis and Arab States had no qualms about expelling unwanted minorities.
The forcible movement of populations postwar was not exactly uncontroversial.
I recommend a bit of Cavafy as you circle Alexandria, Leon.
EM Forster was a fan - in fact it was he that made him famous in Northern Europe.
Durrell, Alexandria Quartet?
Though I'm more familiar with his brother's writings on natural history expeditions.
Interesting writer. He wrote some great poetry about modern Greece, too. A friend of Patrick Leigh Fermor, who ended up as a mayor in Mani, in Southern Greece.
I think he knew Cavafy, and Seferis, another Greek poet, too.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
I think someone is already planning on doing that.
This could quite nicely be combined with a bit of tourism if the consortium think ahead. I know it's windy (that's kind of the point of putting the turbines there) but no more windy than the West coast of Ireland or Scotland, or Western Jutland for that matter, where there is plenty of tourism.
Island hotels, artificial beaches, cycling routes, underwater restaurants, boat trips around the turbines, all in a tax and duty free international zone administered by the 3 governments.
It could be the European Las Vegas.
Still wouldn't be as good as the zona economica especial de la Isleta de Portland which the Spanish would create once we sign the agreement for permanent sovereignty over Gibraltar in exchange for our own similarly sited and shaped limestone outcrop on the Dorset coast.
Quick bus trip across the border from Weymouth for an evening of Tapas, Fino and La Liga on TV followed by late night flamenco. Convert Portland castle into a Parador. Couple of new golf courses and a bull ring.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing. In 1900, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were a patchwork of different groups. Galicia, for example, had the same city named Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lwiw. Now the Poles, Jews, and Germans have vanished from Galicia.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
It does, sadly
My guide today told me that in the 1930s Egypt had a population of 350,000 Jews (many in Alexandria). Now there is a population of 12
That’s not a typo. 12
It's interesting to me how uncontroversial this was in 1945. It was accepted that the Germans would have to to be expelled from Western Poland, the Sudetenland, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Likewise, Poles would be expelled from Western Ukraine, and Ukrainians from South Eastern Poland. The expelled Poles would be resettled in the territories taken from Germany. Italians would be expelled from expanded Yugoslavia.
Nobody, Communist or anti-Communist, was much interested in seeing the surviving Jews remain, or return from the camps. It was generally thought they would be better off in Palestine. Around 500,000 Eastern European Jews left, 300,000 for Israel. One can therefore see why the Israelis and Arab States had no qualms about expelling unwanted minorities.
The forcible movement of populations postwar was not exactly uncontroversial.
There was very little protest over it. The decision was taken at Yalta, and that was that. The British and Americans did put their foot down over proposals to expel Hungarians from Slovakia, but that was about it.
Fascinating piece of research which cast some doubt on the Alzheimer's amyloid hypothesis (the suggestion that it might be a syndrome comprising several different pathologies seems sensible to me, FWIW), and pointing a way to other potential therapies.
My sole contribution to the set of très grands méga projets is: occupying Antarctica and open-mining coal. Minimal environmental damage as the snow will inevitably recolonise the workings and I'm sure we can do something with it, even if these green times.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
It's quite hard to define a nation except by the rather circular definition of 'a group of people who consider themselves a nation'. But you sort of know one when you see one.
And while the concept of a nation is quite old, its importance is less so. Since the iron age, loyalty has more commonly been to a person than a geographic unit; it wasn't necessarily the case that groups A and B who were united by language and geography would see themselves as a coherent group and see groups C and D as outsiders if groups A and C owed loyalty to one prince and groups B and D to another.
I'm quite interested in the concept of nation building. I think we'd largely agree that there are three nations on this island, but how did this come about? It's not ethnicity - we're all pretty similar, genetically, and there tend to be as many differences within nations as between them - and it's not language, which I would argue has followed rather than led differences between England, Scotland and Wales. And why three nations? Why not one, or two, or four, or nine? All were historically just as possible. It certainly seems the case that 2000 years ago there weren't nations here, and 200 years ago there were. But the process by which this came about is a little opaque.
Bede regarded the English as a nation by the 9th century
He did, though it's not necessarily obvious that he meant the same thing by 'nation' as we do now.
I think a commonality of religion probably had a lot to do with it, certainly from Bede's point of view. Whether a Northumbrian peasant of the time would see things the same, who knows?
If anyone wants to join me I think the villa next door is empty. £900 a night
Price for 3 adults. Nick Palmer may be interested.
Who cares? NP is one of the most intelligent and insightful people on PB. (Your criticism is Childish stuff)
Er, it wasn't intended as criticism.
I know, but the cheap gain of a point scored against NP isn't worth it. And entirely because it's cheap.
I have no desire to score any points against NP, who is one of my favourite people on here. It was a gentle joke, a knowing reference to PB's finest hour. If we have now moved on from this great moment and humorous references to it are now forbidden then I apologise. I did not receive that particular memo.
Fret not. Everyone - almost everyone - realises it was a joke. And a rather good joke
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
I think someone is already planning on doing that.
This could quite nicely be combined with a bit of tourism if the consortium think ahead. I know it's windy (that's kind of the point of putting the turbines there) but no more windy than the West coast of Ireland or Scotland, or Western Jutland for that matter, where there is plenty of tourism.
Island hotels, artificial beaches, cycling routes, underwater restaurants, boat trips around the turbines, all in a tax and duty free international zone administered by the 3 governments.
It could be the European Las Vegas.
Still wouldn't be as good as the zona economica especial de la Isleta de Portland which the Spanish would create once we sign the agreement for permanent sovereignty over Gibraltar in exchange for our own similarly sited and shaped limestone outcrop on the Dorset coast.
Quick bus trip across the border from Weymouth for an evening of Tapas, Fino and La Liga on TV followed by late night flamenco. Convert Portland castle into a Parador. Couple of new golf courses and a bull ring.
It would be a disaster. I would have to scrub several birds off my British list.
For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year. Half the enjoyment of White House races has been the nomination contests and I dearly hope that neither Trump or Biden are the nominees.
So many seem to agree, yet each looks to have varying degrees of stranglehold over the contests (either due to the level of base support or presidential incumbency factor).
Hopefully some alsoran will at least do something interesting.
I recommend a bit of Cavafy as you circle Alexandria, Leon.
EM Forster was a fan - in fact it was he that made him famous in Northern Europe.
Durrell, Alexandria Quartet?
Though I'm more familiar with his brother's writings on natural history expeditions.
One of my favourite books of all time - or rather four books. Lawrence Durrell is well worth getting into. Beautifully dense writing. I find him very similar to Gabriel García Márquez in his prose and Stefan Zweig in his tone.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
I think someone is already planning on doing that.
Which is the justification for all the work being done at Redcar's former steel works even though a different (European) company already has a contract for most of the turbines.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Think bigger still! The North Sea is pretty shallow. Build a dam from Grimsby to Groningen and from Folkestone to Dieppe and create a score of Cambridgeshires.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
It's quite hard to define a nation except by the rather circular definition of 'a group of people who consider themselves a nation'. But you sort of know one when you see one.
And while the concept of a nation is quite old, its importance is less so. Since the iron age, loyalty has more commonly been to a person than a geographic unit; it wasn't necessarily the case that groups A and B who were united by language and geography would see themselves as a coherent group and see groups C and D as outsiders if groups A and C owed loyalty to one prince and groups B and D to another.
I'm quite interested in the concept of nation building. I think we'd largely agree that there are three nations on this island, but how did this come about? It's not ethnicity - we're all pretty similar, genetically, and there tend to be as many differences within nations as between them - and it's not language, which I would argue has followed rather than led differences between England, Scotland and Wales. And why three nations? Why not one, or two, or four, or nine? All were historically just as possible. It certainly seems the case that 2000 years ago there weren't nations here, and 200 years ago there were. But the process by which this came about is a little opaque.
Bede regarded the English as a nation by the 9th century
He did, though it's not necessarily obvious that he meant the same thing by 'nation' as we do now.
I think a commonality of religion probably had a lot to do with it, certainly from Bede's point of view. Whether a Northumbrian peasant of the time would see things the same, who knows?
Not quite 9th c. He dies mid 8th c. And English probably meant differently. He knew no English king, and without a king there is no kingdom. Perhaps he meant a little like we would mean by 'Kurdish'.
On topic (if you all will excuse me): You can not understand the Trump phenomena unless you recognize that it is, in part, a reaction to Obama's presidency. Which was failing in quite obvious ways by the end of his time in office. (Our birth rate had declined; our life expectancy was begining to decline in his last year or two in office; identity politics had strengthened; his reaction to Russian aggression was weak, to say the least; and so on.)
But our main news organizations were unwilling to say that, even, in many cases, unwilling to see those failures. Why? The main answer is painfully obvious, and was explained at the time by this mediocre joke: "Why can't Obama criticize himself? Because that would be racist."
And, of course, because most of our news organizations supported his policies, for ideological reasons.
So, many voters were looking for an antidote, and latched on to a man who promised to fight for them. And they particularly wanted someone who was despised by those same news organizations, which they no longer trusted.
(There is another disturbing parallel between Obama and Trump. Both damaged their own parties; both lost competent moderate leaders during their presidencies.)
If anyone wants to join me I think the villa next door is empty. £900 a night
Price for 3 adults. Nick Palmer may be interested.
Who cares? NP is one of the most intelligent and insightful people on PB. (Your criticism is Childish stuff)
Er, it wasn't intended as criticism.
I know, but the cheap gain of a point scored against NP isn't worth it. And entirely because it's cheap.
I have no desire to score any points against NP, who is one of my favourite people on here. It was a gentle joke, a knowing reference to PB's finest hour. If we have now moved on from this great moment and humorous references to it are now forbidden then I apologise. I did not receive that particular memo.
I'll probably get an angry email from NP telling me he needs no defending anyway.
If anyone wants to join me I think the villa next door is empty. £900 a night
Price for 3 adults. Nick Palmer may be interested.
Who cares? NP is one of the most intelligent and insightful people on PB. (Your criticism is Childish stuff)
Er, it wasn't intended as criticism.
I know, but the cheap gain of a point scored against NP isn't worth it. And entirely because it's cheap.
I have no desire to score any points against NP, who is one of my favourite people on here. It was a gentle joke, a knowing reference to PB's finest hour. If we have now moved on from this great moment and humorous references to it are now forbidden then I apologise. I did not receive that particular memo.
Fret not. Everyone - almost everyone - realises it was a joke. And a rather good joke
Referring to that particular episode is hardly scoring a point of Nick P! It's like 'scoring a point' off Usain Bolt by slyly pointing out he won several Olympic medals and is quite fast at running.
I recommend a bit of Cavafy as you circle Alexandria, Leon.
EM Forster was a fan - in fact it was he that made him famous in Northern Europe.
Durrell, Alexandria Quartet?
Though I'm more familiar with his brother's writings on natural history expeditions.
Interesting writer. He wrote some great poetry about modern Greece, too. A friend of Patrick Leigh Fermor, who ended up as a mayor in Mani, in Southern Greece.
I think he knew Cavafy, and Seferis, another Greek poet, too.
I used to read Paddy Fermor's books and Alfred Duggan's history novels set in the Morea etc. Must fish them out and reread them. Not Alex though.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Think bigger still! The North Sea is pretty shallow. Build a dam from Grimsby to Groningen and from Folkestone to Dieppe and create a score of Cambridgeshires.
That’s already a twinkle in someone’s eye isn’t it?
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Think bigger still! The North Sea is pretty shallow. Build a dam from Grimsby to Groningen and from Folkestone to Dieppe and create a score of Cambridgeshires.
That’s already a twinkle in someone’s eye isn’t it?
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Think bigger still! The North Sea is pretty shallow. Build a dam from Grimsby to Groningen and from Folkestone to Dieppe and create a score of Cambridgeshires.
That’s already a twinkle in someone’s eye isn’t it?
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Think bigger still! The North Sea is pretty shallow. Build a dam from Grimsby to Groningen and from Folkestone to Dieppe and create a score of Cambridgeshires.
That’s already a twinkle in someone’s eye isn’t it?
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
Lots of good pubs in Croydon. Both to the north of East Croydon station and also to the south west around and beyond the shopping area.
I know. Nice place, and borderline affordable, or was a few years ago: too afraid to look now...
Ludicrously expensive like virtually everywhere in Greater London!
I'm not surprised.
If you follow house prices along the railway lines that fan out from London, it's amazing/horrifying how far you have to go to get something affordable near the station. Over the years all the little places that I used to hold close were swallowed up in the big wave of increases. It paused slightly between 2008 (crash) and 2013, but Osborne brought in Help To Buy and it just took off again.
There is a counter intuitive and mysterious aspect to this. SFAICS several million people live in or near London in completely sub optimal conditions and its population has risen massively.
The puzzle is why the normal laws of economics are not working. The general economics response to being unable to pay £850,000-£1m for a £200,000 terraced house is to live somewhere else, for the same reason that you don't holiday in the Ritz.
To which everyone will respond: There aren't the jobs. Except that the economically rational thing to do is to move the jobs as well as the people away from where they are unaffordable to where they are.
There is a strange stickiness about the Great Wen. Is there an economist's account of how this works?
Population centres have a return to scale & density - local firms piggy back on each other, spreading knowledge as people job hop between them (something the capitalist owner class hates naturally & tries to prevent, but it’s almost impossible to stop up altogether).
You can see this kind of thing playing out when particular areas become known for specialising in particular industries - think of how F1 is dominated by teams run from Oxfordshire & surrounding counties.
London is especially powerful because of the combination of it’s size & excellent (compared to anywhere else in the UK) transport networks. No-where else in the UK has a population centre that can match London’s productivity.
At the national level this is a real problem & one of the things that holds back UK GDP: There ought to be at least a second city to match London, but it doesn’t exist. Why? Probably the atrocious transport networks in the midlands / north of the UK & planning constraints more generally. Where is the train line that joins up the Liverpool / Manchester / Leeds axis? Instead we get Northern Rail which is a sad joke to all who are forced to use it. Where’s the Oxford-Cambridge railway? Why is lab space in the Ox<->Cam axis so unbelievably expensive, throttling development? Infrastructure is everything & we just haven’t been building it, despite the price signals saying that firms are screaming out for it.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Think bigger still! The North Sea is pretty shallow. Build a dam from Grimsby to Groningen and from Folkestone to Dieppe and create a score of Cambridgeshires.
That’s already a twinkle in someone’s eye isn’t it?
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Perhaps we should think bigger than Boris Island and reclaim Dogger Bank.
Think bigger still! The North Sea is pretty shallow. Build a dam from Grimsby to Groningen and from Folkestone to Dieppe and create a score of Cambridgeshires.
That’s already a twinkle in someone’s eye isn’t it?
500bn Euros actually sounds cheap for such an idea.
Though if the UK were running it itd be 5 trillion presumably.
We should build Alantropa. Then Leon wouldn't have to worry about getting to the sea from his hotel, because it wouldn't be there anymore. Plus lots of extra space for Gibraltar.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing. In 1900, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were a patchwork of different groups. Galicia, for example, had the same city named Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lwiw. Now the Poles, Jews, and Germans have vanished from Galicia.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
It does, sadly
My guide today told me that in the 1930s Egypt had a population of 350,000 Jews (many in Alexandria). Now there is a population of 12
That’s not a typo. 12
It's interesting to me how uncontroversial this was in 1945. It was accepted that the Germans would have to to be expelled from Western Poland, the Sudetenland, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Likewise, Poles would be expelled from Western Ukraine, and Ukrainians from South Eastern Poland. The expelled Poles would be resettled in the territories taken from Germany. Italians would be expelled from expanded Yugoslavia.
Nobody, Communist or anti-Communist, was much interested in seeing the surviving Jews remain, or return from the camps. It was generally thought they would be better off in Palestine. Around 500,000 Eastern European Jews left, 300,000 for Israel. One can therefore see why the Israelis and Arab States had no qualms about expelling unwanted minorities.
The forcible movement of populations postwar was not exactly uncontroversial.
There was very little protest over it. The decision was taken at Yalta, and that was that. The British and Americans did put their foot down over proposals to expel Hungarians from Slovakia, but that was about it.
The free world realised by then it was pointless protesting to Stalin. Unless we were going to go to war with him, there was nothing we could have odne. As somebody said in another context, we only have arguments there. They have soldiers.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing. In 1900, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were a patchwork of different groups. Galicia, for example, had the same city named Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lwiw. Now the Poles, Jews, and Germans have vanished from Galicia.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
It does, sadly
My guide today told me that in the 1930s Egypt had a population of 350,000 Jews (many in Alexandria). Now there is a population of 12
That’s not a typo. 12
It's interesting to me how uncontroversial this was in 1945. It was accepted that the Germans would have to to be expelled from Western Poland, the Sudetenland, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Likewise, Poles would be expelled from Western Ukraine, and Ukrainians from South Eastern Poland. The expelled Poles would be resettled in the territories taken from Germany. Italians would be expelled from expanded Yugoslavia.
Nobody, Communist or anti-Communist, was much interested in seeing the surviving Jews remain, or return from the camps. It was generally thought they would be better off in Palestine. Around 500,000 Eastern European Jews left, 300,000 for Israel. One can therefore see why the Israelis and Arab States had no qualms about expelling unwanted minorities.
The forcible movement of populations postwar was not exactly uncontroversial.
There was very little protest over it. The decision was taken at Yalta, and that was that. The British and Americans did put their foot down over proposals to expel Hungarians from Slovakia, but that was about it.
Some of that was secrecy - the forcible repatriations to the Soviet Union were largely kept secret for years. And it would be inaccurate to describe ethnic cleansing (for example between Ukraine and Poland) as uncontroversial, I think ? How much were the wider public outside the immediate vicinities even aware of what was taking place ?
As I noted earlier, much of what happened in eastern Europe was by Stalin's design.
On topic (if you all will excuse me): You can not understand the Trump phenomena unless you recognize that it is, in part, a reaction to Obama's presidency. Which was failing in quite obvious ways by the end of his time in office. (Our birth rate had declined; our life expectancy was begining to decline in his last year or two in office; identity politics had strengthened; his reaction to Russian aggression was weak, to say the least; and so on.)
But our main news organizations were unwilling to say that, even, in many cases, unwilling to see those failures. Why? The main answer is painfully obvious, and was explained at the time by this mediocre joke: "Why can't Obama criticize himself? Because that would be racist."
And, of course, because most of our news organizations supported his policies, for ideological reasons.
So, many voters were looking for an antidote, and latched on to a man who promised to fight for them. And they particularly wanted someone who was despised by those same news organizations, which they no longer trusted.
(There is another disturbing parallel between Obama and Trump. Both damaged their own parties; both lost competent moderate leaders during their presidencies.)
That's a pretty feeble excuse for the pathologies of the Republican party since then.
On topic (if you all will excuse me): You can not understand the Trump phenomena unless you recognize that it is, in part, a reaction to Obama's presidency. Which was failing in quite obvious ways by the end of his time in office. (Our birth rate had declined; our life expectancy was begining to decline in his last year or two in office; identity politics had strengthened; his reaction to Russian aggression was weak, to say the least; and so on.)
But our main news organizations were unwilling to say that, even, in many cases, unwilling to see those failures. Why? The main answer is painfully obvious, and was explained at the time by this mediocre joke: "Why can't Obama criticize himself? Because that would be racist."
And, of course, because most of our news organizations supported his policies, for ideological reasons.
So, many voters were looking for an antidote, and latched on to a man who promised to fight for them. And they particularly wanted someone who was despised by those same news organizations, which they no longer trusted.
(There is another disturbing parallel between Obama and Trump. Both damaged their own parties; both lost competent moderate leaders during their presidencies.)
That's a pretty feeble excuse for the pathologies of the Republican party since then.
And doesn't seem to tally with what opinion polling was showing towards the end of Obama's presidency, which showed him having much higher approval ratings than either of the 2 candidates in 2016.
It's possible that hindsight might shine a less favourable light on Obama's decisions than opinion at the time, as has been the case for Merkel for example, but it didn't seem to be how voters felt back then.
On topic (if you all will excuse me): You can not understand the Trump phenomena unless you recognize that it is, in part, a reaction to Obama's presidency. Which was failing in quite obvious ways by the end of his time in office. (Our birth rate had declined; our life expectancy was begining to decline in his last year or two in office; identity politics had strengthened; his reaction to Russian aggression was weak, to say the least; and so on.)
But our main news organizations were unwilling to say that, even, in many cases, unwilling to see those failures. Why? The main answer is painfully obvious, and was explained at the time by this mediocre joke: "Why can't Obama criticize himself? Because that would be racist."
And, of course, because most of our news organizations supported his policies, for ideological reasons.
So, many voters were looking for an antidote, and latched on to a man who promised to fight for them. And they particularly wanted someone who was despised by those same news organizations, which they no longer trusted.
(There is another disturbing parallel between Obama and Trump. Both damaged their own parties; both lost competent moderate leaders during their presidencies.)
That's a pretty feeble excuse for the pathologies of the Republican party since then.
And doesn't seem to tally with what opinion polling was showing towards the end of Obama's presidency, which showed him having much higher approval ratings than either of the 2 candidates in 2016.
It's possible that hindsight might shine a less favourable light on Obama's decisions than opinion at the time, as has been the case for Merkel for example, but it didn't seem to be how voters felt back then.
Obama was certainly a flawed President; but that's true of almost all US Presidents. Electing a sociopathic narcissist in response is down to those who elected the sociopathic narcissist.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Nuclear weapons and ethnic cleansing. In 1900, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were a patchwork of different groups. Galicia, for example, had the same city named Lemberg, Lvov, Lwow, and Lwiw. Now the Poles, Jews, and Germans have vanished from Galicia.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
It does, sadly
My guide today told me that in the 1930s Egypt had a population of 350,000 Jews (many in Alexandria). Now there is a population of 12
That’s not a typo. 12
It's interesting to me how uncontroversial this was in 1945. It was accepted that the Germans would have to to be expelled from Western Poland, the Sudetenland, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Likewise, Poles would be expelled from Western Ukraine, and Ukrainians from South Eastern Poland. The expelled Poles would be resettled in the territories taken from Germany. Italians would be expelled from expanded Yugoslavia.
Nobody, Communist or anti-Communist, was much interested in seeing the surviving Jews remain, or return from the camps. It was generally thought they would be better off in Palestine. Around 500,000 Eastern European Jews left, 300,000 for Israel. One can therefore see why the Israelis and Arab States had no qualms about expelling unwanted minorities.
The forcible movement of populations postwar was not exactly uncontroversial.
There was very little protest over it. The decision was taken at Yalta, and that was that. The British and Americans did put their foot down over proposals to expel Hungarians from Slovakia, but that was about it.
Some of that was secrecy - the forcible repatriations to the Soviet Union were largely kept secret for years. And it would be inaccurate to describe ethnic cleansing (for example between Ukraine and Poland) as uncontroversial, I think ? How much were the wider public outside the immediate vicinities even aware of what was taking place ?
As I noted earlier, much of what happened in eastern Europe was by Stalin's design.
Yalta was certainly not uncontroversial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal#Yalta,_1945 ...Churchill defended his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a vote of confidence. During the debate, many MPs openly criticised Churchill and passionately voiced loyalty to Britain's Polish allies and expressed deep reservations about Yalta.[48] Moreover, 25 of these MPs risked their careers to draft an amendment protesting against Britain's tacit acceptance of Poland's domination by the Soviet Union. These members included Arthur Greenwood, Viscount Dunglass, Commander Archibald Southby, the Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and Victor Raikes.[48] After the failure of the amendment, Henry Strauss, the Member of Parliament for Norwich, resigned his seat in protest at the British treatment of Poland...
In particular, that UK cities (apart from London) just don’t get the returns to size that cities elsewhere in the world do, lagging by factor of 2-3 the expected return.
On topic (if you all will excuse me): You can not understand the Trump phenomena unless you recognize that it is, in part, a reaction to Obama's presidency. Which was failing in quite obvious ways by the end of his time in office. (Our birth rate had declined; our life expectancy was begining to decline in his last year or two in office; identity politics had strengthened; his reaction to Russian aggression was weak, to say the least; and so on.)
But our main news organizations were unwilling to say that, even, in many cases, unwilling to see those failures. Why? The main answer is painfully obvious, and was explained at the time by this mediocre joke: "Why can't Obama criticize himself? Because that would be racist."
And, of course, because most of our news organizations supported his policies, for ideological reasons.
So, many voters were looking for an antidote, and latched on to a man who promised to fight for them. And they particularly wanted someone who was despised by those same news organizations, which they no longer trusted.
(There is another disturbing parallel between Obama and Trump. Both damaged their own parties; both lost competent moderate leaders during their presidencies.)
That's a pretty feeble excuse for the pathologies of the Republican party since then.
And doesn't seem to tally with what opinion polling was showing towards the end of Obama's presidency, which showed him having much higher approval ratings than either of the 2 candidates in 2016.
It's possible that hindsight might shine a less favourable light on Obama's decisions than opinion at the time, as has been the case for Merkel for example, but it didn't seem to be how voters felt back then.
I think Jim's point isn't that Obama was uniquely rubbish, but that Obama, uniquely, seemed to receive a free pass from the media.
My memory is hazy, but isn't there a Dutch military flight simulator company (or maybe it was just the CEO who was Dutch) with some F16 simulators in the UK that they hire out to the Bahrainian, Egyptian, etc air forces?
The Dutch F-16 training pipeline at Luke AFB shut down earlier this year. Non NATO FMS F-16 crews do type conversions with the Arizona ANG at Tucson. This would probably be where the Ukrainians would go if it ever happened.
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
Lots of good pubs in Croydon. Both to the north of East Croydon station and also to the south west around and beyond the shopping area.
I know. Nice place, and borderline affordable, or was a few years ago: too afraid to look now...
Ludicrously expensive like virtually everywhere in Greater London!
I'm not surprised.
If you follow house prices along the railway lines that fan out from London, it's amazing/horrifying how far you have to go to get something affordable near the station. Over the years all the little places that I used to hold close were swallowed up in the big wave of increases. It paused slightly between 2008 (crash) and 2013, but Osborne brought in Help To Buy and it just took off again.
There is a counter intuitive and mysterious aspect to this. SFAICS several million people live in or near London in completely sub optimal conditions and its population has risen massively.
The puzzle is why the normal laws of economics are not working. The general economics response to being unable to pay £850,000-£1m for a £200,000 terraced house is to live somewhere else, for the same reason that you don't holiday in the Ritz.
To which everyone will respond: There aren't the jobs. Except that the economically rational thing to do is to move the jobs as well as the people away from where they are unaffordable to where they are.
There is a strange stickiness about the Great Wen. Is there an economist's account of how this works?
Population centres have a return to scale & density - local firms piggy back on each other, spreading knowledge as people job hop between them (something the capitalist owner class hates naturally & tries to prevent, but it’s almost impossible to stop up altogether).
You can see this kind of thing playing out when particular areas become known for specialising in particular industries - think of how F1 is dominated by teams run from Oxfordshire & surrounding counties.
London is especially powerful because of the combination of it’s size & excellent (compared to anywhere else in the UK) transport networks. No-where else in the UK has a population centre that can match London’s productivity.
At the national level this is a real problem & one of the things that holds back UK GDP: There ought to be at least a second city to match London, but it doesn’t exist. Why? Probably the atrocious transport networks in the midlands / north of the UK & planning constraints more generally. Where is the train line that joins up the Liverpool / Manchester / Leeds axis? Instead we get Northern Rail which is a sad joke to all who are forced to use it. Where’s the Oxford-Cambridge railway? Why is lab space in the Ox<->Cam axis so unbelievably expensive, throttling development? Infrastructure is everything & we just haven’t been building it, despite the price signals saying that firms are screaming out for it.
All the young journalists on my recent assignment in Hurghada live in and around London - despite complaining about the incredible rents
One of them is an Aussie girl who took a 70% pay cut to move from Tasmania to London. Yet she says she loves London nonetheless and is desperate to stay. She loves it because “everyone else is in London” and you can “get anywhere in Europe in 2-3 hours”
She told me she hates Sydney - “boring, parochial, uncultured”
If you’re English speaking and you want a world city experience it’s gotta be london or nyc. And london has europe as it’s backyard
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Evocative names of course. I think that my Grandfather shipped to Alexandria, and then was part of the fighting up into Palestine and Jerusalem towards the end of WW1 - and then possibly shipped off to Italy. He was in the artillery.
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
The tragedy is that you can see traces of what it was. Crumbling old Greek villas. Italianate houses hidden behind new slums
I’m reading this book which is absolutely brutal on the destruction of Old Alex
Ah you disapoint me. I thought you would have been reading The Alexandria Quartet - one of the finest books ever written in the English language
Has anyone ever read any Egyptian literature beyond the Sugar Street trilogy?
I had to read عمارة يعقوبيان (The Yacoubian Building) for my Arabic course and it was fucking hard work in Arabic as I could only two or three pages at a time until my head fell off. The English translation is very good though.
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Evocative names of course. I think that my Grandfather shipped to Alexandria, and then was part of the fighting up into Palestine and Jerusalem towards the end of WW1 - and then possibly shipped off to Italy. He was in the artillery.
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
The tragedy is that you can see traces of what it was. Crumbling old Greek villas. Italianate houses hidden behind new slums
I’m reading this book which is absolutely brutal on the destruction of Old Alex
Ah you disapoint me. I thought you would have been reading The Alexandria Quartet - one of the finest books ever written in the English language
Has anyone ever read any Egyptian literature beyond the Sugar Street trilogy?
I had to read عمارة يعقوبيان (The Yacoubian Building) for my Arabic course and it was fucking hard work in Arabic as I could only two or three pages at a time until my head fell off. The English translation is very good though.
That novel is in my rucksack to be read next. Glad to hear it’s good
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
Lots of good pubs in Croydon. Both to the north of East Croydon station and also to the south west around and beyond the shopping area.
I know. Nice place, and borderline affordable, or was a few years ago: too afraid to look now...
Ludicrously expensive like virtually everywhere in Greater London!
I'm not surprised.
If you follow house prices along the railway lines that fan out from London, it's amazing/horrifying how far you have to go to get something affordable near the station. Over the years all the little places that I used to hold close were swallowed up in the big wave of increases. It paused slightly between 2008 (crash) and 2013, but Osborne brought in Help To Buy and it just took off again.
There is a counter intuitive and mysterious aspect to this. SFAICS several million people live in or near London in completely sub optimal conditions and its population has risen massively.
The puzzle is why the normal laws of economics are not working. The general economics response to being unable to pay £850,000-£1m for a £200,000 terraced house is to live somewhere else, for the same reason that you don't holiday in the Ritz.
To which everyone will respond: There aren't the jobs. Except that the economically rational thing to do is to move the jobs as well as the people away from where they are unaffordable to where they are.
There is a strange stickiness about the Great Wen. Is there an economist's account of how this works?
Population centres have a return to scale & density - local firms piggy back on each other, spreading knowledge as people job hop between them (something the capitalist owner class hates naturally & tries to prevent, but it’s almost impossible to stop up altogether).
You can see this kind of thing playing out when particular areas become known for specialising in particular industries - think of how F1 is dominated by teams run from Oxfordshire & surrounding counties.
London is especially powerful because of the combination of it’s size & excellent (compared to anywhere else in the UK) transport networks. No-where else in the UK has a population centre that can match London’s productivity.
At the national level this is a real problem & one of the things that holds back UK GDP: There ought to be at least a second city to match London, but it doesn’t exist. Why? Probably the atrocious transport networks in the midlands / north of the UK & planning constraints more generally. Where is the train line that joins up the Liverpool / Manchester / Leeds axis? Instead we get Northern Rail which is a sad joke to all who are forced to use it. Where’s the Oxford-Cambridge railway? Why is lab space in the Ox<->Cam axis so unbelievably expensive, throttling development? Infrastructure is everything & we just haven’t been building it, despite the price signals saying that firms are screaming out for it.
All the young journalists on my recent assignment in Hurghada live in and around London - despite complaining about the incredible rents
One of them is an Aussie girl who took a 70% pay cut to move from Tasmania to London. Yet she says she loves London nonetheless and is desperate to stay. She loves it because “everyone else is in London” and you can “get anywhere in Europe in 2-3 hours”
She told me she hates Sydney - “boring, parochial, uncultured”
If you’re English speaking and you want a world city experience it’s gotta be london or nyc. And london has europe as it’s backyard
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
Lots of good pubs in Croydon. Both to the north of East Croydon station and also to the south west around and beyond the shopping area.
I know. Nice place, and borderline affordable, or was a few years ago: too afraid to look now...
Ludicrously expensive like virtually everywhere in Greater London!
I'm not surprised.
If you follow house prices along the railway lines that fan out from London, it's amazing/horrifying how far you have to go to get something affordable near the station. Over the years all the little places that I used to hold close were swallowed up in the big wave of increases. It paused slightly between 2008 (crash) and 2013, but Osborne brought in Help To Buy and it just took off again.
There is a counter intuitive and mysterious aspect to this. SFAICS several million people live in or near London in completely sub optimal conditions and its population has risen massively.
The puzzle is why the normal laws of economics are not working. The general economics response to being unable to pay £850,000-£1m for a £200,000 terraced house is to live somewhere else, for the same reason that you don't holiday in the Ritz.
To which everyone will respond: There aren't the jobs. Except that the economically rational thing to do is to move the jobs as well as the people away from where they are unaffordable to where they are.
There is a strange stickiness about the Great Wen. Is there an economist's account of how this works?
Population centres have a return to scale & density - local firms piggy back on each other, spreading knowledge as people job hop between them (something the capitalist owner class hates naturally & tries to prevent, but it’s almost impossible to stop up altogether).
You can see this kind of thing playing out when particular areas become known for specialising in particular industries - think of how F1 is dominated by teams run from Oxfordshire & surrounding counties.
London is especially powerful because of the combination of it’s size & excellent (compared to anywhere else in the UK) transport networks. No-where else in the UK has a population centre that can match London’s productivity.
At the national level this is a real problem & one of the things that holds back UK GDP: There ought to be at least a second city to match London, but it doesn’t exist. Why? Probably the atrocious transport networks in the midlands / north of the UK & planning constraints more generally. Where is the train line that joins up the Liverpool / Manchester / Leeds axis? Instead we get Northern Rail which is a sad joke to all who are forced to use it. Where’s the Oxford-Cambridge railway? Why is lab space in the Ox<->Cam axis so unbelievably expensive, throttling development? Infrastructure is everything & we just haven’t been building it, despite the price signals saying that firms are screaming out for it.
All the young journalists on my recent assignment in Hurghada live in and around London - despite complaining about the incredible rents
One of them is an Aussie girl who took a 70% pay cut to move from Tasmania to London. Yet she says she loves London nonetheless and is desperate to stay. She loves it because “everyone else is in London” and you can “get anywhere in Europe in 2-3 hours”
She told me she hates Sydney - “boring, parochial, uncultured”
If you’re English speaking and you want a world city experience it’s gotta be london or nyc. And london has europe as it’s backyard
English is the best language in the world!
Certainly one of the most diversely-originating of the European languages, at any rate - a bit of Germanic, Celtic, French/ Latinate and Greek boiled together for several centuries on a medium heat, resulting in a half-guttural, half-soft stew with rather a wide vocabulary , and range of expression.
The North Coast line is split-personality. To your south is the beautiful North Welsh landscape. To your north is a long string of rubbish towns and villages, a gray sea, and wind farms. A very elongated Thurrock. Oh look, a used-car salesman lot with some colourful pennants. Does not help. The archetype of the County Lines drugdealer corridor. I'm not going to describe the stations because you're not getting out. Sorry BigG, but you're in Anglesey which is nicer
So much to answer for
Liverpool. Nice station. I like Liverpool
Manchester. Rubbish station. I hate Manchester
[narrator: in fact they are very similar]
Good afternoon
I recognise your description, but as soon as you drive down the A55 from Llanddulas you enter a beautiful coastline with the newly sanded sweeping beaches of Colwyn Bay to Rhos on Sea then continuing towards Penrhyn Bay with the Little Orme rising in front, the sea to your right and the wonderful mountains to your left
Driving over the Little Orme you immediately see the fantastic Victorian promenade of Llandudno and the magnificent Great Orme behind
This is where we live and have done for 58 years and to be fair it is not Anglesey which is beyond Bangor and across the Menai Straights
So much has changed in the last few years I strongly recommend the drive down the A55 from Llanddulas to Colwyn Bay, then join the promenade through Rhos on Sea to Penrhyn Bay and Llandudno
I know (and I felt a bit guilty when i said it), but because I travel to most places by train I inevitably see them in the worst light. The North Coast railway exhibits in detail what Wales exhibits generally: absolutely lovely landscape, absolutely rubbish housing. Don't get me wrong it is changing slowly as Mr Barratt and Ms Redrow plant their little estate-eggs everywhere. But the bits near the stations are done last/worst, hence my animus...
(also apols for getting your place wrong: I honestly thought you were on Anglesey)
Comments
The puzzle is why the normal laws of economics are not working. The general economics response to being unable to pay £850,000-£1m for a £200,000 terraced house is to live somewhere else, for the same reason that you don't holiday in the Ritz.
To which everyone will respond: There aren't the jobs. Except that the economically rational thing to do is to move the jobs as well as the people away from where they are unaffordable to where they are.
There is a strange stickiness about the Great Wen. Is there an economist's account of how this works?
I’m fairly sure Nick volunteered that excellent anecdote knowing he’d be gently and amusingly teased about it. He’s been on the site for decades
He is being so teased. I very much doubt that he minds
As someone pointed out this morning there might be an issue with localised earthquakes and subsidence, though there's not really anyone living anywhere near.
It's an unpleasant fact that ethnic cleansing brings peace.
(also apols for getting your place wrong: I honestly thought you were on Anglesey)
My guide today told me that in the 1930s Egypt had a population of 350,000 Jews (many in Alexandria). Now there is a population of 12
That’s not a typo. 12
Things are funny until they're not.
Though as the gap between Norway and the Faroes reaches around 300m of ocean depth, it's a bit impractical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Wind_Power_Hub
EM Forster was a fan - in fact it was he that made him famous in Northern Europe.
Island hotels, artificial beaches, cycling routes, underwater restaurants, boat trips around the turbines, all in a tax and duty free international zone administered by the 3 governments.
Northern European Enclosure Dam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_European_Enclosure_Dam
Nobody, Communist or anti-Communist, was much interested in seeing the surviving Jews remain, or return from the camps. It was generally thought they would be better off in Palestine. Around 500,000 Eastern European Jews left, 300,000 for Israel. One can therefore see why the Israelis and Arab States had no qualms about expelling unwanted minorities.
Though I'm more familiar with his brother's writings on natural history expeditions.
I think he knew Cavafy, and Seferis, another Greek poet, too.
Quick bus trip across the border from Weymouth for an evening of Tapas, Fino and La Liga on TV followed by late night flamenco. Convert Portland castle into a Parador. Couple of new golf courses and a bull ring.
How one man's rare Alzheimer’s mutation delayed the onset of disease
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01610-z
I think a commonality of religion probably had a lot to do with it, certainly from Bede's point of view. Whether a Northumbrian peasant of the time would see things the same, who knows?
So many seem to agree, yet each looks to have varying degrees of stranglehold over the contests (either due to the level of base support or presidential incumbency factor).
Hopefully some alsoran will at least do something interesting.
But our main news organizations were unwilling to say that, even, in many cases, unwilling to see those failures. Why? The main answer is painfully obvious, and was explained at the time by this mediocre joke: "Why can't Obama criticize himself? Because that would be racist."
And, of course, because most of our news organizations supported his policies, for ideological reasons.
So, many voters were looking for an antidote, and latched on to a man who promised to fight for them. And they particularly wanted someone who was despised by those same news organizations, which they no longer trusted.
(There is another disturbing parallel between Obama and Trump. Both damaged their own parties; both lost competent moderate leaders during their presidencies.)
It was a joke. Everyone can see that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_European_Enclosure_Dam
Though if the UK were running it itd be 5 trillion presumably.
Omar Sharif - Greek-Antiochian-Lebanese-Egyptian, from a similar part of Northern Egypt, as I remember.
You can see this kind of thing playing out when particular areas become known for specialising in particular industries - think of how F1 is dominated by teams run from Oxfordshire & surrounding counties.
London is especially powerful because of the combination of it’s size & excellent (compared to anywhere else in the UK) transport networks. No-where else in the UK has a population centre that can match London’s productivity.
At the national level this is a real problem & one of the things that holds back UK GDP: There ought to be at least a second city to match London, but it doesn’t exist. Why? Probably the atrocious transport networks in the midlands / north of the UK & planning constraints more generally. Where is the train line that joins up the Liverpool / Manchester / Leeds axis? Instead we get Northern Rail which is a sad joke to all who are forced to use it. Where’s the Oxford-Cambridge railway? Why is lab space in the Ox<->Cam axis so unbelievably expensive, throttling development? Infrastructure is everything & we just haven’t been building it, despite the price signals saying that firms are screaming out for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa
And it would be inaccurate to describe ethnic cleansing (for example between Ukraine and Poland) as uncontroversial, I think ? How much were the wider public outside the immediate vicinities even aware of what was taking place ?
As I noted earlier, much of what happened in eastern Europe was by Stalin's design.
It's possible that hindsight might shine a less favourable light on Obama's decisions than opinion at the time, as has been the case for Merkel for example, but it didn't seem to be how voters felt back then.
Electing a sociopathic narcissist in response is down to those who elected the sociopathic narcissist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal#Yalta,_1945
...Churchill defended his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a vote of confidence. During the debate, many MPs openly criticised Churchill and passionately voiced loyalty to Britain's Polish allies and expressed deep reservations about Yalta.[48] Moreover, 25 of these MPs risked their careers to draft an amendment protesting against Britain's tacit acceptance of Poland's domination by the Soviet Union. These members included Arthur Greenwood, Viscount Dunglass, Commander Archibald Southby, the Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and Victor Raikes.[48] After the failure of the amendment, Henry Strauss, the Member of Parliament for Norwich, resigned his seat in protest at the British treatment of Poland...
In particular, that UK cities (apart from London) just don’t get the returns to size that cities elsewhere in the world do, lagging by factor of 2-3 the expected return.
One of them is an Aussie girl who took a 70% pay cut to move from Tasmania to London. Yet she says she loves London nonetheless and is desperate to stay. She loves it because “everyone else is in London” and you can “get anywhere in Europe in 2-3 hours”
She told me she hates Sydney - “boring, parochial, uncultured”
If you’re English speaking and you want a world city experience it’s gotta be london or nyc. And london has europe as it’s backyard
Wings Over Scotland
@WingsScotland
Going to be keeping an especially close eye on the Police Scotland website tomorrow morning. Y'know, just in case.
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