Ben Williams

Wherein cunning but in craft? Wherein crafty but in villainy? Wherein villainous but in all things? Wherein worthy but in nothing?

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

It’s much less biased than the Guardian, which lets its values dominate its news coverage as well as its op-eds. Like all print media, loss of revenue has forced it to cut back on foreign news and culture and to have much more focus on features more traditional in mid market tabloids. There is an article about divorced or adulterous middle aged women recovering their mojo at least once a month! There are some v good writers and columnists. The letters page is good and the obituaries are generally superb mini essays on departed saints and sinners alike.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

How long can the excellent obituaries and @Dannythefink stop me from cancelling my Times subscription?

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@BarbaraRich_law @Dannythefink Yes - when a man with such lovely manners lets rip it’s all the more effective.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

Well of course. There’s still stuff of value in the Guardian, but I never pay to read it now, driven away by the relentless agitprop (do people still say that?!) In the last months, I feel there has been a marked increase in the number of Times articles I swipe across rather than pausing to read.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@Dannythefink Well of course - but that’s not to say that they won’t eventually reach a critical mass.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@peter_sarris And the projection! As if anyone is committing an “egregious distortion” it’s little Humpty Dumpty himself.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@alawyerwrites @AlexanderHorne1 That would be amusing as I recently told Geoffrey Vos that he was a modern day Pooh Bah.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@aljhlester @johannesmkx @ShipleyWrites Humpty Dumpty speaks

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@BarbaraRich_law @CptHastings1916 I went across yesterday to see Otto Imbecile’s attack on Powell, and it was incredible. Just a few dozen responses, mostly convinced that Powell wasn’t especially intelligent and the Rees-Mogg of his day. Just hilariously misplaced takes.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@DanJTench @tc1415 Commercial will leave the KBD - it is already part of the Business and Property courts.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@tc1415 Why not call it the Chancery and Commercial Division, headed by the Chancellor? Have KBD for general civil. I would also create a Criminal Division for serious crime, rather than just rotate KB judges through the Crown Court.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@BucketsOf_Rain Nor me. It sounds like improbable special pleading. In fact, when they radio-in, they described HN as appearing to have been beaten up - i.e. that there was no clear indication as to who had offended. And there appears to have been no basis at all for cuffing him.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

In 1996, Bron Waugh imagined an MCT: why are minorities disadvantaged: A our prejudice; or B their inferiority? Noting the correct answer was A he added: “But it only needs a small shift in the power structure for it to become B. What is frightening is that people who now tick A would be equally happy to tick B if they thought that was the answer expected of them.”

Thanks to the Hampshire Constabulary, this observation has been on mind today.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@Exfizzixteach Little did Newton know where his third law of motion would lead.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

But suppose - as seems likely - Polanski also has the power to make bosoms shrink? He could hold the whole country to ransom: the Papal Interdict for the Pornhub age. A serious worry.

[Yuan Yi Zhu @yuanyi_z]

What are you going to do if they don't stop? Make their boobs bigger?

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

Really illuminating discussion–thank you. Ultimately I found it a v curious book: gripping and visceral, spooky in the Dutch sense; but the cryptic crossword elements to me sometimes incongruous, but perhaps I just resented being slowed down? Certainly powerful, troubling and artful in so many ways, making the recent fits of vapours in response to the Guardian’s list even more absurd.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@dcsandbrook @bookclubpodhq @YouTube Yes I agree. I even googled here at one point fearing she might be in poor health. I particularly loved Fingersmith. Anyway I shall hold off on your take on Beloved until I’ve finished it! Thank you.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@DanielJHannan Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines
But the muscle-bound marines
Mutiny for food and pay…

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

If ever anything has brought home my utter insignificance, it’s that I didn’t get an email from Mandelson asking for me to vote for him as Oxford Chancellor. It’s like my version of Douglas Adams’s “Total Perspective Vortex”.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

Otto Imbecile is having a pop at Enoch. And while Powell deserves opprobrium for his Rivers of Blood speech, that’s really like me deciding to have a pop at John von Neumann. NPRG’s characterisation of Imbecile as a writer of novelty books for downstairs loos is pitch perfect.

[NPRG @CptHastings1916]

Imagine being appointed a Professor of Greek at age 25, shortly after becoming a published poet, having already produced academic papers in three different languages, & a century later some tedious loudmouth who writes novelty books for the downstairs toilet calls you a poseur.

[Ben Williams @FaringForwards]

@serenelyjoyful @Artemisfornow @MrTCHarris Yes I agree - although only children were actively rare at my daughter’s school.