Author Archives: bernardporter2013

I’ve changed both the title and the design of this blogsite. (Ben, the ‘Happiness Engineer’ (sic) at WordPress.com, was very helpful.) The ‘Search’ facility should be useful. And I now have a ‘domain’: ‘bernardjporter.com’, though I don’t yet know what … Continue reading →

Yes, we woke up at 3 a.m. (Swedish time) to watch The Debate. And yes, we were predictably appalled by Trump, and – in my case less predictably – impressed by Clinton. But I have nothing original to contribute here … Continue reading →

Capitalism may be a lot of good things, but one thing it isn’t is creative. It almost never originates new or great things; only develops them, at best, or exploits them, for the profit of others, and often arguably to … Continue reading →

(PERSONAL) Since starting this blog I’ve been diagnosed – well, not exactly diagnosed, as there’s no test for it, but all the symptoms fit – with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, otherwise known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME); which is why I find … Continue reading →

The coverage of the British Labour leadership campaign in the Swedish press has been astonishing. I don’t remember a Swedish general election getting this kind of attention in any British newspapers, let alone a mere internal party squabble. The reporting has … Continue reading →

‘Where are you off to then?’ That’s the taxi driver yesterday, taking me and my suitcase to Hull station. ‘Sweden,’ I reply, as I have so many times before. The reaction is always the same. Either (a) ‘isn’t it cold there?’; … Continue reading →

My historical centre of gravity, so to speak, is the 1890s, and has involved research into the London Metropolitan Police; so I’ve been a keen follower of the current BBC2 series Ripper Street, starring Matthew Macfadyen as Inspector Reid, a … Continue reading →

A number of leading Brexiteers are currently floating the idea that perhaps we could compensate for our (likely) exclusion from the European Single Market by forging an alternative single market with our old Commonwealth ‘friends’. This harks back to late … Continue reading →

Yesterday Lauri Love failed in his appeal against extradition to the USA on computer hacking charges, despite his suffering from Asperger’s syndrome and being a strong suicide risk. (See https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/sep/16/computer-activist-lauri-love-loses-appeal-against-us-extradition.) All I can add to this from my historical knowledge … Continue reading →

In the Observer this morning Barbara Ellen wonders how the Labour Party, under Corbyn, has turned into the ‘stinking, slippery well’ it is now; ‘a hot-desking playpen for conceited, clueless backbench-lifers, peddling everything from pungent whiffs of anti-Semitism, sexism and … Continue reading →