Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alan Beattie

@alanbeattie.bsky.social

33K followers 1.4K following 7.9K posts

Opiner for Financial Times in London. Globalisation, econ, snark. RT≠👍. Views own. [email protected]. Sign up to my FT Trade Secrets newsletter https://subs.ft.com/spa3_tradesecrets?segmentId=357afa03-959c-93ed-0842-58e2115025d4.

subs.ft.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · Jan 7

OK, it's well past time to start a thread.

Welcome to Donald Trump's trade policy. Nobody. Knows. Anything.

1/n

85 390 1.7K

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1h

There's Liz getting her marching orders, for a start.

youtu.be/v596DjZUmbk?...

Liz Truss savaged by journalists after horror show press conference

YouTube video by PoliticsJOE

youtu.be

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 4h

Ah that makes a lot of sense, many thanks. I shall now pass off that wisdom as my own 😉

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 4h

Right, of course it's not moral intent - it's surely a political calculation.

1 3

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 4h

"Tech autocracy is fine but we draw the line at inept centrist managerialism."

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 4h

Oh indeed they're in the heart of the UK state already. They might well think that digital ID is going to be an organisational and political clusterfuck they're better off out of, especially since it might threaten the contracts they already have. I stress again this is wild speculation on my part.

2 2

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 4h

Dunno but it would be odd of them to explicitly say it and then suddenly reverse. I can imagine they think it's politically too risky.

3 2

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 4h

They've said they won't bid, haven't they?

3 3

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 5h

They're a right bunch of Hunts.

#seewhatIdidthere

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 5h

A character in a Stephen Fry novel had a great expression about this - you're either High Church about books or Low Church. Like you I'm a solid non-conformist. I lent a book of poetry to my goddaughter once and she used it as a writing-rest so the cover was covered in pen marks and I was DELIGHTED.

1 7

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 7h

Oh, are they? Well, with that degree of empirical backing I’m forced to review my opinion.

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 15h

Exactly. Can remember whole passages of Wodehouse prose word for word, couldn't tell you what happened in the story they came from or even what it's called.

1 2

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 16h

But he's SO stupid and vicious that I don't think it's very convincing or relatable - it's basically "hey look here's some mentally unstable people doing mental stuff".

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 16h

EXACTLY. There are one or two fantastic scenes like Gussie presenting the prizes, but basically it's all in the turn of phrase.

I believe Wodehouse used to go through dozens and dozens of drafts to come up with the prose which sounds like he tossed it off in one go over a glass of champagne.

1 2

Reposted by Alan Beattie

Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 16h

Perhaps instead of Columbus Day we can celebrate Columbian Exchange Day where we celebrate the food pairings that had never been possible before, peppers and onions, chocolate and coffee, basil and tomatoes.

6 51 230

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 16h

Spode is an OK character, true. But the plots are all forgettable things about cow creamers and proposals and people on ladders at windows and so on. I honestly can barely remember one from another. I can recall Bertie's putdown of Spode almost word for word though.

2 1

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 16h

I've been passed over for promotion myself. I did not however react by concocting a demented plan to turn said boss mad in a way that was so obviously going to rebound on me it might as well have had a sign saying "STONE FOR OWN TOE HERE - TAKE ONE".

1 2

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 16h

See if you'd said "We'll see about that laddie, won't we now?" it would have been iambic pentameter and well suited to the subject.

1 3

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

They really aren't. I mean you can make them funny with good direction and acting, but it takes effort.

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

Wooster is a standard-issue upper-class twit. He's not actually even a remotely convincing character as the language and the personality are wildly at odds.

1 1

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

I acknowledge your submission and shall consider and reject it in due course.

1 1

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

I've seen one Lear production that actually made logical sense to me, with the great Simon Russell Beale who basically played him as unhinged from the beginning. But there wasn't much of a narrative arc. "Loons gonna loon."

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

King Lear is an excellent case in point. He gets ripped off by his daughters, which could happen to anyone, and ten minutes later he's wandering around the heath raving like a loony. Feels like a whole act has been missed out.

1 2

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

With few exceptions (eg the plot of Macbeth and the character of Jeeves), all Shakespeare and Wodehouse plots and characters are forgettable or contrived, which only underlines how astonishingly brilliant their language has to be to make them the greatest playwright and comic novelist in English.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

11 2 44

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 19h

It’s a euphemism for the consumption of Class A in powder form.

1 6

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 23h

They were shit though, he'd conquered all the good ones. Like when you've had all the good chocolates from the box and are wondering if you can even be arsed eating the nougat.

2 23