Joe Spivey
@joespivey2002.bsky.social
Reader, bleeder and mercy pleader
“Eyre Crowe’s question had always been: ‘Should the war come, and England stand aside…[and] Germany and Austria win, crush France and humiliate Russia, what will then be the position of a friendless England?’ The historian’s answer is: better than an exhausted England in 1919.”
The Pity of War
The Pity of War
May 22, 2025 at 1:01 PM
“Eyre Crowe’s question had always been: ‘Should the war come, and England stand aside…[and] Germany and Austria win, crush France and humiliate Russia, what will then be the position of a friendless England?’ The historian’s answer is: better than an exhausted England in 1919.”
The Pity of War
The Pity of War
It’s two years since Amis died, and his scything bountiful charisma is the still the standard against which all scribblers are judged. He dropped the literary drawbridge to a simple-minded young Spivey and his critical swagger upholsters my mind still!
May 19, 2025 at 9:09 PM
It’s two years since Amis died, and his scything bountiful charisma is the still the standard against which all scribblers are judged. He dropped the literary drawbridge to a simple-minded young Spivey and his critical swagger upholsters my mind still!
Trollope on the obsession (prominent in his age and ubiquitous in ours) with the writerly spark ⬇️
“To me it would not be more absurd if the shoemaker were to wait for inspiration, or the tallow-chandler for the divine moment of melting.”
“To me it would not be more absurd if the shoemaker were to wait for inspiration, or the tallow-chandler for the divine moment of melting.”
May 8, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Trollope on the obsession (prominent in his age and ubiquitous in ours) with the writerly spark ⬇️
“To me it would not be more absurd if the shoemaker were to wait for inspiration, or the tallow-chandler for the divine moment of melting.”
“To me it would not be more absurd if the shoemaker were to wait for inspiration, or the tallow-chandler for the divine moment of melting.”
Within its ‘analytical’ sections, this book has all the bigoted bloviation I expected. The slippery attribution of modern meaningless to atheism gives it a repulsive piety. It coarsens throughout and cradles at the end, leavened by equivocations just in case we mistook Murray for a monster.
May 4, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Within its ‘analytical’ sections, this book has all the bigoted bloviation I expected. The slippery attribution of modern meaningless to atheism gives it a repulsive piety. It coarsens throughout and cradles at the end, leavened by equivocations just in case we mistook Murray for a monster.
A media outlet discusses how his every belch and bleat is inexplicably covered, by inexplicably covering his latest belch and bleat! Reform have a grand sum of four MPs, and yet he need only wobbly his goiter for the nation’s press to congregate!
April 24, 2025 at 10:02 PM
A media outlet discusses how his every belch and bleat is inexplicably covered, by inexplicably covering his latest belch and bleat! Reform have a grand sum of four MPs, and yet he need only wobbly his goiter for the nation’s press to congregate!
Guileless, gibbersome and frantically frayed with inexactitudes. This was Peterson’s worst performance to date. His syllable-heavy sermonising and his drawling sanctimony is now unparalleled. I can’t believe I used to defend this flaccid charlatan at university gatherings!
April 19, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Guileless, gibbersome and frantically frayed with inexactitudes. This was Peterson’s worst performance to date. His syllable-heavy sermonising and his drawling sanctimony is now unparalleled. I can’t believe I used to defend this flaccid charlatan at university gatherings!
Like my own Kingston Rovers, Arsenal have for years conducted themselves in a professional manner and beaten most with a soldierly doggedness. That performance in Madrid was more elegant and much wilier. They’ve put away the CL holders. Who’s to say they won’t visit similar expertise on PSG?
April 16, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Like my own Kingston Rovers, Arsenal have for years conducted themselves in a professional manner and beaten most with a soldierly doggedness. That performance in Madrid was more elegant and much wilier. They’ve put away the CL holders. Who’s to say they won’t visit similar expertise on PSG?
Hell, I would be the last person to save Douglas Murray from a stint in the intellectual slammer, but his invoking expertise during an age of boundless stupidity should be cheered. Rogan has been emboldening and legitimising pillocks and warped theorists for years!
April 15, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Hell, I would be the last person to save Douglas Murray from a stint in the intellectual slammer, but his invoking expertise during an age of boundless stupidity should be cheered. Rogan has been emboldening and legitimising pillocks and warped theorists for years!
Edith Wharton has me in the palm of her hand⬇️
“It seemed to him that he had been speaking not to the woman he loved but to another, a woman he was indebted to for pleasures already wearied of; it was hateful to find himself the prisoner of this hackneyed vocabulary”
“It seemed to him that he had been speaking not to the woman he loved but to another, a woman he was indebted to for pleasures already wearied of; it was hateful to find himself the prisoner of this hackneyed vocabulary”
March 26, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Edith Wharton has me in the palm of her hand⬇️
“It seemed to him that he had been speaking not to the woman he loved but to another, a woman he was indebted to for pleasures already wearied of; it was hateful to find himself the prisoner of this hackneyed vocabulary”
“It seemed to him that he had been speaking not to the woman he loved but to another, a woman he was indebted to for pleasures already wearied of; it was hateful to find himself the prisoner of this hackneyed vocabulary”
Johnson’s is an incorruptible majesty. Whether we consult him on grace or swine, Petrarch or Polybius, malice or mustard, he frees us from ignorance and soothes us with his corpulent wisdom. Never shall we dare limit a sentence to three or four words when seventy-eight will better serve.
March 23, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Johnson’s is an incorruptible majesty. Whether we consult him on grace or swine, Petrarch or Polybius, malice or mustard, he frees us from ignorance and soothes us with his corpulent wisdom. Never shall we dare limit a sentence to three or four words when seventy-eight will better serve.
That was an eye-popping edition of Milan-San Remo! Pogacar defies anthropological science to leave a peloton spluttering in his dust and MVDP shows he’s undroppable on a good day. Pogacar is the most complete cyclist ever to clench his teeth and is certain to pepper tall stories one century hence!
March 22, 2025 at 9:49 PM
That was an eye-popping edition of Milan-San Remo! Pogacar defies anthropological science to leave a peloton spluttering in his dust and MVDP shows he’s undroppable on a good day. Pogacar is the most complete cyclist ever to clench his teeth and is certain to pepper tall stories one century hence!
Today, a heinous weasel devoid of scruples against malice, had a lifetime’s sexual misconduct aired before the nation. Messrs Farage, Musk and Robinson shan’t be driven to the stump because the criminal does not reinforce their cravenly racist messaging. IT IS ALWAYS ABOUT DEMONISING BROWN PEOPLE!
March 17, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Today, a heinous weasel devoid of scruples against malice, had a lifetime’s sexual misconduct aired before the nation. Messrs Farage, Musk and Robinson shan’t be driven to the stump because the criminal does not reinforce their cravenly racist messaging. IT IS ALWAYS ABOUT DEMONISING BROWN PEOPLE!
“We may fairly consider a man of sense like Henry Crawford, to be providing for himself no small portion of vexation and regret…in having so requited hospitality, so injured family peace, so forfeited his best…and so lost the woman whom he had rationally, as well as passionately loved.”
February 28, 2025 at 3:53 PM
“We may fairly consider a man of sense like Henry Crawford, to be providing for himself no small portion of vexation and regret…in having so requited hospitality, so injured family peace, so forfeited his best…and so lost the woman whom he had rationally, as well as passionately loved.”
The worst word salad yet. So vacant, so fatuous and so paralytically tautological. This man is AS THICK AS MINCE. He shouldn’t be trusted to wield cutlery or post correspondence unattended.
February 28, 2025 at 1:54 PM
The worst word salad yet. So vacant, so fatuous and so paralytically tautological. This man is AS THICK AS MINCE. He shouldn’t be trusted to wield cutlery or post correspondence unattended.
A word on how freshly and brilliantly unbowing President Macron (left) was yesterday. Hopefully Starmer took note and also corrects that nappy-browning babbler (right) when he visits the White House on Thursday.
February 25, 2025 at 8:24 PM
A word on how freshly and brilliantly unbowing President Macron (left) was yesterday. Hopefully Starmer took note and also corrects that nappy-browning babbler (right) when he visits the White House on Thursday.
“Perhaps that’s the defining asset: a crocodilian nose for inert and preferably moribund prey. Trump can sense when an entity is no longer strong enough or lithe enough to evade predation. He did it with that white elephant the GOP….whose ruins he now bestrides.”
Martin Amis - Harpers magazine
Martin Amis - Harpers magazine
February 13, 2025 at 7:28 PM
“Perhaps that’s the defining asset: a crocodilian nose for inert and preferably moribund prey. Trump can sense when an entity is no longer strong enough or lithe enough to evade predation. He did it with that white elephant the GOP….whose ruins he now bestrides.”
Martin Amis - Harpers magazine
Martin Amis - Harpers magazine
“If we omit it now, some Massenello may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
- Thomas Paine ‘Common Sense’
- Thomas Paine ‘Common Sense’
February 9, 2025 at 6:49 PM
“If we omit it now, some Massenello may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
- Thomas Paine ‘Common Sense’
- Thomas Paine ‘Common Sense’
This was the most extraordinary hour of competitive entertainment ever to be broadcast. Mahomes and co can’t hold a candle to this magician and his fizzing arm!
February 8, 2025 at 11:01 PM
This was the most extraordinary hour of competitive entertainment ever to be broadcast. Mahomes and co can’t hold a candle to this magician and his fizzing arm!
Does Trump know those who lose sporting contests tend to do so with grace and bowing dignity? Does he know there can be no infantile shenanigans at tomorrow’s Super Bowl? Odds on an Eagles insurrection if the Chiefs rig the fourth quarter to claim victory?
February 8, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Does Trump know those who lose sporting contests tend to do so with grace and bowing dignity? Does he know there can be no infantile shenanigans at tomorrow’s Super Bowl? Odds on an Eagles insurrection if the Chiefs rig the fourth quarter to claim victory?
I watched Tottenham receive another ignoble licking last night. Many shifty pundits will accuse Ange of misdirected ambition and obstinacy, but Son’s devolution has to be taken into account also. When did we last see a club’s talisman suddenly turn into a dispenser of footballing dross?
February 7, 2025 at 4:47 PM
I watched Tottenham receive another ignoble licking last night. Many shifty pundits will accuse Ange of misdirected ambition and obstinacy, but Son’s devolution has to be taken into account also. When did we last see a club’s talisman suddenly turn into a dispenser of footballing dross?
This is a slog and a shame. Where, we fanatics ask, was the ambition of ‘Romola’? Where was the soft-hearted cuddliness of ‘Silas Marner’? Where was the rumbling magnitude of ‘Middlemarch’? Thank goodness she abandoned this tactless register as Felix sewed mailbags in the slammer.
February 7, 2025 at 4:43 PM
This is a slog and a shame. Where, we fanatics ask, was the ambition of ‘Romola’? Where was the soft-hearted cuddliness of ‘Silas Marner’? Where was the rumbling magnitude of ‘Middlemarch’? Thank goodness she abandoned this tactless register as Felix sewed mailbags in the slammer.
The only things lacking in interviews with Trump, Musk and Tucker are; a hospital gown clodded with biological ooze, a comfort bear clutched in a spasming hand, and a team of clinicians willing on their madness from the middle distance.
January 29, 2025 at 9:51 PM
The only things lacking in interviews with Trump, Musk and Tucker are; a hospital gown clodded with biological ooze, a comfort bear clutched in a spasming hand, and a team of clinicians willing on their madness from the middle distance.
Here is a detestable example of the Woke Right. Steven Crowder is another shock jockey who loves to invoke religion when it allows him to denigrate the most vulnerable, but shuns it when it requires a morsel of human compassion from him. He wouldn’t care if the Bishop was mouthing for Trump.
January 22, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Here is a detestable example of the Woke Right. Steven Crowder is another shock jockey who loves to invoke religion when it allows him to denigrate the most vulnerable, but shuns it when it requires a morsel of human compassion from him. He wouldn’t care if the Bishop was mouthing for Trump.
Sam Harris here paraphrases statements I’ve been making for months. The Petersons and Shapiros have built their platforms largely on the placation of their punters. If they were to make an ideological turn, those same punters would immediately flee, leaving their children’s feet perilously unshoed!
January 19, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Sam Harris here paraphrases statements I’ve been making for months. The Petersons and Shapiros have built their platforms largely on the placation of their punters. If they were to make an ideological turn, those same punters would immediately flee, leaving their children’s feet perilously unshoed!
Cretins and gimps should take heart and alike rejoice knowing that somebody of Molly-Mae’s supreme talentlessness can prosper in our century. I only wonder what all these ex-Islanders will do when their pre-purchased beauty deserts them and their fine figures are squashed by Time’s keen hands…
January 19, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Cretins and gimps should take heart and alike rejoice knowing that somebody of Molly-Mae’s supreme talentlessness can prosper in our century. I only wonder what all these ex-Islanders will do when their pre-purchased beauty deserts them and their fine figures are squashed by Time’s keen hands…