I'm so very sorry to hear about your health struggles Helen.

I vaguely recall an anecdote from Lillian Hellman's account of her life with Dashiell Hammett, that when in frustration she threatened to quit, he said something like, "Go ahead, my dear. No one will notice." A writer writes because a writer has to write.

Only 52 per cent. Sadly. Of those 52 per cent, some did understand, like my friend, an economics phd, yet still voted to leave.

China has been super protectionist. ”We need to find a deal with China because we won’t be able to compete . . . without the support of the Chinese companies that control the mining industry, chemicals, refining and their capacity and competence,” Luca De Meo, Renault’s chief executive, last month.

Chinese conspiracy theory. But if you mean realistically, the ft has been running good articles.

Is it about values rather than popularity? Hard for people to switch from one to the other.

’einbuddeln’ in German

I think it's the opposite. The television screen, the internet, the endless stream of "content," these are the narratives of anaesthetised pleasure, a managed ignorance that comes from stunting educational systems so that no voter looks too deeply into the mechanisms of their own subjugation.

At the very least it reduces her role to a reactive one: she's only newsworthy because of the shadow she's standing in. It's so bad.

Even though Harris is a sitting Vice President. There's a hierarchy of relevance in favour of Trump. And it keeps the discourse Trump-centric because it says that Harris and the issues she represents are not worth reading about unless reframed through the lens of Trump. It's really appalling.