@socrates80.bsky.social
Certified nerd - Liverpool FC #YNWA, books, telly, history, economics and politics
A good read on one of the most horrific post-WWII episodes, making the dispassionate case that the army was instrumental in igniting and sustaining a conflagration that consumed hundreds of thousands of lives and caused the imprisonment of nearly a million 💙📚
November 20, 2025 at 9:54 AM
A good read on one of the most horrific post-WWII episodes, making the dispassionate case that the army was instrumental in igniting and sustaining a conflagration that consumed hundreds of thousands of lives and caused the imprisonment of nearly a million 💙📚
The theme of the latest #SloughHouse is comeuppance as some folks got what was coming to them, but more satisfying was the dynamics between Lamb and Standish, which fleshed them out more than in previous books. Surprisingly it seems these two may have more narrative terrain to explore yet 💙📚
November 18, 2025 at 11:18 PM
The theme of the latest #SloughHouse is comeuppance as some folks got what was coming to them, but more satisfying was the dynamics between Lamb and Standish, which fleshed them out more than in previous books. Surprisingly it seems these two may have more narrative terrain to explore yet 💙📚
No holds barred from @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social that punctures much of the AI hype, showing just how much it is infected by bias, repugnant ethics and self-dealing, with all-too-tangible harms being trivialised. A timely read 💙📚
November 17, 2025 at 8:37 PM
No holds barred from @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social that punctures much of the AI hype, showing just how much it is infected by bias, repugnant ethics and self-dealing, with all-too-tangible harms being trivialised. A timely read 💙📚
(1/2) Somewhat improbable premise aside, this is an immersive read, nominally in English but soaked in the lilts and cadences of half a dozen languages that’ve taken root in the welcoming Malayan soil, watered by themes of guilt, rebirth and colonial violence 💙📚
November 15, 2025 at 1:15 AM
(1/2) Somewhat improbable premise aside, this is an immersive read, nominally in English but soaked in the lilts and cadences of half a dozen languages that’ve taken root in the welcoming Malayan soil, watered by themes of guilt, rebirth and colonial violence 💙📚
Plath is vividly brought to life in this great biography by Dr Clark, who intersperses the times of her astonishingly vivacious subject with poetry and interpretation, making the case for her legacy in redefining feminist poetry and indeed poetry itself 💙📚
November 11, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Plath is vividly brought to life in this great biography by Dr Clark, who intersperses the times of her astonishingly vivacious subject with poetry and interpretation, making the case for her legacy in redefining feminist poetry and indeed poetry itself 💙📚
Good article - pithy point that Dems actually keep doing what the centrists advocate but to mixed results
newrepublic.com/article/2023...
newrepublic.com/article/2023...
October 31, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Good article - pithy point that Dems actually keep doing what the centrists advocate but to mixed results
newrepublic.com/article/2023...
newrepublic.com/article/2023...
A doorstopper of a book by Prof Abulafia that makes his previous book on the Mediterranean seem like it was about a random puddle 🤣💙📚
October 25, 2025 at 5:19 AM
A doorstopper of a book by Prof Abulafia that makes his previous book on the Mediterranean seem like it was about a random puddle 🤣💙📚
(1/2) Excellent read on Taiwan’s history from journalist Chris Horton, which challenged so many of my biases about a country I thought I knew fairly well. It is particularly deft at weaving together the threads of Taiwanese identity and their struggle for self-determination over centuries … 💙📚
October 24, 2025 at 11:55 AM
(1/2) Excellent read on Taiwan’s history from journalist Chris Horton, which challenged so many of my biases about a country I thought I knew fairly well. It is particularly deft at weaving together the threads of Taiwanese identity and their struggle for self-determination over centuries … 💙📚
Always knew that CJ - uh, I meant Allison Janney - would make an imperious President 😍, but the addition of Josh Lyman (aka Bradley Whitford) as the First Gentleman is just chef’s kiss
Think S3 of the #TheDiplomat has really stepped it up 👏📺
Think S3 of the #TheDiplomat has really stepped it up 👏📺
October 19, 2025 at 5:07 AM
Always knew that CJ - uh, I meant Allison Janney - would make an imperious President 😍, but the addition of Josh Lyman (aka Bradley Whitford) as the First Gentleman is just chef’s kiss
Think S3 of the #TheDiplomat has really stepped it up 👏📺
Think S3 of the #TheDiplomat has really stepped it up 👏📺
Always knew that CJ - uh, I meant Allison Janney - would make an imperious President 😍, but the addition of Josh Lyman (aka Bradley Whitford) as the First Gentleman is just chef’s kiss
Think S3 of the #TheDiplomat has really stepped it up 👏📺
Think S3 of the #TheDiplomat has really stepped it up 👏📺
October 19, 2025 at 5:05 AM
Always knew that CJ - uh, I meant Allison Janney - would make an imperious President 😍, but the addition of Josh Lyman (aka Bradley Whitford) as the First Gentleman is just chef’s kiss
Think S3 of the #TheDiplomat has really stepped it up 👏📺
Think S3 of the #TheDiplomat has really stepped it up 👏📺
I usually enjoy novels with magical realism but couldn’t quite get into this one by Ben Okri. Kinda felt that the first person POV’s voice wasn’t apposite as I found it difficult to reconcile a child being that erudite with him being a child despite the premise about his origins as a spirit child 💙📚
October 19, 2025 at 3:00 AM
I usually enjoy novels with magical realism but couldn’t quite get into this one by Ben Okri. Kinda felt that the first person POV’s voice wasn’t apposite as I found it difficult to reconcile a child being that erudite with him being a child despite the premise about his origins as a spirit child 💙📚
Perhaps the most pertinent point that emerges from this engrossing albeit galling read is that democracies and authoritarian regimes are both complicit in the use of concentration camps as it evolved from fighting guerrillas to disappearing dissidents, with the US an egregious repeat recalcitrant 💙📚
October 15, 2025 at 5:13 AM
Perhaps the most pertinent point that emerges from this engrossing albeit galling read is that democracies and authoritarian regimes are both complicit in the use of concentration camps as it evolved from fighting guerrillas to disappearing dissidents, with the US an egregious repeat recalcitrant 💙📚
(1/2) Harrowing, heartrending and ultimately infuriating - the the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes had so many parallels to the Hillsborough disaster: mistakes that led to tragedy, subsequent attempts by the police, abetted by some tabloids to smear the victim, a pathological … #LFC 📺
October 14, 2025 at 3:35 PM
(1/2) Harrowing, heartrending and ultimately infuriating - the the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes had so many parallels to the Hillsborough disaster: mistakes that led to tragedy, subsequent attempts by the police, abetted by some tabloids to smear the victim, a pathological … #LFC 📺
(1/2) Read Winton and Harrower recently and there are many parallels in their depictions of the restless churn of the working class amidst a 1950s Australia that seems almost set in aspic and much to enjoy in their prose and transcription of Aussie cadence … 💙📚
October 14, 2025 at 1:30 AM
(1/2) Read Winton and Harrower recently and there are many parallels in their depictions of the restless churn of the working class amidst a 1950s Australia that seems almost set in aspic and much to enjoy in their prose and transcription of Aussie cadence … 💙📚
Wonderfully unassuming writing peppered with sharp, frank observations of marriage and human foibles 💙📚
October 9, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Wonderfully unassuming writing peppered with sharp, frank observations of marriage and human foibles 💙📚
A tour de force, still powerfully resonant despite the passage of time. In particular the perfidiousness of the propertied white class who abetted whichever side they thought would serve their interests seems rather reminiscent of today’s elite and tech bros 💙📚
October 9, 2025 at 3:07 AM
A tour de force, still powerfully resonant despite the passage of time. In particular the perfidiousness of the propertied white class who abetted whichever side they thought would serve their interests seems rather reminiscent of today’s elite and tech bros 💙📚
Lol this is why I no longer subscribe to WaPo - not just peak bothside-ism, but also accepting the bad faith Rep framing 🤦♂️
October 1, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Lol this is why I no longer subscribe to WaPo - not just peak bothside-ism, but also accepting the bad faith Rep framing 🤦♂️
(2/2) … to fend for themselves. Only Miz Cooper - grudgingly respected but shunned by most - had the moral clarity to take him on. It’s such a coincidence that I’m also reading the following by Omar El Akkad and the title is so apposite for this situation 💙📚
September 29, 2025 at 2:30 AM
(2/2) … to fend for themselves. Only Miz Cooper - grudgingly respected but shunned by most - had the moral clarity to take him on. It’s such a coincidence that I’m also reading the following by Omar El Akkad and the title is so apposite for this situation 💙📚
Wrenching read from the late Mike Davis, the sections on dreadful, wilfully recurrent Indian famines under the Raj - in much greater detail here than any recent Raj history I recall - speak to the callousness of colonials and colonialism, though they are inextricable from the forces of capitalism 💙📚
September 27, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Wrenching read from the late Mike Davis, the sections on dreadful, wilfully recurrent Indian famines under the Raj - in much greater detail here than any recent Raj history I recall - speak to the callousness of colonials and colonialism, though they are inextricable from the forces of capitalism 💙📚
(1/3) Prof Lefebvre provides an inventive take on liberalism through the prism of Rawls, arguing that it has been the dominant context of most polities in the last centuries and that an interpretation of Rawls is that concepts like the veil of ignorance or reflective equilibrium are the basis of… 💙📚
September 23, 2025 at 5:29 AM
(1/3) Prof Lefebvre provides an inventive take on liberalism through the prism of Rawls, arguing that it has been the dominant context of most polities in the last centuries and that an interpretation of Rawls is that concepts like the veil of ignorance or reflective equilibrium are the basis of… 💙📚
Was looking forward to this as a fan of detective noir and Qualley is great as the gender flipped hardboiled PI but the film sadly doesn’t do much with her or with many of the great actors cast. Feels a bit undercooked even with a classic Coen misdirection in the plot 💙📺
September 23, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Was looking forward to this as a fan of detective noir and Qualley is great as the gender flipped hardboiled PI but the film sadly doesn’t do much with her or with many of the great actors cast. Feels a bit undercooked even with a classic Coen misdirection in the plot 💙📺
(1/3) Toynbee’s memoirs are unstinting and unsparing, enlivened by humour and self-deprecation, and I probably enjoyed most her accounts of her great-grandfather and grandfather whose works I have some familiarity with. She paints a different world growing up, one of more ample opportunity and … 💙📚
September 21, 2025 at 3:01 AM
(1/3) Toynbee’s memoirs are unstinting and unsparing, enlivened by humour and self-deprecation, and I probably enjoyed most her accounts of her great-grandfather and grandfather whose works I have some familiarity with. She paints a different world growing up, one of more ample opportunity and … 💙📚
Enjoyed this unsettling read, brought to mind Everett’s James and the adage that there isn’t such a thing as a good or benevolent master 💙📚
September 19, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Enjoyed this unsettling read, brought to mind Everett’s James and the adage that there isn’t such a thing as a good or benevolent master 💙📚
(3/4) Decades on, Wallace’s Northern strategy - southernising the rest of the US with an anti-statist, racialised idea of freedom - has prevailed. It is where a mob can sack the US Capitol with impunity by invoking that notion. It is simply infuriating 😖
September 16, 2025 at 1:49 PM
(3/4) Decades on, Wallace’s Northern strategy - southernising the rest of the US with an anti-statist, racialised idea of freedom - has prevailed. It is where a mob can sack the US Capitol with impunity by invoking that notion. It is simply infuriating 😖