How bureaucracy used to cheat us all in the 1950s, and how even a gifted artist could not save the situation

 A most interesting book about the clash between the state and the artist in Britain in the 1950s:

https://thinkscotland.org/2026/06/jiggery-pokery-in-the-london-art-world-in-the-1950s/  

Fascinating book - five thousand years of Indian history

 You really ought to read this article reviewing the latest comprehensive history of India: 

 TS 057 - India - Truschke

Enjoy!

Anyone who wants to know about Nicola Sturgeon should read this

 

And remember, in these unusual times, Nicola Sturgeon is in the news again. There is an excellent book about her early life in politics which was published a few years back. She resigned shortly afterwards (for allegedly unrelated reasons). The book goes some way to explaining how she has got into the pickle she now finds herself in. I think I wrote, it but, like Sturgeon herself, “I honestly cannot recall”.

 

Hating Tories: How Nicola Sturgeon Got into Government (1970-2007): Amazon.co.uk: Mitchell, Ian: 9798375508573: Books

 

All ideas of the usefulness of bureaucracy will be killed once you read this real-life example of a back-to-back comparison in the 1930s

 A brilliant book by a well-known man who was part of the competition for airship design in the 1920s-30s. 

See here: 056 - Shute and R 101 

Nevil Shute says of the (intelligent can consciencius) civil servants of his day. “A politician or a civil servant is an arrogant fool to me unless proved otherwise…. The men in question put their jobs before their duty… In this case a number of high civil servants shirked their duty in order to preserve their jobs.” (p. 147)

Enjoy!

Thank you, kind readers!

Some time during the course of yesterday, this blog passed half a MILLION views.

I am grateful to all the wise people who understand that the only way to learn English properly is to use it. There are three rules for perfection - practice, practice and practice. 

Please spread the word. Love and peace to you all, especially at Christmas time. 

Here is a key song to join in with over Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDcSyaW-tTI 

"God Rest Ye merry gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay

For Jesus Christ our Saviour 

was born upon this day,

To save us all from Satan's power

when we have gone astray...."

That is the essence of the Christmas message. 

Merry Christmas to you all!

THATCHER - the real truth from the Authorised Biographer

 

Margaret Thatcher was undoubtedly the second greatest Prime Minister Britain has had since Pitt the Younger. Had she had more of a sense of humour, she might have given Churchill a run for his money. But she let herself down in her later years by her inability to see herself as others saw her.

 

See the review of this unputdownable book on someone we could use now to say “No, No, NO!” to Keir Starmer, Jon Swinney, the EU, Putin and all the other political malefactors.

 

Link here: https://thinkscotland.org/2025/10/she-saved-her-country-from-socialists/

 

Enjoy!

The history of Islamic Slavery

Racism and religious status assertion is worthy of investigation

THE ULTIMATE in status differentiation is the slave relationship. The slave has no agency, while the slave-owner has full agency for two. Leaving aside the special case of contract slavery, the general point about enslavement is that it reduces human freedom to the point where only death can exceed it in terms of general freedom reduction.

The anti-slavery movement is one of the very, very few good causes which the sane majority in civilised countries almost unanimously supports. The mystery for most people is that we are told the worst slavers were the Europeans who transported slaves from Africa to America for three hundred years when in fact slavery in the Islamic world has lasted since the time of the Prophet, which was fourteen hundred years ago. Over the piece, many more people were enslaved by Arabs and Turks than by Europeans. So why have we heard so little about Islamic slaving?

Read on...

The full article is here:  https://thinkscotland.org/2025/09/why-is-islamic-slavery-so-often-ignored/ 

Refugees - who wants them and who doesn't - lessons from Europe in 1945 (after the war)

Interesting book on he subject of how all the displaced people in Europe as the Second World War ended were disposed of, and migrant fever brought to an end.

Read article about it here: https://thinkscotland.org/2025/09/is-there-room-at-the-inn-or-not/

Enjoy!

Who owns the land which colonialists take, both white and black?

 This piece discusses the extent to which imperialists are justified in taking land from other countries - it focusses on a biography of Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

TS 052 - Rhodesia or Zimbabwe? Whose land is it anyway?

This is the book referred to: 

China is coming after you

 A new analysis of President Xi’s political approach ought to send serious alarm bells ringing all round the world. This book, by Australian ex-Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, should be a heaven-sent warning to those, like the poisonous Ed Miliband, who like to consort with tyrants that seek to dominate everyone who does not accept the modern version of the Mandate of Heaven: https://thinkscotland.org/2025/03/he-man-xi-unmasked/