Apologies to Harrumpfers for my extended silence – my duties as a chorister in two intensive programs with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra – Mahler’s Second Symphony and Brahms’ German Requiem have claimed much of my attention. I had hoped that the war in Ukraine would make good the hazard deficit that underlies the psychology of […]

John Anderson’s podcasts are always good value, and his interview with the distinguished British jurist Jonathan Sumption is no exception. Pity, then that Sumption should turn out to be a subscriber to the cult of anthropogenic global warming, describing it as a problem that needs supranational action. I sent Anderson the following: Tom Forrester-Paton Dear […]

Covid sceptic claims vindication It’s been a while since I posted anything about Covid. With the exception of China, and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand, most countries are quietly allowing their more ridiculous anti-Covid measures to fall into desuetude, and trusting, probably correctly, that we won’t notice that they retain the powers to oppress […]

Don’t let’s be beastly to the Russians. As the demonisation of all things Russian becomes an obligatory shibboleth among the bien pensants of the West, it’s perhaps worth Harrumpf casting upon it the jaundiced eye it retains for such feel-good fashions. When war broke out in 1939, the contents of London’s National Gallery were evacuated […]

And why we should shut up about its war crimes. I’ve been reluctant to write a great deal about the war, partly because I’m about as expert in warfare as I am in playing the zither. And partly because so much else is being competently written, and I don’t want to waste my, and your […]

Wir Schaffen das nicht The war in Ukraine is debunking a lot of the West’s most cherished nonsense. Net Zero is fading like Alice’s Cheshire cat, leaving just a smug, bien pensant smirk behind it. In time, one hopes, the demonisation of coal and oil that begat it will follow it into oblivion, as people […]

It’s been over a month since the last post. My main excuse is that I had Covid, which was unpleasant, but far from the worst I’ve experienced, and on the whole not really worth the couple of trillion that’s been spent on it, let alone the misery occasioned by the lockdowns employed in fighting it. […]

Shock move sees Rouble recalled. Faced with the prospect of defaulting on its US-denominated loans, and rebuffed when it suggested making its payments in a Rouble fast becoming worthless, Russia has issued a new currency – the Rubble. Announcing the issue of the Rubble, a spokesman for the Central Bank of Russia commented, ‘Let’s face […]

“The one man that terrifies me more than Vladimir Putin right now is Joe Biden”, I said, confident that my dinner companions would rise to the bait. Just to make sure, I added, ‘this would never have happened if Trump was in the White House’. Cue polite, bourgeois outrage – ‘I think Biden’s response has […]

We have been denied an effective Covid treatment through sheer bigotry. From its outset, one of the key attributes of the Covid virus has been that not only is it highly virulent, but there is no effective antiviral treatment for those that catch it, and the only protection available is to be had from weakly-effective […]