Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it I’ve just had a gender reassignment. Well, two, actually. It’s been a busy day. I was having my car washed at Market Town, in Leichhardt. I’d neglected to go for a wee before I left home, but I figured, no problem, I’m going to a shopping mall, and […]

I’ve just watched an excellent Uncommon Knowledge interview with the Danish-born statistician Bjorn Lomborg, best-known for his book ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’. I should declare at this stage that, although I’ve read a great deal else that he’s written, I haven’t actually read TSE. So far as I can tell, then, Lomborg believes both that the […]

I’m a monarchist. I’m not a royalist. Royalists have the sentimental attachment to royalty which republicans insist is all there is to monarchism. Monarchists believe that the British Monarchy is the finest solution that has ever been devised to the problem of how to organise society along Utilitarianist lines, that is, in the interests of […]

Just because you CAN automate something, doesn’t mean you MUST. WYSIWYG stands for ‘What You See Is What You Get’. It was actually the name of a software language, but it had a brief and more colloquial coinage in the 80s, when Apple were giving the world the GUI (stands for ‘Graphical User Interface’), and […]

God Save the King from the opinions of the Prince he was. ‘Don’t just do something, stand there!’ I first heard this witticism on the lips of Ronald Reagan. It’s a piece of valuable wisdom for anyone in a position of authority and responsibility. For a British monarch, it might well serve as a job […]

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 […]