Cartoons - Jim Hunger

Isto é (era, há 40 anos...) humor!... 

The Spectator - Why are sports trophies so ugly?

(personal underlines) 

https://spectator.com/article/why-are-sports-trophies-so-ugly/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=BLND++20260121++HOUSE+ADS++AG+CID_97ce114859ec0cdc50223899129fa1c7

Why are sports trophies so ugly?

They used to be works of art

Michael Duggan20 January 2026, 4:59am

The Fifa Club World Cup trophy (Getty)

There is a short video on the internet in which the late football commentator Hugh Johns reminisces about what the game had in the 1970s that made it great. He starts making a list – ‘skill, entertainment, cut-throat football’ – and then pauses for a disparaging comment about what came after. The disparagement is mild, though; this is a genial, nostalgic soliloquy, not a rant. Then the list, delivered in a soft Welsh accent, restarts: ‘There were characters, there were elegant players, and there was fun.’ Everything you could want, as far as Hugh Johns was concerned.

Johns died in 2007, but I can’t imagine there have been any developments in football since then that would have caused him to knock the Seventies off the perch he built for them. That said, I’m not here to adjudicate the great and never-ending debate about football’s true golden age. I do, however, want to point out something else that Hugh Johns might have added to his list when building his case for the glorious Seventies. Trophies. My word, they were beautiful in those days.

To illustrate what I mean, I invite you, readers, to recall the cup that the champions of England – the winners of the old First Division – used to hold aloft, up until the advent of the Premier League in 1992. It looks like something from an Arthur Rackham illustration of a fairy tale, the precious vessel in which an elfin king might have jealously guarded an elixir of youth or a lock of hair from his one true love. Yet there it was in the hands of gnarled greats like Tommy Smith or Kenny Burns.

Or try the extraordinary original trophy for the European Super Cup, which used to be contested by the winners of the European Cup (now the Champions League) and the late, lamented Cup Winners’ Cup. It is an enormous medieval-looking goblet that the design team for Game of Thrones might have come up with but then discarded as too ridiculous. It never looked better than in the straining arms of the Ajax team, winners on a squally night in Milan, in 1973 (with every sideburned one of them wearing, for some reason, what look like bathrobes from the team hotel).

And what of the Inter-City Fairs Cup? This appears in a beautiful photograph being gazed at by Billy Bremner, who is waiting for customs clearance at Manchester Airport after Leeds had beaten Ferencváros in the second leg of the 1968 final. Its exact dimensions are hard to grasp – is it small or far away? – and the handles at the side look like angel wings. The website Game of the People deems it a trophy that ‘looked like it could easily have hosted a bunch of silk roses. It had the grace of the inter-war years, the simplicity of austere post-war Europe.’ It was also called the Noel Beard Cup, named not after a roadie with Hawkwind but after the cutler who made it. It couldn’t happen now.

Ah, yes. Now. I don’t wish to carp, but the newer trophies cannot compare. The prize for winning the Premier League leaves me cold, with its golden crown that manages somehow to be both plain and gaudy. The newest version of the European Super Cup is bland. The cup you get for winning the Championship play-offs final is no better. And the latest addition to the roster, the Tiffany-crafted Club World Cup – presented last year, you may remember, by Donald Trump to Donald Trump (oh, and to Chelsea also) – is eye-catching and ostentatious, certainly, but too bombastic for its own good. It looks like something a Master of the Universe-style Wall Street stockbroker might have on his desk, just for sliding his finger along while he’s making phone calls that will destroy the economy of an entire town in the Midwest.

And it’s not as if football can look to cousin sports for inspiration. The trophy on offer for winning the Prem in rugby is minimalist and forgettable. South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina compete each year for what looks like one of those ashtrays on string legs that were so common in – oh, the irony – the Seventies. Only the Webb Ellis Trophy, the Rugby World Cup, holds out some hope: a dainty, golden confection that reaches new heights of idiosyncrasy when lifted to the skies by a second-row forward whose hands are bigger than the trophy itself.

I grew up in Ireland in the 1970s, where we also had the exquisite Liam MacCarthy Cup for hurling and the Sam Maguire, based on the eighth-century masterpiece, the Ardagh Chalice, for Gaelic football. The FA Cup, the League Cup, the European Cup – all still with us, thank goodness – and those other departed trophies formed a kind of glittering beauty parade through our lives. This parade was made all the more enchanting because the trophies were the weird rewards for winning contests that involved enormous skill, yes, but were practised at the cost of a lot of pain, sweat and effort. Triumphs splattered with blood and mud. Hugh Johns was onto something. Seventies football can get a bad rap, but it did get some things gloriously right.

Observador - Europa: a avestruz a anos-luz do Estreito de Ormuz (Tiago Dores)

 (sublinhados pessoais)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/europa-a-avestruz-a-anos-luz-do-estreito-de-ormuz/

Europa: a avestruz a anos-luz do Estreito de Ormuz

Até ver, não haverá mais barcos naquela região além dos norte-americanos. A não ser que os boatos sobre a orientação sexual do novo aiatola levem à organização de uma flotilha pelos direitos LGBTQIA+.

Tiago Dores 

18 mar. 2026, 00:23

Além do já normal andar à volta, o mundo anda também agitado. Digamos que o planeta está shaken, and stirred. O James Bond não ia gostar: mandava-o logo para trás. E eu também não sou grande fã deste bombardeamento ininterrupto de megabytes de informação sobre o que se passa em todos os cantos da Terra. É fácil sentirmo-nos assoberbados com tanto estímulo. Por isso, nesses momentos, é essencial parar um pouco. O método que eu adoptei para conseguir o máximo relax é, tomem nota, imaginar-me Mário Centeno.

Ah… Que maravilha… Fico imediatamente todo zen, só de visualizar aquela reforma de Centeno aos 59 anos, com o estatuto de Ronaldo das Finanças e o vencimento quase de Ronaldo Ronaldo. Ainda que o Ronaldo Ronaldo deva a seu prestígio ao facto de, em vários campeonatos, se ter fartado de facturar, ao passo que o Ronaldo das Finanças deve o seu prestígio ao facto de não pagar facturas: ali, no governo, a pulverizar recordes mundiais de cativações uns atrás dos outros. Que campeão.

A propósito de cativações – ou da falta delas – e de saudosos grandes líderes socialistas, José Sócrates já tem um novo muito em breve ex-advogado. Sim que, à hora a que lêem isto, o mais provável é José Sócrates já ter dispensado o seu então agora antigo novo porque já ex-advogado oficioso. Ou qualquer coisa deste género que, sinceramente, neste emaranhado de advogados de Sócrates perdi-me ainda mais depressa do que a ver A Origem, com o DiCaprio.

E já que falo de actores, aproveito para não mencionar os Óscares, uma vez que não tenho grande interesse em acompanhar assembleias do grupo parlamentar norte-americano do Bloco de Esquerda. Além de que o Conan O’Brien, pelo que sei, não foi nenhum Ricky Gervais nos Globo de Ouro de 2020. Falarei, isso sim, de uma grande actriz europeia: Ursula von der Leyen.

Nas últimas semanas, tem estado extraordinária, a Ursula. Merecedora mesmo de um Óscar pelo seu desempenho no papel de uma senhora de meia idade amnésica, que depois de há escassos anos, enquanto ministra e potencial sucessora de Angela Merkel, ter apoiado efusivamente o fim da energia nuclear na Alemanha, andar agora, de forma igualmente convicta, a garantir que a Europa não vai a lado nenhuma sem energia nuclear. E sem Ursula von der Leyen para nos chamar a atenção para a incompetência de Ursula von der Leyen, naturalmente.

Põe os olhos nisto, Meryl Strip, que numa primeira e muito benevolente análise, poderia ser visto como um simples mudar de ideias. Mas que numa segunda e apenas benevolente análise talvez não seja um simples mudar de ideias, mas sim um não ter a mínima ideia sobre coisa nenhuma. Para numa terceira e acintosa análise, ser inevitável cogitar se este ir ao sabor do vento das renováveis, com as velas infladas pelos impostos dos europeus não terá sido, afinal, um epopeia repleta de tesouros para a Presidente da Comissão Europeia.

Velas infladas ou não, para onde os barcos europeus não navegarão, de certeza, é para o Golfo Pérsico. Donald Trump lançou o repto a vários países da Europa para juntarem as suas forças às dos EUA no controlo do Estreito de Ormuz e os líderes europeus, com a feminilidade tóxica que os caracteriza, optaram por não tomar partido no conflito que coloca, frente a frente, o maior aliado de história da Europa e um regime que, à primeira oportunidade, apreciaria imenso apagar a Europa da história. Compreende-se, é uma daqueles decisões difíceis, tipo “gostas mais do pai ou da mãe?”, quando o pai só não bate na mãe quando está demasiado ocupado a bater no filho.

Ou então estou a ser injusto e os líderes europeus só não responderam a Trump porque não escutaram o desafio do presidente norte-americano. Ou acham que é fácil ouvir alguma coisa quando se tem a cabeça enfiada na areia movediça das suicidas políticas imigratórias que trouxeram sabe-se lá quantos fundamentalistas islâmicos para o coração da Europa? Hã? Acham ou não? Mau, não me digam que têm a a cabeça enfiada na areia movediça das suicidas políticas imigratórias que trouxeram sabe-se lá quantos fundamentalistas islâmicos para o coração da Europa?

Bom, o facto é que, pelo menos até ver, não haverá mais barcos naquela região do médio oriente além dos navios estado-unidenses. A não ser que os continuados ataques americanos e israelitas à liderança do Irão, associados aos boatos sobre a orientação sexual do novo aiatola, resultem na organização, urgente, de uma flotilha pelos direitos LGBTQIA+.

Observador - A Energia Nuclear que não queremos produzir, mas que precisamos de compreender (Manuel Peres Alonso)

 

(sublinhados pessoais, reflexões silenciosas)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/a-energia-nuclear-que-nao-queremos-produzir-mas-que-precisamos-de-compreender/

A Energia Nuclear que não queremos produzir, mas que precisamos de compreender

O apagão de 2025 mostrou que a eletricidade não é um luxo. Portugal pode importá-la continuamente ou compreender como se domestica o animal que vai sustentar a civilização moderna.

21 mar. 2026, 00:05

Na tarde de 28 de abril de 2025, a Península Ibérica ficou mergulhada na escuridão. Não se tratou de uma falha isolada, mas sim de um aviso. Durante várias horas, Portugal e Espanha ficaram sem eletricidade, dado que o sistema energético falhou precisamente quando não podia falhar. O apagão custou 1,3 mil milhões de euros a Espanha. Custou confiança a toda a Europa. Além disso, o apagão veio revelar uma verdade incómoda que Portugal prefere ignorar: precisamos de fontes de energia estáveis e constantes, que não estão a ser construídas em Portugal, mas que todas as nações desenvolvidas estão a construir.

A questão é clara: quando não há vento nem sol, quem alimenta a rede? Na Península Ibérica, a resposta tem sido uma combinação de centrais a carvão e a gás natural, bem como centrais nucleares espanholas. Portugal consome essa eletricidade como se fosse inesgotável. Não é. E aqui reside o paradoxo que define o nosso presente energético.

Os Búfalos de Espanha

Imagine a América do Norte pré-colombiana. Tal como os povos neolíticos europeus domesticavam bois, havia civilizações indígenas que domesticavam búfalos. Construíam currais. Desenvolveram técnicas de pastoreio. Criaram sistemas sofisticados de criação e de cuidados dos búfalos. Outras civilizações, contudo, não investiram neste ecossistema. Esperavam que alguns búfalos fugissem dos rebanhos vizinhos para se alimentarem. Em alternativa, recebiam búfalos em troca de bens valiosos, numa relação comercial assimétrica. Não precisavam de construir currais nem de compreender o pastoreio, desde que os vizinhos mantivessem as manadas.

Durante séculos, isso funcionou. Os vizinhos eram fortes. As suas manadas eram jovens e abundantes. Os campos permaneciam férteis. As trocas eram justas.

Porém, agora, esses vizinhos estão a envelhecer. Os seus búfalos têm mais de meio século de vida. Toda a infraestrutura que sustentava as manadas começa a deteriorar-se. Alguns vizinhos já não conseguem alimentar as suas próprias populações, quanto mais oferecer búfalos aos outros. As civilizações que nunca domaram búfalos despertam para uma realidade desconfortável: sempre estiveram dependentes de um ecossistema que nunca compreenderam nem procuraram entender.

Isto é Portugal e a energia nuclear. Não de forma dramática: somos um país democrático e civilizado que, por convicções políticas profundas, optou por não investir na produção de eletricidade por via nuclear. Respeito essa escolha. No entanto, essa opção teve um custo que não tínhamos previsto.

O Preço Invisível da Indiferença

Portugal não tem centrais nucleares. No entanto, tem hospitais que necessitam de isótopos radioativos para efeitos de diagnóstico, nomeadamente o tecnecio-99m, utilizado em mais de 50 milhões de procedimentos de medicina nuclear por ano em todo o mundo, e o gálio-68, um isótopo em expansão no diagnóstico de tumores neuroendócrinos e cancro da próstata. O tecnecio-99m é produzido exclusivamente em reatores de investigação com mais de 50 anos. O gálio-68, mais recente, começou a ser produzido em Coimbra, através do síncrotão do Instituto de Ciências Nucleares Aplicadas à Saúde da Universidade de Coimbra, uma instalação inovadora e única no mundo.

No entanto, esta capacidade nacional de produção de gálio-68 é insuficiente para satisfazer a procura crescente de diagnósticos. E o tecnecio-99m? Portugal importa 100% das suas necessidades. Os reatores que o produzem, sobretudo localizados em Espanha, na Holanda, na Bélgica e na Polónia, são bastante antigos. Se um deles falhar, a Península Ibérica ficará vulnerável. Se vários falharem, Portugal ficará sem este instrumento de diagnóstico essencial.

Isto não é especulação. A Comissão Europeia está ciente disso. Por conseguinte, investiu 240 mil milhões de euros em novas capacidades nucleares até 2050. A França comprometeu-se com 70 mil milhões de euros. A Polónia comprometeu-se com 16 mil milhões. A Suécia, que tinha encerrado reatores, está a reativar os seus programas nucleares. O Reino Unido está a construir novas centrais. A Bélgica está a modernizar as suas centrais. Até a Roménia planeia fazê-lo.

E Portugal? Portugal observa.

O que Precisamos realmente de Construir?

Aqui está o segredo que nunca é revelado: Portugal não precisa de uma megacentral nuclear. O que é necessário é algo muito mais importante e menos visível: um ecossistema de conhecimento.

Pessoas qualificadas. Engenheiros nucleares. Investigadores. Operadores de reatores. É necessária uma cadeia industrial que compreenda a tecnologia. Uma regulamentação clara. Uma história de sucesso na qual os mais jovens possam construir as suas carreiras.

Tudo isto é mantido no Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares do Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). O IST é membro de pleno direito da Rede Europeia de Educação Nuclear. Temos mestrados em Proteção Radiológica. Temos investigação ativa. No entanto, funcionamos em modo de subsistência, como um museu que guarda artefactos em vez de uma indústria que irradia futuro.

Entretanto, os engenheiros que formamos acabam por emigrar. Vão para França, para o Reino Unido, para a Suíça. Vão construir o futuro energético europeu sem Portugal.

Os Reatores Modulares de Pequena Dimensão (SMR)

A nível mundial, foi desenvolvida uma solução tecnológica promissora: os SMR (na sigla inglesa). A Europa, através de empresas como a Rolls-Royce e a EDF e de países como o Reino Unido e a França, posiciona-se agora na vanguarda da sua implementação no continente. Trata-se de unidades com uma potência entre os 100 e os 300 megawatts, construídas em fábrica, que incluem sistemas de segurança integrados e cujos custos iniciais são viáveis para países de dimensão média. A primeira unidade entrará em funcionamento em 2030. Nos anos seguintes, serão construídas dezenas de unidades.

Portugal teria espaço para dois ou três SMR. Não só para produzir eletricidade, mas também para aumentar o conhecimento prático, introduzir a indústria neste setor e satisfazer as necessidades da medicina nuclear. Estes SMR seriam os nossos pequenos búfalos.

No entanto, para tal, teríamos de ter iniciado o processo há dez anos. Como isso não aconteceu, temos de começar agora, mesmo que a primeira unidade só esteja concluída em 2040.

O que está em Jogo?

Não se trata apenas de eletricidade. Trata-se de medicina: deixar de importar isótopos para diagnósticos e adquirir capacidade de produção própria. É indústria: participar nas cadeias de valor europeias da tecnologia nuclear, que movimentam centenas de milhares de milhões de euros. É conhecimento: reter e atrair os cérebros portugueses em vez de os vermos emigrar para países como a França ou o Reino Unido. É uma questão de segurança energética: ter uma rede elétrica verdadeiramente resiliente e não depender totalmente dos nossos vizinhos, cujas infraestruturas estão a envelhecer. É uma questão de clima: cumprir os objetivos de descarbonização com fontes reais de energia de base, em vez de depositar esperança em tecnologias ainda não comprovadas em larga escala.

Três Ações para Começar

Portugal pode e deve pôr em prática estas ações imediatamente. Em primeiro lugar, é necessário consolidar o que já existe. O Estado português deve financiar adequadamente o Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares do Instituto Superior Técnico, assegurar a permanência dos investigadores-chave e criar um mestrado e um doutoramento especializados em Engenharia Nuclear, semelhantes aos existentes em Espanha, França ou Itália. Em segundo lugar, é necessário estabelecer parcerias. É necessário celebrar acordos formais com Espanha para uma colaboração no domínio nuclear e para a integração na rede europeia de pequenos reatores modulares. Em terceiro lugar, é necessário avaliar a implementação. É necessário realizar um estudo de viabilidade técnica e económica, de forma genuína, sobre um ou dois reatores modulares para a década de 2040, integrados numa estratégia energética que combine as energias renováveis e a energia nuclear como pilares complementares.

Isto não é revolucionário. É pragmático. É o que todos os nossos vizinhos estão a fazer.

Conclusão: Domar Búfalos

Portugal optou por não ter o seu casal de búfalos. Foi uma decisão soberana. No entanto, esquecemo-nos de que, num continente onde todos os outros criadores domesticam búfalos, ser civilizado já não significa falta de conhecimentos concretos, mas sim estar preparado para um mundo em que a energia nuclear é fundamental para a descarbonização.

O apagão de abril de 2025 mostrou que a eletricidade não é um luxo. É um serviço essencial. Portugal pode importá-la continuamente dos países vizinhos que a produzem ou pode, finalmente, decidir compreender como se domestica o animal que vai sustentar a civilização moderna.

Os búfalos espanhóis estão a envelhecer. Em Portugal, nunca tivemos búfalos para domesticar. Ainda há tempo para aprender, antes que a lição se torne muito dispendiosa.

Nota editorial: Manuel Peres Alonso tem 30 anos de experiência em tecnologias de fusão nuclear e na coordenação de projetos internacionais de energia nuclear. Possui um doutoramento em Engenharia Física de Plasmas e Lasers, obtido em 2002. Trabalhou em laboratórios nucleares de ponta, nomeadamente no Tokamak Joint European Torus, no Reino Unido, e no acelerador de partículas IFMIF-LIPAc, no Japão.

The Spectator - Iran’s useful idiots: British complicity in Tehran's terror

 (personal underlines)

https://spectator.com/article/irans-useful-idiots-british-complicity-in-tehrans-terror/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020260115%20%20AL+CID_9385d1427bf41ede627097f6fdc4c64c

Iran’s useful idiots: British complicity in Tehran's terror

John Jenkins

It is still unclear what will happen next in Iran. I fervently hope the current protests will cause the tyrants of Tehran to fall. It would be ideal if they were replaced by an order that allowed the population of 90 million to choose who governs them and build a country that reflects joy, hope and modernity rather than Ali Khamenei’s brutal Islamist fever dream.

I also know how unlikely that is. Revolutions tend to produce disorder and repression, not order and freedom. After the failure of the Constitutional Revolution in 1911, there was a decade of chaos, fragmentation and insurgency in Iran until Reza Khan seized power and founded the Pahlavi dynasty. In 1979, his son was driven into exile by a revolution welcomed by progressives – including the unspeakable Michel Foucault, the radical feminist Kate Millett and the international jurist Richard Falk (who was happy to criticise Israel at the drop of a hat). That turned into an obscurantist nightmare and a decade of war.

And since the death in 1989 of Ayatollah Khomeini, the signature achievement of the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has been to turn Khomeini’s personalised theocratic tyranny into a financially centralised, highly organised and brutally repressive praetorian state protected by hundreds of thousands of ideologically indoctrinated Basijis (the thuggish street militia) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). There may be a question mark over the regular army, the Artesh. But if the Basij, the IRGC and the religious elite remain cohesive, the regime will survive for now – no matter what the cost in human life.

There are people – all Iranian – whose views on these matters I greatly respect: Karim Sadjadpour, Ali Ansari, Behnam Ben Taleblu, Saeid Golkar and Holly Dagres, for example. There are some – step forward Owen Jones – who have become instant experts and want to ensure mostly that neither the US nor Israel benefits from the Islamic Republic’s collapse. There are others in the region who see Iran through the prism of realpolitik and worry about the impact a sudden collapse could have on their countries: the Turkish foreign minister is one, as are several prominent Saudi and Gulf analysts. Given the chaos that followed the Arab Spring, that is an understandable position.

It may be that they also fear the emergence of a free and dynamic Iran in competition with their own countries. If such an Iran, with its extraordinary geostrategic assets, were to rejoin the concert of nations, it would represent a sea change – economic, political and social – not just in the Middle East but globally.

As for our own government, it remains unclear exactly what they think. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper proudly said on social media on Tuesday that she had scolded Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, and told him to ‘end the violence’. I hope Araghchi has recovered from the wigging. She has also promised ‘legislation’ on some vague new sanctions. Given that the government seems incapable of producing timely and sound legislation on other matters, I am not holding my breath.

I was a co-author of a report for Policy Exchange in 2023 suggesting a new Iran strategy for Britain. Among other things, it recommended using financial intelligence to identify and interdict illegal funding flows, refocusing our more general intelligence effort to respond to the regime’s brutality, boosting the BBC’s Persian Service, encouraging a renewed focus on badly eroded Farsi language skills and area expertise within government, and working with regional partners to counter Iranian subversion in the region. In particular, we recommended finding a way – as the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation had suggested – to take action against those parts of the IRGC active in Britain or harming our interests elsewhere and shut down other malign Iranian-backed institutions operating here. Nothing happened. The usual excuse was that it would lead to a diplomatic rupture and we needed representation in Tehran in order to explain to the regime what we thought.

I understand why the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office would like to keep open our two magnificent and historic compounds in Tehran. But – as I know from the long and dismal hours I used to spend with them – the absence of Iranian diplomats in London would be no loss at all. And the idea that a diplomatic presence in Tehran lets us speak directly to the regime – and so shape their views – is for the birds.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran is designed not to provide but to obstruct access to key decision-makers. Sometimes the illusion is created that access is possible: during the negotiations that led to the signing of the nuclear agreement – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – in 2015, Iran’s then foreign minister Javad Zarif played his American and European opposite numbers like a violin. But he was a taker, not a maker, of decisions: the organ grinder’s assistant, while the organ grinder and his real advisers remained inaccessible.

In any case, if the regime wants to know what we think, they can scan social media and read the British press. Whether they would believe what they read is a different matter: the mindset of many of the Shia fanatics who run Iran is likely to be only a slightly more sophisticated version of that demonstrated in Iraq by the Iranian-backed militiamen who kidnapped Russian-Israeli researcher Elisabeth Tsurkov in 2023, which she recently described in a piece in the Atlantic entitled ‘Kidnapped by idiots’.

The FCDO might also plead that we need to be represented in Tehran to live up to our obligations as a member of the European troika, with Germany and France, which continues to act as if the JCPOA still meant something. But why? Having triggered snap-back sanctions in the autumn, what else is there to say or do? And if there is anything, the ball is firmly in Iran’s court, not ours.

There are other indications of endemic institutional feebleness in this country: the reopening in 2023 of the Islamic Centre of England in Maida Vale, long accused of links with Tehran, or the continued functioning of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, which William Shawcross in his review of Prevent identified as aligned with the Iranian regime. Even when a stockpile of ammonium nitrate was discovered in 2015 in a flat in north London allegedly for use by Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran’s overseas agent of choice, it was kept very quiet. The press subsequently speculated that this was linked to the need to keep the Iranian nuclear deal afloat. It all resembles the way successive governments have sought to treat a wide range of malign Islamist bodies and organisations in this country and abroad with kid gloves ‘to keep lines open’. But the only lines I have ever observed being kept open are the ones that feed back into this country and undermine its security and cohesion.

We are seeing yet again the true nature of the Iranian regime in the mass murder being committed every day on the streets of Tehran and other cities across the country. They have been doing this for decades, whenever they feel under threat. Our response is to condemn – but then do nothing. It’s almost as if our political leaders agree with the Iranian regime that we can never atone enough for our vastly exaggerated role in the collapse of the Mosaddegh government in 1953 (spoiler alert: I know that some do).

Perhaps this time, we might think about doing something instead. And the FCDO could do a lot worse than dust off our 2023 report and start to implement at least some of its recommendations. The alternative is more paralysis in the UK and another false dawn for Iranians. They deserve better.

The Spectator - ‘J.D. Vance was right’: Is Europe finally waking up?

 (personal underlines)

https://spectator.com/article/j-d-vance-was-right-is-europe-finally-waking-up/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020260219%20%20AL+CID_809095871f6dcf239aafa1d82b267714

‘J.D. Vance was right’: Is Europe finally waking up?

Lisa Haseldine

The organisers of the Munich security conference weren’t subtle. A large statue of an elephant stood in one of the lobbies. The logo on all official documents was an elephant, this time with bits of countries printed on it. A poster for an exhibition celebrating the meeting’s 60th anniversary had an image of an elephant in a stately room. Everyone understood the meaning of the elephant in the room: it was America’s disregard for Europe.

At last year’s meeting, J.D. Vance had declared the biggest threat to Europe was not from Russia or China but ‘from within’. Europe’s leaders were becoming tyrannical, the Vice President argued, arresting citizens for exercising their free speech. ‘If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,’ he said.

The relationship has only worsened since. Donald Trump has tried repeatedly to end the Ukraine war in Russia’s favour, horrifying European leaders. Last month saw a full-blown diplomatic crisis as the President attempted to bully Denmark into handing over Greenland in the name of US ‘national security’.

The German Chancellor Friedrich Merz seemed to have got the message. ‘Let me begin with the uncomfortable truth,’ he said. ‘A deep chasm, a deep trench, has opened between Europe and the United States. Vice President J.D. Vance said this here, in Munich, a year ago. He was right.’

Europe, Merz argued, was ready to take more responsibility for its own defence: it must re-arm. Last June, Trump extracted commitments from Nato allies to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. But what no European leader can say for sure is whether these commitments are to win Trump over or to protect themselves should America withdraw security guarantees from the Continent – or, worse yet, attempt to seize European territory by force.

The threat of Trump annexing Greenland looks to have receded, but the President may yet try again. Meanwhile, there are doubts the US would honour the Article 5 agreement to come to the defence of any Nato member that is attacked. According to one poll, 44 per cent of French people think the US has become an unreliable ally; half of Germans think the same.

In some respects, Europe is already going it alone. Since Trump returned to the White House last January, it has been Europe that is funding military aid to Ukraine. Last year, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, European countries donated approximately €29 billion in military aid – an increase of roughly two-thirds on the year before. While American-made weapons are still finding their way to Ukraine, they are first purchased and then donated by Europe and Canada through Nato. Under Biden, the US gave approximately €130 billion to Kyiv; Trump hasn’t handed over a cent.

Nonetheless, the President is trying to negotiate a peace deal with Russia on Ukraine’s behalf, locking Kyiv and its European allies out of the talks. It seems that only sycophancy from Europe’s leaders has prevented Trump from forcing Ukraine to agree terms approaching Russia’s maximalist demands. The Nato chief Mark Rutte referring to Trump as ‘Daddy’ has become emblematic of Europe’s bowing and scraping to the White House.

As some lose faith that the US would defend Europe under Article 5, European armies are ill-equipped to protect it themselves. Donations to Ukraine over the past four years have hollowed out military arsenals. Defence chiefs in Germany and Britain warn that the failure to replace this materiel has left us with insufficient means to defend ourselves. Can Europe re-arm and reduce its dependence on America? During the conference, Merz pointed out that, despite having a collective GDP nearly ten times the size of Russia’s, ‘Europe is not ten times as strong as Russia today’.

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency has estimated Russia’s military expenditure is now roughly 10 per cent of GDP, or about half of total state spending. Meanwhile, European members of Nato face a major struggle to balance budgets in pursuit of their 5 per cent target. Within this figure, it’s been agreed that 3.5 per cent must be spent on core defence needs, with the remaining 1.5 per cent spent on defence-related infrastructure. Only six of the 30 European countries in the alliance – Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Norway – are currently spending more than 3 per cent of GDP on core defence contracts.

Apart from Germany, few Nato members have publicly set out roadmaps for raising defence spending. Among those that haven’t are France – currently spending around 2 per cent of GDP and saddled with the third-highest debt per capita in the European Union – and Britain, at 2.4 per cent. Italy only met Nato’s old 2 per cent target last year, and is not planning to meet the core 3.5 per cent of defence spending until 2035, with no indication of if, when or how it intends to spend the additional 1.5 per cent.

Despite the lagging spending, at least seven European countries have reintroduced military service. The Netherlands plans to more than double the size of its army by 2030, from 70,000 to 200,000 (including reservists). Poland – with the highest level of defence spending in Nato, at 4.7 per cent – is aiming to grow its army from 216,000 to 300,000 troops by 2035.

Germany aims to increase the Bundes-wehr to 260,000 permanent soldiers plus 200,000 reservists by 2035. In Munich, Merz reaffirmed his intention to make the German army ‘the strongest conventional army in Europe as quickly as possible’. One naval officer I spoke to after the speech called it a ‘great morale boost’ to hear his Chancellor talk in such terms. But morale alone will do little to improve Germany’s defences.

One solution European leaders discussed was the idea of creating their own nuclear deterrent that could operate independently of Washington. Unlike Britain, France has nuclear weapons that are not reliant on the US for maintenance or deployment. Some leaders have asked France to consider extending its nuclear umbrella to protect Europe. Emmanuel Macron is expected to give a speech in the coming weeks outlining his approach to the country’s nuclear doctrine. Teasing that speech in Munich, Macron said: ‘The French nuclear deterrent has, what I would call, a European inspiration’.

How realistic is all of this, given the Europeans’ love of squabbling? Just look at the joint European defence projects already under way. Plans to build a new class of fighter jet, agreed between France, Germany and Spain, are dead in the water. The two companies involved in the plans, Airbus and Dassault, couldn’t agree on which would lead the project. Meanwhile, talks to allow Britain to participate in the EU’s €150 billion defence fund broke down at the end of last year because the French want us to pay a joining fee of up to £2 billion. Bickering is an inherent part of European politics, even as the Continent’s protector pulls back and its eastern border is threatened.

Despite all the talk of deep chasms and elephants in rooms, Europe seems unwilling to face this reality. The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio flattered delegates, speaking of America’s European inheritance and the values shared by the two continents. But his core message was much the same as Vance’s. America had no interest in continuing to be the ‘polite caretakers of the West’s managed decline’, he reiterated.

There was little indication that Europe’s political elites realised that the central message had not changed. Nor, judging by their lacklustre approach to rearmament, have they yet realised the magnitude of the task they face. At the end of his speech, Rubio received a standing ovation; the conference chair Wolfgang Ischinger declared that Europe’s leaders would be giving a ‘sigh of relief’ on hearing Rubio’s ‘message of reassurance and partnership’. A year on and the elephant was clearly visible within the conference hall, but few delegates seemed to be taking it all that seriously.

 Uma perspectiva diferente sobre o que se passa no mundo.

The Spectator - Donald Trump is confronting a reality that Europe has ignored

 (personal underlines)

https://spectator.com/article/donald-trump-is-confronting-a-reality-that-europe-has-ignored/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH++20260108++HOUSE+ADS++AC+CID_c9166efcc8a0647ad961514fc2f1c133

Donald Trump is confronting a reality that Europe has ignored

The Spectator

Donald Trump’s rendition of Nicolas Maduro was a brilliantly executed coup. It was also an exhibition of America’s hard power, power that has underpinned the rules-based international order that protected America’s allies for decades. Now those allies fear that the rules-based order is as much a smoking ruin as Maduro’s Caracas compound. European hysteria is, however, misplaced. President Trump has not inaugurated a new era of disorder, he has responded to realities about which European elites have been in denial.

The post-war international order has been crumbling for more than a decade. And British governments have been enablers of that process. One of the most determined users of hard power in subverting every restraint has been communist China. British policy, accelerated under this government, has supported China’s economic rise and acquiesced in its suppression of freedoms.

We were cheerleaders for China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation, assuming that would tame Beijing’s authoritarianism. Instead, China turned our naive belief in free trade and our faith in trans-national institutions into a mechanism for transferring jobs, intellectual property and wealth into their hands.

Our drive towards net zero and attachment to the Kyoto Protocol have allowed us to become dependent on Chinese technology manufactured by slave labour in Xinjiang. And we have proved false friends to those actually invested in democratising China. Britain had promised Hong Kongers autonomy through the Basic Law. Instead Beijing was able to subvert the city, eventually subsuming it into the mainland.

Whether it was misplaced post-colonial guilt, or wilful naivete, the same instincts are also in play in our surrender of the Chagos islands to China’s ally Mauritius. We think we are adhering to the international law rule book. China sees a shrivelled, cuckolded nation trying to hide its impotence behind the fig leaf of Richard Hermer’s legal opinion.

Prior to Trump’s return to the White House, Joe Biden’s America displayed similar evidence of exhaustion. The fall of Kabul and the collapse of American might in the face of teenagers with Kalashnikovs was no triumph of rules-based order. Rather, it was a demonstration of hypocrisy and infirmity. The Taliban was able to overrun 20 years of US occupation in just a few weeks.

For those who argue that Europe offers a brighter alternative to either British or American statecraft, consider the failure of the 2015 Minsk II Agreement in guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty. A defence pact orchestrated by France and Germany collapsed in the face of Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Russia has contempt for a continent that spends massively on welfare while flinching from preparation for warfare.

Any notion of an international order works on two conditions. The first is that those who are a part of it choose to enforce it; yet the West has repeatedly failed to uphold its promises. The second is that the adversaries of international order are too scared to defy it. Maduro made clear that he was not scared. He traded oil for loans with China while helping Moscow avoid sanctions. He rigged elections and had opposition activists shot in the street. He allowed fentanyl and weapons to flood across America’s southern border. Trump put an end to that.

Maduro was part of a web of dictators. Thirty-two Cubans were killed in the raid on his compound; they were part of a communist bodyguard corps from another dictatorial regime. Venezuelan oil props up Havana. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, believes that toppling the dictator of Caracas could hasten the end of Cuban misery. Those on the streets of Havana will be watching, hoping for liberation from poverty and dictatorship, rather than worrying that international law has been breached.

The people who have genuine cause for concern, however, are our enemies. Caracas’s air defence systems were mostly Russian-made. They were unable to down a single aircraft or even kill a single American serviceman. Russia now knows the superiority of American weapons systems. That sends a message, one that differs from the fiasco in Kabul that emboldened Putin in his invasion of Ukraine. It also sends a message to Russia’s customers, such as the Belarusians, who use the same Buk-M2 anti-aircraft missile systems as the Venezuelans, and the Iranians, who use the Pantsir-S1s that also failed. Russian defence systems can be overawed.

European leaders saw the supremacy of American technology too. The offer is there from Trump: choose to invest in your militaries, to defend your own homelands, and we’ll sell you the arms. America can grow its domestic defence industries and Europe can fend off its enemies. Trump’s administration has repeatedly expressed its desire to enact this win-win. The White House’s national security strategy, published last month, was explicit: ‘We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilisational self-confidence and western identity.’ This belief in basic western values was evident when, this time last year, J.D. Vance chided European leaders for failing to uphold western freedoms.

Instead of laying claim to a virtue they have scarcely exhibited themselves, British and European politicians should heed the wise words of Peter Mandelson. In his Ditchley lecture last year, and again in our pages, Lord Mandelson displays a clear-eyed assessment of how to work with Trump which is much more acute and constructive than his detractors have offered. If we want to exercise influence, win respect and secure our interests, then we need to invest in our hard power. International law is a palisade of paper; it is by following the iron laws of hard statecraft that we serve our people best.

Série - O poder da Justiça

 

Está a chegar à televisão portuguesa a primeira temporada de O Poder da Justiça, uma série jurídica intensa baseada no romance The Rainmaker, de John Grisham. A história acompanha o jovem advogado Rudy Baylor, que luta contra uma poderosa firma de advogados e descobre uma conspiração que revela até onde os seus adversários estão dispostos a ir para vencer. O Poder da Justiça T1 estreia no dia 22 de outubro, quarta-feira, às 22h10, em exclusivo no TVCine Emotion e TVCine+.

Recém-licenciado em direito, Rudy Baylor tenta encontrar o seu lugar no mundo desigual da lei, confrontando Leo Drummond, advogado veterano de reputação intocável, e Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone, cuja firma familiar luta para sobreviver enquanto enfrenta escândalos que ameaçam derrubar reputações. Entre conspirações, processos judiciais e dilemas morais, o enredo desenrola-se entre o suspense da sala de tribunal e o drama pessoal daqueles que acreditam que a justiça ainda pode prevalecer. A série aprofunda não só os casos legais, mas também os conflitos internos das personagens: lealdades postas à prova, segredos de família, arrependimentos, ilusões e a constante tensão entre idealismo e realidade.

Tendo sido já adaptado ao cinema por Francis Ford Coppola em 1997, o romance The Rainmaker, de John Grisham, conhece agora uma versão para a televisão pela mão do criador Michael Seitzman. Milo Callaghan, John Slattery, Madison Iseman e Lana Parrilla são os principais nomes do elenco. O Poder da Justiça T1 estreia a 22 de outubro, com novos episódios todas as quartas-feiras, às 22h10, só no TVCine Emotion e no TVCine+

Polemia - Alarmisme climatique : « Physiquement et thermodynamiquement, cela ne tient pas. »

(soulignements personnels)

 

https://www.polemia.com/alarmisme-climatique-physiquement-et-thermodynamiquement-cela-ne-tient-pas/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=la_lettre_de_polemia&utm_term=2025-12-09

Alarmisme climatique : « Physiquement et thermodynamiquement, cela ne tient pas. »

Polémia

Le Forum de la Dissidence organisé par Polémia et dédié à l’alarmisme climatique s’est tenu à Paris ce samedi 15 novembre 2025. Découvrez l’intervention de Jacques-Marie Moranne, animateur du site laphysiqueduclimat.fr et ingénieur. Passé d’alarmiste climatique à sceptique, via un travail d’ingénieur, il nous livre son témoignage concis mais passionnant.
Polémia

Jacques-Marie Moranne : "je suis un ingénieur, et le climat, c'est de la thermodynamique."

Lire cette vidéo sur YouTube.

Je suis un ancien alarmiste, mais je suis ingénieur, et le climat, fondamentalement, c’est de la thermodynamique. À partir de ma retraite, j’ai voulu comprendre comment cela fonctionnait. Et il faut le dire : on ne peut pas attribuer l’intégralité du réchauffement climatique actuel au CO₂. Ce n’est pas possible. Physiquement, cela ne tient pas. Thermodynamiquement non plus.

J’ai donc écrit un livre, La physique du climat, consultable gratuitement sur internet. Si cela vous intéresse, vous pouvez le lire : c’est un ouvrage de physique, un peu vulgarisé, mais tout de même rigoureux. J’ai également publié Climat et CO₂, décryptage d’une manipulation, préfacé par Philippe Herlin — dont nous parlions tout à l’heure — et destiné cette fois à un public plus large.

Que montre ce livre ? Fondamentalement ceci — je pourrais le sous-titrer : Comment un optimum climatique a été transformé en catastrophe économique. Car nous vivons bel et bien un optimum climatique. La Terre verdit aujourd’hui dans des proportions considérables, malgré tout ce qu’on peut entendre. On meurt encore dix fois plus du froid que de la chaleur. Nous avons donc une marge de manœuvre.

Il suffirait de regarder les faits — ce que les journalistes devraient faire. Les observations existent partout. Prenons par exemple les données de la NOA : l’évolution des cyclones et des typhons depuis cinquante ans n’a pas augmenté. Contrairement à ce qu’on affirme, il n’y a pas davantage de catastrophes climatiques ou météorologiques. Il n’y a pas non plus plus de feux de forêt qu’avant ; il y en a même plutôt moins. Depuis 2000, il y en a un peu plus parce que les forêts ne sont plus entretenues au nom de l’écologie. Mais globalement, il y en a bien moins qu’au début du XXᵉ siècle.

Il faut regarder les faits. Ils sont disponibles, dans des observatoires officiels, pour tout : les coraux, l’ours polaire, etc. Factuellement, il ne se passe rien — à part le verdissement de la planète. Quant au niveau des océans, il augmente de 20 à 25 centimètres par siècle depuis le début du XXᵉ. Cela suit la température, mais cela ne tuera personne. On est loin des 6 mètres annoncés jadis par Al Gore. C’est lui, d’ailleurs, qui a déclenché la vague d’alarmisme et la panique qui l’a accompagnée.

Je vous remercie de m’avoir accordé cinq minutes.

Jacques-Marie Moranne
Intervention lors du Forum de la Dissidence du 15 novembre 2025 – Publiée sur notre site le 27/11/2025

The Spectator - We should all be tree huggers

 

(personal underscores)

https://spectator.com/article/we-should-all-be-tree-huggers/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LIFE%20%2020260225%20%20SG+CID_da0f023bc6e9fc6bf113055ffe5d4de8

We should all be tree huggers

Embracing nature doesn’t make us eco–lunatics

Cosmo Landesman24 February 2026, 5:01am

(Picture: iStock)

Recently, I was in my local park when I noticed a young girl staring at me with a puzzled expression. She then turned to her mother and asked: ‘Why is that man hugging a tree?’ It was a good question. Why was an old, cynical, embittered hack like me hugging a tree? The simple answer is: I’ve become a tree hugger. 

There was a time when I laughed at people like me; and many are still laughing. Tree hugger is a term of abuse that everyone seems happy to use. Green politics may have moved closer to the mainstream but we tree huggers have been left out in the cold. We are the friends of the earth who have very few friends. To ‘climate sceptics’ on the right, we’re just lunatics. To left leaning eco-warriors, we are eco-wimps. 

To some in the Green movement, tree hugging is part of their embarrassing past. Don’t mention the hug word around Zack Polanski. According to a recent report in the Telegraph, ‘Greens shun tree hugging and embrace Gaza at Gorton and Denton by-election’. It represents the soft sentimental side of the hard struggle to save the planet. Hug a tree? You might as well pet a puppy. 

When someone calls themselves a tree hugger it’s usually done for comic effect or as a conspicuous act of self-deprecation. Earlier this month in the House of Commons, during a debate on woodland protection, Labour MP Jen Craft announced to the house with a heavy dose of self-mockery: ‘I am a self-confessed tree hugger – I literally will hug a tree.’

Sir Keir Starmer, on the other hand, will not. In 2023, when he was leader of the opposition, Starmer is alleged to have told members of the shadow cabinet that he was ‘not interested in tree huggers’ before saying: ‘In fact, I hate tree huggers.’ 

Despite such widespread disapproval, I go every day to a tree-lined square near my home and hug my tree. (It’s a very tall and thick London plane, with an unruly mass of branches, which juts out of the ground at a slight angle.) And I mean hug. I don’t just touch or stroke my tree or give it a little pat of appreciation. I stretch out my arms as wide as I can and wrap them around as much of the tree that I can, and press my face and entire body against the tree and just stand there, hugging. I listen to the tree hum. I feel its vibrations. I soak up its energy. And yes, sometimes I feel like a twit.

How did my life as a tree hugger begin? I’d walked by this same tree a million times and regarded it as just another tree. But then, one cold sunny day, instead of phone scrolling, I put my phone away and looked at the tree and saw a thing of beauty and wonder. How had I never noticed this tree before? 

I moved closer to the tree and put my hands on it. A voice inside my head said: ‘Oh no! Please, don’t do any of that tree hugging shit for heaven’s sake.’ And before you could say, ‘piss off, Sting’, I had my arms wrapped around it. And it felt good. I squeezed tighter and a smile spread across my face.

At first, I was worried by what people passing by might think of me. One thing I enjoy about tree hugging is that it teaches you not to worry about such things. I’ve had local youths laugh and mock me. ‘Get a room!’ said one wit. Male friends all crack the same joke about getting wood. I get stared at by joggers, bin collectors, pram-wheeling mums and pot-smoking delinquents. I suspect that some feel sorry for me, thinking: ‘Look at that poor old bloke. Obviously, he has no one to hug!’

Why do I do it? I’m not really sure. All sorts of medical and psychological claims are made for tree hugging – it reduces stress, anxiety and lowers your blood pressure. Maybe. (I certainly feel better after a tree hug.) But maybe that’s due to the uplift you get from being away from your screen, walking in a park and inhaling fresh air, and has nothing to do with the actual hug or healing energies that comes from the tree itself. 

For me it has something to do with wanting to get closer to nature, really close. It appeals to that longing that many modern, secular-minded people have for a connection with something bigger than themselves. No, I don’t feel one with the universe, but I do feel one with my tree. If you listen carefully during your tree hug you can hear God or Nature – call it what you will – whispering in your ear. 

To some this might sound like a lot of mushy mysticism or woo-woo spirituality. And yes, it’s such a white, middle-class thing to do! In modern times, tree hugging began as a form of social protest in 1973 in northern India to save local forests. Now it’s slowly becoming a part of the wellbeing movement. I certainly feel better for my tree hugs.

The Spectator - Why are Parisians so awful?

 

(personal underlines...voilá!)

https://spectator.com/article/why-are-parisians-so-awful/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LIFE%20%2020260225%20%20SG+CID_da0f023bc6e9fc6bf113055ffe5d4de8

Why are Parisians so awful?

Failure to live up to Parisian standards is a punishable offence

Alexander Larman25 February 2026, 5:00am

I have recently returned from a fleeting visit to the City of Light. As usual, Paris itself was a delight. It is an architectural and historic marvel that nevertheless manages to offer the best food and wine in the world at all kinds of prices, and somehow also has a respectable number of quirky and interesting independent shops and boutiques amidst the more anticipated international names. In other words, any trip to the French capital should be an alloyed pleasure. So why, when I arrived back at St Pancras, did I all but sink to my knees in gratitude that I was once back in rainy old Blighty, and that the land of the Belle Époque was a distant memory?  

The answer, as usual, comes in the extraordinary awfulness of the inhabitants of the world’s finest city. Other similar places have their flaws. New Yorkers are brusque, Romans prone to lascivious wolf-whistles, and Londoners are a grim, glum bunch on the whole, until you steer them into the nearest pub and watch them light up. But it is hard to think of any bunch of types as rude, arrogant and generally obstreperous as the Parisians. If you do not live up to their self-appointed standards of beauty, sartorial chic and – this is the crucial part – fluency in their native language, then you will be treated with as much disdain as la merde beneath their ever-elegant chaussures.  

Sometimes, this just takes the form of straightforward hostility. I attempted to visit a brasserie for lunch one day, on the tourist hellhole that is the Boulevard de Sébastopol. My presence was noted, I was brusquely sent to a table in a miserable, practically Arctic corner of the room, and then that was the end of that. The closest that the staff came to communicating was when one waiter dropped a fork on my wife’s face, an outrage for which no apology was forthcoming. Instead, when she tried to pick up the offending item, he waggled a finger at her, as if she were a naughty child, and said ‘Non!’. We left shortly afterwards, unfed and insulted.  

But then this was the same trip as when, after queuing for half an hour in the rain to see the glories of the Louvre, we were denied entry because we had booked le mauvais billet, and would have been sent back to the ticket desk, there to shell out another thirty-odd euros and to queue, in the rain, for another half an hour or more. Even the Mona Lisa isn’t worth that amount of effort. If this information had been communicated with the slightest kind of compassion, or even a shrug, a smile and a ‘desolé’, then the disappointment might not have been so grave. But instead, it was presented with a sneer and a look of contemptuous incredulity at how un rosbif could have been quite so stupid to fall foul of the institution’s byzantine website.  

On and on it went. We stayed at a hotel with a swimming pool, which was located on the top floor. (There was no view but never mind.) In order to visit the swimming pool, you had to leave your room, head down to the reception, obtain another ticket from the sullen receptionist, head back to another floor, get changed, leave, and then head two floors up to the pool. It was a staggering task, and I am afraid to say that, when the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest broke, I simply abandoned the idea of a relaxing dip altogether and instead immersed myself in an altogether different kind of deep water.  

Paris is a city where those who live and work there seem to take a perverse pleasure in making the lives of tourists and visitors less pleasant. There are endless queues, countless miserable examples of pettifogging bureaucracy that make no sense – on my way out of Gare du Nord, I counted no fewer than three separate queues at one point, none of which were making any progress – and a pervasive sense that the Parisians would be perfectly happy if they never had to speak to anyone who was not French ever again. If they deign to utter a few words to you in English, it is done with the withering disdain of someone lowering themselves to vulgarity. It comes as a faint surprise that they do not spit at you in the process.  

I shall, of course, be back before too long. The awfulness of the locals cannot take away the great aesthetic, artistic and culinary glories of Paris, and even if, like a character out of the Wodehouse novel, I must adopt the look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French, I shall bone up on Duolingo and attempt to take on the escargot-munchers on their own turf. But the next time I visit, it will be with a sense of grim determination to restore British honour in a fashion not seen since the glory days of Agincourt. The Louvre, and that mediocre little bistro on the Boulevard de Sébastopol, had better watch out.