I am reading "Queen Bee: Biology,Rearing and Breeding" by David Woodward.

Lots to understand...

James Holland's history of the Battle of Britain which is two thirds plus of way through by Adler Tag. First 66% is about Battle of France etc.

Next up is Joshua Rozenberg's 'Enemies if the People' about Judges and how they shape society.

The Times. Paper gets delivered to our village church porch. Obsessives collect it wearing gloves. Life would hardly be worth living without a decent daily newspaper made of actual paper.

I reread my Peter James books from the "Dead" series. I forgot how good they are. Put someone away from Brighton. You have gone through a number of autobiographies and biographies. Frank Muir was a classic, as was Eric Sykes.

as was Eric Sykes.

I was getting on fine with the Eric Sykes book some years ago until he started on about his friendship with Ian Smith and how he enjoyed his visits to Rhodesia. For gods sake, that man was one of the worlds most successful racists, how could you like him and visiting a segregated unequal country.

So Robert Mugabe made the country more prosperous and better for the ordinary citizens?

So Robert Mugabe made the country more prosperous and better for the ordinary citizens?

Clearly not but doesn't justify the Smith regime.

Just going to reply but spotted this and could not have put it better myself.

So Robert Mugabe made the country more prosperous and better for the ordinary citizens?

Clearly not but doesn't justify the Smith regime.

I never said that it did, did I?

In the Sixties I worked with a guy who had recently lived in Rhodesia.

As things developed, he was saddened to hear of the lawless and violent seizure of farms, many of which were left derelict instead of being productively used. This was a cause of food shortages for years.

Zimbabwe became a poverty stricken dictatorship, with a corrupt officialdom and a broken currency.

My point is that the ordinary citizen may no longer have been ruled by a white government but his or her daily life became significantly harder. a fact seldom acknowledged by the enthusiasts for regime change then or now.

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Edited by galileo on 12/07/2020 at 18:18

My point is that the ordinary citizen may no longer have been ruled by a white government but his or her daily life became significantly harder. a fact seldom acknowledged by the enthusiasts for regime change then or now.

Under the Smith regime the majority black population did not have a vote but after that regime was kicked out it was down to them who they voted for.

OK, it ultimately turned out bad but its still impossible to argue for a bad government voted in by only a small fraction of the population over a bad government that all the population had the ability to vote for.

I was not arguing for a "bad" government, merely pointing out that the results of voting do not always deliver what you hope for.

There are many examples of this disappointing result around the world, also examples (such as Iraq and Libya) where regime change made life worse for ordinary citizens, at least for a period of time, even though the previous regime was undemocratic.

The story that Smith was a racist is embedded in socialist folklore, it's a kind of compulsory opinion that goes with being of a socialist mindset.

"When he walked the streets of Harare, Africans would almost queue up to grasp his hand and wish him well "If you were to go to Harare today [in 2007] and ask ordinary black Zimbabweans who they would rather have as their leader—Smith or Mugabe—the answer would be almost unanimous", Boynton asserted; "And it would not be Mugabe.

The story that Smith was a racist is embedded in socialist folklore, it's a kind of compulsory opinion that goes with being of a socialist mindset.

He was a white supremacist. How much more than that is needed to prove racism?

“White supremacist” is a new way of saying “racist” while stepping around the steadily increasing awareness that that word, too, is being wielded in sloppy ways. Writing “white supremacist” is a way of making the reader jump, in the way that “prejudiced” and “racist” once were. What handier way of driving your critique home than implying that your target would have happily attended Nazi reunions and wear a black shirt with certain symbols displayed on it!

OK, it ultimately turned out bad but its still impossible to argue for a bad government voted in by only a small fraction of the population over a bad government that all the population had the ability to vote for.

What about a not too bad government elected by a small fraction ? Like our country till recently? During the decades of white colonisation of subsaharan Africa, tribal warfare and genocide was controlled, infrastructure was created, agriculture was developed, education provided and healthcare delivered. The list of benefits is almost endless, and they still continue to flow.

Up till then the human population of this landmass, so rich in natural resources and amenable to human habitation (c.f. Australia), had progressed no further than the bronze age. Indeed, I don't think they even used wheels. Since 'independence' (ha!) the ghastly black-on-black cruel warfare (Geneva convention, anyone?) has resulted in more misery than that ever inflicted by the Europeans - even the dreadful Belgians, and it seems that as time goes by, the worse it gets. Forty five years ago we felt safe driving home from Zambia via Zaire, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Niger and Algeria. I wouldn't dream of doing so now, but some of these 'woke' people might change their ideas a bit if they had to spent a year or two there earning their living.

Good luck with Conrad, concrete (Heart of Darkness?) I found it heavy going and no desire to re-read it!

Lord Jim isn't too difficult.

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with Nostromo, if you get that far.

I had to make notes when I read that, to ensure I didn't get disorientated. The narrative starts three times, with different narrators each time.

It's amazing to think Conrad was not British (technically he was a Russian subject until relatively late in his life, when he gained British nationality). His first language was Polish, his second French; he did not become fluent in English until his mid-twenties.