Latest news with #CSLewis
Telegraph
16 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
We still have time to avoid this looming dystopia
Rayner College, Oxford, June 2044 ' The characteristic blindness of the 20th century … concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or H G Wells and Karl Barth.' (CS Lewis, 1944) Those of us who came relatively unscathed through the Great Catastrophe of the early years of this decade can now – unlike so many of our countrymen – look back and ask ourselves what went so badly wrong. Some of it is obvious. Mass immigration transformed our major cities and gradually suffocated our public services. Our casual, unfunded, ill-thought-through defence commitments led to the destruction of most of our Armed Forces and kit in Ukraine a decade ago. Our failure to enforce the criminal law properly meant the fractious social environment of the 2020s degenerated into flight from the cities, no-go zones, and violence not seen since Northern Ireland in the 1970s. But these are symptoms. The real cause was our gradually accelerating economic decline and the social tensions that followed, turbo-driven by the psychological Bantustans created by the Equality Act. The middle classes in the private sector saw a future of struggle and genteel poverty, while public 'servants' behaved like pre-Revolutionary French aristocrats defending their privileges. The rich got out, and so did the young – if they could. The productive part of the economy was overwhelmed by the hangers-on. Conflict became inevitable when those with something to lose said to themselves 'we need a strong man: crack a few heads if you have to, I don't care anymore', and when those who didn't decided to try overthrowing the system as a whole. What went wrong? Why did we condemn ourselves to economic decline and worse? It's not that we lacked lessons. The Americans avoided it. The Argentines dug themselves out of it. The Eastern Europeans were doing well enough until the 2033-4 war. Of course we can see the answer clearly now. The economy didn't grow because we didn't want it to grow. On that, our leaders were united. If I had said, in the days when classical music was still a thing, that I wanted to be a concert pianist, but didn't learn to read music and didn't practice, eventually people would have concluded I might say it, but I didn't really want it. Similarly both Left and Right said they wanted growth. In practice they put other objectives first. Left and Right may have had different objectives, but they still had one big thing in common: they thought they knew best. No one would trust the market or trust the people. Our characteristic blindness, as C S Lewis put it, was to statism. And if the 20th century should have taught us anything, it was that statism led to economic decline and war. The big problem areas were obvious. In 2025 Britain was about three to four million houses short. A massive building programme was needed. The Left's solution was new towns and social housing. The Right wanted building in cities and mansion blocks. No one wanted the one thing that might have made a difference: scrap the 1947 Planning Act, protect national parks, and let the market work. That's why young London professionals now live two to a room in south east Esher – and why so many have left for South East Asia. Similarly, Left and Right blamed different things for the NHS's failure, but no one would let the market in to solve them. They had slightly varying views of the ideal tax burden, but both believed in regulating business. They had slightly different views about how quickly we should decarbonise but neither disputed the goal. That's why – until the government banned them – we all had a private generator in the 2030s. Both Left and Right wanted growth. Just not as much as other things: electoral success, political convenience, avoiding reality. To be charitable, maybe most of them didn't really understand what was needed. Certainly very few in the 2020s, let alone later, spoke of the power of the market, the prosperity created by free individuals, the new ideas that came from government getting out of the way. All the talk was of regulation and of social engineering. No one spoke of incentives and of profit. We can see now that this meant Britain couldn't benefit from the skills and enterprise of all its citizens, only from the dubious skills of its policymakers. AI, which might genuinely have helped every person change their life, in fact only reinforced our leaders' belief that ever more cleverly worked-out policy could solve our problems. That is, after all, why Baroness Rayner founded the college where I now sit, as she said at the time, 'to use my experience to inspire very ordinary people to believe they can run the country'. How strange it all seems now. If there is one silver lining to these past horrific few months, it is that we can now face reality. Like Adenauer's Germany in the 1950s, we don't have the luxury of deceiving ourselves. Scrap the controls, free up the markets, get people rebuilding: that has to be the way out of our problems. We have had no end of a lesson. And now we must turn it to use.
The Independent
26-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Discovering Lyra's Oxford on a ‘His Dark Materials' walking tour
'Lyra's Oxford has the same street-plan as ours,' says Steve Fisher, of Oxford Official Walking Tours. 'So the influence of the urban landscape is obvious. But the university's intellectual and academic history also spurred Pullman 's imagination.' The quad of the Bodleian Old Library embodies 17th-century education, with doorways to the three schools of philosophy (metaphysics, moral, natural) and seven liberal arts (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, logic, grammar and rhetoric). 'Before the Age of Enlightenment, this was the curriculum of European universities,' explains Steve. 'Most Oxford students were in religious orders, like the Dominicans or Benedictines, and the goal of education was to reconcile Greek philosophy with Christian theology. He continues: 'In Lyra's Oxford, the scholars explore science as 'experimental theology'. But the religious Magisterium sees this as a challenge to its authority and tries to put an end to the research, just as the real Catholic Church attacked academics who questioned papal cosmology.' We pass the domed Radcliffe Camera and stroll down St Mary's Passage – believed to have inspired the wardrobe and streetlamp of CS Lewis 's Narnia – towards the High St. 'Remember how Lyra and her mates scrap with the 'townies' in the book?' asks Steve. 'That's a more benign version of the 'town and gown' violence between students and locals in the 1300s. Back then, Oxford was the murder capital of England and the students, most of whom were clergymen, were usually the instigators.' He points toward the crenellated Carfax Tower, which is all that remains of a 12th-century church. 'There used to be a tavern near there,' he says, 'In February 1355, two students started a brawl with the owner, because they were unhappy with the wine. It turned into a three-day riot that killed 90 people. Medieval student life was more Game of Thrones than Fresh Meat.' Pullman studied at Exeter College (which became Jordan College in Lyra's world), which was founded in 1314 and constitutes the fourth-oldest college of the university. Less than a minute away is the History of Science Museum, home to the world's largest collection of astrolabes: astronomical instruments that calculate time and latitude using star charts carved into brass, which inspired the alethiometer – a golden 'truth reader' of needles and cogs that Lyra uses to outwit the Magisterium. The production company behind the BBC television adaptation have gifted their prop alethiometer to the museum, and it sits alongside antique telescopes, microscopes and globes from the museum's collection. It's a reminder that real instruments of scientific inquiry were once a direct threat to religious dogma in our own world, just as the alethiometer is in Lyra's. Lyra's adventures bring her to our world where she visits the weird and wonderful Pitt Rivers Museum (free). Its entrance is hidden at the back of the Natural History Museum – an understated archway that takes visitors from an airy gallery of natural light to a sunken gallery of dark wooden cabinets. 'It always makes me think of the portals in Pullman's books,' says Kieran Brooks, a guide at the Pitt Rivers Museum. 'A hidden doorway between parallel worlds, taking you from a world of nature and geology, to a world of culture and anthropology.' In this atmospheric space, items are arranged by function and type, rather than age or place of origin. So, gas lamps from 19th-century north America sit alongside ancient pitch-torches from southeast Asia, to show how different societies solved the challenge of lighting. We pass cases of 'charms' and 'sympathetic magic', filled with sprigs of pine, amulets of stone, birch twigs and animal totems, before pausing at a case of fur-coats and Arctic sleds. 'The Pitt Rivers was both a setting and inspiration,' says Kieran, 'Lyra comes to this very corner to see these items, and the birch, pine and talismans are associated with her world's witches and polar bears.' In a later book, a witch sends Lyra to the north Oxford Jericho neighbourhood and the Eagle Ironworks, which once existed in the real world. The factory has since been converted into flats, but the terraced houses that were home to factory workers remain, as does the canal that transported goods to the city. I follow it to the Thames, then cross the boggy Port Meadow to Godstow Abbey. The nunnery here fell into ruin during the Civil War, but in Lyra's world it survived until 1986. Across the river is The Trout pub (the Trout Inn for Lyra), but I head back into town along the right bank of the Thames, stopping at the magnificent garden of The Perch pub in Binsey for devilled eggs and ale. His Dark Materials ends with the portals being closed, and Lyra being separated from her love, Will, who lives in our world. They promise to visit the Oxford Botanic Garden in their respective worlds at noon on Midsummer's Day, to sit on a particular bench. The bench is a real one, overlooking the river beneath a Cornelian cherry tree. In 2019, a sculpture was unveiled there, featuring Lyra's pine marten daemon and Will's cat daemon. They are watched over by a raven – Pullman's own daemon – which he chose because ravens steal things for good use. Pullman may have stolen some of Oxford for his books, but by remixing its history and legends, he has made this old city feel more storied than ever. How to do it The former Boswells department store on Broad Street has been revamped as The Store hotel and is unbeatably located. The highlight is its rooftop bar, which overlooks Oxford's dreaming spires, including the Exeter College rooftops that Lyra scampers across. Doubles from £285 including breakfast.
Business Recorder
24-05-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
PARTLY FACETIOUS: An accountant's common sense?
'One must change with the times, don't you think!' 'C S Lewis, the well-known author of children's books said isn't it funny when day by nothing changes but when you look back everything is different.' 'Hmm, that is so apt for our political leaders – one day they are strutting around and the next day they are in jail.' 'Right, but don't you think if one's circumstances change, then so must the strategy.' 'Hmmmm.' 'What I said was common sense.' 'And chapter 1 of Freshman economics does note that economics is really common sense and common sense is really nonsense.' 'And that means?' 'Well, GPS was into common sense…' 'Common sense as an accountant. An accountant for an industrial complex borrows money cheaply from wherever he can, but for a country like Pakistan to borrow cheaply from abroad without taking account of the fact that repayment would mean the usual annual depreciation of around 3 to 4 percent of the rupee vis-à-vis the dollar…' Anyway if you insist he has common sense then I will concede that he has an accountant's common sense.' 'OK, but what about some economists we lured from their lucrative foreign jobs and conferred the finance portfolio to? Did they display common sense? Or did they display à penchant towards nonsense?' 'Hey, the rating agencies never ever rated us in the investment grade, so I leave you to draw your own conclusions.' 'Right, and twenty-four IMF programmes later plus our very fragile economy today…' 'Right, but our prime minister says growth prospects are good.' 'Growth prospects for what?' 'Don't be facetious. He should read the fine print in the 160 plus documents uploaded at the Fund website that his economic team leaders have signed off on.' 'Perhaps the Law Ministry…' 'No, they are busy with drafting the twenty-seventh amendment to the constitution, though first they must get the two-thirds majority and that case is still…' 'Let me give you some advice: maturing is realizing how many things don't require your comment.' 'Do or don't?' 'Put that in your pipe and smoke it.' 'I heard GPS wants the N portfolio as well.' 'Stop.' Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
STV News
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- STV News
New stamps celebrate CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia
Royal Mail has revealed images of a new set of stamps being issued to celebrate The Chronicles of Narnia. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe – the first book in the series of seven fantasy novels written by CS Lewis. PA Media (Royal Mail/PA). PA Media The Chronicles of Narnia is Lewis's best-selling work, having sold 120 million copies in 47 languages. The series has also been adapted for radio, television, the stage, film, and video games. The main set of eight stamps features pictures specially commissioned for Royal Mail by British illustrator Keith Robinson, depicting scenes from each of the novels. A further four stamps presented in a miniature sheet, show artwork by Pauline Baynes. PA Media (Royal Mail/PA). PA Media Royal Mail director of external affairs and policy David Gold said: 'These delightful stamps capture the timeless magic of Narnia and honour the enduring legacy of the books. 'The Chronicles of Narnia remain a perennial favourite of children around the world, so it is fitting that we celebrate the stories with a new set of stamps featuring newly-commissioned artwork alongside artwork that will bring back fond memories for many who grew up with these great books.' Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
The Independent
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
New stamps celebrate CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia
Royal Mail has revealed images of a new set of stamps being issued to celebrate The Chronicles of Narnia. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe – the first book in the series of seven fantasy novels written by CS Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia is Lewis's best-selling work, having sold 120 million copies in 47 languages. The series has also been adapted for radio, television, the stage, film, and video games. The main set of eight stamps features pictures specially commissioned for Royal Mail by British illustrator Keith Robinson, depicting scenes from each of the novels. A further four stamps presented in a miniature sheet, show artwork by Pauline Baynes. Royal Mail director of external affairs and policy David Gold said: 'These delightful stamps capture the timeless magic of Narnia and honour the enduring legacy of the books. 'The Chronicles of Narnia remain a perennial favourite of children around the world, so it is fitting that we celebrate the stories with a new set of stamps featuring newly-commissioned artwork alongside artwork that will bring back fond memories for many who grew up with these great books.'
