Latest news with #JohnCrace
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
No CCTV on William Blake's pleasant pastures seen
Philip Hoare was lucky in not finding William Blake's grave crowded (Butt-naked Milton and a spot of fellatio: why William Blake became a queer icon, 2 June). It is the favoured meeting place of Jackson Lamb's crew in the Slow Horses novels and TV series, as it doesn't have CCTV surveillance; as much under the radar as the artist himself, and his StarbuckLepton, West Yorkshire Philip Hoare's article made me wish someone would revive Adrian Mitchell's musical Tyger, performed by the National Theatre in the early 70s. The music alone deserves a wider HeatleyBromley, London I so feel for John Crace's grief over the loss of Herbie (Digested week, 30 May). It took us eight years to contemplate getting our next dog and so on until our current pooch. But, if you're a dog person, you've just got to get that next HamiltonBuxton, Derbyshire Re 'unwanted Americanisms' (Letters, 3 June), I bet there is no respectable Shakespearean ancestry for my pet hate: 'train station'. And I do hope that I have used the colon MountfordSt Albans 'You may not use foreign words,' say the instructions for the Word Wheel puzzle in the print edition. The nine-letter solution for 4 June: imbroglio. This is a scherzo, right?Canon Robert TitleyLondon Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Publish tax returns to flush out dodgers
Re your article (UK's 50 richest families hold more wealth than 50% of population, analysis finds, 19 May), we would all see how little the super‑rich pay in taxes if we adopted the Scandinavian system of putting all tax returns in the public domain. Nosy neighbours would soon flush out tax StollLondon Reading the comment on benefit cuts by Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary (Our £5bn disability benefits cut will stop welfare state collapsing, says Kendall, 20 May), brought to mind the notorious remark from the Vietnam war that 'it became necessary to destroy the town to save it'.Dr Richard CarterPutney, London As a Manchester United supporter, the only bright spot for me in their 1-0 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League final (Sport, 21 May) was that I knew John Crace would be happy. It has been a hard season for both of us and we hope for better EvansRuthin, Denbighshire Would Adrian 'Impossible to find the next Gary Lineker' Chiles (21 May) and Kieran 'Jamie Carragher No 1 football pundit' Morris (22 May) make good candidates for a future Dining Across the Divide column?Carol WalkerSheffield Perhaps artificial intelligence could be tasked with constructing fairer copyright law (Elton John calls UK government 'absolute losers' over AI copyright plans, 18 May).Alan WorsleyHull Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Guardian
25-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The death of your dog is hard to bear
I have long admired and enjoyed John Crace's columns, combining as they do his determination to puncture political pomposity, his acerbic wit and gentle sarcasm at the antics of the occupants of the Westminster bubble. However, in his recent column (Digested week: The house feels less than a house without Herbert Hound, 18 April), Crace's writing shows a contrasting tenderness in his gentle tribute to his canine pal – a sentiment with which many readers can readily identify, based on their own experience of pet death. Good on him for spelling out the impact of his loss. I hope in his case that time does indeed MurrayLinlithgow, West Lothian I feel for John Crace. I too am in deep, painful and alarming mourning for my faithful and beautiful dog, who died in my arms last month. I didn't come from a 'doggie' family and George was my first (and only) dog. I am reminded of lines from the Rudyard Kipling poem, The Power of the Dog: 'There is sorrow enough in the natural way / From men and women to fill our day; / And when we are certain of sorrow in store, / Why do we always arrange for more? / Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware / Of giving your heart to a dog to tear'.Margaret DixonLongridge, Lancashire How I feel for John Crace. Mollie, our 14-year‑old working cocker, died last month. The grief I felt was unimaginable. I missed her physical presence, her unconditional love, her gentleness with children. But her death also brought up feelings of sadness hidden away over the years. I was engulfed by grief, remembering my parents, my son, my friends who had died. I wished I'd let her on the sofa and cuddled her BurdenMarlow, Buckinghamshire Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- General
- The Guardian
How to fight a fascist state – what I learned from a second world war briefing for secret agents
The SOE Syllabus was a series of lectures given to prospective secret agents in Britain during the second world war. These 'lessons in ungentlemanly warfare' were released from the top secret bit of the Public Record Office (now known as the National Archive) and published as a historical curio in 2001, when my esteemed colleague John Crace picked out the sillier bits in one of his Digested Read reviews. There was a whole lecture about how to craft a disguise, in which people with sticky-out ears were advised to use glue to pin them back. But now, 24 years later, I have picked up the book with a graver purpose – just on the off-chance that if we end up having to resist a fascist state, the past might have something to offer. They won't know everything, these ungentlemanly gentlemen, being as they didn't have the internet. But they can't have known nothing. A lot of it is quite dated – struggling to comprehend the code system known as a 'playfair cipher', I realise that codebreaking technology has probably moved on in the intervening 80 years and I am making my brain ache for nothing. A section on political language, and how it should always be concrete – eg don't say 'hunger', say 'empty bellies' – felt plausible in principle but wrong on the particulars. Some of the advice serves only to underline how much more complicated the world is now – in information, in surveillance, in every way. There's a section on propaganda that describes the 'jetsam' method of distribution – dropping a provocative leaflet or letter, containing 'libels, rumours and calumnies' in some place where people will find it. It's more effective to drop a fragment than the whole thing, apparently, since it makes it feel like a quest. And it's better to drop it some place where whoever finds it will be alone, so in a train carriage at the beginning of a journey, or the cubicle of a public lavatory. Realistically, though, who would even pick up and read a calumny these days, when they have a phone? There must be some online equivalent of an empty rail carriage at the start of a journey (an empty Reddit thread?), but the printed leaflet has had its day. Nevertheless, there are some broad outlines that have not changed, and they are quite obvious, but they are also quite easily forgotten: such as, there is no point in propaganda unless it leads to an action. The action also drives home the message and makes it true, so creates a loop of authority and omnipotence around the messenger. The opposite is also true: Goebbels' anti-Italian propaganda of July 1934, I read, was worse than a waste of time because no action was taken. It made him look weak, and his point of view contestable. All of which holds for non-state – there's no point in a narrative that yields nothing concrete, no point in a protest that doesn't disrupt, no point in disruption without a plan. More than pointless, it actually undermines the cause, whatever it might be. Environmental protesters of every generation are on exactly the right track, then. They must throw soup and glue themselves to the road, because everything they do that has no palpable action attached undermines their message. As I was reading all this, six members of the 'non-violent civil resistance campaign' (their description) Youth Demand were arrested while holding a public meeting. The immediately striking thing was that the authorities entered a Quaker meeting house to make the arrests, which hasn't happened in living memory but, fair play to the Metropolitan police, did happen quite a lot in the 1660s, albeit without the tasers. But as the event settles, the more striking point is: that's quite a strange thing for a not-totalitarian state to do. It feels a bit like democracy is cosplaying its opposite just because there's authoritarianism in the air. Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
The Guardian
28-03-2025
- General
- The Guardian
You're my husband's window on the world
John Crace's mention of his late mother, Rosemary, carrying the Guardian around her care home moved me to tears (Digested week, 21 March). My husband, Michael, is in the later stages of Alzheimer's. He still gets pleasure from turning the pages of the Guardian, looking at the pictures and reading the occasional word. Thank you for keeping him in this world for a little BloodKings Norton, Birmingham If I may add my take to your article on grudges (G2, 26 March): when we forgive, we do so from a position of strength. When we bear a grudge, we are victims of the JonesSpalding, Lincolnshire I was thinking Annalisa might offer Mr and Mrs Dowling some couples therapy at mate's rate, as things don't seem to be going that well since the boys left home (22 March).Susan HemmingsLondon Congratulations! Another edition of Feast without meat in any of the recipes. At least Grace Dent got to eat some pork (21 March).Dr Howard Mason Chorlton, Manchester So pleased I never joined this Labour party, as I won't have to cancel my membership over the spring statement's welfare cuts (.David SmaleDoddycross, Cornwall Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
