In his latest Takimag column, our nostalgic doctor reminisces about his youthful days as an English football fan after reading an article on the great Lionel Messi.
No doubt it is a sign of my gradual change of species from human being to dinosaur that I think it was a more civilized world (at least in some respects) then than it is now, one in which our scale of values was better, but I am glad to think that even now Lionel Messi shares it, even if The Washington Post does not.
Over at The Oldie, Dr. Dalrymple considers the danger posed by elderly drivers after reading a dubious Canadian study.
There is undoubtedly a tendency in modern society not to lift restrictions when they cease to be necessary, either because the risk has disappeared or because it never really existed in the first place.
The March issue of The Critic contains a piece by our skeptical doctor opining on the general mental state of the British populace.
But it is surely significant that authors and journals think that adding the phrase “It’s official” to a dubious statement strengthens its verisimilitude in the minds of their readers, who they assume cannot judge for themselves.
Those who do not exercise their judgement soon will have none.
Over at Law & Liberty, Dr. Dalrymple delves into the topic of scientific fraud and its apparent upswing in our postmodern age.
In the fight against dishonesty in scientific research, as in the fight against bad ideas, there is no final victory. An interesting question is why some, but not all, fraudulent ideas persist, despite exposure.
In his Takimag column, our film critic doctor castigates a new Hollywood movie that glorifies the abhorrent and awful Brutalist architecture.
Pretentiousness is almost as unpleasing as outright stupidity. I left the cinema with a relief similar to that which I feel after a visit to the dentist.
Over at The Epoch Times, our astute doctor calls out vile, young would-be radicals who condone murder as well as the state-run, socialist British health care system.
In other words, they are against the death penalty when it follows a trial by due process, but when it is administered ad hoc, in the name of a supposed higher cause such as economic equality, by people handsome enough to be admired, they are perfectly willing to excuse, countenance it, or even advocate it. I find this appalling and sinister.
In last week’s Takimag, our disturbed doctor points out different examples of what he calls “juridico-political idiocies” in England and France.
The basis of our law is that a man is not to be punished unless he has been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and not for what he might do in the future. The system of parole upends this principle completely and is unjust in two directions.
In the March issue of New Criterion, our book critic doctor reviews a tome about murders in London during the Second World War, especially during the dark days of the Blitz.
Please note that this essay is behind a paywall at this time.
When I was growing up in the wake of the war—no need to say which war—the bomb sites in London and the air-raid shelters in the parks in which we played made it perfectly plain to me that the mythology of a nation united in stoicism was as strong in Britain as that of a nation united in resistance was in France.
In the March edition of New English Review, Theodore Dalrymple recounts his bad luck with trains in the Milton Keynes area of England, the death of an acquaintance in a train derailment, and the still extant pluckiness of the average Brit.
I have twice been on the London underground when someone jumped in front of the train, once when I was travelling on it, and once when I was waiting for it. In these circumstances, humanity divides into two. One half is prurient and tries to get a closer view of what happened, forgetting for a time whatever was the reason for their journey. The other half starts immediately to grumble and complain.