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Continue reading →: An atheist, grateful for God
Years ago, I visited the monastery at Czestochowa in Poland – the home of the famous Black Madonna. Be-camera’d and in full tourist fig, I sauntered unthinkingly through a door and found myself among the faithful at prayer. I have never forgotten the moment. Coming from secular Britain, religious fervour…
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Continue reading →: Russian Campanology
We visited Sergeiv Posad today. It is a beautiful, peaceful place. I will put pictures in the sidebar album shortly. In the meantime, here is a short movie of the bells being rung at the monastery (click on the picture to play). This is a guy working hard for his…
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Continue reading →: The truth in a sea of internet lies
My Russian teacher was surprised to learn that I had been a teenage Communist, suspended from school for selling Marxist literature there. She was amazed that anyone lucky enough to be born "in the West" should have fallen for such stuff. Surely, she said, I had known what life was…
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Continue reading →: As A Dodo: Democracy c.508BC-2007AD
Link: As A Dodo: Democracy c.508BC-2007AD. Blogs of the week at the Last Ditch are rather like buses. Here a week can be an elastic concept. Be that as it may, "As a Dodo" is one of the best-written sites on the internet, and today’s post is an erudite and…
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Continue reading →: Hoon admits fatal errors in planning for postwar Iraq | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited
Link: Hoon admits fatal errors in planning for postwar Iraq | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited. Is there some clever news management going on here? The Rt Hon. Anthony Charles Steven Lynton Blair is in the confessional before even becoming a Catholic. His old chum Lord Falconer is suggesting the Prime…
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Continue reading →: ‘Post votes down after fraud probe’
Link: ‘Post votes down after fraud probe’. 20,000 postal voters have disappeared in the wards where the "banana republic" voting scam was detected. That’s an indication of the scale of the scandal. It’s probably about how many were forged or stolen by ZanuLabour in Birmingham. As we know, it hasn’t…
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Continue reading →: Let’s be tough on the real causes of crime
Link: The Home Counties boys who planned murder | Uk News | News | Telegraph. This gentleman speaks directly to Toynbee, Blair and all those other Guardianistas who seek to excuse crime and terrorism by reference to its "social causes" Omar Khyam’s uncle told the Daily Telegraph: "You read in…
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Continue reading →: Conviction of fertiliser plotters: statement by Jonathan Evans
Link: Conviction of fertiliser plotters: statement by Jonathan Evans. Mr Evans of MI5 is, with respect, missing the point. We don’t blame MI5 for failing to prevent the 7/7 bombings in London. No sane person believes that every terrorist action can be prevented. Sane people hold criminals responsible for their…
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Continue reading →: Dan Hardie’s weblog
Link: Dan Hardie’s weblog. My "blog of the week" is an irregular and highly moveable feast. Since it burst on the scene with his amazing first post, Dan Hardie’s Weblog has been in the frame. This post on the British military (and its political masters) during and after the Falklands…
THE LAST DITCH
Your blogger
Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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My cars are just tools although I do get attached to them and have fond memories of a couple of…
I did get to ride in her and she did add cachet for me with my neighbours by being in…
It would have been easy to fulfil an open desire so why keep it secret? Surely the whole advantage of…
My secret desire was to be taken for a spin in her. Alas!
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
I’m going to go millennial and rent what I need when I need it. If that doesn’t work for me,…