The Critical Commentator

 Does life of late feel just too easy? Are you keen to make it harder than it already is? If that sounds like a genuinely demented question in the week that the world came close to threatened Armageddon, then fair enough. I bridled too when I read last week about friction-maxxing, the supposed trend for doing things in slightly more effortful, time consuming or analogue ways - cooking from scratch instead of ordering a delivery, finding your way using road signs instead of just plugging in the satnav, or reading a book rather than half-listening to the audio version of it - as a form of creative resistance to the inexorable march of big tech through our lives?... Idle Moments Walter Langley (1852-1922) Photo Credit: Penlee House Gallery & Museum [CC BY-ND]  Besides, the list published this week by the Washington Post of ways to friction-maxx - which included superhuman feats such as seeing your friends in person rather than WhatsApping them, and actively trying to remember...

I'm talking to you from the Mar - a - Lago Situation Room and Air - Fryer salesman of the Year all -you -can -eat barbecue 'n' cocktail bar. So I'm going to keep it short 'cos I don't want to disturb those guys. Great guys. Everyone says so. Right. So, here it is. THE WAR IS OVER! Nearly. Not that it was a war. Or IS a war. It was a short term excursion. Like a trip to Epstein Island. Not that I ever went there. Never liked him! Creepy guy whenever I met him. Which I didn't. Yesterday's news. Like the war. Which is very complete. So complete that this is just the beginning. Or possibly the end. Or the end of the beginning or the beginning of the middle of the end. Make America Great Again Ashley Rawson Cathcart Road, Glasgow [CC BY] You see - I'm quoting the great English war leader Winston Mandela. Good old Winnie. No one called him LOSERIE, did they? He was WINNIE! Like me. FACT! Okay, so they've appointed a new leader and they didn't even ...

 I have spent the past 48 hours listening to people hammering the tech bros for making these products and the governments that failed to regulate them. Anyone in fact, but the principal culprits. You. Me. Us. Yes, the tech companies are bad. I don't dispute it for one moment; have said so for ages. But let's be honest: we knew. We knew the damage these platforms were doing. We could see our children staring mindlessly at their phones, reaching for their phones, seeking validation from their phones; we could see how the algorithms were reaching into their souls, undermining their capacity to think, to sustain attention, to develop social faculties that were supposed to be part of the odyssey of adolescence . Responsibility Hugh Cameron (1835-1918) Photo Credit:  Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums [Public Domain] We could see how they were being wounded by getting de-friended (a horrendous term); how they were missing out on unstructured play ; how when they met their fri...

Socrates unknown artist Photo Credit: Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford [CC  BY-NC] The evangelicals laid hands on Donald Trump in the Oval Office earlier this month, eyes closed, faces contorted into supplication to the Big Man. I have no idea whether the president believes or merely pretends to believe, but there is no doubt that we are witnessing something remarkable not just in America but beyond: 300 years after the Enlightenment, there is an accelerating influence of fundamentalist religion in the decisions that affect our world. We already knew about this about the Middle East, of course. We knew that the ayatollahs believe they have absolute truth.... But while we castigate these fanatics, I think we should at least pay attention to a milder form of this disease seeping back into the West. Look at Pete Hegseth on Friday telling Americans to pray for US troops "on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of  Jesus Christ...

  The forthcoming opening of The Pembroke in Belgravia - a "super" members' club - has caused panic in the well-appointed rooms of Mayfair's traditional, exclusive watering holes. Backed by foreign investors, believed to be Omani, the club has embarked on a hiring spree and is even rumoured to have so disrupted the London wine market that there is a shortage of high-end plonk across the capital. But another front has opened in the battle to become London's most exclusive members' club: butter. Still Life of Bread, Butter and Cheese George Smith (1714-1776) Photo Credit: Yale Centre for British Art. [Public Domain] The Pembroke this month took out a half-page advertisement in Country Life for a "butter sommelier" whose role will be to "curate our butter assortment and assist in training staff using our silver butter trolley". The individual will be required to possess a "deep love for, and understanding of, butter. In addition to a butt...

 A   report last February showed that nearly 100 members of the Lords were paid to give political or policy advice by commercial firms. One former minister earned millions of pounds by working for 30 companies. Multiple peers are being paid by foreign governments, including repressive regimes. Politics and business are bound together in the Lords, with peers able to book plush rooms to pursue their private interests. Perhaps that is why the Earl of Shrewsbury forgot he couldn't claim travel expenses to attend a business conference. He got banned from the Lords for the second time in three years.   Feast of Fools Frans Floris the elder (c. 1517-1570) Picture Credit:: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust  [CC BY-NC-ND]   Last year, Ian Duncan, a deputy speaker of the Lords, was found to have breached the rules by providing a parliamentary service for Terrestrial Energy when he facilitated an introduction between its chief executive and a new energy minister. Oth...