Gad Saad, the Rogan-anointed inheritor of Peterson’s vacated position as the patron public intellectual of chuds, is terrified of Anne Carson’s “dark and nasty aura.”

This bird book did catch my eye. Also, a Folio of Gilbert White with amazing plates... oof. Some good old books in that there shop!

We're the same two guys you occasionally see reading Armed with Madness, by Mary Butts.

He ain't heavy.

Wow! It's many years since I saw it...

Listening to the Survivors' Suite.. majestic.

Once I was sitting at the bar in Hudson’s bookstore/bar and an incredibly hot man in grandpa jeans was asking for Anne Carson’s then-new Nox (they did not have it), he was with a woman in big sunglasses and a tire jacket. It was, of course, Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange.

I have that translation of Illuminations. Fantastic

This also keys in to my problem with extreme rationalists/techbro solution obsessives. Actual real people aren't rational. They never have been! Study people in any depth at all, and you will see them in their polymorphously perverse glory.

Plus you would get links. So if you wanted to read the actual paper.... you could! And I often did.

One bit of Thinking Allowed has always stayed with me. A paper about the children of parents who run "family-run hotels". Obviously this had NEVER ONCE crossed my mind. Taylor interviewed the writer and, I shit you not, it was gripping. This is how we all learn about OTHER PEOPLE.

On the one hand you have hacks like Haidt blaming phones etc for young people's supposed cognitive decline (imaginary, in my opinion); then you have the BBC, the actual flipping BBC, removing your access to things you might otherwise never have known. Make it make sense!

On that occasion he was wearing a light brown trenchcoat and carrying a tiny red briefcase. I commented on the briefcase and he gave me a side-eye that I remember to this day. He denied being Bradbury's History Man. Deny it all you like, Taylor! We dig you.

My uncle Bob was a code-breaker at Bletchley Park and subsequently headed the maths department at Uppingham. I am his nephew and I failed Additional Maths.

Thinking Allowed is brilliant and I once had the chance to say this to L Taylor, at the bar in the Yorkshire Grey where he suddenly appeared right next to me. I look back with fondness at people's concerns about "dumbing down", some years ago. This, by contrast, is obviously deliberate.