Choices

by jpAdmin | Essays

Be skeptical, and think afresh… Flying Fish Services Ltd. The Editor of The Ironist has long asked me for my views on the war in Ukraine. For me it is a long way to Europe – let alone across the Atlantic – as I haven’t left the Black Sea. But sturgeons live...

AI Hasn’t Won Yet!

by jpAdmin | Essays

I have been reading so much nonsense about the American election. The so-called ‘experts’ don’t get it. It is not so much about who is in power, or who is out of power, or what the consequences were, or are, or will be. It isn’t about who was or will be good or bad....

Smile!

by nigelscotchmer | Essays

We need more humor. It is hard keeping paper money dry when you live in the water.  That is why I always kept my lari¹ in coins. Coins don’t get soggy. I think that is why American sturgeons switched to credit cards and then many got themselves into so problems with...

We Need More Insouciance

by nigelscotchmer | Essays

Flt. Lieut. Peter Guy Scotchmer next to his damaged Typhoon after returning from an attack on an E-boat. Today, we read and hear not only about wars in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and of impending wars, but of riots and the threats of riots in many countries....

Gordon of Khartoum

by nigelscotchmer | Essays

An overdue retrospective Major General Charles George Gordon, CB, 1833-1885 The Victorian Age was an idealistic age, beginning with the might of the Royal Navy breaking the thralldom of slavery outside the British Empire. There was a dawning acceptance of Darwin’s...

A Culture of Reticence

by nigelscotchmer | Essays

The past is another country. They do things differently there. – L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between   (A mosaic from Hadrumetum, in Tunisia, an important pre-Carthage Phoenician city, which depicts Aeneas surrounded by Clio, (history), and Melpomene (tragedy). This...