We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

St. George’s Day

What it has contrived to be is this: a place of extraordinary, almost accidental richness. The common law, grown from below like something organic, from precedent and custom and the quiet accumulation of ordinary cases, the idea that law is not handed down from above by sovereign will but earned, argued, tested, revised. Parliamentary democracy, which we invented and then spent several centuries apologising for exporting. This language, this mongrel, scavenging, irresistible language that has borrowed from everyone and been diminished by no one, that can be the King James Bible in one register and the Shipping Forecast in another, and both are beautiful, and both are unmistakeably themselves. The music. The painting. The literature. Turner’s light, Elgar’s longing, the particular English melancholy that is not quite despair because it knows, somewhere, that the lark will rise again above the hill.

Gawain Towler waxes lyrical on St. George’s Day

1 comment to St. George’s Day

  • Fraser Orr

    And this beautiful jewel is held in the hands of such a repulsive, craven, feckless loser as Keir Starmer who has no understanding of these amazing inheritances passed on to him.

    It reminds me of that passage from the aforementioned King James Bible:

    Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

    We can only hope for a new St. George. perhaps St. Nigel, to rise up and slay this dragon of a state that has left this beautiful Shire in ruination.

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>