Andrew Murchison? Andrew Murrison? Alan Partridge?
Unreadable due to being a) photographed after a big exhalation from a mahussive bong
b) Taken by you dad
0/10
Chris Skidmore. Short and well formatted, handwritten salutation, but minus points for the odd positioning of the Destination name and address. 8/10
Will Quince. High quality. Succinct, left justified, Handwritten salutation and sign-off. I'm giving this a 9/10, only dropping a point because of some inelegant orphans.
Alex Chalk. Also high quality, as you'd expect from a QC. One combined minus for the handwritten 5 for the date, which I found discombobulating, and the fully justified text.
Robert Halfon (not technically a resignation, but admissible under current rules). No salutation at all. WHO IS THIS FOR? Inclusion of a hypertext link in a PRINTED LETTER FFS. What am I meant to do? Click on the frigging paper? 1/10
Flag Boy Tom Hunt is disqualified for being too lazy to type out a letter, and posted on Facebook. Probably still in his Union Jack PJs. <0/10 did not finish>
Victoria Atkins has put hers up on Instagram, including cropping her own frigging name off it. 0/10
NOTE: I am not reviewing content. I'm not reading them. It has been an honour serving blah, my loyalties are with the Conservative party blah, delivering on the big challenges, but like amphioxus all those millions of years ago, I have suddenly evolved a spine etc.
Jo Churchill. Short, to her credit fully justified to her not, 5/10 for handwriting, in biro, addressed to Prune Musher?
Stuart Andrew: well, this is quality. Left J, nice margins, handwritten salutation and sign off (a fountain pen?). An extra blank line or two between date and salutation, but otherwise very noice. 9/10
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
He's probably best known for giving the introduction to Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space - that's where I first came across him. I love this speech so much I used it as the epigraph for the final chapter in one of my books:
In a career of saying stupid ignorant and scientifically illiterate things, this from JP is right up there, yet again he chooses to volunteer his ignorance. Darwin was wrong about plenty of things, and much of his work on facial emotions was indeed incorrect.
Furthermore, the attempts led by Paul Eckman in the 70s to recapitulate, codify and reinforce Darwin's basic facial emotions broad conclusions were scientifically dubious, and launched a multibillion dollar industry based on basic errors and scientifically dubious practice.
Lisa Feldman Barrett is an expert in this field, and knows this very well. This by the way, is comprehensively dealt with in a chapter in mine and @FryRsquared's book, including the failure of replication of Ekman's influential yet not very good work.
‘The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be will be utterly submerged, It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.’
Tom Buchanan, The Great Gatsby (1925)
Great Replacement Theory has been round for a long time. It fits into an older model of Declinism, but was a cornerstone of US eugenics, and as such, it's emergence at the beginning to the 20th C was tied to misinterpreted science and pseudoscience.
Buchanan is citing a fictional book called 'The Rise of the
Colored Empires' by a fictional scientist called Goddard.
As I study declinism as it relates to eugenics, and as he (negatively) cites me in it, I have been listening to Douglas Murray’s ‘The War on the West’.
It is a phenomenally bad book.
A 12 hour Wickerman-sized straw man, evidence-free, fantasy generalisations, endless use of the mysterious powers who ‘tell us’ who or what is allowed to be said, without advancing who says these things, or even quoting them.
I wasn’t expecting much, but he is an educated and eloquent man, so was surprised at how vapid it is. A vast empty thesis, a 12hr argument devoid of reason or evidence, as unhinged as the rather better-written classics on declinism, Spengler, Madison Grant, and other pub bores.