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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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www.nationalgrideso.com/sites/nation...
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James Meek@jamesmeek.bsky.social |
145 followers 47 following 47 posts
Writer, London
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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www.nationalgrideso.com/sites/nation...
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Mainstream news obliged to take seriously the idea that this national service bullshit is anything other than a gimmick to get the votes of people who hate the idea young people might be enjoying themselves
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘If you pay a landlord £1000 a month in rent, and he, after months of pleading, does a £50 bodge-job on your broken boiler, is he “investing” in the flat in an exciting way that’s great news for Britain?’
James Meek on the trouble with Thames Water:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
0 replies 1 reposts 7 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Editing. Never underestimate the stylistic toxicity of the word ‘never.’
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Editing. You’re reading through, you find an unsatisfactory word, hit with relief on the right word, triumphantly make the change, find you’ve used the word two lines earlier and picked it up subconsciously. Every time.
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Editing. ‘Catch his eye’ is an expression so deep in the language that it doesn’t count as cliché; it’s already figurative, so for me to try to freshen it up with ‘hook his eyes’ is stupid, pointless variation.
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Astonishing article in the Guardian/Observer arguing that the answer to the disastrous profit-seeking foreign-led private ownership of British water is more profit-seeking foreign-led private ownership of British water
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Ah I see they have a pack just for Europe. Brilliant.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Do Cornell’s birds have American accents though
1 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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O thanks for that - will try it.
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Shazam, but for birdsong - tell me it exists
2 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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👀
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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There isn’t a state of Palestine, though, is there? Isn’t that the problem? That Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza experience all the power of the Israeli state, but none of its justice?
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Is this widely enough known outside the M East? Israeli statisticians assert Jews are a majority in Israel by excluding millions of Palestinians in Israel from the figures - h/t Tareq Baconi in nyt www.timesofisrael.com/jews-now-a-m...
2 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Edwin Heathcote
@edwinheathcote.bsky.social
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@privateeyenews.bsky.social Brutal.
6 replies 148 reposts 395 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Sometimes the bleakest take is truest
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
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Christopher Miller
@christopherjm.bsky.social
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Horrific. At least 16 people were killed and 73 wounded in a Russian missile attack and double-tap strike on the port city of Odesa today, according to Ukrainian officials. Several first responders are among the dead and injured.
2 replies 21 reposts 39 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Editing. 'would sometimes' is such a blatant tautology, but there it is, in a sentence I just wrote
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Joanna Wyld
@joannawyld.bsky.social
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Conservatives defending Frank Hester
2 replies 26 reposts 78 likes
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Mélissa Cornet
@melissacrt.bsky.social
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Went to visit the southern province of Zabul in #Afghanistan last month, and got caught in a snowstorm in a normally desertic area. Majestic (but definitely had not packed the right garnments).
0 replies 2 reposts 12 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Editing. Nothing wrong with the phrase '...but need he be so hostile?' except it's not common usage, it's novelese. Test: if when you translate it into common usage, like '...but did he need to be so hostile?' it sounds off, it probably shouldn't be there.
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Meduza in English
@meduza.io
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Hours before Alexey Navalny died in a remote Russian prison, Vladimir Putin met with oligarch Roman Abramovich to discuss releasing Navalny in a prisoner exchange with the U.S. and Germany, according to independent Russian outlet Agentstvo.
meduza.io/en/feature/2...
0 replies 5 reposts 11 likes
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Kevin Rothrock
@kevinrothrock.bsky.social
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Last week, Arkhangelsk gave us the “We Must Know Our Heroes’ Faces” university talk with masked Russian soldiers. This week, behold the forum on “Women Changing the World.” See if you can spot the issue.
4 replies 6 reposts 27 likes
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Meduza in English
@meduza.io
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Alexey Navalny's funeral is taking place today in Moscow. Meduza is reporting on his farewell ceremony and burial service throughout the day. Follow our coverage here. meduza.io/en/live/2024...
0 replies 9 reposts 16 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Editing. 'Cliché' versus 'original turn of phrase' seems a clear distinction, but most originality sounds peculiar and distracts from the sense it tries to convey. The trick is to find an original phrase that has never been used but seems to have been always there.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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It might seem obvious that Nigel Farage will become Tory leader after the election, except that he might be too moderate, too sane, to lead the full-on conspiracist iteration of the Conservative Party now barrelling down the tracks towards us at five hundred lies an hour.
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Last time I wrote about housebuilding I was struck by how the reams of enviro consultancy around a big development - paid for by the developer - has the teleology 'how this may proceed' rather than 'should we stop this.' Bats and badgers don't kill housebuilding: people kill housebuilding.
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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When I had a non-urgent NHS blood test yesterday, was dealt with speed and efficiency in a large modern clinic nearby with no queues and my GP got the results this morning, my assumption was they'd mistakenly forgotten to not build the clinic, not repair it, understaff it or close it.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Editing. Cut ‘any of’ and ‘really’ from a 27-word sentence. These insidious, phatic modifiers are the fungus of writing.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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@jonathancoe.bsky.social also The House Of Sleep t.me/bazabazon/25...
www.kommersant.ru/doc/6525071
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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@jonathancoe.bsky.social You might like to know that The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim has appeared on a list of books withdrawn from sale in Russia in response to an anti-LGBT law banning 'attempts to provoke interest in non-traditional sexual relations.' You're in good company - even Dostoevsky!
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘Putin speaks with such sincerity and conviction that the listener doesn’t know whether to marvel at his talent for lying or wonder at how much he’s being lied to. He looks as if he’s enjoying himself.’
@jamesmeek.bsky.social on the profound challenges facing Ukraine:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
0 replies 5 reposts 2 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Editing. ‘as if he was’ is coming and colloquial usage but kind of raw, unsound, ‘as if he were’ correct but archaic.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Seva
@seva.bsky.social
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Carlson: what caused the war and why was it NATO? Putin: In 862 the people of Novgorod invited a Varangian prince…. C: and what about NATO? please say Nato P: Let us recall Yaroslav the Wise, who once had a dream about a Ukrainian witch….
18 replies 173 reposts 830 likes
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Tom Stevenson
@tomstevenson.bsky.social
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In the new LRB, I wrote about how Israel has replaced much of Gaza with an uneven igneous landscape of black-grey mounds. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
0 replies 6 reposts 5 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Useful to learn they plan to arrest Biden if Trump wins
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Feel there’s some common thread here but I can’t quite put my finger on it
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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The dream of the 1890s is alive in Putinland
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Sarah McLaughlin
@sarahemclaugh.bsky.social
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An Israeli history teacher was arrested on treason charges, his home was ransacked by police, and he was held in solitary confinement for Facebook posts critical of Israel's military action and civilian deaths in Gaza.
48 replies 1016 reposts 1913 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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‘Kevin is not a name, it’s a diagnosis’
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Boys at the fruit and veg stall under the derelict arcade at Peckham Rye station playing cricket with a tennis ball and a length of sugar cane for a bat
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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I was thinking about this today and about Nick Davies' reporting on the phone hacking scandal - more mysterious, in a way, as the question might be 'Why did dogged journalism cut through where dogged journalism failed?'
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Mr Snodes
@mrsnodes.bsky.social
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Props to @ProofReadJulia
3 replies 113 reposts 365 likes
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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Our new issue 46.01 is now available, featuring:
Pankaj Mishra on Germany and Israel
Deborah Friedell on Katherine Mansfield’s lies
James Meek on the new TV
Andrew O'Hagan on Robert Louis Stevenson
Erin L. Thompson on Inca mummies
and a cover by Anne Rothenstein.
Read at lrb.co.uk
1 replies 1 reposts 2 likes
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Monbiot’s persuasive attack on the advocates of ‘repeasantisation’ reminds me of a noted environmental journalist who said, when I asked whether the feudal system was the organic version of democracy: ‘Well, it worked.’
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James Meek
@jamesmeek.bsky.social
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Accurate though
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Saeed Jones
@theferocity.bsky.social
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“An open letter from the Bremen DIG stated that honoring Gessen (a Jewish writer whose grandfather was murdered by the Nazis) “would contradict the necessary decisive action against the growing anti-Semitism.””
29 replies 223 reposts 504 likes
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Christian Lehmann
@lehmanndrc.bsky.social
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LE film de Noël qu’il vous fallait
13 replies 236 reposts 519 likes
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Christopher Miller
@christopherjm.bsky.social
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At a moment when Ukraine is desperate for long-term financial and military commitments as a bulwark against prolonged Russian aggression, its two most important backers have been found wanting, raising doubts over the west’s resolve. www.ft.com/content/2447... @financialtimes.com
3 replies 26 reposts 70 likes