Patrick West is a columnist for Spiked and author of Get Over Yourself: Nietzsche For Our Times (Societas, 2017)
Children of doctors are 24 times more likely than their peers to become doctors. Children of lawyers are 17 times more likely to go into law, and children of those in film or television are 12 times more likely to enter these fields. The same pattern is repeated in architecture and in the performing arts. These
All roads lead to Rome, the saying goes. Well, all roads except for the Roman road of Watling Street, which at one end takes you to Dover (Dubris) and at the other Wroxeter (Viroconium) in Shropshire. I was always only vaguely aware of this thoroughfare but the name began, in recent years, to nag on
When people come to Dover, it’s usually to pass through. The magnificent castle on the cliffs may be a tourist attraction in its own right, but for the most part, Dover has been a place people go through on their way to or back from the Continent. It’s never been much of a seaside destination.
When people come to Dover, it’s usually to pass through. The magnificent castle on the cliffs may be a tourist attraction in its own right, but for the most part, Dover has been a place people go through on their way to or back from the Continent. It’s never been much of a seaside destination.
To judge by the number of Labour placards outside people’s houses at the moment, you’d be forgiven for thinking the party is heading for a romping victory. Sure, you will see some ‘Vote Conservative’ placards dotted about here and there. But for the most part, putting up political posters is now predominately a left-wing pastime. This is certainly the
Outside of London, the area in Britain that has seen the greatest settlement of eastern Europeans since 2004 has been Kent, for obvious geographical reasons. And to cater for their needs and provide creature comforts, a multitude of shops sprang up in the years that ensued. But a strange thing has started to happen here
Usually, one of the first indications that you’ve entered a bilingual country is that the road signs are in two languages. At least this is the case in Ireland or Wales — but not in Belgium. In Flanders, the signs are written in Dutch. In Wallonia, they are all in French. French is spoken in
Those who express concern about the onset of a dystopian surveillance society in Britain, in which the boundary between public and private is being erased, and in which the state malignly uses new methods of monitoring, usually invoke the spectre of Nineteen Eighty-Four. ‘Orwellian’ is the customary adjective denoting the kind of cruel, maladjusted authoritarian
