The Mexile

I like Sir Kier Starmer. He’s a decent bloke. Smart. Boring. Boring should be a good quality in a politician. All politicians should be boring. It should be a box on the application form. If politicians and politics isn’t boring, things have gone terribly wrong. That’s how I see it. Kier saw Corbyn out the door. Kudos for that. And he guided Labour to a landslide election win on a small vote share without promising anything beyond ‘we won’t raise income tax’. He banked on an electoral policy of do nothing while their opponents repeatedly committed acts of huge self harm. It worked. Sort of. It worked up to the point of election day. Having assumed power, the expectation of Labour voters was that their own personal manifestos would all be fulfilled. Everything and anything from rejoining the EU, or the customs union, to massive benefits spending and on to executing the rich. Future disappointment was baked into the win. In the event, the most important thing Starmer’s party has needed t...

I read a funny gag on the differences between British blokes and American chaps the other day. The gist was, an American will always big up his friends when introducing them. “Hey, meet Brian. Great guy, graduated from such and such university, really smart guy, you’ll love him. I’ve known him forever, has a great job etc etc.” The Brit? “Have you met Dave? Here he comes…Dave the nonce!” It’s funny, because it’s true.   True in that, these are noticeable cultural differences. Not that Dave is a nonce. We can tell he’s not a nonce, because he’s got friends. British blokes don’t have nonce friends. Brian, on the other had, could be a raging nonce on the Epstein list, with a dozen photos of him having baths with minors knocking around the interweb, and he’d still get a great intro. And that, weirdly, is another cultural differences between Brits and Yanks. I have some true stories about nonces. I’ve come across a couple of them. I can tell you two things. One, you don’t have to be ...

I left Mexico 15 years ago last week. That blows my mind. It seems like…well, maybe not yesterday. But not 15 years ago. I don’t keep in touch with many of my Mexican friends, I’m sorry to say. I guess life is too busy here to worry about there. I do have an annual-ish catch up with Daniel , a former student. He worked for a plastics company that I gave classes to on Wednesdays and Fridays, 7am to 9am. It was one of the first classes I ever had, and it lasted till the week I left. There were usually about five or six in the class. Daniel was about my age. A couple of years older. We would go out mid class for a smoke together. And we both kept turtles. When I left, I gave him four of mine, including Bob, my favourite. Once a year, more or less, we’d have an online chat. And on my two visits back to CDMX, we met up for breakfast, along with Maria Elena. She was also in the class. They lived near each other and drove in to work together. One time he messaged to let me know Bob had been k...

I’ve just spent a total of five nights in Bangkok, and my verdict is this - I overstayed by three nights. I wrote a disparaging post on Threads about the city, which got me a lot of hate from the Bangkok Massive. But I stand by it. The city is much like Jakarta (or many other overpopulated Asian mega cities) but with temples and a mountain of litter. It’s worth little more than 24 hours of your time. First night, go see China Town. Next day, see Wat Arun, cross the river and tour the Grand Palace and finish off with an evening in Khaosan Road. Take in an overpriced Mauy Thai fight or a Ladyboy cabaret if you must. Flee Bangkok the next morning. The floating market and train street tours are shit. There are other fabulous temples, and the temples are all fabulous, but temple fatigue is real and it sets in quickly. Once you’ve seen one…you know how this goes. And if you’ve taken my advice and seen Wat Arun and the Golden Palace, then you’ve seen the best and it’s all downhill from there...

I have a joke for you. George Santayana and Mike Godwin walk into a bar. Santayana takes a seat, rubs his head and looks at the bartender. " I'll have whatever it was that I had last night ". He chuckles. " After all, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it ". The bartender nods and pours a double whisky. Godwin sits down next to him, sighs, and orders a glass of water. " I'd have a beer, but I've been here less that two minutes and I can already tell this conversation is going to end with someone being compared to Hitler ". Godwin and Santayana are the creators of two of the most beloved philosophical 'laws' on the internet. They are both pretty sound, as far as vague one or two line laws go. And yet, they cannot both be right. If we take George at his word, then eventually the wheel will turn full circle, comparisons gain validity and Mike will be stood at the bar supping his pint of water in a scene reminiscen...

I went to the little Eurochange currency shop in Bournemouth this week. I needed some Thai bahts. Alas, like most of the shops on that stretch of the town centre, it’s shut down. Although it turned out that Eurochange is closed because there was a fire in the flats above the shop. Some, probably most, of the several thousand gallons of water lobbed into the building by the fire brigade made its way to ground level. Unfortunate, but it’s another nail in the coffin of Bournemouth as a retail centre.  I could write a long piece about the decline of Bournemouth, but a chap called Peter Viney has already produced an exceedingly thorough account of the towns travails, so I won’t bother. I’ll just add that’s it got worse since his last update. Fat Face is also now gone. Starbucks in the Triangle too. Starbucks!! When coffee shops up-sticks and off-bugger….well, that is the retail equivalent of a fat lady singing, isn’t it? And Specsavers closed its doors for the last time on Christmas Ev...

Politics 2026 in the United Kingdom. Where are we at? To summarise: we have a far-right populist who is telling his fanbase, the rich and the racist, exactly what they want to hear. He’s not afraid of upsetting people, although his recent success means he is at least trying to pretend that he didn’t spend his youth advocating for Jews to be gassed. We have a far-left populist who’s is doing much the same but whose message is aimed fair and square at the poor, and folk who still think Jews should be gassed. Above Hadrians Wall is a bunch of folk with nationalist dreams, but I’ve no idea what they’re saying anymore, and I’m not sure they do either. The Welshists are all probably very nationalist too, but it’s spoken with that delightful, soothing sing-song Welsh twang from the valleys, so it sounds lovely. But in the big scheme of things, it doesn’t much matter. There is the natural party of government, currently on the opposition benches, and they say whatever the far-right populist say...