[…] about Spanish history and just skipped those sections.) The book as a whole is an interesting account of the post-war British left, albeit from one particular viewpoint; and, despite odd flashes of score-settling, Meltzer is an amusing raconteur. But a memoir without a name index…..? A metaphor involving tits and a bull comes to mind.
[…] Parliament. As to the charges against Fiore, having no Italian contacts and distrusting greatly the scant British press reports of the matter, I still have an open mind, and would be grateful for any information readers of Lobster can supply on this important matter. Times 19 February 1983 and Sunday Times 20 February 1983. […]
Flying Saucers over Los Angeles The UFO Craze of the 1950s Dwayne B. Johnson and Kenn Thomas Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton, Illinois, USA, 1998, $16.00 Flying Saucers over America Steamshovel Supplement to Flying Saucers Over Los Angeles Steamshovel Press, 1998, $20 Two more productions from the prolific Kenn Thomas. Flying Saucers Over Los Angeles is … Read more
[…] had to be rethought. Inevitably, which contributions seem most important in a collection such as this reflects the interests and concerns of the reviewer. Bearing this in mind, of particular interest in this are Piotr Wrobel’s ‘An NKVD Residentura (Residency) in the Warsaw Ghetto’, Hilary Earl’s ‘Confessions of Wrongdoing, or How to Save Yourself […]
Inside Intelligence Anthony Cavendish Palu Publishing Ltd. 1987 Although many hundreds of books have been written on British Intelligence, very few have tackled post-war intelligence in any kind of depth or with any degree of reliability. By contrast, we tend to believe that we know quite a lot about the workings of the CIA. But … Read more
A. J. Davies Little Brown and Co London, 1995, £20 Davies provides in equal measure a perceptive and comprehensive account of the modern Conservative Party which, hopefully, will lead to further reappraisals of Conservative history. In contrast to, for example, Lord Blake’s standard history of the Party over much the same period, We, The Nation … Read more
The Triumph of the Political Class Peter Oborne London: Simon & Schuster, 2007, £18.99 Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy Edited by William Dinan and David Miller London: Pluto, 2007, £15.99 End Times: The Death of the Fourth Estate Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair CounterPunch and AK Press, Oakland … Read more
Steamshovel 11 The arrival of a new Steamshovel is an event. No matter that I am going to want to be picky about something in it, every issue contains items both substantial and intriguing – and much that would find a home nowhere else, that I can think of. (Except maybe Lobster. I wish I […]
Who was who? The newly published Oxford Dictionary of National Biography not only surveys the lives of the great and the good, but also includes accounts of individuals in the murkier fields of human endeavour. Over fifty spies are listed, for example, including historical figures such as ‘Parliament Joan’ (c1600-1655?) and ‘Pickle the Spy’ (c1725-1761). … Read more
[…] for this sensitive mission, there was only one crew-member, the pilot. This makes sense in terms of secrecy, a consideration that would have been paramount in the mind of the CIA planners. Because of this necessary limitation, is it not possible that the aircraft was adapted to carry its munitions on wing pylons that, […]
