The Endless Chain Podcast

“It’s a long and winding road for Epic. The firm lost the Apple case, which is on appeal, but got the Google case to a jury.” (Matt Stoller: BIG Newsletter, 12 December 2023 .) Matt Stoller is a respected blogger who discusses competition law matters, and this quote is from a recent blog post in which he describes a victory for a firm named Epic against another company, called Google. He, in part...

Image: Salvador Ramos, perpetrator of the 2022 Uvalde massacre. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Thanks for reading The Endless Chain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. It was, I think, at a reception being held by socialite Dorothy Parker that the hostess, feeling the painful need to do so, let off a rip-roaring fart that echoed around the room and brough...

The poor have it. The rich need it. If you eat it, you’ll die. What is it? A clever riddle is always a good riddle, but not if you’re the object of its sharper point. I’ll leave you to ponder the solution, which is to be found at the foot of the article, just above the “Share” button. Thanks for reading The Endless Chain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. The Gospel acco...

“A little quiet but appears to be quite happy,” is what my report card for Autumn Term, 1973 read. That was my House Tutor’s assessment, at least, and John Bairstow was renowned for his Yorkshire bluntness. One word strikes me only now, 50 years on: but . Can a boy not be quite happy and a little quiet? It depends where happiness comes from. Do others make us happy, or do we make ourselves happy?...

This article was first published in LinkedIn on 11 April 2022. Madonna and I grew up together. Not that we ever met, but she’s three years older than I am, so the times we grew up in were the same, if the experiences different. I have no idea if Madonna was ever a philatelist, but with an active and varied private life, she may well have been (I mean, with her wide and varied correspondence, maybe...

[English version below] Ik schrijf lange berichten en vrienden die denken dat ze vrienden zijn, vertellen me dat ze te lang zijn. Ik besteed enorm veel aandacht aan lange berichten, en mensen zeggen dat ze te lang zijn. Mensen willen vriendschap die is afgestemd op hun persoonlijke wensen. Thanks for reading The Endless Chain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Ik besloot...

In his Little History of Photography essay (1931), Walter Benjamin describes the mysterious “aura” that the earliest portrait photographs had to them. For instance, he discusses David Octavius Hill’s 1840s picture of a Newhaven fishwife, in whose downcast gaze there “remains something … that fills you with an unruly desire to know what her name was, the woman who was alive there, who even now is s...

Dieser Beitrag wurde am 17. Mai 2023 in englischer Version veröffentlicht. [This article was published in English on 17 May 2023.] Captain Lawrence Oates war ein Held. In mehreren Punkten, aber für einen von denen er am liebsten in Erinnerung bleibt. Verletzt und als Belastung für die immense Aufgabe, vor der der gescheiterte Antarktisforscher Robert Falcon Scott stand, sprach er diese Worte, eins...

My gran used to tell me that her Church of Scotland minister once said there is no more awful thing to say to another person than “Shut up!” She very much liked Larry Grayson, whose catch phrase was “Shut that door!” She could laugh at Larry Grayson, but not at “Shut up.” Well, if she were here now, God bless her, I think she’d agree that “I hope your daughter dies” beats “Shut up” into a cocked h...

A friend of mine was motoring down a narrow village lane the other day, passing parked cars, when, all of a sudden, she was confronted by a bicycle coming the other way. It’s a one-way street, but the bikes are allowed to come up against the flow, being just wee things an’ all as they are. This particular lane was only recently made one-way, because it has a bit of an S-bend and it’s hard to see f...

In June 1967, I, together with my classmates, cowered in fear at Broadgate School, comforted by our teacher, as terror rained down from the heavens. In those days, extreme weather wasn’t so common, but this day in June 1967 was exceptional. Hailstones as large as golf balls. By the time the storm was over, barely a hailstone was to be seen, as the summer sun came out; and everything was well in th...

It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a 1963 movie starring Spencer Tracey and a whole coterie of comic actors who witness a road accident, as a result of which the now hapless Jimmy Durante reveals the location of a hidden treasure. The rest of the film is the race to the treasure, which is located under the big double-ya. This one. No, it’s not a bush. Frantically they chase around, armed with pick...

One of the things that has long since confused me about America is that the sweet land of liberty knows so many constraints. The Americans have hi-jacked the word need and use it to mean do it, or else : “I need you to stand with your legs apart and your hands in the air as I handcuff you.” I remember reading the do’s and don’ts on the Washington D.C. Metro. Not a pictogram in sight. Americans nee...

France is like England, but without the hedgerows. Or like Belgium with bigger fields. Or like Germany, with fewer cows. Everything in the French countryside looks a bit over-the-hill, tired, knackered, and therefore quaint. There are opulent little houses incongruously perched on street corners, whose attractiveness seems designed to endure for nothing longer than the phase of the traffic light f...

Click above for a voiceover to this article. All voiceovers are available on Apple Podcasts under The Endless Chain. A few years ago, King Philippe of the Belgians and Queen Mathilde were fulfilling an official function at a retirement home of their realm. Their Majesties were kindly bidden to append a note of their visit in the guest book, for which an expensive fountain pen had been purchased, s...

A friend sent me this, the day before I motor to my great-uncle’s grave in Albert, France, where he fell on a battlefield in 1915, and where his bones since then have lain. I will wear his medals, and I will kiss his penny, and I will lay chrysanthemums to beautify his horrendous death. His life was taken in the name of folly, not yet 25 years of age—the age when death is supposed only to start. A...

Gemeente Herent is the branch of government in Belgium that regulates local affairs for me. They organise the street lighting, the removal of waste and repairs to minor roads. Herent Borough Council has responsibilities of its own, and it has responsibilities that it must coordinate with others. On the whole , it runs as smoothly as a Swiss watch. When they made my street into a cycle street a few...

I believe you can listen to this article as a podcast by clicking up here. There. I was, some years ago, gifted by a dear friend, for Christmas, a sweatshirt bearing the legend, I am silently correcting your grammar . I wear it with pride to events where there are likely to be poor grammarians present. To help them. Image: Estelle Reiner, who made cultural history in five words as “Female in Resta...

Clip: Australian tenor Peter Dawson sings his hit Boots. I’m not entirely sure how it comes that police always estimate attendees at demos at much lesser a number than demo organisers do, aside, that is, from the fact that estimates usually reflect the parties’ interests in the number being low or high; but the discrepancies can seem illogical to the casual onlooker. Thanks for reading The Endless...

Click above to hear this article as section 564 of the Highway Code The Portland transportation authority in Oregon, USA, has put in some bike lanes that it authorised two years ago. That has to be a good thing, doesn’t it? Well, local residents are surprised, to say the least because they allege that they were not duly consulted about the matter. The bicycle lanes simply appeared as if brought by...

Click above to listen to this article as a ghost story. No need to wait for Christmas. The word scrooge has entered common parlance to mean anyone who grumbles incessantly at the joyous occasion of Christmas. Over a certain age, that’s all of us, to some degree. It comes from the character Ebenezer Scrooge , the protagonist in Charles Dickens’s story A Christmas Carol. This short story is famed fo...

Click the button to hear my hoarse, equine tones resound to this ode. There are, it appears, modes of movement that monitor. They know where you’ve been, and may know where you’re headed; your sex life, your thoughts, and your feelings; and they spread muck wherever you go. Some, you know where they’re going: it’s displayed; on the front, and, for those who’ve missed the bus, on their rear … Whils...

A voiceover of this article is available by clicking above It has taken me 13 months of patient waiting. In the last 13 months, I had not a sign nor a whisper nor so much as a hint in response to a question I posed when the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out. And now, I have the response I sought. The question: Is the united Ukraine that is defending itself against attack in any measure assisted by tho...

A fellow on the Substack equivalent of Prime Minister’s question time —an occasional get-together of writers, content producers and a panel of people who work for Substack , to answer our questions—asked whether we couldn’t perhaps post videos to garner interest from the junior end of the age scale. Some opined that that would turn Substack into another TikTok , and some thought it was an interest...

You can hear by clicking above, what’s here by flicking below— boom, boom! Evil Nazi Threat Genocide Existential Lie Terrorism E N T G E L T = reward in German. Because ... what follows is your reward! (Corny as a Basil Brush joke: Boom, boom! ) Thanks for reading The Endless Chain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Last night was dark: I looked into it and out of it cam...