dave-hoghtoncarter

Apostasy Dave Hoghton-Carter "Nothing is forbidden. Everything is permitted" - Hashishim-attributed slogan (Persia, c.11th), from Nietzsche The night smelled of sulphur, stale cigarettes, and fresh vomit. Clouds drifted by, floating over the neon and halogen mezzanine that illuminated the city. I left the house numbed, cold as stone. The bag went straight in the nearest skip, all the old crap that had been 'ours'. Maybe I'm too much of a romantic, but I always thought that 'I love you' was supposed to imply a commitment of some kind, and I always thought that was what we had. Intense, dangerous even, as it was, I still thought it would

Entreaties into unbreakable solitude Dave Hoghton-Carter He sat by the window in a frayed old armchair, plaid and wooden trim visible through the holes in the throw, lit from behind by a single bare bulb. The table bore, as always, the newspaper for the day (it was The Times today) and a cup of cocoa. The second hand on the clock rocked back and forth: 5 to 6, 5 to 6, 5 to 6.  A tapping at the door, and the jolly call that followed couldn't register beyond the mechanical periphery of auditory sense. The visitor grew more insistent – there is work to be done, he proclaimed, important work, can you not remember, my friend, the day's great t

Breakdown The steady pulse of the engine, the rhythmic thump of the suspension as the segments of the bridge passed beneath, the staccato flickering of the broken white lines isolating one lane from another, the lights up above. I surveyed the rivers of rain-flecked tar from over the ambient lighting that emanated from the dials on the dash, the CD player, the GPS, and the rest of the post-modern crap that I didn't really need for a journey like this. Staring down the motorway, as the wipers paced across the windscreen and the road markings continued their never-ending dance, it all seemed like TV. For some reason, it also reminded me of loo

The Sixth Reindeer Dave Hoghton-Carter "OK, so we've got Dasher and Dancer, Donner and Blitzen, Comet and, like, what? What the hell was the name of the sixth one?"  "Rudolph," blurted Liam, taking a big toke on the joint and almost choking. "Rudolph doesn't count," I replied. "He came later. The whole thing with the foglight nose came along way after the rest of the reindeers were already in place." "Reindeer," said Jim, "the plural of Reindeer is just Reindeer. No 's'." "Speedy?" offered Rob. "Don't be a twat," said Jim, twiddling a bauble on the Christmas tree. "Can I get death on that spliff?" "Yeah, man," Liam crooned, pass

The Road of Excess Dave Hoghton-Carter Anthony stared out of the lounge window as the rain swept in from over the old estate. Gale-force winds buffeted the trees, sending ruddy-brown leaves over the fence and into Mrs Benson's garden, while a cat-shaped ball of wet black and white fur shivered under the eaves of the summer-house. A small stack of crates lay in one corner of the room. His suitcase was still upstairs, as were a couple of other bags waiting for stuff which needed to be packed at the last minute. Father and mother were both out at work - father making a bar in the living room of some chap with more money than sense, mother no

Populism and Modernity David Hoghton-Carter "In America, the majority has enclosed thought within a formidable fence. […] Formerly tyranny used the clumsy weapons of chains and hangmen; nowadays even despotism, though it seemed to have nothing more to learn, has been perfected by civilisation. […} But the mass of the nations does not countenance servitude; its submission is often from weakness, habit, or ignorance and sometimes from love of the throne or king. Some nations have taken a kind of pleasure and pride in sacrificing their wills to that of the prince…"    - Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1848 "Society can and d

Should human beings be considered global citizens? The idea of global citizenship is an old one, but it is arguably only recently that it gained much meaning beyond the dreams of philosophers and bohemians. It is an incontestable fact that few people around the world actually consider themselves to be full-fledged members of a global political community, and there is certainly no global political apparatus that can readily compared to a complete and functioning state. However, the phenomena of globalisation has brought about a change in the nature of world politics, and global citizenship – as the idea that all human beings should enjoy the

What's wrong with the Lib Dems? David Hoghton-Carter As a political philosopher, I'm often strangely amused by the policies of the Liberal Democrat Party in the UK. Allow me to explain. The Liberal Democrat Party (for the uninitiated, and for those not resident in the British Isles) are often though of as a party with vague ideas, who come up with policies that seem unfocussed and are sometimes excessively idealistic. They also seem to occupy a poorly-defined place somewhere around the centre of the political spectrum. As a party, they have no clearly-defined set of principles and no definite, coherent agenda to put forward. They are just

Still Just Another Brick in The Wall? Educational Reform in the UK David Hoghton-Carter Since listening to a radio hosted by Jonathon Dimbleby a couple of hours ago (I write on Saturday 17th December 2005) about the latest round of Blairite reform proposals, my thoughts have turned to the topic of the British educational system, and I've therefore decided to add my two pennies worth to the argument. Fact: education in the UK is in crisis, and the problems have arisen because of policies formulated in Whitehall by a succession of governments. However, the flaws in the modern education system can be traced back decades, to problems thrown up

Comment: Distant Voices Dave Hoghton-Carter Imagine this: it's 2025 and your kids are about to go to University. You're sitting on the sofa, nostalgically considering your time here at Reading, and (in the rare moments when your offspring decide to turn down the bizarre electronic pinging that sounds nothing like what you listened to in your student days and pay attention to what you're saying) making attempts at imbuing them with some enthusiasm for another three years of formal education. Then you get handed a Prospectus – and your heart skips a beat. The University your children has chosen advertises itself with promises of seminar clas