Friday 8 May, 2026

Out of office? Cambridge in the Summer? Quote of the Day ”Holy Mother we do believe, That without sin Thou didst conceive; May we now in Thee believing, Also sin without conceiving.” A.P. Herbert My late mother, a very devout Catholic, would not have been amused. ## Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Haydn | Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major | II. Adagio | Yo-Yo Ma Link Long Read of the Day The Myth of the Informed Citizen Nicholas Carr is one of the best communicators of our age. He’s terrific at diving into academic and other research on a topic and then coming up with a readable exegesis of what he’s found. His most recent book, Superbloom is coming out in paperback around now, and this essay is taken from it. In it, he traces the evolution of the thinking of Walter Lippmann, one of the most interesting American intellectuals of the 20th century — and also one of the early members of the ’neoliberal thought collective’ that seized the ideological initiative from the late…