"The terrifying thought that strikes you while watching the film is that we have already crossed some kind of historical event horizon and are living in that eternal present." I wrote about the enduring power of Alfonso Cuarón’s 'Children of Men' newstatesman.com/children-me…

Good time to read the @Equatormag piece on the Hormuz.

For @Equatormag, I interviewed Antonio Spadaro (Vatican Undersecretary, papal confidant, and co-author of a book on faith with Martin Scorsese) about the theological and geopolitical stakes of the pope’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. equator.org/articles/to-dwel…

One of many reasons why I love Equator : equator.org/articles/thomas-…

A previously unpublished essay by Thomas Mann, introduced by Pankaj Mishra and brilliantly translated by @MortenHoiJensen equator.org/articles/thomas-…

“Today I shudder to think how a country [England], so foreign to our own instincts, could have achieved the miracle of being called Mother”.

Missing Tom Nairn today

God this is embarrassing

Damn this is quite good!

Gave a shoutout to Dua Lipa’s Service95 when talking about some of the broad influences behind @Equatormag thenation.com/article/cultur…

‘The 1970s bequeathed a vision of a just, and egalitarian world that remains relevant to us today. But this vision cannot be transmitted seamlessly from one historical conjuncture to another’. David Scott’s editorial for the latest issue of Small Axe. smallaxe.net/sx/issues/79

Must Read Siddhartha Deb (@Debhartha), a fellow writer and a New Yorker, wrote a touching (short) memoir (or a long essay) which appeared in the Equator (27th February, 2026). (Scroll down for link) (@EquatorMag) It is about his dream of becoming a reporter to write about India’s North-East, a region forever under the military occupation of the Indian army. He embarked on this path starting as a student at the Presidency College in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and ending up as a professor at the New School of New York. In between he spent some years in Delhi as a journalist and then as a doctoral student at the famed Columbia University under the great Edward Said (of Orientalism). Two of his excellent books (books I liked): The Beautiful and the Damned (collection of essays from the time when India was transitioning to “free market”), and Light at the End of the World (a surreal fiction after 30-35 years under the free market regime, especially for Muslims) I found the essay at once honest, deeply personal and about the world at large which seems to be hurtling fast towards doom. The writing, of course, is fresh and crisp. equator.org/articles/from-ca…

Another excellent interview from @Equatormag. Fascinating @adam_tooze interview with Wang Hui, which touches on, inter alia, Hobsbawm, Mao and Schmitt equator.org/articles/the-two…

Hobsbawm’s “short twentieth century”, the “Fukuyama moment”, Carl Schmitt’s toxic brilliance, Mao’s concept of ‘people’s war’, Lu Xun as a theorist of failure who refused despair — it’s all here in a fascinating conversation btwn @adam_tooze and Wang Hui equator.org/articles/the-two…

“He became, in the end, the thing he most despised: a globalist. And in Orban’s Hungary, as he discovered, globalists lose”. For @Equatormag, I spoke to Ivan Krastev about Orban’s vision for Europe and why he lost the election: equator.org/articles/the-mit…

“I’ve spent my adult life grappling with the racial hygienists and other people-flayers, until I came to understand that Switzerland is not an island, not at all.” equator.org/articles/stolen-…

Why the jagged line to a post American order runs from Havana (1948) to Cairo (1956) to Hormuz (2026). Grateful for the superb editing by @Equatormag's @GavJacobson, @jonathanshainin, Ratik Asokan and @samanth_s. And thanks to @negarazimi for the stunning tidal image of the Hormuz by Hoda Afshar. More from @hodafshar's extraordinary series Speak The Wind here: prix.pictet.com/cycles/human….

ICYMI - @leninology on the the ongoing crisis within the Labour Party. We talked about McSweeney, Mandelson, Labour Together, and the broader crisis of legitimacy facing the British state and its key institutions: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…

It’s excellent!