John Baker’s Blog

Nick Cohen in the Guardian on the UK’s pandering to despots:
Europe’s most blatant example is Vladimir Putin’s Russia. When its agents poisoned Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210, the Russians were as astonished as the Saudis that Britain insisted on bringing alleged criminals to justice. ‘I don’t understand the position of the British government,’ a foreign ministry [...]

Sam Smith thinks jazz is cooler and cheaper than war. He describes an instance of enlightened American foreign policy known as the Jazz Ambassadors program. During the 1950s, the State Department sent a variety of musicians abroad to show the world something of America:
In 1958, (Dave) Brubeck visited 12 countries, including Poland, Turkey, East [...]

A day out yesterday, to the Royal Academy to see some of the paintings we’ve never seen before.
From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870–1925 from Moscow and St Petersburg

The exhibition presents modern masterpieces drawn from Russia’s principal collections: the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and [...]

Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, is using BitTorrent and other filesharing networks as a way to promote his work. His publishers weren’t too happy about giving away free copies of his books, so he’s taken matters into his own hands.
On his website, Pirate Coelho, you are allowed to download his novels for free.
Coelho’s view [...]