Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2025

  • It’s A Good Life…

    I’m beginning to feel as though I’m trapped in a version of Bixby’s “It’s a Good Life” with Trump cast in the role of Anthony Fremont – the three-year old child with godlike powers who is destroying everyone around him.

    The difference being that Anthony is a child who knows no better, whereas Trump is a sullen, resentful old man who is fully aware of the deliberate chaos he is sowing.

    The Observer asked a question in its recent editorial on Alexei Navalny:

    When Trump calls Putin a “genius” who exhibits great “common sense”, does he understand – does he care – that he is dealing with a ruthless killer?

    The answer, clearly, is that Trump couldn’t give a damn about other people, he cares only about himself.

  • RIP Alexei Navalny

    Today it is one year since Alexei Navalny died in a Russian Penal Colony. By coincidence, last night I finished reading his memoir: Patriot. It is an extraordinary book and terrifying as an insight into the Putin machine. Navalny is a great loss to Russia, and to humanity, killed by a system run by a thug.

    The Observer has an editorial today describing Navalny as “Principled, charismatic and humorous, the murdered Russian opposition leader was everything Vladimir Putin is not”. It is worth reading and ends on a particularly chilling note:

    When Trump calls Putin a “genius” who exhibits great “common sense”, does he understand – does he care – that he is dealing with a ruthless killer? When, shattering the western consensus that Putin is an aggressor to be repulsed at all costs, Trump proposes a chummy tete-a-tete on Ukraine, does he have any idea how he is manipulated by this cynical ex-KGB thug? Does JD Vance, Trump’s ignorant vice-president, realise what a dangerous game he plays when he flirts with Europe’s pro-Putin neofascist far right? It seems not. Navalny would put them straight. Except he’s dead.

  • Trump Spews Shit Again

    Really, we are in for four years of this?

  • A Sermon For The Age

    This week, Marianne Edgar Budde, the bishop of Washington delivered a sermon in front of President Trump urging him to show mercy towards LGBTQ+ and migrant communities. The president condemned it as ‘nasty’.

    I’m not a Christian, just an atheist by nature, but it’s a very good sermon. It speaks truth to power. No wonder Donald Trump hated it and described her tone as “nasty”. The fault lies with you, Donald.

  • The Bonfire of the Humanities

    Marina Hyde sums up yesterday’s events better than I can. Read it and despair.

    And if you prefer to follow a blow-by-blow account, David Smith has that for you as well.

  • A Grain of Rice

    Remember the old story about the grain of rice and the chessboard? Here’s a modern day take on it used to illustrate the disparity of wealth in the US. Do watch it.

    @realestatebulldog

    Who’s hungry? #eattherich

    ♬ original sound – Whisper Pickle

  • Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here…

    So Mark Zuckerberg has just announced that he will be getting rid of all his factcheckers on Facebook and joining Elon Musk on the race to the bottom in social media. He’s clearly kissed Trump’s ring.

    To reuse a particularly powerful turn of phrase: “they are swirling in a human cesspit of their own making”…

    As Chris Stokel-Walker writes:

    This is an extinction-level event for the idea of objective truth on social media – an organism that was already on life support, but was clinging on in part because Meta was willing to fund independent factchecking organisations in order to try to maintain some element of honest fact, free from political bias. Night is day. Up is down. Meta is X. Mark Zuckerberg is Elon Musk. Buckle in for a turbulent, vitriolic, and fact-free four years online.

  • This is Not…

    …fiction.

    …a documentary

    This is a warning.

    Some background.