Leigh Turner's Blog

Places are still available for my talks in Vienna, Bonn and Düsseldorf in late October and early November. I’ll also be signing books! Full details below. 27-29 October: in Vienna I will not be wearing Lederhosen this time I have a full programme of talks planned later this month, as follows: A reading at Shakespeare […]

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Natural gas has a corrupting influence on politics. Politicians hoping for a bonanza from lifting sanctions on Russia should take take note.

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A Trump sell-out of Ukraine to give President Putin everything he wants looks the likeliest outcome of the 15 August Alaska summit. The costs of any such sell-out for the rest of the world - and the US itself - would be high.

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A Trump U-turn to put pressure on Russia to end Putin's war on Ukraine would be welcome. But it's not clear whether any such U-turn is happening.

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"Cocaine Nights" is one of the last novels by English writer JG Ballard. It is a rich, ravishing, blackly comic indictment of modern life.

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Trump-Ukraine: on 14 July 2025 the President threatened major new sanctions against Russia and promised to "massively supply" arms to Ukraine. Is this significant?

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“Salonica – City of Ghosts” is an eery, elegiac portrait of a city that – in many respects – had a completely different identity to modern Thessaloniki. Mark Mazower: Salonica, City of Ghosts When I was British Consul-General in Istanbul (2012-16), my Greek colleague lived around the corner. ‘You should visit Thessaloniki,’ he said. ‘Before […]

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Fake facts: my theory about the origin of "42" in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was nonsense. The puzzle of its true origin persists.

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Katse Dam site, Lesotho: photographs taken on visits in March-April 1988 as construction of the Dam began. Katse: where are the photos from? In March-April 1988, I visited my brother Stephen Turner in Lesotho. At the time, Stephen was head of the environmental division of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA). His focus was on […]

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“Burma Sahib”, by Paul Theroux, fictionalises George Orwell’s Burma years from 1922-27. Orwell’s novel “Burmese Days” does the same. How do they compare? “Burmese Days” by George Orwell Orwell’s Burmese Days, first published in 1934, is a fictionalised account of his time in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma (now Myanmar) from 1922-27. The writing […]

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