Rod Dreher's Diary

Ross Douthat with Internet simpleton Well, that’s Ross Douthat and me after our long Interesting Times interview yesterday. I’m looking wistfully at him because a) I’m looking forward to the Persian takeout dinner he promised afterward, and b) because the only response I have to this overwhelming heat in London is to make comedy out of it. I know that nob…

James Sibley, Diary subscriber, ARCster, and education innovator Good morning from the first day of ARC in London, which feels like New Orleans — super-hot and humid here. Turns out that some loony leftists, of whom there are a few in London, if you can believe it (::::deep sarcasm::::), have discovered us, and are banging drums outside and screaming at …

At long last, after three Saturday hours drifting around the London Underground, the victim of my own stupidity and bad advice from tube people, I found a train to Cambridge, went straight to The Moorings, and found the gang set up down on the banks of the Cam, drinking cold Kentish bubbly wine — did you know they grow Champagne grapes in Kent now? — and watching the “Bumps”, which is a kind of informal crew racing.

Giorgia Meloni is not happy with Il Trumpo Hello all … from Birmingham, not London. As I’ve been saying, I do love strong Southern thunderstorms, but sometimes they force flight cancellations. Welp. I wrote half of this last night, because I was too keyed up to sleep. This morning, I’ve got to get back out to the airport and try again, so I’m going to have to be quick.

Like the Germans in 1919, Trump goes to Versailles to sign a treaty promising reparations for a war he started (H/T: Matt Franck) I’m old enough to remember this tweet: Well, here we are. At least the damn thing is over before the global economy crashes. Iran was bloodied, for sure, but Trump got his butt handed to him. If you want to get the administration’s best account of the deal, read or listen to JD Vance defending it in a new interview with Ross Douthat.

There are no words. But there must be words. And actions. Here is a link to Rupert Lowe MP’s independent UK report on its investigation into Britain’s rape gang scandal. This report was independently crowd-funded. As Lowe writes in the introduction:

US AWACS plane destroyed on the tarmac by the Iranians I hope the US-Iran war really is over, but look: we lost this war, or rather, Trump lost the war he started. I wish it were otherwise, but as someone who supported Trump in 2024 in large part because I counted on him not to start any foolish wars, I have no interest in listening to his excuse-making.

Promotional poster for ‘Disclosure Day’. Notice the one eye On Saturday night I saw Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day. Reviews have been generally positive, though audience reaction is more mixed. It was startling to see a big suburban theater on opening weekend, the first showing Saturday night of a much-hyped Spielberg movie, only half full. Make of that what you will. Disclosure Day is a film about re-enchantment.

So, I’m finally living in the new apartment, on account of the furniture deliverymen showed up today. They just left. I bought them lunch and tipped them well — it’s hot as hell out there. Good ol’ boys, very polite. We sat at the table and ate Subway sandwiches together. One of them, heavily tattooed, without all his teeth, asked me what I did for a living. “I’m a writer.” “Bout what?” I told him a little bit about my last book, mentioning that it has material about exorcism and things.

‘Carnival Evening,’ Henri Rousseau (1886) It’s Friday, and I’m preparing to get on the road back to Birmingham. My poor little Honda is stuffed to the gills with framed prints and other fragments of the life I used to have. Spent two hours sweating bullets, working in my storage unit to unearth the prints, some books, and other things I wanted to take ba…