Will Collins
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Articles by Will Collins
BlueAlp selected for EU grant, updates on PPO projects
Dutch pyrolysis chemical recycling company BlueAlp has been selected to receive €21mn ($23.5mn) from the EU Innovation Fund towards a new 49,000 t/yr pyrolysis unit and pyrolysis oil (PPO) upgrader in Kampen, Netherlands, it said. The firm also said it plans to add a 24,500 t/yr pyrolysis reactor at its site in Oostende, Belgium.
Polanski defeated in Holborn & St Pancras: Are the Greens finished?
The Holborn & St Pancras by-election presented a golden opportunity for Green Party leader Zack Polanski to give Labour a good – and well deserved – kicking. Unfortunately, despite the enormous ground campaign, this opportunity was squandered. This is a setback for the Greens, and they now stand at a crossroads. Many will now be left asking: can they come back from this defeat? The breakdown The Greens tripled their vote since the 2024 election, to 8,928 votes – losing to Labour’s 12,292.
Among Hungary’s Weird Nomad Nationalists
Culture Among Hungary’s Weird Nomad Nationalists A dispatch from the “Meeting of the Tribes.” Featured in the Nov/Dec 2026 issue Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... In late summer, the drive south from Budapest has an ominous, apocalyptic feel. As suburbs give way to the flat expanse of the Hungarian countryside, the landscape turns brown and yellow, broken only by a few dull streaks of green. On the outskirts of the city, a billboard looms against the skyline.
Summer school for Ukraine’s future officers
Pvt. Joker from Full Metal Jacket is coaxing his teammates to guess the correct word in a game of “Alias.” According to the rules of the game, Joker can only give his team members hints while the rest of the class watches and laughs at their stumbles. The setup is surely familiar to teachers of English as a second language all over the world, but the choice of vocabulary is a bit different from your typical classroom. Already a print subscriber?
The Mary Wallopers’ ‘Paddywhackery’: an antidote against pessimism
In a recent interview with Spill Magazine, Charles Hendy – founding member of the Irish folk band The Mary Wallopers – had this to say about creating folk music today: “People like to think folk music is really people just sitting around singing ‘Kumbaya’… The folk songs of antiquity up until now are not like that. Folk music is not meant to be soft. It is hard music. It is social, political and it is aggressive.
How tennis greats try to stay great in ‘The Cruelest Game’
One of the harsh realities that sports have thrust into the public eye is the rise of intergenerational rivalry. The same medical advances that permit aging boomers to hold onto public offices, academic sinecures, and big houses for longer than ever allow older athletes to dominate to an extent that would have been unthinkable mere decades ago. When a pro turned 30 in the early 2000s, it usually signaled the beginning of the end.
What we can learn from the WASP establishment
The best indicator of the waning influence of the WASP is that most people no longer know who the term refers to.
Confessions of a Yankee Anglophile
For all our differences, Americans and Britons will never be too far apart The English were the first great villains of my childhood. I was quite taken with the Prince Valiant comics’ colourful but historically dubious depiction of King Arthur and his knights fighting Dark Age Anglo-Saxon warbands. Later, I devoured Rosemary Sutcliff’s Roman Britain books, a more careful treatment of the same era.
The next great European novelist, or not
There are a disproportionate number of dental offices in western Hungary because Austrians frequently cross the border for cheap, high-quality tooth care. About 15 minutes from a border post that is about as relevant today as it was at the height of the Habsburgs, you can tour “the Hungarian Versailles,” the ancestral home of the Eszterhazys, arguably the most powerful family of the old empire. In the late 18th century, Joseph Haydn was a composer in residence for several decades.
Artan R. Hoxha’s biography ‘Enver Hoxha’ is a plodding portrait of a Marxist tyrant
Enver Hoxha: Twentieth-Century Tyrant; By Robert C. Austin and Artan R. Hoxha; Reaktion Books; 328 pp.; $27.50 After independence, Albania experienced an almost comical progression of failed political experiments. The country was briefly ruled by a German princeling before trying parliamentary democracy and then a presidential system.
Artan R. Hoxha’s biography ‘Enver Hoxha’ is a plodding portrait of a Marxist tyrant
16 hours ago Members of Congress are raising concerns about a surge in pro-Chinese Communist Party propaganda and rhetoric in the U.S., citing organizations tied to Shanghai-based Marxist mogul Neville Roy Singham. During interviews with Fox News Digital, a number of House and Senate members warned that …
Song of the Sea
Film Song of the Sea membawa penonton ke tahun 1981, mengikuti kehidupan Conor, penjaga mercusuar di pesisir barat laut Irlandia. Ia hidup bersama istrinya, Bronagh, dan putra mereka, Ben. Namun, kebahagiaan keluarga ini berubah drastis saat Bronagh menghilang secara misterius setelah melahirkan anak kedua mereka, Saoirse. Kepergian sang ibu meninggalkan luka mendalam, terutama bagi Ben yang tumbuh dengan perasaan kehilangan.
On Europe | The Critic Magazine
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EU virgin-recycled premiums extend record gains
London, 13 April (Argus) — The competitiveness of recycled polymers compared with their virgin equivalents in Europe have extended records in April, as exports of plastic and petrochemical feedstocks from the Middle East remain highly disrupted. Demand for recycled polymers increased, particularly for less-demanding and cost-saving applications. But many recyclers are concerned about the longer-term implications of the entirely supply-driven price rally on their demand and margins.
The Hungarians Who Just Threw Out Orbán
Viktor Orbán’s defeat in the race for the Hungarian prime ministership is no less momentous for being totally unsurprising. Even the many Americans who were late to tune in—noticing Hungary’s election on Sunday only after J.D. Vance showed up last week to give his friends a boost—likely heard that Orbán’s days could be numbered.
What’s so illiberal about “illiberal democracy?”
Viktor Orban has been a political pioneer in Europe On July 26, 2014, Viktor Orban gave the most famous speech ever delivered at a Transylvanian summer camp. The Hungarian prime minister’s remarks covered a wide range of subjects, from the 2008 financial crisis to the trajectory of post-Soviet Central and Eastern Europe, but the speech is best remembered for a single phrase, “illiberal democracy”, that has since been repeated ad nauseam.
Does Hungary’s opposition have Orban on the ropes?
Political messaging is often trite or meaningless, but in the case of the Hungarian parliamentary elections, two of the contenders’ slogans are actually quite revealing. Fidesz, the ruling conservative party led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is a biztos valasztas — “the safe choice.” Tisza, a relatively new political movement led by the young and charismatic Peter Magyar, has a different message.
Review of When All the Men Wore Hats by Susan Cheever
There is an oft-repeated internet maxim, usually attributed to George Orwell or Voltaire but actually coined by a neo-Nazi, that goes as follows: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” This is a very silly idea. Well-entrenched ruling classes are usually quite comfortable with mockery, humor, and criticism precisely because they are secure in their status. In the middle decades of the 20th century, America’s WASPy elite was just such a class.
Ralph Lauren’s all-American cultural appropriation
After years of Scandinavian and Bauhaus-inflected minimalism, no-frills graphic design, and the Marie Kondo-inspired culling of closets, clutter is suddenly back in style. According to the New York Times, a Ralph Lauren Christmas was the trend of the holiday season, although you don’t need to shop at Ralph Lauren to get the look.
Rick Steves and the closing of the travel frontier
For Americans of a certain age and income bracket, Europe is synonymous with Rick Steves, a one-man travel impresario whose guidebooks and tour groups have introduced the continent to thousands of newcomers. Before he became his own brand, Steves was just another scruffy backpacker abroad, an experience he recounts in On the Hippie Trail, a new book that follows his travels across India and Central Asia in the 1970s.
Horror and heroism: women in Bangladesh's Revolution and Liberation War (1968-75)
In 1968, revolution broke out across Pakistan, overthrowing Ayub Khan’s hated military dictatorship. The national oppression of Bengalis within East Pakistan had produced a revolution along class lines. However, due to the failures of its leadership, the revolution was transformed into a bloody civil war, ending in the secession of East Pakistan into modern Bangladesh. The Bengali people fought like tigers to win national self-determination.
Rural Hungary’s prophet of decay wins Nobel Prize in Literature
The 2020s have been good to Hungarian intellectuals. In 2023, Katalin Karikó and Ferenc Krausz collected Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine and Physics, respectively. David Szalay was recently shortlisted for a Booker. Now, László Krasznahorkai has won a Nobel Prize in Literature for a body of work that stretches back to the late Soviet era.
The Phantom Foreign Couriers of Budapest
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... The first courier in Budapest I actually spoke to, as opposed to merely thanking after a late night fast food delivery, was idling on his bicycle a few blocks from the Basilica of St. Stephen on a hot summer afternoon. Dark-skinned and clearly foreign, he politely introduced himself as Mohammed Mustafa from Pakistan.
Tech Won’t Fix Eyewitness Identification
Eyewitness identification has a well-deserved reputation for being unreliable and is known to have led to wrongful conviction, incarceration, and even execution of those incorrectly identified. Black Americans are much more likely to lose liberty or life due to mistaken identification than whites.
Woe to the conqueror
Multicultural Britain tells itself stories in order to live. One such story is that the island has always been a diverse, cosmopolitan place. On social media, graduate degree holders will eagerly tell you that Britain’s patron saint is Turkish, its alphabet Roman, its religion Middle Eastern, and its royal family German.
Freddie deBoer’s novel approach to mental illness
Before it was swamped by weird and lurid images, bizarre and titillating video clips, and offensive or obscurantist memes, the internet produced what may be the final flowering of literary culture. Emails, forum threads, blogs, and even tweets and status updates were mostly text. More writing was produced in the early years of the 21st century than at any other point in human history. So what do we have to show for it?
The end of cosmopolitan Europe: Review of ‘The Last Days of Budapest’ by Adam LeBor
On a visit to Budapest in the 1930s, an unimpressed H.L. Mencken remarked that the former imperial capital had the feeling of “an empty ballroom.” Having been shorn of half its territory after World War I, Budapest’s grandeur was an awkward fit for a country of 8 million people caught between the rising totalitarian powers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Pride in Budapest: Does a parade in Hungary’s capital augur trouble for Viktor Orbán?
“When it comes to pronouns, we don’t even have any!” said Tibor Várady, owner of Espresso Embassy, a popular cafe and specialty coffee shop in downtown Budapest. Várady’s comment is a joking reference to his native Hungarian, a famously difficult language that has no equivalents for the English pronouns “he” and “she,” and the atmosphere in Budapest, which is years, perhaps decades, behind the vanguard of left-wing cultural politics in the United States.
Britain: Glastonbury and Palestine - a taste of what is to come
This weekend over two hundred thousand festival goers flocked to sleepy Somerset to attend the Glastonbury Festival for five days of music, sun, beer, and peace, love and unity. [Originally published at communist.red] This year, however, in the words of talentless, irrelevant bigot Sharon Osbourne the festival has been “destroyed” by “one pathetic band”.
What might have been: Alternate history vs. the multiverse
The accession of Leo XIV, the first American pope and the third successive non-Italian to lead the Catholic Church, brings to mind the illustrious career of Pope Germanian I, another outsider to the Holy See who reigned over a tumultuous era. Germanian began his career as the disputatious monk Martin Luther before ascending to the church’s highest office in the early 16th century, inaugurating a dramatic era of theological and institutional reform.
Today, Romania; Tomorrow, the World
Foreign Affairs Today, Romania; Tomorrow, the World Conspiracy theories, history, and anti-establishment ferment collide in Bucharest. Is the Romanian election a preview of our political future? Featured in the May/June 2025 issue Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... “I think Georgescu is retarded,” says Alex, a young Romanian who doesn’t mince words on the subject of the recently-barred presidential candidate. “[But] even I voted for Georgescu.
Philippe Sands and the transnational legal class wrestle with the question of human rights
From the Babylonian captivity to the Trail of Tears, the history of rulers forcibly removing or even annihilating subject peoples is a long and sordid one, but the scope and brutality of Nazism necessitated the creation of new terminology. “New conceptions require new terms” was the concise judgment of exiled lawyer Rafael Lemkin in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, one of the first attempts to describe the scale of Nazi atrocities during World War II.
Stagnation, inflation, and austerity – No way out for British capitalism - The Communist
After a dismal few months for the UK economy, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is attempting to steady the rapidly sinking ship of British capitalism with billions worth of cuts to the welfare budget. In January, rock-bottom growth figures and flatlining productivity provoked the Bank of England (BoE) to lower its 2025 growth forecasts from 1.5 percent to 0.75 percent. This sparked a selloff of UK bonds, as investors cast doubts over whether the government can pay back its debts.
Mickey 17 is a dystopian sci-fi satire that stars Robert Pattinson twice
Mickey 17 is the latest film from the South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-ho, who won an Oscar for Parasite and made Snowpiercer and Okja. It’s a dystopian sci-fi satire starring Robert Pattinson twice over (all will be explained) but while it initially kicks some decent ideas around, it eventually descends into a cartoonish, sub-Armando Iannucci comic caper with, as far as I could ascertain, nothing fresh to say. It’s not the biggest disappointment I’ve had in my life but it’s up there.
Beyond the blame game: Understanding the 'independent' Trump voter
Why dismissing voters as beyond help won't heal America's political divide. My “independent” MAGA-voting roommates claim I pushed them to vote for Trump, that my voice was too critical, too condescending and too accusatory. During the election season, I tended to agree.
City of Lions
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... In Western Ukraine, a country roughly the size of Texas, the signs of war are subtle but unmistakable. The Ukrainian frontier guards are mostly female, in contrast to the mixed Hungarian contingent at the border town of Záhony. At a hotel in Lviv, the largest city in the region, the concierge informs you that the hotel restaurant doubles as a bomb shelter with the air of someone who has long grown used to such pronouncements.
Eastern Europe, 1989-the Last Nationalist Revolution
February 6, 2025 By Will Collins Writing in 1948, the caustic left-wing historian AJP Taylor sounded a rare hopeful note in the final chapter of The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918, his book on the autumn of one of Europe’s great dynasties: Marshal Tito was the last of the Habsburgs: ruling over eight different nations, he offered them ‘cultural autonomy’ and reined in their nationalist hostility . . . More fortunate than the Habsburgs, Marshal Tito found an ‘idea’.
Bangladesh's unfinished revolution: the 1971 War of Liberation
Last year, a revolution shook Bangladeshi society. The masses have once more entered the arena of struggle. They are rediscovering a rich revolutionary tradition that goes back decades. In reality, the tasks of this revolution are the unfinished tasks of an unfinished revolution, which began more than fifty years ago and culminated in the 1971 War of Independence against the domination of Pakistan.
The Killer Angels still sings
“Very fine people on both sides” was one of the first Trumpisms to enter our national lexicon. In the heady days of 2017, when Donald Trump’s presence in the White House was still a novelty and liberal resistance at its peak, the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia precipitated a full-blown political crisis.
The spy who came back from the dead
Death hasn’t diminished Tom Clancy’s output. Since the spy novelist’s death in 2013, a team of writers has churned out Clancy-branded thrillers at regular intervals. The new Dune television series is based not on Frank Herbert’s original novel but on a series of spinoffs written by Herbert’s son, Brian Herbert. The implacable logic of the Hollywood franchise, which prizes intellectual property over individual authorship, has lately been adopted by the publishing industry.
When Suburbia Was Weird
Architecture When Suburbia Was Weird A modernist enclave in the nation’s capital celebrates its 75th anniversary. Geography, not design, is the main determinant of housing prices in the Washington, DC, suburbs. A garish McMansion in the leafy inner ring will fetch far more than a charming bungalow out by Harper’s Ferry. If suburban Northern Virginia has an architectural signifier, it’s a faux-colonial style that vaguely evokes the region’s fading Southern character.
Phoning it in: Toothless phone bans reveal the new education class divide
Quick, what issue unites Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom? You’d be hard-pressed to find many topics that the conservative stalwart and his progressive counterpart agree on, but the Florida and California governors have both signed bills that restrict phone use in public schools. Ohio, South Carolina, and several other states have recently followed suit. A rare moment of bipartisan comity seems poised to upend our previously lax approach to social media-addled children.
A dull blade - Washington Examiner
In the space of a few decades, fantasy has transformed from a vaguely disreputable genre to a multibillion-dollar behemoth that touches everything from film to television to miniature wargaming. Gone are the days of misanthropes digging through stacks of tattered paperbacks in the back of used bookstores. Modern fantasy novels rate glossy covers, Hollywood adaptations, and chin-scratching considerations in prestige media. What happened?
A hollow victory for Olaf Scholz in Brandenburg’s state elections
In what will surely come as a relief to the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, his SPD party has won this weekend’s state elections in Brandenburg. Securing themselves another term in power, the party squeaked past the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) with 30.7 percent of the vote. The AfD missed out by just 1.2 percentage points — less than 26,000 votes — with 29.5 percent of the vote, denying them the chance of a second victory at state level in three weeks.
France is tiring of Emmanuel Macron
France can’t go on like this. The country, and its overseas territories, are in chaos. On Wednesday night two men in New Caledonia were shot dead by security forces after a confrontation on the Pacific Island. The insurgency began in May and shows no sign of abating with the rebels determined to gain their independence from France. In total, thirteen people have been killed and the damaged caused in the uprising is estimated to be €2.2 billion ($2.45 billion) and rising.
The Kremlin effort to ruin Europeans’ weekends
When is slower internet better than none at all? When are travel delays more serious a political challenge than threats of nuclear war? These questions acquired particular significance with the news that Stockholm’s Arlanda airport was temporarily closed this week when several drones intruded into its airspace. Investigations are still in progress, but the police are suggesting this was deliberate sabotage and suspicion is already falling on Moscow.
Starmer’s Labour begins to administer its bitter medicine
Following a vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 10 million pensioners will have their £200-300 fuel allowance cut this winter, thanks to Sir Keir Starmer’s austerity programme. From starving kids, to freezing old-age pensioners to death: aren’t we glad the ‘grownups’ are back in Downing Street! Difficult for who?
The end of the Orbán era
Over the headline “Peace Mission,” a recent cover from the conservative Hungarian periodical Mandiner shows an awkwardly photoshopped Viktor Orbán mediating between a bemused-looking Vladimir Putin and a grim Volodymyr Zelensky. Behind Orbán, a map of the world connects Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing, Washington and Budapest. One of these capitals, as they say, is not like the others.
Natural wine and tacos on the Hungarian Riviera
In the summer of 2020, as impatience with quarantine and the urge to get out of town gradually displaced fears of Covid, a joke circulated on Hungarian social media about Lake Balaton, a favorite destination for domestic holidaygoers. The post-quarantine stampede had driven up prices at the lake to such an extent, the joke went, that penny-pinching travelers should consider less expensive destinations, such as Monaco or the French Riviera.
La Guerra de Liberación de 1971 y la revolución inconclusa de Bangladesh
Details Hoy, Bangladesh brilla con el calor blanco de la revolución. Las masas han vuelto a entrar en la escena de la lucha. Están redescubriendo una rica tradición revolucionaria que se remonta a décadas atrás. En realidad, las tareas de esta revolución son las tareas inacabadas de una revolución inacabada, que comenzó hace más de cincuenta años y culminó en la Guerra de Independencia contra la dominación de Pakistán en 1971.
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