In fact, I am more convinced than ever that Substack, X, Instagram, Tik Tok, and webzines have become nothing but another supply of bread and circuses. Many are the pompous ‘right wing’ ‘intellectuals’ who look down on the ‘normies’ who waste their time and energy watching ‘sportsball’ or Hollywood slop, yet there is a strong case to be made that those very intellectuals waste their own time and energy by reacting to news items, posting ‘hot take’ wankery (which often contradicts the hot take wankery they posted a month prior), talking for hours into microphones on their livestreams and podcasts on the fringes of the Internet, and repeating the same arguments and talking points simply because they must put out CONTENT. It’s all become a distraction, at best, and an exploitation of our predicament and our suffering at worst.

I have participated in the production of this circus myself, although I’ve always tried to make sure that what I produced had some value or purpose. I’ve also tried to maintain a balance between realism and that thing that Oswald Spengler associated with cowardice: optimism. I often used the metaphor of a general in the trenches on the eve of a battle against a much superior enemy. He is well-aware that he and his men have little chance, but he has a duty to keep morale up, or at the very least, not demoralise his soldiers.

But the scales are ever more weighed down on the side of realism. Friends, I’ve been Pox Populi since 2018. There are others who have been tirelessly working for this cause of ours since 2008, 1998, 1988, and so on. Have things improved or worsened? Be honest. I’ve heard several people say that things have improved, because a Tik Tok video on Israeli evildoings got ten thousand likes, or because a poll showed 70% of Europeans across the continent are fed up with immigration. I, too, have cited such things as the Irish resistance to mass immigration or the electoral trends in Italy as reasons to be optimistic, but there have been times in which grasping for something to feel good about ultimately left me feeling a bit like a salesman hawking a product he knows is mediocre. Because while the Tik Tok videos about Israel’s crimes are getting ten thousand likes, our towns are getting ten thousand new migrants from the third world. While the White House’s X account is posting ‘based memes’, our children, grandmothers, and even our pets are still being victimised by violent invaders who have no right to be anywhere near our homelands. While the media and political establishment constantly warn that the ‘far right’ is ‘on the rise’, in reality liberal-progressive politics, so-called ‘anti-racism’ ideology (which is simply anti-white ideology), white erasure, and immigration zealotry, have never been more unassailably strong.

Polling data showing overwhelming opposition to those migrants’ arrival, exhaustive analysis demonstrating that this ‘endless stream’ of immigration (as Joe Biden put it) has been utterly disastrous, example after example of migrant-caused crime and degradation, and an endless supply of essays, livestreams, and social media posts, have done nothing to stop it…

…for decades now.

Not only has there been an absolute failure to stop the invasion, the invasion has been intensified and legitimised. As if it were not enough to have thrown open the gates of Europe to hordes of ‘refugees’ from the Middle East and Africa over the last ten to fifteen years, now the European Commission is striking deals to import who knows how many Indians. Spain, a country seemingly trapped forever in the clutches of leftist PSOE zealots, recently moved to give legal residency to half a million migrants who entered Spain illegally, meanwhile the ‘conservative’ president of Madrid region repeatedly boasts about how she has transformed Madrid city into a diverse melting pot where native Spaniards are now the minority in several neighbourhoods.

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For a writer and commentator, not much feels better than seeing your words proven relevant and true in your own time. This year’s events have vindicated much of what I wrote in the essays Globalism As Americanism, Trump & I, and Are Americans Europeans?, and much of what I have been saying for years through various other channels and platforms.

Trump’s second stint in the White House has been full of the expected boorish bravado, but a boorish bravado that came with some unexpected consequences. Trump’s huffing about annexing Canada, puffing about taking Greenland from Denmark “one way or another”, and whining about Europe treating the US “unfairly”, was met with frenzied adulation from the MAGA crowd, and, depressingly, even from numerous Canadians and Europeans. Brow-beaten and demoralised by their own governments, hoodwinked and manipulated by the American mediatic machine, these people actually think that the American “experiment” waddling over and consuming them like a plate of Freedom Fries would be a good thing. In reality, the last 80 years (at least) show that nothing good comes from hitching your fate to the United States, and the weeks following Trump’s reentry to the White House put Americans’ festering hatred of Europeans on full display, finally, for all to see. Or at least, for all those who are willing to see it.

Stimulated by Trump, JD (what a name for a statesman) Vance, Elon Musk, and their innumerable courtesans across social media, Americans’ long-repressed resentment and disdain towards the Old Continent and its people was finally released in a sickly orgasm of venomous insults and inane jingoism.

In brief, Americans’ honest appraisal of Europeans is this: they are simultaneously weak cucks who don’t have any firearms and allow their children to be raped by Muslim invaders while also being violent bloodthirsty savages who would be in a state of perpetual war were it not for the Pax Americana. Europeans are also lazy, good-for-nothing scroungers, bathing under the sun of “American protection” while enjoying free healthcare, siestas, and closing their shops on Sundays.

Since January 20th, Americans, from the Commander-in-Chief in the Oval Office (again, what ridiculous names), to the average Joe in his living room, have repeatedly proclaimed that Europeans are “bad allies”. Donald Trump, his administration, and that most loutish of all creatures, the American conservative media personality, have stoked this delusion. Trump himself has said on multiple occasions that the European Union was specifically created to take advantage of the United States. Every single one of these statements on Europe and her people is false, but before we dismantle them, a short history lesson is in order.

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Just one attack like this should have been sufficient to close the borders; expel every Muslim, every non-European, every fake refugee, and create Fortress Europa; and punish—in the most terrifying spectacle since 1789—every single person who created the conditions for November 13, 2015.

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Italian tennis is in the midst of a golden age. It’s about damn time, too. For a country where tennis is quite popular, Italy has produced a disappointingly low number of tennis greats.

In the early 2000s and into the 2010s, Italy’s women finally started soaring to unreached heights. I…

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When she first landed in America, alongside her brother and sister and her mother, maybe she was nervous. Maybe she was hopeful. Maybe she was sad. Her English wasn’t that great. She would have struggled to communicate, to express herself, to understand. Surrounded by people talking, to her it would have all seemed like inane babble. She would have felt alone.

She probably felt embarrassed so many times. English pronunciation is torturously tricky and makes no sense. Hear, here, bear, beer, beard…and don’t even get started on phrasal verbs! But she didn’t get discouraged. Maybe she used a language learning app. Maybe she put on her headphones and practiced her English while riding the bus to and from Zeppedie’s.

What other marvels, curiosities, and hardships did she meet? Maybe she was surprised at the hustle and bustle of being a waitress. Always having to pay attention to everything, even the smallest details like filling up customers’ cups of soda. In Ukraine, if you want another drink you have to order one. In America, they give you free refills! Maybe when she and her family went out to eat, they were astonished by the size of the portions. And why do they put bacon in everything? Who cares! It’s tasty.

Like so many young people in her new country, Iryna worked at a restaurant just to earn some pocket money, to get by while pursuing a greater ambition. Iryna wanted to become a veterinary assistant. She loved animals. She would sometimes take her neighbours’ dogs for walks.

Beside her mother and her siblings, Iryna had a boyfriend named Stas. They had been together for some time. Perhaps they were both too young to be thinking about getting married and starting a family. The new generations leave that so late nowadays. But maybe they did think about it. They certainly look in love in their pictures together. Maybe they had doubts. Maybe Iryna had doubts. Do I want to stay in Charlotte forever? Do I want to stay in America forever? I miss home. I miss Тато. Due to Ukraine’s edict prohibiting fighting age men from leaving the country, Iryna’s father Stanislav was unable to accompany his wife and children to North Carolina.

Maybe, while riding that bus, Iryna put in her headphones and watched Tik Tok videos or listened to music just to block out all her doubts and melancholy.

But, she might have told herself, look on the bright side, using another English expression she learned. At least in America she was safe. The Russian drones couldn’t strike her there. And the people in Charlotte are nice. At the pizzeria, customers might have heard her accent and asked where she’s from. “I’m from Ukraine,” she’d say. “Oh wow!” Would come the response reflexively. “Welcome to America!”

On the night of August 22, when Iryna had just finished another shift at the restaurant and boarded the bus to take her back to the apartment block she called home, maybe a thought fluttered, faintly, in her mind. Just take it one step, one day at a time. Everything will be fine in the end. You’ll see. Don’t worry.

"The forecast is looking pretty cloudy for Zion," wrote Beau Albrecht.

"A Post-Jewish Question Plan of Action" is the title of Morris van de Camp's contribution to this topic, as if the era of Jewish power were already well and truly behind us.

These are rather surprising presumptions, to say the least. Before going any further, I must say that the facts Albrecht, Costello, and van de Camp present in their pieces are true. It is true that more people are publicly objecting to Israel's butchering of civilians in Gaza. It is true that more Americans are noticing and unhappy with the United States' bizarre devotion to Israel. It is true that younger generations aren't as fond of Israel as their elders. The problem, as I see it, is that none of these truths matter, or at least, they don't matter as much as the three gentlemen make it seem. On top of that, there are some other truths that must be taken into consideration.

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The referendum, paid for at…

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“Habemus ReSum,” declared Andrea Ballarati from the stage of the Teatro Condominio di Gallarate, inspired by the recent selection of a new pope. The young Lombard was not alone in comparing the 2025 Remigration Summit (occasionally referred to as ReSum, for short) to the papal conclave. Italian media had labelled the gathering a “conclave of extreme right-wingers” who had made a “pilgrimage” to the Teatro. Ballarati, one of the event’s chief organisers and its Master of Ceremonies, was described by Huffpost Italy as a “prophet” of remigration. The Remigration Summit and the papal conclave even shared in common a significant security presence and media frenzy.

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This new version, a 6-episode series, makes a simultaneously ostentatious yet somewhat disappointing effort to reach the standard of Visconti, and of the novel itself. However, it has some redeeming qualities.

Given that this is a Netflix production, the complete absence of black actors in the cast is a happenstance as rare and marvellous as a total solar eclipse. Some might say that for a series based on a story set during the Risorgimento, having no non-European actors is the least audiences should expect and is in no way worthy of praise; and they’d be right, but such are the times we live in that it is a refreshing relief to be able to watch a film or series without being jolted by “diversity” casting. Putting aside the jokes and misconceptions about Sicilians peddled by those who believe the True Romance version of history, Tomasi di Lampedusa’s characters are all portrayed as they ought to be, more or less—that is to say, they are all Europeans mostly from Italy, alongside a handful of Italian-speaking actors from elsewhere.

The main characters are the members of the aristocratic Salina family, led by their patriarch and eponymous “Leopard”: Prince Fabrizio Corbera di Salina. In the 1963 film, Burt Lancaster played Don Fabrizio. Now he is played by Italo-Scottish actor Kim Rossi Stuart. It was a good casting choice. Both Rossi Stuart and Lancaster stand over 6 feet tall and have the same grey-blue eyes to match Tomasi di Lampedusa’s original description of his towering, formidable principe. Rossi Stuart exceeds Lancaster in a way because he is better able to capture certain Italian mannerisms. In a few scenes from the 1963 movie, Lancaster waves his hand in salutation in an accurate manner, but little else apart from that. In the Italian version of Visconti’s The Leopard, Burt Lancaster’s voice is dubbed over by an Italian voice actor, so while the intonation of Lancaster’s Fabrizio might be a bit more authentic, the physical elements of facial expressions and gesticulation are less so, which can create a sense of incongruity.

Don Fabrizio has a cherished nephew, named Tancredi Falconeri. Here, both the portrayal of their relationship and the casting choice are superior in the 1963 version. Alain Delon played Tancredi, and there is simply no one on Earth, neither in Delon’s own time, nor after, who can match his looks. This is no minor detail, no vanity. Tancredi is meant to be so handsome, so debonair, and so charming, that to be with him is like tasting marsala wine, and to be with any man after him is like tasting water. Saul Nanni, who plays Tancredi in the Netflix adaptation, is not a bad actor and from certain angles and in certain lighting, does manage to recall a bit of the dashing Delon (something that was probably done intentionally on the part of the director and cinematographer). Delon, however, managed to reflect his character’s passion and youthful idealism in a more captivating way. Delon’s Tancredi flashes a mischievous smile more often, and Visconti shows us Delon’s Tancredi rallying his comrades and running bravely into battle during Garibaldi’s sack of Palermo.

Showing, not telling, is a skill that seems to be increasingly lost amongst today’s film-makers. Let’s compare the way Visconti’s film and the Netflix series introduce the supremely important relationship between Prince Fabrizio and Tancredi. In the Netflix series, there are several scenes in which the characters talk about how much Fabrizio loves Tancredi. They talk about how Fabrizio adores the lad despite the fact that his nephew has sided with Garibaldi’s camicie rosse, even though they pose a direct threat to Bourbon loyalists like the Salina family (the unification of Italy was…complicated). We don’t actually see Fabrizio and Tancredi together until the second episode, when the Leopard finds his nephew in a jail cell along with other garibaldini.

This is an immense departure from the way Visconti first shows us these two. In the film, the vibrant dandy Tancredi walks into the prince’s luminous washing room while he is shaving and greets him with a cheerful “Buongiorno zione!”, an affectionate term for uncle that reveals an informal and close relationship.

We see Tancredi’s face reflected in Fabrizio’s mirror, their blue eyes looking back at each other. Tancredi is Fabrizio and Fabrizio is Tancredi, or at least that is what Fabrizio hopes for and feels in his heart. As the scene progresses, Tancredi lingers in the washing room, talking with his uncle and always looking at him, like a little boy curiously watches and innocently pesters his father while he is shaving. Rather than expository dialogue telling us, we can see for ourselves the father-son, mentor-ward, prince-heir relationship. Film is a visual medium, and in Visconti’sThe Leopard, there is no shortage of meaningful and sumptuous visuals.

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Il suo libro è una raccolta dei numerosi attacchi verso le donne in Italia e nel resto d'Europa che sono avvenuti negli scorsi dieci anni circa, e che sono stati commessi da immigrati uomini. È un libro necessario. Così tanti di questi crimini sono sottostimati o del tutto non segnalati, i nomi delle vittime taciuti o dimenticati, così come i nomi dei criminali. Il libro della Totolo sembra molto un “thread” su X. È in larga parte costituito da dati: il giorno e i tetri dettagli di un omicidio qui, di uno stupro là. Le informazioni sono in larga parte illustrate in brevi paragrafi. Ogni paragrafo racconta la storia di un atto criminale contro le donne, per poi passare al seguente paragrafo che ne racconta un altro.

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La composizione de Le vite delle donne contano ricorda il libro del 2017 di Douglas Murray, La strana morte dell'Europa, in particolare il capitolo intitolato “Imparare a convivere con l'immigrazione.” Tale capitolo è un resoconto per filo e per segno di alcuni dei più raccapriccianti crimini commesi da cosiddetti rifugiati e immigrati nelle terre europee. Tuttavia, se il libro di Murray presentava storie ed interviste personali con persone da ogni fase del processo migratorio, con l'aggiunta della prosa coinvolgente di Murray, il libro della Totolo è in larga parte nient'altro che un resoconto di fatti nudi e crudi. È stato detto che "facts don't care about feelings," ai fatti non importa dei sentimenti, ma vale la pena ricordare che ai sentimenti non importa dei fatti.

Viviamo in un'epoca ossessionata con i dati. A chiunque piace giocare allo statistico da tavolino. Una rapida occhiata su internet permette di trovare tutte le informazioni necessarie per fingersi un esperto su qualcosa. Alla fine, tutte le percentuali, tabelle, grafici, e analisi dei dati ammontano a nient'altro che clamore. La maggior parte della gente semplicemente non si fa influenzare dai fatti. Quando si tratta delle conseguenze delle disastrose politiche migratorie europee del “frontiere aperte,” le fredde statistiche importano ancora meno. Un grafico che mostra la grottesca sovrarappresentazione degli afgani nei casi di violenza sessuale in tutta Europa non è niente in confronto alla foto di un “rifugiato” bambino steso senza vita su una spiaggia, annegato insieme alle sue speranze di raggiungere “una vita migliore.” La destra nazionalista ha fallito nel cogliere il potere dei sentimenti e della narrazione. Le vite delle donne contano contiene in effetti un potente messaggio emotivo, ma non arriva dalle parole della Totolo. Arriva, piuttosto, da Alessandra Verni, la madre di Pamela Mastropietro. Pamela aveva 18 anni quando venne stuprata, ammazzata, e fatta a pezzi da uno spacciatore dalla Nigeria, dall'assai ironico nome Innocent Oseghale. Nella postfazione della Verni, ci viene fatto intravedere il vero dolore e la vera sofferenza umana che il “refugees welcome” e altre allucinazioni immigrazioniste hanno causato.

Un'altra manchevolezza del libro si intuisce dal titolo stesso. La Totolo ha scelto di focalizzarsi esclusivamente sulla violenza contro le donne. Tutti gli uomini e i ragazzini (e ce ne sono molti) che sono stati ammazzati, e anche stuprati, da immigrati del terzo mondo non sono menzionati. “Le vite delle donne contano,” ma davvero serve che ci venga detto? La nostra società valorizza di già le donne e le ragazze più degli uomini e dei ragazzi.

Mi permetto di condividere un breve aneddoto. All'annuncio del titolo del suo libro nel canale Telegram di Francesca Totolo, uno dei suoi “follower” chiese, “E le vite dei maschi? Quelle non contano?” La sua domanda ricevette una risposta di scherno da qualcuno, lo chiameremo Marco, che derideva l'idea stessa che gli uomini e i ragazzini pure fossero vittime del crimine degli immigrati. Osservai il loro botta e risposta per un po', e poi decisi di aggiungermi. Pur concedendo che le donne e le ragazze sono più probabili vittime di violenza sessuale, mostrai a Marco svariati esempi di uomini e ragazzi che sono stati ammazzati, alcuni anche stuprati, da migranti del terzo mondo in Europa. Marco continuò non solo a non prendere in considerazione questi esempi, ma rise pure di loro, replicando con emoji ridenti ad ogni storia della morte di un ragazzo per mano di un invasore straniero. Un giovane uomo picchiato, accoltellato, o fatto a pezzi è insignificante e indegno di notizia perché, agli occhi di Marco, succede così raramente. Gli attacchi contro le donne sono ciò che importa veramente. Non potrebbe avere più torto riguardo a ciò, ma la scelta di titolo e di tema della Totolo non faranno niente per fargli cambiare idea e fargli importare delle vite dei figli d'Europa.

Anzi, un altro difetto del suo libro è che non è nemmeno veramente sulla violenza contro le figlie d'Europa. Le vite delle donne contano cita vari esempi di uomini stranieri che ammazzano o mutilano le loro mogli o ex-fidanzate straniere. Mi spiace, ma non mi interessa che un indiano ha dato fuoco alla sua moglie indiana. Mi importa solo che è successo in Italia. Né il marito né sua moglie dovrebbero essere in alcun paese europeo. Certamente non mi interessa di più di una donna indiana che di un ragazzo tedesco picchiato a morte da gang di immigrati. Il libro della Totolo ignora Arthur Leven, Thomas Perotto, Dominique Bernard, il bambino austriaco stuprato in una piscina pubblica, e così tanti altri, per raccontarci invece della sofferenza di donne pakistane o cingalesi per mano dei loro mariti.

Magari dal punto di vista della Totolo le storie di queste donne straniere servono a rinforzare il suo discorso generale, cioè che l'Italia e il resto dell'Europa hanno importato in massa nelle loro società gente genuinamente misogina. Ciò non è esattamente una scoperta rivoluzionaria. Il libro della Totolo fa frequente riferimento ad Ayan Hirsi Ali. Ali è una dei tanti conservatori che basano la propria opposizione all'immigrazione di massa sul trattamento delle donne nella cultura islamica. È un modo relativamente cauto di opporsi all'immigrazione senza toccare i temi tabù delle differenze razziali e della sostituzione demografica, così da assicurarsi che verrai ancora invitato ai cocktail party con Jordan Peterson e altre celebrità della cosiddetta destra.

Non voglio sembrare eccessivamente duro nei confronti di Francesca Totolo o del suo libro. La Totolo è ottima sui suoi profili social. È ben consapevole della sostituzione etnica che sta avvenendo in Italia e in tutta l'Europa occidentale e non rifugge dal denunciarla. È altresì a conoscenza dei casi di migranti che uccidono e mutilano dei ragazzi. È precisamente per questo che sono rimasto deluso dai contenuti e dallo stile del suo libro.

Le vite delle donne contano cerca di impartire informazioni. Su tale fronte, è di successo. Fui sorpreso quando venni a sapere che, a causa dell'immigrazione di massa dal terzo mondo islamico, la legislatura italiana dovette introdurre divieti sui matrimoni forzati.

Un filo conduttore che unisce così tanti dei casi di stupro e omicidio è la conoscenza anticipata ed impotenza della polizia e del sistema giudiziario italiani. In più di un'occasione, uno straniero che avrebbe poi ammazzato una donna era stato segnalato, a volte dalla sua stessa famiglia, alla polizia. La polizia rispondeva dicendo che, fino a che l'uomo avesse commesso un crimine, non c'era niente che potessero farci.

Un'altra caratteristica comune in diversi casi è la fine brutalmente violenta fatta da giovani donne europee per mano dei loro fidanzati stranieri. La Totolo non dice mai nulla di esplicito. Lascia che i dati parlino per lei, ma il messaggio non potrebbe essere più chiaro: non lasciate uscire le vostre figlie con uomini dall'Africa, dal Medio Oriente, o dal subcontinente indiano.

Non mi sorprese, ma comunque mi inorridì, l'apprendere che il 39% dei detenuti nelle prigioni italiane provengono dal Nordafrica, gli stessi paesi magrebini da cui proviene la maggior parte della recente migrazione verso l'Italia. In quanto al crimine giovanile, è ancora più allarmante. Al gennaio 2024, il 51% dei detenuti minorenni sono stranieri. Di quel 51%, il 77% provengono dal Nordafrica. Queste percentuali non includono nordafricani che hanno ottenuto la cittadinanza italiana e che vengono quindi classificati come italiani.

La Totolo fa anche molto bene nel rimproverare alle femministe italiane la loro deliberata cecità e rivoltante ipocrisia. Di più, arriva a considerare le femministe direttamente responsabili per molti dei massacri in Europa. È, senza dubbio, corretta nel farlo.

Uno degli esempi più disgustosi è il caso di Iris Setti, una nonna sessantunenne che fu aggredita sessualmente e poi uccisa da un nigeriano chiamato Chukwuka Nweke.

Prima di ammazzare la signora Setti, Nweke aveva già commesso una serie di crimini. Il magistrato locale, una donna chiamata Viviana Del Tedesco, determinò che Nweke non meritava la galera e lo rilasciò invece di nuovo per strada. Spiegò questa decisione dicendo che Nweke “era collaborativo, una persona assolutamente corretta,” che aveva “un fisico spettacolare” e “doveva andare a fare le Olimpiadi.”

A sette anni da La strana morte dell'Europa, è un misto tra l'essere assurdo e il far infuriare che libri come Le vite delle donne contano possano e debbano ancora essere scritti. Sembra che nessun ammontare di sacrifici di sangue soddisferà i fanatici delle frontiere aperte e della diversità. Fino a quando non saranno fermati e puniti, e i detriti umani a cui hanno permesso di insuinarsi nelle nostre madrepatrie rastrellati così da potersene sbarazzare, più nonne, figlie, mogli, e figli, continueranno ad essere massacrati.

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The less said about women politicians, the better. There are a few who are not terrible, but women stuffing themselves into pantsuits and entering the political arena has had a mostly corrosive effect on politics, civilisation, and women themselves.

My readers may have noticed that I didn’t write much about Donald Trump or the elections in the United States. In fact, the only time I did was to criticise Trump’s proposed immigration policy.

I don’t live in the United States. It makes about as much sense for me to obsess over American politics and presidential elections as it does for me to do the same over politics in Germany. In fact, it makes even less sense. I live in Europe. What happens in Germany is of more importance, simply because of proximity.

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Her book is a compilation of the numerous attacks on women in Italy and the rest of Europe which have occurred over the past ten years or so, and which were perpetrated by migrant men. It is a necessary book. So many of these crimes go underreported or unreported entirely, the names of the victims unsaid or forgotten, along with the names of the criminals. Totolo’s book reads much like a thread on X. It is mostly comprised of data: the date and grim details of a murder here, a rape there. The data is mostly conveyed in short paragraphs. Each paragraph tells the story of an act of crime against women, before moving onto the next paragraph which recounts another.

The composition of Le Vite delle Donne Contano recalls Douglas Murray’s 2017 book, The Strange Death of Europe, in particular the chapter entitled “Learning To Live With It”. Said chapter is a blow-by-blow account of some of the most gruesome crimes committed by so-called refugees and migrants to European lands. However, where Murray’s book featured personal stories and interviews with people from every stage of the migration process, along with Murray’s engaging prose, Totolo’s book is mostly just a report of cold hard facts. This could be considered a shortcoming. It’s been said that facts don’t care about feelings, but it’s worth remembering that feelings don’t care about facts.

We live in a data-obsessed age. Everyone likes to play armchair statistician. A quick glance across the Internet allows one to find all the information required to pretend to be an expert on something. In the end, all the percentages, charts, graphs, and data analysis amounts to nothing but noise. Most people just aren’t swayed by facts. When it comes to the consequences of Europe’s disastrous migration and open borders policies, cold statistics matter even less. A chart displaying the grotesque overrepresentation of Afghans in cases of sexual violence across Europe is nothing compared to the photo of a child “refugee” lying lifeless on a beach, drowned along with his hopes of reaching “a better life”. The nationalist right has failed to appreciate the power of feelings and of storytelling. Le Vite delle Donne Contano does feature a powerful emotional message, but it doesn’t come from Totolo’s words. It comes, rather, from Alessandra Verni, the mother of Pamela Mastropietro. Pamela was 18 years old when she was raped, murdered, and dismembered by a drug dealer from Nigeria, with the irony-laden name Innocent Oseghale. In Verni’s postface, we are given a brief glimpse at the real human pain and suffering “refugees welcome” and other immigration delusions have caused.

Another shortcoming of the book is hinted at by the title itself. Totolo chose to focus exclusively on violence against women. All the men and boys (and there are many) who have been murdered, and raped too, by third world migrants are not mentioned. “Women’s lives matter” but do we really need to be told that? Our society already values women and girls higher than men and boys.

Allow me to share a brief anecdote. Upon the announcement of her book’s title in Francesca Totolo’s Telegram group chat, one of her followers asked, “And the lives of males? Do they not matter?” His question was met with a derisive response by someone, we’ll call him Marco, who mocked the very idea that men and boys were also victims of migrant crime. I observed their back and forth for a bit, and then decided to join in. While conceding that women and girls are more likely to be victims of sexual violence, I provided Marco with several examples of men and boys who have been murdered, some also raped, by third world migrants to Europe. Marco continued not only to wave these examples away, but he also laughed at them, replying with laughing emojis to every story of a boy’s death at the hands of a foreign invader. A young man being beaten, stabbed, or hacked to pieces is insignificant and unworthy of reporting because, in Marco’s eyes, it’s so rare. The attacks on women are what really matter. He couldn’t be more wrong about this, but Totolo’s choice of title and subject will do nothing to change his mind and make him care about the lives of Europe’s sons.

In fact, another shortcoming of her book is that it’s not even really about the violence against Europe’s daughters. Le Vite delle Donne Contano cites several examples of foreign men killing or maiming their foreign wives or ex-girlfriends. Sorry, but I don’t care that an Indian man set his Indian wife on fire. I only care that it happened in Italy. Neither the husband nor his wife should be in any European country. I certainly don’t care more about an Indian woman than I do about a German boy beaten to death by migrant gangs. Totolo’s book ignores Arthur Leven, Thomas Perotto, Dominque Bernard, the Austrian boy raped in a public bathhouse, and so many others, in order to tell us about the suffering of Pakistani and Sri Lankan women at the hands of their spouses.

Perhaps from Totolo’s perspective, the accounts of these foreign women serve to strengthen her overall point, which is that Italy and the rest of Europe have imported genuinely misogynistic people into their societies en masse. This is not exactly groundbreaking. Totolo’s book makes frequent reference to Ayan Hirsi Ali. Ali is one of many conservatives who base their opposition to mass immigration on the treatment of women in Islamic culture. It’s a relatively safe way to oppose immigration without touching the third rails of racial differences and demographic replacement, thereby ensuring that you’ll still be invited to cocktail parties with Chris Rufo and Jordan Peterson.

I don’t want to come across as being too hard on Francesca Totolo or her book. Totolo is very good on her social media accounts. She is well aware of the sostituzione etnica happening in Italy and all of Western Europe and does not shy away from denouncing it. She is also aware of the cases of migrants killing and maiming boys. It’s precisely because of that that I was disappointed by the contents and style of her book.

Le Vite delle Donne Contano seeks to impart information. On that front, it is successful. I was surprised to learn that, due to mass immigration from the Islamic third world, Italy’s legislature had to introduce prohibitions against forced marriages.

A common thread uniting so many of the cases of rape and murder is the foreknowledge and impotence of the police and Italian justice system. On more than one occasion, a foreign man who would go on to kill a woman was reported, sometimes by his own family, to police. The police would respond by saying that, until the man commits a crime, there is nothing they can do.

Another commonality in several cases is the brutally violent end young European women meet at the hands of their foreign boyfriends. Totolo never says anything explicit. She lets the data do the exposition, but the message couldn’t be clearer: do not let your daughters go out with men from Africa, the Middle East, or the Indian subcontinent.

I was not surprised, but still appalled, to learn that 39% of the inmates in Italian prisons come from North Africa, the same Maghrebi countries from which the majority of recent migration into Italy originates. At the level of juvenile crime, it’s even more alarming. As of January 2024, 51% of juvenile detainees are foreign. Of that 51%, 77% are from North Africa. These percentages will not include North Africans who have obtained Italian citizenship and are therefore classified as Italians.

Totolo also does a very good job taking Italy’s feminists to task for their wilful blindness and repulsive hypocrisy. Indeed, she goes so far as to hold feminists directly responsible for so much of the carnage in Europe. She is, without a doubt, correct to do so.

One of the most disgusting examples is the case of Iris Setti, a 61-year-old grandmother who was sexually assaulted and then killed by a Nigerian named Chukwuka Nweke.

Before murdering Mrs. Setti, Nweke had already committed a rash of crimes. The local magistrate, a woman named Viviana Del Tedesco, determined that Nweke did not deserve jail time and instead released him back onto the streets. She explained this decision by saying that Nweke “was collaborative”, a “well-behaved person”, that he “had such a spectacular physique” and “should have gone to Olympics”.

Seven years on from The Strange Death of Europe, it is a mix of absurd and enraging that books like Le Vita delle Donne Contano still can and must be written. It seems no amount of blood sacrifice will appease the open borders and diversity zealots. Until they are stopped and punished, and the human detritus they have allowed to waft into our homelands is collected and disposed of, more grandmothers, daughters, wives, and sons, will continue to be butchered.

• Is the cast “diverse” only in a way that comports with historical facts, contemporary realities, and/or source material?

• Is the film made with little to no CGI?

• Does the film edify the audience?

• Could the film be made today exactly as it was in its time? (Here, a negative answer is required.)

Remember, too, that the films in this series won’t necessarily be great ones. While there may be exceptions, don’t expect Oscar-winning movies or arthouse cinema. Indeed, some of the films in this series might struggle to qualify as good films, but they will have met the above criteria for being an edifying film from a time when movie-makers weren’t so terribly obsessed with subverting audiences, history, and source material..and nation-states for that matter. One of this type of movie is the next entry in our collection.

Boomers in Space!

Let us return to the year 2000, the dawn of the new millennium. Trepidation over Y2K has subsided and September 11, 2001 is yet to arrive. There is only the thrill of discoveries waiting to be made, horizons yearning to be reached. Space Cowboys was a summer “popcorn flick” that captured some of that expectant enthusiasm. It’s a film that returns the audience to America’s glory days, while showing that America is able to do the impossible even in the coming age.

Space Cowboys, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, tells the story of four old timers, veterans of the United States Air Force, and their unlikely mission into outer space.

It begins with a flashback to 1958. The aptly named William “Hawk” Hawkins and Frank Corvin are test-flying a Bell X-2 aircraft. Hawkins, later portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones, wants to push the machine to its very limits. While testing the speed and altitude capacities of the Bell X-2 is what they are supposed to do, Corvin, later played by Eastwood, isn’t too keen on destroying the plane or losing his life in the process.

But Hawk doesn’t listen to Corvin’s warnings. Instead, he looks longingly at the moon hanging in the daytime sky and tells his co-pilot, “That’s where we’re going. I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but…” he trails off and then starts singing Fly Me to the Moon.

Inevitably, Hawk pushes the plane too high and too fast. The engine stalls and the aircraft becomes unresponsive. Hawk and Corvin are forced to eject, and all the while the adrenaline-loving Hawkins keeps whoopin’ and hollerin’ in his Texas accent. Both pilots parachute to earth safely, but straight-laced Corvin is incensed and punches Hawk in a foreshadowing of many altercations to come.

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To ring in both the national holiday and commemorate Columbus’ voyage, Spanish national broadcaster RTVE aired a documentary which followed a group of geneticists led by José Antonio Lorente from the University of Granada. For 22 years, Lorente and his colleagues had been trying to determine, once and for all, the elusive identity of the man the Spanish call Cristóbal Colón.

They studied hundreds of documents and forensically examined the remains of the famous explorer. Early in their investigation, they agreed that there were no fewer than 25 different possible origins for Columbus, including Galicia, Valencia, and of course, Genoa. These 25 possibilities were whittled down to 8 plausibilities. Eventually, DNA research led by Francesc Albardaner from the Centre d’Estudis Colombins de Barcelona narrowed it down to just one.

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In the end it was a futile attempt to shield my soul. One has to pass through a major city at some point (that’s where the airports are, after all), and I ended up spending two days in Cork, another city I spent a lot of time in long ago and of which I have fond memories. Such was the assault on my senses and sensibilities that at one point while walking along the high street, I had to turn to the missus and suggest we just go back to the hostel. From the Penneys on Saint Patrick’s Street with its massive posters of a black family dressed up in Christmas pyjamas, to the buskers on corners waving Palestinian flags and singing the billionth terrible rendition of “Zombie”, to the overwhelming sense that there were no more Irish people in the city–not even in the areas far from the tourist zones–it all just became a bit too much for me.

Given how much seeing the changes in Cork affected me, I suppose I’m grateful that I didn’t go to Dublin. It would have been even worse. Especially because had I gone there, I would have immediately headed straight for my favourite Dublin watering hole, Hughes Pub, only to have been crushed upon discovering that Hughes is no more. Instead, I found out that the pub had closed while sat on board a transatlantic Aer Lingus flight.

I really do get the feeling that the world has passed me by. It’s fine, I sort of let it, but it does create some moments of disorientation and surprises, sometimes pleasant ones…often unpleasant ones. I hadn’t flown a “long haul” in quite a while, so I was surprised to discover that all the seats now had screens on the back of them beaming a vast array of distractions and entertainment right into the passengers’ eyeballs from a distance of a few inches. And it was all free! For the first couple hours of the flight, I had no interest in watching any of the films, and there was an astonishing number to choose from. Even as all the screens around me were lit up with explosions, cartoons with flashing neon colours, and, rather awkward, sex scenes, I stoically ignored the black square in front of my face. Eventually, however, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a passenger scrolling through the library of films to choose from and I spied Brendan Gleeson’s big bearded mug on something called Farewell to Hughes. That got my attention.

Strangely, I instantly knew what the title was referring to, what the film would be about…but I didn’t want it to be true. I told myself it couldn’t be. But there was no getting around it. My heart sank and my brow furrowed. Farewell to Hughes was about Hughes Pub, and Hughes Pub has closed.

“Everybody’s Changing and I Don’t Feel the Same”

Why would they make a film about a pub? Well, Hughes wasn’t just “a pub”. Not in these days.

Another reason why I don’t like big cities is that they are all so much the same now. There’s hardly anything to separate them, apart from a few historic and unique monuments. All major cities today, Dublin included, are chock full of the same multinational shops, the same American fast-food joints, the same nondescript steel and glass canyons, the same “diverse” people wearing the same uniform of hoodies and jeans or, if they’re female, skin-tight spandex bottoms. That the most unathletic people persist in wearing athletic apparel is one of modernity’s cruellest tortures.

Pubs have not fared any better in the face of this global conformity. So many pubs across Ireland and Britain are now soulless, cheerless, boring haunts. Even the small pubs in small towns. Attempting to imitate the pubs of old which these new upstart pubs have replaced, they all end up featuring the same kitschy design, the same “vintage” Guinness posters that can be found in every tourist shop are in every faux old-fashioned pub. These decorations are a small mercy compared to the modern tat. Old pubs had paintings and books on the walls. Today’s pubs are festooned in strings with little green triangles bearing the Heineken logo and other corporate sponsored crap, almost always featuring images of a black male/white female couple laughing it up. I wonder if 70 years from now, the pubs of the future will even bother trying to imitate the interior design of pubs in the 2000s. Actually, I wonder if 70 years from now, there will be pubs at all.

Provincial and national governments are smothering pub owners and pub goers with suffocating restrictions, making it all the more difficult for the auld pubs to get by. Many of them can’t, so one by one, they’re starting to fade away. The cost of a pint, too, is simply outrageous. I’ve heard it said, and experience has often proven it true, that Irish beer and whiskey is more expensive in Ireland than it is outside of it.

Another reason, in my opinion: television. No, not people staying at home to watch television. Television inside the pub. I don’t live in Ireland so I don’t know for how long this has been going on, but during my last trip to Ireland I don’t think I stepped into a single pub that did not have at least one television screen clinging to a wall or perched on a shelf.

Like Gandalf in Moria, when I was last in Ireland I realised that I had no memory of this place. In my mind, I still see myself sat in pubs where there are no televisions, certainly not multiple giant televisions with English Premier League football and RTÉ news on full blast. The pubs I remember were smokey, creaky, maybe even musty. The only noise came from the people inside. If there was music, it didn’t come from a loudspeaker behind the bar blaring out the Top 40 hits from America. It came from musicians in the corner having a session. Granted, I looked for these kinds of pubs specifically, and while I know that sports bars and the like have been ever-present for ages now, and the pubs have been becoming more like the franchise bars in America with their plethora of screens and loud piped music, nevertheless I was still taken aback by how even modest, antiquated pubs had one or two TVs switched on.

Hughes Pub was not like these modern desecrations. Hughes was a remnant from the old school. Groaning wooden floors, coloured glass windows, no televisions, and musicians playing tunes. When I was a young man sojourning in Dublin, I spent many a day and night in Hughes. I spent so much time there that when I returned to Dublin in 2017, the owner Michael Hughes, who ran the pub and tended the bar until his death, said he recognised me. Perhaps he was just humouring me.

The Hughes family put their name to the pub in 1953, when Michael’s father, Martin, bought it. It stood on Chancery Street, next to the Four Courts. Many who came to sip a pint or two or have a bite to eat were barristers, solicitors, maybe even defendants! One quiet night, I was sitting at a low table near the bar, writing in a journal, when one such solicitor walked up to me and said, “May I ask what you’re writing?” We ended up having a brilliant little chat and became friends, frequently meeting up at Hughes.

As I lingered in Dublin town, I brought dates to Hughes. It was a great place to test a girl. If she dug the place, excellent sign. If she found it odd or boring, no need to waste time on more dates. As it did for so many others, Hughes Pub became my little escape route to a bygone world, a world where people were trusting and trustworthy, interesting and witty, where fiddlers and pipers cast musical magic spells, and the pints were poured properly.

One such person to whom Hughes meant a great deal is the actor Brendan Gleeson. Apparently, the place meant so much to him that he agreed to star in a little documentary dedicated to it. I say “apparently” because I really don’t know how often Gleeson darkened Hughes’s door, nor how much he really cared about the pub.

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The selected films will have met specific criteria:

• Is the cast “diverse” only in a way that comports with historical facts, contemporary realities, and/or source material?

• Is the film made with little to no CGI?

• Does the film edify the audience?

• Could the film be made today exactly as it was in its time? (Here, a negative answer is required.)

The first entry in this series fittingly has the word “First” in its title. Ladies and gentlemen, First Knight.

First Knight is a 1995 film starring Sean Connery as King Arthur, Richard Gere as Lancelot, and Julia Ormond as Guinevere. William Nicholson, who also wrote Gladiator, is credited with the story and the screenplay. The director was Jerry Zucker.

The plot is not overly complex. A period of warfare has recently come to an end. Arthur of Camelot emerged the victor and now seeks to build a realm of unity, peace, and justice. He would also like a wife. Sadly, in the early medieval times no tranquility lasted long. Arthur may be the king in Camelot, but there are still other kings and rivals who would try to take his own throne. One of these is named Prince Malagant, played by Ben Cross. The film’s opening title sequence, written in curvy, faux-medieval script, glides over a backdrop of green hills, and tells us: And then there was Lancelot, a wanderer who had never dreamed of peace or justice or knighthood.

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The opening scene shows Lancelot at work making his living. He seems to be a sort of travelling performer, but instead of plucking a lute, Lancelot goes from town to town and village to village challenging people to sword fights. It’s doubtable that such a job ever existed in the early Middle Ages, or whatever unspecified medieval time period First Knight places us in, and since the film strives for realism (there is no Lady of the Lake, Holy Grail, Merlin, or any magic whatsoever), Lancelot’s somewhat inauthentic occupation could be criticised as a failing.

Ignoring the plausibility of the opening scene, one can admit that it is at least entertaining, even memorable. After having easily bested one of the local villagers in duel (not to the death, obviously), Lancelot calls out for another challenger, tempting them with a pouch full of coins. “Winner takes all, my friends, winner takes all!”

British audiences might be amused at the sight of a young Rob Brydon early in his acting career standing amongst the townsfolk. Then a giant of a man steps forward and unsheathes an imposing broadsword. English fencer Bob Anderson, who died in 2012 leaving behind a legacy as one of Hollywood’s foremost sword fighting choreographers, was hired to teach Richard Gere and other cast members the art of the blade. Not to take anything away from Anderson’s career and credentials, but let’s just say that it’s probably a good thing First Knight was made before HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) training became an increasingly popular niche hobby with dedicated practitioners who spend hours studying the ways men of the past used edged weapons, and then debating amongst themselves across dozens (perhaps hundreds) of YouTube channels.

The giant, named Mark, takes huge swings at Lancelot, prompting the latter to joke, “You don’t have to kill me to win, you know,” but we can tell that Lancelot’s life is never in danger. He’s too good. It’s not the most convincing bit of medieval swordplay you’ll ever see, but Lancelot sends Mark’s sword flying out of his hand with one swift motion. Speed and skill trump size and strength, but there is another factor in Lancelot’s favour.

“How did you do that?” Asks Mark. “Is that a trick?”

Lancelot explains that it’s no trick, it’s the way he fights.

“Could I do it?” Mark towers over Lancelot, but seems more like a child now, begging to learn from his older brother. “Tell me. I can learn!”

At the time of First Knight’s release, much was said about the decision to cast Richard Gere in this role. If you want a handsome knight, he has the looks, no question. Unfortunately, Gere never seems certain whether he wants to go for a standard “English accent” or just talk like the American that he is. He’s a great American leading man, but a knight from Arthurian legend? Despite his shortcomings in the role, in this opening scene he exudes the charisma that the casting director surely fell for, and delivers a truly great bit of dialogue.

Lancelot: You have to study your opponent, how he moves, so that you know what he’s going to do before he does it.

Mark (smiling): I can do that.

Lancelot: You have to know that one moment in every fight when you win or lose, and you have to know how to wait for it.

Mark (a bit more serious now): I can do that.

Lancelot: And you have to not care whether you live or die.

Mark’s face forms a mask of surprise, trepidation, and sombre understanding, then the camera cuts back to Richard Gere’s Lancelot, a wry, suave smile tugging at the ends of his mouth.

I can’t remember how old I was when I first saw First Knight, but I was very, very young. That line left an impression on me then and has continued to do so all the years since. Lancelot was a medieval pioneer of the “outcome independence” mentality. This is the idea of doing things without giving importance to your success or failure in them. Athletes, in particular, love the psychology of outcome independence. It helps them to achieve a state of “flow”, to “get in the zone”, that sweet spot where they don’t even think about what their bodies are doing. Every shot goes in the basket, every punch lands, every pass reaches its target, every serve is perfectly placed. “You have to not care whether you live or die” isn’t useful mindset only for swordsmen and athletes. It can apply to almost anything in daily life, especially talking to girls.

Lancelot rides off into the green countryside with his sword and the pouch full of coins. We the audience remain in Rob Brydon’s village. The opening credits begin to appear, then suddenly the film takes a horrific turn. The villagers with whom we were merrymaking and cheering on as they crossed blades with a dashing travelling duelist are attacked by a fearsome band of mounted warriors. They gallop down the hills and easily swarm into the defenceless village which is protected only by a watchtower.

Arrows hiss into villagers’ chests. Torches are flung onto thatched rooftops. Black-clad brigands seize shrieking women. The director and cinematographer make a point of letting the camera linger on a humble wooden cross atop the simple church as flames begin to consume it, one of many scenes putting Christian symbolism front and centre, and a shot which signals the villainy of these attackers.

With several townsfolk slain and even more buildings on fire, the leader of the raiders decides enough damage has been inflicted. He accuses the villagers of harbouring lawless men who crossed the border and attacked his clan, so in reprisal he has destroyed their village. Then he declares that he, Prince Malagant, is the law.

The scene fades to smouldering black and we then find ourselves amongst the stoneworks of a city called Lyonesse. First Knight was filmed on location in Britain and makes frequent and beautiful use of the marvellous countryside landscape. Most of the sets are real constructions built on location, with only very little (albeit noticeable) CGI employed mostly to create the big city of Camelot.

Among the other niceties of First Knight is the colourful palette the filmmakers worked with. In 1995, medieval films were not yet uniformly shot under a grey-blue fog, the actors not dressed in drab clothes and covered in dirt, like they are today. With First Knight, we get many scenes shot in glorious daytime sunshine. In Lyonesse, the people wear red and yellow dresses, jerkins, and robes. When we arrive in Camelot, we see the citizens there prefer to dress in various shades of blue, almost like they are wearing a uniform. It’s an interesting aesthetic decision, one which was taken in service to the primary themes First Knight is concerned with, which we will explore in greater detail later.

The Lady of Lyonesse, Guinevere, is seen playing a sort of primordial version of football with her kinfolk, but her game is interrupted by messengers bearing tidings of Malagant’s terrible attack on the nearby village. This is not the first time Malagant has sortied into Guinevere’s lands and wreaked havoc. We see that she is a Lady in grave danger. Her father, the ruler of Lyonesse has died, and although she is clearly loved by her people, Guinevere is not strong enough to fend off Malagant. Enter the marriage proposal of powerful King Arthur.

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