Unstable Times is launching in October 2024. It will certainly be free to access for quite some time. It will comment as lucidly as possible on current instabilities in the international system, in culture and in largely British politics. It will be designed to take decades of experience in the capital markets and business, and in political organisation and consultancy as well as in offbeat cultural communities and try to break through the barrier of accepted narratives to help readers ‘think for themselves’. I hope to surprise subscribers occasionally with unexpected insights into the link between instability and change and philosophy, ideology, history and even occult or artistic movements. I will encourage subscribers to contest my claims. Comment will be encouraged so long as it is never abusive. Debate will be leisurely and, I hope, informed. There may be interviews with offbeat thinkers and political actors and reviews of cultural artefacts and texts. At all times, postings will be personal and not represent the views of any organisation or business with which I may be associated at any one time.
I am, by the way, Tim Pendry. I will be writing most of the material on this Substack although I am open to edited contributions from others. I have my biases - atheist existentialist and tendencies to independent-minded radicalism - but I am open-minded and have had experience in a very broad range of tasks and situations. I have been instrumental in political operations and warfare and continue to be so, worked on takeovers and mergers and international crises affecting business and family interests, been directly involved in international affairs in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Russia, experimented with investigative journalism, dabbled in the world of new technologies, dived deep into off balance sheet ideologies and philosophies and co-raised a family while doing all that. Often simultaneously to be found deep within the system and outside it, I think I have some unique perspectives on soft power and on the fascinating crises of late liberal capitalism and the struggle of the international system to cope with changes of staggering complexity.
