https://whatwesalvaged.com/ Recent content on What We Salvaged: Fragments after the fall Hugo en-GB Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/190854663.restore-britain-the-british-rights/ Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/190854663.restore-britain-the-british-rights/ Britain has yet another force galloping in to save it. As of February 2026, the Restore Britain movement is to become a political party. So announced former Southampton FC chairman and current MP, Rupert Lowe. Restore Britain evidently promises to do what its name suggests: restore Britain. To what, exactly remains murky. The spawning of yet another new party is a symptom of confusion on the British right, its inability to diagnose the country’s actual problems, and an unwillingness to face what must be done. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/187639942.the-vice-that-binds-epstein-savile/ Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/187639942.the-vice-that-binds-epstein-savile/ The goings-on around Epstein’s island of vice are now on the public record; Little St. James was one node in a system where the rich met to hatch plans while they celebrated their togetherness with degeneracy. Given that princes, princesses, bankers and presidents all attended, it’s unlikely that there was anyone in the upper echelons of finance who didn’t know what went on there. And, if they did know, why didn’t they call it out? https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/186296264.stranger-things-killed-science-heres/ Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/186296264.stranger-things-killed-science-heres/ If the purpose of mainstream media is to lead you up the garden path and then dump you there dazed and confused, mollified and languishing, then the most anticipated media event of 2025, the finale of Stranger Things, achieved that admirably. It ducked the serious questions, ignored the issues and failed to mask the bitter taste it left. MK Ultra and institutional child abuse is a key theme of the show. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/183926443.no-one-is-safe-the-maduro-kidnapping/ Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/183926443.no-one-is-safe-the-maduro-kidnapping/ The world has just fundamentally changed. The apparent abduction of Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, from Caracas has changed politics for ever, and culture must respond. A foreign head of state has been abducted from his home country and brought to the USA, by military and law-enforcement officers. to stand trial in New York state. This is a fundamental break to how we understand the world is to work. It is a return to the middle ages, a time when kings could be kidnapped and ransomed, like when Richard I, Lionheart, was captured by Leopold of Austria, handed over to Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, who then ransomed him for 150,000 Marks or about 100,000 pounds of silver. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/181169659.terminator-2-and-the-wests-social/ Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/181169659.terminator-2-and-the-wests-social/ “It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves,” says the T-800, a robot from the future, to John Connor, the boy whom he has been sent to protect. This renders null the very mission of the T-800; to protect that boy so he will lead the resistance and ensure the survival of humans. The essence of this ’nature’ is not stated, but the accompanying scene, which shows two young children squabbling, suggests that this nature is to violence. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/176167981.the-terminator-1984-a-tale-of-sex/ Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/176167981.the-terminator-1984-a-tale-of-sex/ You thought that the 1984 sci-fi horror flick, The Terminator, was about killer robots from the future. Think again. It’s actually about sex. The Terminator might have been intended as low-budget B-movie schlock, but through some top-notch story-telling, it seized the imagination of the public and gave birth to a decades-long franchise. Many of its tropes continue to echo down the years. I'm here to ruin your fun The Terminator was released in 1984. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/173459035.midsommar-a-mirror-to-spiritual-death/ Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/173459035.midsommar-a-mirror-to-spiritual-death/ If the 2019 film Midsommar were a mirror into which we were to gaze, a horrifying visage would stare back; it shows us what we have become. While director Ari Aster may well have first envisioned the film as straight forward slasher schlock, what he ended up with was an important cultural commentary, a societal artefact, that reflects the zeitgeist. He was no doubt helped by superb performances from the main cast, especially from Florence Pugh, as Dani Ardor, who encapsulates the societal sickness in which we wallow. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/170970897.sex-death-and-the-destruction-of/ Fri, 15 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/170970897.sex-death-and-the-destruction-of/ Thanks to Miri AF for pointing me to the predictive programming in the 2019 series Years and Years. The series forewarned many things, including war in Ukraine, a pandemic (Monkey flu), floods and the rise of a "far right" figure which is a sort of hybrid of Nigel Farage and Katie Hopkins. But don't worry; everything will be cool and groovy by 2030 when the UN's sustainable development goals are due to be met. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/165792984.against-conservatism/ Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/165792984.against-conservatism/ Conservatism is a plaintive whimper, a sigh from those who feel that they have something to lose. It's a lament for a disappearing simulacrum. It is reactive and defensive. It is an inability to grapple with the world as it is and a plea to avoid taking up one's cross, so that one may have a comfortable life. That's why it is a loser's ideology. Conservatism is about nostalgia, the longing for the country of one's childhood. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/162991397.english-restoration-what-not-to-do/ Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/162991397.english-restoration-what-not-to-do/ St. George's day always provides an opportunity for the usual suspects to come out of the woodwork and trash one of the symbols of England. They claim that the patron saint of England was a Turk who didn't kill a dragon and probably didn't exist, only for others to point out that Turkey didn’t exist at the time and that he was a Greek-speaking, Cappadocian. Such attacks feed into the malaise of identity across the British Isle's but in England in particular. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/159087140.hail-the-gods-of-the-trumpian-golden/ Sat, 15 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/159087140.hail-the-gods-of-the-trumpian-golden/ Donald Trump, on the day of his inauguration, in something called the National Cathedral, was told In the name of our god, I ask you to have mercy… from the pulpit, by one Mariann Budde, a woman pretending to be a bishop. "Our god"? Is that an inclusive or exclusive “our”? Is her god the same as Donald Trump's? How many gods does Ms Budde think there are? If we can divine this then we can predict the course of the Trump presidency by its metaphysics , or 'grammar', if you will. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/155643217.higher-education-is-murder/ Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/155643217.higher-education-is-murder/ The media industrial complex can't help but tell you what will become of you, if you follow the path laid out for you by the system they promote. This is what the film Ratter (2015) does. It functions as a revelation of the method, as it were, and must have been made in spite of itself. It nods at a slew of feminist tropes of male predatory behaviour. The funding pitch probably went something like this: "this film turns the viewer's gaze onto the male gaze, taking the subject of oppression and objectifying the objectifier. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/154095575.more-s3x-please-were-british/ Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/154095575.more-s3x-please-were-british/ Is not any public success an artificial contrivance? If an individual, song, book or film is given a high profile, is it not because the gatekeepers of culture have deemed that such individual, song, book or film will push public discourse in a direction which they desire? That certainly seems to be the case with the slapstick farce, No Sex Please – We're British, a film and play that suggest Britons are coy in matters of the flesh. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/150948577.westminster-abbey-and-the-destruction/ Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/150948577.westminster-abbey-and-the-destruction/ Can a bunch of old stones make Englishmen of immigrants? David Starkey, a TV historian, seems to think so. Dr David Starkey, as a person from the television, is someone I never took much notice of, in the same way I didn't take much notice of other television people, say, Dale Winton, Graham Norton, Lyce Doucet, Carol Vordeman, Jeremy Paxman or Katie Price. Recently, however, Starkey got himself a YouTube channel, wherein he opines on the problems facing his country. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/149257143.children-of-dune-yet-another-sci/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/149257143.children-of-dune-yet-another-sci/ This is the second post in the Dune critique series. The first one on Dune: Messiah, is here. ::: {.captioned-image-container} {.sizing-normal width=“640” height=“487” sizes=“100vw” srcset=“https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6FRh!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0e3d031e-b4ad-4bfb-8c61-b89d8ae400cb_640x487.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6FRh!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0e3d031e-b4ad-4bfb-8c61-b89d8ae400cb_640x487.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6FRh!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0e3d031e-b4ad-4bfb-8c61-b89d8ae400cb_640x487.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6FRh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0e3d031e-b4ad-4bfb-8c61-b89d8ae400cb_640x487.webp 1456w”} ::: *** WARNING: SPOILERS *** Some people just want to be evil. Because Children of Dune, the third book in Frank Herbert's Dune series, is about such people, it deconstructs the genre of science-fiction and gives the lie to the genre's myriad conceits. https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/147043373.dune-messiah-and-the-collapse-of/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://whatwesalvaged.com/posts/147043373.dune-messiah-and-the-collapse-of/ ** WARNING SPOILERS ** Why Dune? Why now? Does the Dune movie fit the zeitgeist? Why will Villeneuve finish the trinity of films with Dune: Messiah? It is after all, almost completely action free, and would probably make a boring film. Dune Messiah was published either in 1969 (serialised) or 1975 (as a book). This is some years after the publication of the original 'Dune' novel in 1965. By 1976 the hippie revolution had been in full swing.