Yes, it's me! Mark Steyn of that ilk - and not dead yet, despite the best efforts of the University of Vermont Medical Center. I'm still on the Continent - or, as the Pentagon maps have it, "the War Zone" - but it's Friday, so that means I'll be rousing myself from my sickbed and conducting another edition of our Clubland Q&A live around the planet. The fun starts at 3pm North American Eastern time/8pm British Summer Time. We'll try to pin down the rest of the time zones below, but do, as they say, check local listings. And, if my wretched health refuses to cooperate, please forgive me.
On today's show I'm happy to take questions on any of the topics we've been covering this last week, from the west's deathbed demography to Conservative, Inc's weird determination to pretend that what's happening in America with the criminalization of political opposition is all perfectly normal. But I'll entertain other topics if they tickle what remains of my fancy.
~Thank you all for your kind comments about last month's Tale for Our Time - my summer diversion on a theme of H G Wells. Peter Lucey, a First Week Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club from the English Home Counties, says of Out of Time:
I have just completed the three final episodes (albeit using my "Magic Lantern"!)
A truly magnificent epic. Thank you!
If you've yet to hear Out of Time, it begins here - and five dozen other ripsnorting yarns can be found here.
~I'm also happy today to take any follow-up questions to Melissa's analysis last week of my free-speech lawsuits on both sides of the Atlantic: on the one hand, Michael E Mann over the sick corruption at Penn State University; on the other the UK state censor Ofcom in the High Court of England over its "rulings" against me for my coverage of the Covid vaccines. The latter case is officially called:
The King on the application of Mark Steyn
vs
The Office of Communications
But His Majesty is leaving it to me and my KC to do most of the heavy lifting. So you can read our latest Statement of Claim here.
Many viewers, listeners and readers have asked how they can support this important free-speech case. There are several ways, including:
a) signing up a friend for a Steyn Club Gift Membership;
b) buying a near-and-dear one a SteynOnline gift certificate; or
c) ordering a copy of my latest book, The Prisoner of Windsor. You won't regret it.
The "chilling effect" of Ofcom on public discourse is far worse than Canada under Section 13 or Australia under Section 18C, so once more unto the breach...
~Whether or not you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club, you can listen to our Clubland Q&A live as it happens wherever you chance to be on this turbulent earth: Club membership is required only to ask a question. We love to hear from brand new members, so if you've joined this week, either for a full year or a see-how-it-goes experimental quarter, do shoot me a head-scratcher for today's show. But, if you're not interested in joining, no worries, as they say in Oz: We seek no unwilling members - and as always the show is free to listen to, so we hope you'll want to tune in.
As soon as we go live, members should log-in and submit their queries via our comment form below - and I'll answer them as-it-happens on the audio livestream that should magically appear above (or possibly below - I forget which). And, if you disagree with my response, then let rip in the comments, and I'll endeavour to address a couple of the objections as we go along.
Clubland Q&A is a special production for The Mark Steyn Club. We're not paywalling off SteynOnline or any of that nonsense - and in fact this site now offers more free content than ever before in our twenty-year history. But Club membership does confer a few benefits, starting with participation in our weekly Q&As.
So see you back here live this afternoon at 3pm North American Eastern Time. That's 4pm in the Canadian Maritimes, half-past-four in Newfoundland - and, beyond the Americas, 8pm in London and Dublin; 9pm in Paris and Berlin; 10pm in Kiev and Moscow, now in the same time zone if not the same country; 10.30pm in Teheran, for all you Newfoundlanders who move to Iran for the half-hour time zone; midnight-forty-five in Kathmandu, for all you Iranians who move to Nepal to check out the quarter-hour time zone; 3am in Singapore, Honkers and Perth (sorry about that); 5am in Sydney and Melbourne; 7am in Auckland and even deeper into Saturday in His Majesty's Dominions across the Pacific.
But, whatever hour it is where you are, we do hope you'll be able to join us. To listen to the livestream, simply click the "play" icon on the audio player (in certain browsers, the audio will start auto-playing). And to pose a question simply use the comment form below.