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Self-deprecating, self-belittling, stand-up comedy is a staple. Comedians invite their audience to laugh at them, and their failures. If they are successful, they will report on their failure in a way that is amusing, and the audience will laugh. In this paper, I want to think about such invitations. I will try to characterise what the stand-up comedian might be doing when they do that: what are they doing? I also want to ask why they are doing it, and why are they doing it before an audience. I argue that a self-deprecating performance is a highly distinctive form of reflective activity that allows a comedian to ministrate in the philosophical task of exploring, and guiding their audience in, the art of human existential absurdity. Their being able to do this is one of the reasons we value such comedy as the artform it is.
Richard Russell (1630–93), priest, courtier, and diplomat, has largely been overlooked in English Catholic historiography. A student and later patron of the English College at Lisbon, Russell saw the college thrive. Russell began life as a servant to the college’s fifth president, Edward Pickford (1642–48). He went on to become an attaché to the Portuguese diplomatic corps, and served as a courtier to Queen Catherine of Braganza, before becoming bishop of Portalegre (1671–85) and later bishop of Viseu (1685–93). This article is based on the Letters and Papers of Richard Russell, kept at Ushaw College, Durham. The records reveal a man of considerable ability, patience, resilience and astuteness. As a young man he skilfully aided the Portuguese delegation’s deliberations at Whitehall, culminating in the Anglo-Portuguese marriage alliance of 1661. As courtier to the young Portuguese queen, he managed English Catholic affairs in London and on the Continent, providing protection to colleagues and benefices to his fellow priests from the English College at Lisbon.
This article defends the proposal that voters be permitted to choose whether to cast a vote for a candidate or against a candidate: a vote for a candidate would increase their total number of votes by one, as it does at present, whereas a vote against a candidate would decrease their total number of votes by one.