Beneath the idyllic green rolling hills of a well-off rural area lurks the stench of mafia-dumped toxic waste, polluting the air, the water supply and the food chain, killing off the wildlife and giving cancer to the people who live there.

It may seem odd, at first sight, that someone who recently warned against taking political “personalities” too seriously is now reviewing a book about the lives of the French presidential couple.

My understanding of the world in which we live has undoubtedly increased greatly since I wrote the material which formed the first of a series of compilations, Fascism rebranded: exposing the Great Reset, a selection of essays from 2018 to 2021.

Floresia: Out of the Shadows, a newly-published novel by Nowick Gray, whose work we featured in The Acorn in 2023, has set me dreaming.