Do you think any of these Arab writers stand a chance of getting a regular gig at The Guardian? [Thanks to Judith.]
Read More02Dec04 — 3
Media
29Nov04 — 16
Kids, Eh?
From Friday’s Telegraph: “The head teacher of a girls’ secondary school has suspended 40 pupils after what she described as an ‘absolutely frightening’ case of bullying. “Pamela Orchard took the action after viewing CCTV footage of the incident of ‘mass intimidation’ in which the large group of girls formed a circle around one 15-year-old pupil […]
Read More14Nov04 — 0
Surf’s Up!
Within hours of the story breaking, who is number 2 for “Boris Johnson” “sex scandal”? PooterGeek braces for the hits as Britain’s Webheads ride the wave this-a-way.
Read More13Nov04 — 5
Car Crash Radio
[Before I start, I’m just going to say something about my editorial policy. A tiresome Leftie elsewhere in the ‘Blogosphere was taking Norm to task the other day for writing about cricket while Fallujah burned or something like that. This has been a week of Important Events in the World, but a week of froth […]
Read More11Nov04 — 15
v. v. shit
Bridget Jones II is so bad on so many levels that it will be difficult for me to keep this post deservingly short. If you’re in a hurry, read my title. [But first, in answer to Eric’s thoughtful enquiry, I have not been following anything like my usual routine lately. That, my being ill over […]
Read More08Nov04 — 3
Farewell, Ivor; Hello, Kylie
Over the weekend, Judith told me that a feature-length adaptation of Brideshead Revisited is being planned. For this version, the Catholicism will be toned down. This is the sort of thing Evelyn Waugh might have written into a satire of Hollywood. [“Waugh’s a man? Is he some kind of faggot?!”] Maybe we can petition to […]
Read More07Nov04 — 5
Bleargh
I’ve been in bed for the past couple of days with a nasty little dose of food poisoning. On reflection, it was probably the Stilton, bacon, and red onion baguette that did for me. It tasted wonderful at the time. Because of my illness I’ve been listening to lots of radio. On Friday, as the […]
Read More04Nov04 — 1
Crap Headlines Of The Week
Thanks to Claire for this one from The Guardian. Here’s one that was changed at the source, so I only have a screenshot of the Google News link. And this one is from those sexually liberated Aussies.
Read More03Nov04 — 0
Unfreeing Markets
Catastrophic irony failure: yesterday’s You And Yours on Radio 4 juxtaposed an item about Eliot Spitzer’s deliciously successful strike against price fixing in the US insurance industry with one about how a local authority in the Taunton area wants pubs and bars in the area to introduce a “minimum drink price” scheme to reduce binge […]
Read More28Oct04 — 7
My Gay Trousers
My friend Leasey told me today that she and her girlfriends are going to take me out “on the pull” to a place where repetitive beats are played and alcoholic drinks are served. She has ordered me not to wear my “gay trousers” lest the straight women think I am not interested in them. Apparently […]
Read More28Oct04 — 2
Mutual Backslapping
The ‘Blog Abbreviated To SIAW has written nice things about me recently, but I would have enthused about its accurate summary of the BBC’s celebrity-based current affairs presenting anyway: “[Kirsty] Wark, in her usual not exactly self-effacing way, frequently interrupted both to summarise their remarks, put words in their mouths and generally make sure that […]
Read More25Oct04 — 4
Football Follow-Up
As predicted, Ruud is getting his comeuppance and, also following that post and the associated commentary, Football365 has a round-up of the varied press on the Biggest Game of The Season So Far. In response to the commenter who complained that Arsenal had been doing so well because “premiership teams oil themselves up and bend […]
Read More24Oct04 — 2
Nothing To See Here
The BBC and The Guardian: as long as it’s only the fuzzy-wuzzies that are dying, and not rich white people, then terrorism is a figment of the imaginations of our oppressive Western governments.
Read More24Oct04 — 16
God Bless Islington!
Dear British Guardian Readers I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be able to write to you on White House notepaper. I cannot thank you enough for your cruciate support in our country’s recent presidential election. When my colleagues used to show me cuttings from the opinion pages of your newspaper, the cartoons, […]
Read More23Oct04 — 4
A Good Newspaper
It’s lucky that the Tory party is so comprehensively crap at the moment because its house journal, The Daily Telegraph, just gets better and better. As Backword Dave demonstrates almost every week, even people who object heartily to The Telegraph‘s politics and are embarrassed by its other readers take it because it is still a […]
Read More15Oct04 — 6
How Old?
Nearly all teenagers lean to the Left of course, but, if their precocious vocabulary is anything to go by, the ones the Sun-Sentinel has gathered together to comment on the US Presidential debate seem to have been taken from various South Florida academies for the gifted: “Although this debate proved to be the most entertaining, […]
Read More12Oct04 — 25
But Is It Art?
SUE FROM BBC LOCAL RADIO: I’m standing in the grounds of an ordinary central Cambridge apartment block where local resident Damian Counsell has found himself at the centre of a controversy following his construction of a sculpture he has called, somewhat provocatively even he must admit, “You Bet Your Sweet Ass It Was In My […]
Read More11Oct04 — 3
Electioneering
Bob Geldof defends Blair and Brown against accusations that their campaign of assistance for the developing world is just an election stunt. It’s understandable that a populist stance like theirs should inspire cynicism. Everyone knows there are too many easy votes in helping out the fuzzy-wuzzies in Africa.
Read More10Oct04 — 4
The Unfreeing Of The American Press
The Anonymous Economist has emailed me this New York Times article which says something important about the state of the USA’s institutions: “Last Thursday, a federal district judge ordered a New York Times reporter, Judy Miller, sent to prison. Her crime was doing her job as the founders of this nation intended. Here’s what happened […]
Read More09Oct04 — 4
Blood On His Hands
“From the crowds that hailed New Labour in 1997 to the despair of Kenneth Bigley is a vast emotional distance.” —editorial in The Independent, 09Oct04 This week, the same Tony Blair who had promised “Decapitation, decapitation, decapitation” at the 2000 Labour Party conference finally made good on his chilling promise. Standing before an endlessly looping […]
Read More08Oct04 — 1
Welcome To The Future
Of course, if I did own a TV in this year of 2004, I could watch the alleged ex-lover of a waning international football star masturbate a pig. [Er, thanks, Laban.]
Read More08Oct04 — 0
“Hunting Blacks And Jews”
Not having a television, I have only seen some online snippets of Sacha Baron-Cohen‘s comedy creation “Borat” before. Tomodachi at Susurration linked this week to a clip of an American hunter agreeing with the invented Khazakstani television presenter in front of cameras that it would be alright by him if the USA had a game […]
Read More04Oct04 — 9
Over And Over
I also no longer buy either the London Review of Books or The Independent (daily or Sunday). I think I should go further and stop reading spare copies of either journal. Reviewing paperbacks in the broadsheets is occasionally delegated to some emptyheaded twentysomething trustafarian, but Laurence Phelan in the Sunday Independent should be given a […]
Read More04Oct04 — 0
Never Mind The Swiss Racists
On trains this weekend I have been mostly reading other people’s newspapers. Turn to page 47 of someone else’s Saturday Guardian magazine and gasp at the advertisement for skin whitening cream illustrated by a fair-skinned mixed-race couple kissing.
Read More30Sep04 — 4
Class President
Good ‘Blog arguments are interesting because the participants are sophisticated enough to spare each other the usual faulty reasoning and informed enough not to quibble too much about the premises. Because of this, and because the ‘Blogoholics are less likely to be as simply tribal and cautious as politicians, debates on ‘Blog comments pages can, […]
Read More27Sep04 — 0
Return Of The Genome
Saturday’s Telegraph magazine’s weekly Social Stereotype invented a media-friendly academic called “Damian”*, so it’s perhaps not the best time to tell you that I’ve been commissioned [dahling!] to do the cover story for an upcoming edition of geek glossy Linux User. It will be an update of this piece about the human genome project(s) that […]
Read More22Sep04 — 2
The Dangers Of An Israeli Accent
Listening to Radio 4 this morning I heard Humphrys ask Ehud Barak, “Would it be right for Israel to kill Yasser Arafat?” I almost fell over at the reply, “Arafat is toast.” What Barak actually said was , “Arafat is a terrorist”. Let’s hope anyone who has to translate his words into Arabic has sharper […]
Read More21Sep04 — 0
You Missed A Bit
Norm rightly links to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s report on Kofi Annan’s speech to the UN. He might have been prompted to do so by Annan’s elegant rhetoric; he might have been prompted to do so by Annan’s breathtaking hypocrisy. Either way, Norm, doesn’t link to another ABC Website story from that page, headlined “Australia […]
Read More21Sep04 — 0
The Trouble With Proprietary Eponyms
I’d like to read this article, or a xerox of it, at least.
Read More
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