Just back from seeing HellBoy with the Anonymous Economist’s posse. It was the perfect reverse of my experience with Riddick. That one was supposed to be expensive rubbish; this one was a Hollywood blockbuster that the critics had given us permission to like. They were wrong again. It was so empty and lazy that I […]
Read More[Please, Miss, I wrote this post a day or so ago and my software ate it.] I’m sure Hak Mao will correct me if it’s not, but this BBC News article reads to me like a balanced account for outsiders of the importance of international security considerations in the election race in Australia. Shocker.
Read MoreWhat would we do without Guardian editorials? We wouldn’t appreciate that people who run onto the floor of the House of Commons and shout at MPs are “thugs” and people who shoot children in the back are “hostage takers“. (It’s worth noting the comparison made between Otis Ferry’s posh prannies and the Luftwaffe in today’s […]
Read MoreWhen I went a-hunting for that image of the BBC testcard this morning, I sort of suspected that the Web would be full of Aspies collecting TV transmission-testing arcana. Interested in the soundtrack? Try “The Girl—The Doll—The Music“. Want to see the card’s evolution? Check out the Carol Hersee photo album. Carol was the star […]
Read MoreA massive BT (British Telecom) outage in Birmingham isolated my Web hosts from about 12:00 hrs BST yesterday to 03:30 BST today. I’m inferring this from the notch in my visitors, rather than getting any useful information from UK Shells’ cryptic apology email. I haven’t had access to my sites or email for that period. […]
Read MoreIt seems that the BBC were about to get the bigger story without realising it. If it is the same vehicle that I said that they were reporting on, then the Iraqis dancing around it yesterday are now dead. I’m puzzled that they don’t seem to have followed it up and I’m irritated that I […]
Read MoreSven, call the Metaphor Police and have this man arrested.
Read MoreMy newsagent is so “Cambridge” it’s funny. The top shelf carries American Scientist, “The Magazine of Sigma XI, The Scientific Research Society”—a sort of Scientific American for people who still know how to use a slide-rule; Foreign Affairs, not part of the Richard Desmond empire; and, of course, The Economist, which this week, for once, […]
Read MoreOn my doorstep this week, I picked up a pile of Labour leaflets that I will be delivering around my patch [thanks, Allan!] and I also picked up a copy of the Liberal Democrat’s “local” “newspaper”, Cambridge Herald. [I make no apology for the ‘Blogtastic scare quotes.] This publication’s factual news reports by members of […]
Read MoreAnd Norm thinks being linked to by Instapundit is scary: “Starting today, if a Chinese porn site is ‘clicked’ more than 250,000 times, its owners could be jailed for life.”
Read MoreFurther to Eric’s observations, I bring you the main frontpage banners from England’s Sunday papers. The Independent on Sunday: “Inside School Number One: the full horror of Russia’s 9/11” The Sunday Times: “Terrorists hid bombs weeks ago” The Observer: “The Last Goodbye” The News Of The World: “322 DEAD” The Sunday Telegraph: “Russian school death […]
Read MoreWhilst Backword Dave is around, I should point out that earlier I wasn’t have a go—even indirectly—at him for being frivolous, but I was having a go at The Today Programme. He doesn’t need to explain himself; ‘Bloggers, by definition, should be able to write about anything they like. I could hardly have a go […]
Read More200 Russian schoolchildren have just been taken hostage by terrorists, some wearing bomb belts. Israel has destroyed the house of a “militant” who was involved in a suicide bombing on Tuesday that killed 16. Yesterday, twelve Nepalese hostages were murdered by terrorists in Iraq. Meanwhile, the last three items on the The Today Programme have […]
Read MoreThere were two other things I enjoyed reading in the edition of The Independent‘s “Review” that I mention below: Andy Gill’s record reviews, of course—he has this anachronistic tendency to write about the music itself and listen to black artists (without making excuses for them)—and a review of yet another book by a middle-class mother […]
Read MoreThe man is such an easy target that sometimes I wonder why I bother. This is, after all, someone who unselfconsciously assembled an article complaining about bad writing from a collage of clichés. Then I hear him on the radio and I have to take another swipe. This weekend Humphrys was slagging off television today, […]
Read MoreThe BBC interviews the woman who made Britain’s silver-medal-winning boxer’s gumshield.
Read MoreNon-Brits must understand: Victoria Beckham is not in any way “posh”. At the time she was given her showbiz nickname she was relatively well-off; now she is simply rich. She could buy and sell many genuinely posh—that is titled rather than monied—people, but they probably wouldn’t let her. Even if they had a financial crisis […]
Read MoreAs of 23:46 BST, the content aggregator Google News is displaying these words on its front page: “Paris Hilton’s Lost Chihuahua Turns Up—ABC News and 254 other[ news outlets are reporting this story]“ This kind of item is being planted by cave-dwelling misogynists in comedy beards in an effort to turn us to the stoning […]
Read MoreAdvanced Level Broadsheet Columnism: Section 1 Choose any one question. You have 45 minutes to complete and file your answer for sub-editing. How arrogant exactly is George W. Bush? Support your answer with half-remembered things you heard at a dinner party earlier in the week, stereotypes of American people, and two of the following clichés: […]
Read MoreI think we should ask Jesus how beautiful your Website is.
Read MoreToday’s main link at the top of the front page of christianity.com says: “Don’t Miss… ‘The Wickedness Of Our Sinful Flesh‘” They are also offering a tape called “Sin In The Camp” for sale, which I think undermines some of those stereotypes of intolerant fundamentalists.
Read MoreGolan Cipel, the man at the centre of the sex scandal engulfing former New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey declared to the press today, “I am a straight Israeli.” He continued, “Many people in the World today believe that there is something unnatural about my nationality; some even refuse to believe that citizens like me […]
Read MoreAdam proposes a vigil. He asks how long will it take for this Ha’aretz story about Arafat’s latest shenanigans to appear here, where the BBC covers “the Middle East”.
Read MoreWorst U.S. presidential election headline for, er, at least three days: “GAP WIDENS BETWEEN CANDIDATES ON IRAQ, PARKS“
Read MoreIt’s not big and it’s not clever, but it’s a measure of how grim things are for the Conservative party that Labour can get away with a gimmick like this. Bet the Democrats wish they had such a divided opposition to deal with. [Free registration required; contains parochial British politics that may render overseas readers […]
Read MoreWhat’s more annoying: the one-sentence-per-paragraph formatting of this story or its poor-me, whining celebrity content? Beauty is a curse: Halle Berry Halle Berry. She was the first African-American to represent America at the Miss World pageant. She has won enough beauty titles to last a lifetime. And she has an Oscar (Monster’s Ball) to her […]
Read MoreThe front page of some editions of today’s Daily Mail screams “WAR ON MIDDLE INCOME STUDENTS”. Given what the Mail thinks of as “middle income”, where do I sign up?
Read MoreOliver Kamm's latest post about Paul Foot is stonking. One sign of Kamm's return to (literally) forensic form is the proprietor's reponse to the “suicide commenting” from Chris Lightfoot that immediately follows the 'Blog entry I link to. I'm sure that, having regained my approval, Oliver can now rebuild his self-esteem and learn to love […]
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