Judith will like this one for two reasons: it’s about Lyle Lovett, in typical New Yorker style the article uses the word “début” and retains the e-acute. The New Yorker is probably the last popular magazine in the English-speaking world where the editors insist on the diaeresis (not umlaut) in “cöoperate”. The Lovett article comes […]
Read MoreAnother Motley Fool member dissects some typical BBC bias.
Read MoreTo the rest of us it’s a nipple ring, worthy of flippant comment; to Andrew Guy Jnr. of the Houston Chronicle it’s a matter for an on-the-spot report that reads like a Raymond Chandler pastiche. It’s funny. But not for the reasons he hoped.
Read MoreFrom the honest, accurate and impartial Al-Jazeera: “Correction: An earlier version of this article said John Kerry had admitted taking part in the inadvertent slaughter of Vietnamese civilians. We would like to make clear this admission was made by Senator Bob Kerrey.” (via Fark).
Read More[Before you begin reading this item I want to make it clear that I have not invented a single one of the following quotes. Neither are they, to my knowledge, from parody sites.] Adam keeps challenging me to address the Kilroy-Silk question. But what could I possibly contribute to such an elevated debate? After he […]
Read MoreThe only thing I miss about the Saturday Guardian is Simon Hoggart’s column. I don’t think he’s very funny when he presents the comedy News Quiz on Radio 4, but he can be hilarious in print. Like many funny people he is also insightful. Today he gets straight to the core of the David Kelly […]
Read MoreThis morning I listened to the increasingly hysterical John Humphrys do his increasingly silly anti-Iraq war thing on the Today programme on Radio 4. After two Iraqi academics had repeatedly told us that the Americans had done “Nothing. Nothing!” for the Iraqi people, John had a rant at the UK diplomatic representative in Baghdad, Jeremy […]
Read MoreThere was an excellent spoof play on the strange comedy show Radio Nine, earlier this week. In it, a bunch of actors put on period Irish accents to do an historical drama “glorifying organized crime”—a tiny, sharp pin in the romantic bubble of Republican myth (and I’m supposed to be a Catholic). Ignore the misleading […]
Read MoreDriving in to work along open, tree-lined country roads this week I’ve felt like one of those square-jawed “executives” in a car advertisement. Around here the countryside rolls like a piece of slate, but the flatness doesn’t make the local villages any less attractive than the traditional English postcard model. Every tree seems to be […]
Read MoreIt’s a busy ‘Blogging morning. First: here’s a scholarly (or at least reasonably well-informed) argument for me to remove my usual distancing quotation marks from “Islamofascist”, “balanced” by more criticism for the U.S. administration over Iraq and terrorism (specifically Al-Qaeda and friends) in a ‘Blog interview with Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc.: Inside […]
Read MoreI am trying to wrap my head around the fact that John Pilger and Christopher Hitchens both write for The Mirror. (The title is the theme from The Twilight Zone—just repeat it over and over in a sing-song voice and you’ll see what I mean. Or perhaps you’ll just sound very silly.)
Read MoreI’m listening to Radio 4’s classic serial—and they do mean “classic“: it’s an adaptation of Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars. I browse over to the Radio 4 Website to get some details on the programme and my mouth gapes as I read the following: “…was Caligula the eval [sic] man history has painted him?”
Read MoreCuriously, since I linked to it earlier today, that BBC story has changed from one leading with the enthusiastic welcome the Liberians gave American military advisors, to one focusing on the arrival of West African peacekeepers. Hmm. You can try this one from the Boston Globe instead.
Read MoreIn the days when they could take shorthand, construct a grammatical sentence, type 40 words a minute, and were bothered with little things like checking facts, journalists were viewed with contempt. Now journalist characters are frequently the heroes of Hollywood movies and university graduates fall over themselves to do unpaid work for grotty trade mags […]
Read MoreOn the same page ("Special Report: France") of The Guardian online these two headlines are neighbours: "Chirac Put on Nobel Prize List" "Paris Shrine of Surrealism Dismantled" Reminiscent of the famous Tom Lehrer quote, wouldn't you say?
Read MoreToday The Times continues its assault on English: The amount of incentives to lure companies to enter into deals are also rapidly increasing.
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