I’m still feeling rough so, even if there were a laboratory for me to go to (which there isn’t because it’s been shut down), I wouldn’t be there anyway. You lot are paying my wages until September though. So, if any of you have recently sequenced a gene and would like me to predict the […]
Read MoreOkay, so this post links to an article in the Telegraph, but work with me here. Celebrity newsreader and reality TV ballroom dancer Natasha Kaplinsky has had some difficulty selling her house. This fact opens a piece about other nice middle-class people [British definition] trying to flog their own or their parents’ respective gaffs in […]
Read MoreI’m not going to go into the political or ethical implications of Live8 here and now (though the sozzled socialist Psittacidae are worth reading on the subject). I am going to talk about the artistic ones, because the event illustrated beautifully the central problem with the UK music industry. I don’t like Pink Floyd very […]
Read MoreNo analysis and no satire, I know, but I just want to say to as many people as possible right now that this policy is so wrong on so many levels that I can scarcely believe that it’s being proposed: More than 100,000 people could get onto the property ladder in the next five years […]
Read MoreI still haven’t forgiven my parents for not hiring The Three Degrees to perform at my confirmation. This the kind of scar Philip Green’s boy will never have to bear.
Read MoreGeorge Bush beats Britney Spears; Martin Luther beats George Washington; Tony Blair beats Michael Jackson beats Jesus Christ; Bill Clinton beats Saddam Hussein; Osama Bin Laden beats Kofi Annan; Bob Dylan beats Donald Rumsfeld; Angelina Jolie beats Arnold Schwarzenegger. But tough luck to Madonna, Seal, Bono, and Sting. If you’re so famous you have one […]
Read MoreI’m not sure, but I think that my grandad worked in the original Leyland Truck factory in the town of Leyland, Lancashire. [My dad will correct me soon if I’ve got that wrong.] Today, Tim Worstall links to a study of the long slow decline of the endlessly government-subsidised Rover/British Leyland/BMC vehicle manufacturing group. The […]
Read MoreI meant to ‘Blog this weeks ago. Readers in the UK might be interested to know that there is at least one way of circumventing those 0870 numbers that firms use these days to get us to pay to talk to them. Thanks to Jonathan Nicholson at the Sanger.
Read MoreMidnight Pictures is an independent film company based in Northern Ireland, but its people don’t want none of your steenking arts subsidies, thanks very much: “As with all Midnight Pictures films [Don’t Look In The Attic] will feature: NO love-across-the-barricades NO terrorists with a heart of gold NO conflicted priests and/or policemen NO soundtrack by […]
Read MoreWhile I’m on the subject of accomplished corporate music monsters, this 10-year-old review of Def Leppard by Andrew Mueller is entertaining, if perhaps a little long and squintily typeset to be read from the screen all in one go. It’s clear that, like me, Mr Mueller can’t help but admire the band—for all their over-produced […]
Read MoreSomething about this: Howard Flight has quit as Conservative deputy chairman over comments he made about the party’s spending plans. The MP, who is the Tories’ special envoy to the City, apparently admitted the scale of planned cuts were [sic] being concealed to help win an election. reminds me of this: They call it ‘doing […]
Read MoreFirst the BBC turns against you, then Ted Kennedy snubs you: Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner said: “Senator Kennedy has decided to decline to meet with Gerry Adams, given the IRA’s ongoing criminal activity and contempt for the rule of law.” She said the events surrounding the death of Mr McCartney underscored the need for IRA […]
Read MoreYesterday I had lunch with a “fellow” Catholic whose grandfather used to hide fugitive members of the “old” IRA in his house in the Irish countryside. We discussed the disgust being expressed by republicans north and south of the border at the behaviour of the supposed descendants of his grandad’s lodgers. Cathal (not his real […]
Read MoreAs Tim Worstall notes, Maureen Dowd is whining again. This time, apparently, men want to be mothered before they will marry. She writes: “I’d been noticing a trend along these lines, as famous and powerful men took up with the young women whose job it was to tend to them and care for them in […]
Read MoreBut close enough to the truth to make me laugh [via The Motley Fool].
Read MoreDecember 2004, is turning out to be the sixth consecutive month of falling house prices in the UK. The hysteria has flipped. John Plender in the Financial Times has a word or two to say to those who believe that markets are rational. [Read the article before it becomes subscription only.]
Read MoreOne of the co-workers of tech company cubicle drone Dilbert in Scott Adams’s inspired eponymous cartoon series is a fierce and talented engineer called Alice. She responds to the sexism and stupidity of her co-workers with extreme violence. She has triangular hair. Apropos of nothing, yesterday’s Economist magazine profiles Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer with […]
Read MoreBrian notes that Nigella Lawson is dissing British tertiary education. She’s right to do so. And I’d say that even I wasn’t picturing her doing the dissing in sub-fusc. [Blimey, I think that might have been some non-gratuitous Nigella. Am I getting old?
Read MoreIf being successful with women is about getting a lot of them to have sex with you then the secret of success is telling the right lie at the right time. [I would say that, wouldn’t I?] I’ve watched experts in action. Their methods are simple: intoxicate and deceive. They know what a woman wants […]
Read MoreGoogle exemplifies many of the best things about the Web. It even catalogues and copies the best things about the Web—and the worst things too. Its founders are self-mocking academics with a brilliantly simple idea, who hire hordes of PhD graduates to keep refining that idea in a never-ending race against nutters of every kind: […]
Read MoreSince moving from New York to The Jewish State a few years ago, Judith has discovered that popular prejudice about the country's inhabitants is wrong in many ways. One less important example is that Israelis repeatedly demonstrate to her and her husband (ex-Wall Street workers both) their chronic incompetence in the supposedly competitive field of […]
Read MoreThe vast majority of the overpaid ninnies who “manage” active British investment funds and US mutual funds are shit at their jobs. It takes special abilities to underperform blind indexes both when markets rise and when markets fall, but 82% of UK funds have done that over the last twenty years. To add insult, they […]
Read MoreI was chatting with Leasey over lunch about house prices yesterday (as the English do, just after they’ve finished discussing the weather). They are in the news again. What does this mean “on the ground”? Well, I found this bargain for a start. A quarter of million quid for a converted garage in Peckham? I’ll […]
Read MoreSomeone is trying to build a funky life insurance company!
Read MoreTinFoilHat emailed to warn me that Zionist scientists, funded by the World Bank and using technology copied from crashed flying saucers, have replaced the Saudi Ambassador to the United States with a clone. He even speaks Yiddish Saudi ambassador accuses Iraq war opposers of ‘chutzpah’ [Associated Press] Countries that opposed the US decision to invade […]
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