Me

Decayed

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:27:17 GMT

2000
2001
2002
2003 Noticed I was going bald
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009

Calendar Girl

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:58:10 GMT

Armenian Meline Daluzyan "contests the snatch"* at the World Weightlifting Championships in Seoul.
If only I'd thought of it earlier, I could have put together a calendar full of outrageous photos and humorous captions to sell in the shops for Xmas. I mean, it'd be an ideal present for dad; where will you find such a thing now?

*That's what it said in the paper this morning, captioning a different photo. I think she's actually preparing to "clean" here.

Maybe It's Becooorssss

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:15:24 GMT

Oi! Are you French?! Are you French?! No? Well, then, why did you bite your brother?!

Release Rodric

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:02:37 GMT

But Aron's book is a sane antidote for those Manichaeans who still see Russia not as a real country inhabited by real people trying to cope with dauntingly real problems, but as a kind of phantasmagoria haunted by murderous bandits and drink-sodden peasants dreaming of empire.
-- Sir Rodric Braithwaite

Larry Flynt's Right!

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:09:18 GMT

"There are aspects of my celebrity I don't like, but it would be hypocritical to complain. I can generally ignore it by going off to think in 11 dimensions."
-- Stephen Hawking

Cats

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:57:10 GMT

"Somebody once said to me 'What have dogs got to do with jazz?' I said, 'They ARE jazz!"
-- Bruce Weber

Another Request

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:29:27 GMT

Any more good folk/folkifiable songs?

We Built This Village On A Trad Arr. Tune

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:00:21 GMT

I'm struggling with this. What's a good non-folk, or even folk, song that could credibly be sung by a woman at a folk group? Preferably something that's on youtube, in a form that someone musical (not me) could readily rearrange for the Bleecker Street audience. If it sounds too unfolky in its current form, you have to record your own treatment. Do it and I'll post myself whistling Jerusalem in the jazz style.

Cheap Shot

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:03:28 GMT

Well, Colm, we'll have to leave you in the bed of your abusive priest for just a couple of minutes while we listen to Coldplay, with Speed of Sound. Mellow!
-- Matthew Bannister, BBC Radio 2

Shibboleth

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:11:59 GMT

Say this fast in a Nirnish accent: Betty Boo, Betty Boo now doing the do.

Maybe I'll move over to twitter. I find 140 characters once a week manageable.

Slack

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:45:56 GMT

Anyway, my current plan for personal progress is: lots of people die of swine flu; I don't die of swine flu; I take up the slack of the now dead.

Centre Punch. Automatic.

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:33:29 GMT

A BNP delegate approached as I went into the local primary school to vote today. He was unimpressed with my rendition of "Take The Skinheads Polling".

June 4 Phase 4

Fri, 15 May 2009 14:23:29 GMT

Why is the European parliament never in the Scottish or British news? Are we pathetically insular? Is it pathetically dull? A vast conspiracy of silence? Is it just me?
In fact, political Europe only seems to be in the news when there's an election in one of the big countries, when there's a heads-of-government meeting with a few recognisable figures on stage, or when some country or another votes against ever-greater Union, which vote never seems to make any difference to anything. I have no idea who the President of the European Commission currently is, except that it must be somebody more emollient than Jacques Delors.
So, given that I have no idea what goes on in the European parliament, and therefore have doubts whether any of the candidates has even the slightest chance of keeping their promises if elected, maybe I'll vote for UKIP, on the desperate grounds that at least I know what I'm mandating them to do: negotiate a withdrawal. However, I'm disappointed that their marketing arm has been outflanked by the BNP: UKIP only has a picture of Winston Churchill on its election leaflets; the BNP has a Spitfire.
Anyway, I don't want to sound too despairing of mainstream politics. Here in the U of K, we have visionaries among us. Here's the Conservative parliamentary master plan, 2/3 of the way to completion.

1. Elect non-bald leader.
2. Say nothing to frighten the horses.
3. Wait until economy collapses/ Labour leadership implodes.
4. Gain power.
5. Be in power.

Prediction

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:13:01 GMT

In the future, everything will be drastically different, except for the things I care most about now.

Rampant

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:38:08 GMT

Their banking crisis may be worse than ours, but we can still (narrowly, and at home) beat Iceland, a country 1/20th our size, with minimal interest in the sport, on the football field. Go Scotland, go, go, go!

Glastonbury, 2009

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:27:05 GMT

"When the Old God goes they pray to flies and bottletops." -- Don Delillo, Mao II

Sale of the Century

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:00:23 GMT

I may buy half a dozen of these: 07/08 Massimo Donati posters - were £4.99, now only £3.99!

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:44:34 GMT

To the Editor[of the New York Times]:

Was Flannery O’Connor "peculiar" — or is this mildly pejorative and condescending adjective just shorthand for suggesting that she was unconventional, original, strong-willed and serious in both her art and her life, in a way that isn’t common in our experience? Is there any individual of distinction who might not appear to be, from the perspective of the smugly bland and judgmental, "peculiar"?

-- Joyce Carol Oates

Trebles All Round

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:27:32 GMT

Self-regulation stands to regulation as self-importance stands to importance.
-- Willem Buiter

For Beliefs That Would Shame A Gorilla, You Can't Beat The Goyim

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:03:25 GMT

Went to see a couple of films at the GFF the other night, both of which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would. The first, Religulous, involves Bill Maher, whom I'd never heard of, talking to various people about religion. Possibly because the name reminds me of Bill Moyers, I thought this would be earnest stuff, but in fact Bill Maher is a former stand-up so there's several good jokes and lots of Borat-style comic social faux-pas, usually in the form of his pointing out to people that their most cherished beliefs are completely ridiculous. The usual criticisms have some force: that he picked soft targets - perhaps, but most of them were unctuous people of some wealth and power - and that he edited things to favour himself over his interviewees - no doubt, but it was funnier that way. He also gave an overly sympathetic hearing to Geert Wilders, although I suppose arguing with him would have diluted the "Religion Is Bad" polemic.
The second film, New Town Killers, was a pretty predictable cat-and-mouse Edinburgh thriller, but it was very slick and well-acted. It could have stood a bit of dialogue-doctoring by David Mamet, but I was too timid to tell Richard Jobson that at the Q&A afterward.
Apparently, Religulous is on general release in Britain from April, but New Town Killers isn't out until June, possibly to coincide with the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Pathos, Bathos and a Joke in Episode 3

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:15:06 GMT

They [Strathclyde University researchers led by Prof. Tim Bedford] found that although most of the missions failed to meet their original objectives, they could still be seen as strategic successes because of unplanned or unforeseen consequences. Researchers noted that despite Columbus's failure to reach Asia, his planned destination, he did discover America instead. Even the ill-fated Darien expedition in which hundreds of Scots died while trying to establish a colony in what is now Panama, helped lead to the foundation of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1727.
-- Chris Watt, The Herald, 6th October 2008

I'm looking forward to the Tim Bedford book that uses the same logic to explain how the Dubya Administration was, in fact, good for us. Maybe I'll write a Lemmish review of it myself for Blog In The Future. Chapter 1, How McCain Didn't Become President and Bomb Russia.

I, Monkey

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:11:51 GMT

An entire programme about Snow Monkeys is on at 8pm on BBC2 tonight. I know it's Friday, but you young people who'll be out enjoying yourselves no doubt know how to stream it live on iPlayer to your iPhones, so you won't have to miss out on a second of the hot tub frolics.

You Married Into It

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:21:48 GMT

And A Dollar Short

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:38:07 GMT

I'm a bit late with this, but 6.01.09 is the same number upside down as the right way up, give or take.

Why Do All Trombonists Wear Sandals?

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:25:35 GMT

Women, what is your problem? Why do you hate jazz? Or do you just hate men who like jazz? Or do you just hate me?