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Sometimes the internet opens one’s eyes to whole new ways of seeing the world. A fabulous comment over on David Davis’s semi-blog (no permalink I could see, under “Sky News Debate with Tony McNulty”): David Davis doesn’t want a real debate on the Orwellian State – he wants a controlled one that’s only on his terms with safe people like Tony Benn and Bob Geldof. July 8th, 2008 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
 As a current resident of Beijing, my social life is already being affected by the slew of new rules and bylaws raining down upon the citizens of this city to best ensure that the upcoming Olympic Games is “safe” and – more importantly – free of episodes that might embarrass the notoriously thin-skinned government of China. Consequently, less easily controlled events in celebration of the Olympics such as street parties, spontaneous parades and other assorted manifestations of public revelry have all been banned. According to a BOCOG website, restaurants, bars and clubs will be subject to a 2am curfew. Even establishments that usually set up tables and chairs on footpaths for patrons to enjoy their food and drink in the balmy evenings have been forbidden from doing so this summer. Considering the above, I can reasonably confidently predict that if the Olympics goes off without a hitch, this colossally expensive event will be the most boring in living memory. Still, at least the fun-deprived foreign visitors will have something to snigger at:  Dinky little machine guns: check. Shiny gold targets on helmets to give opponents something to aim at: check. Segways: check, baby, and welcome to the future. Look out, bad guys – here comes the recently unveiled and Segway-straddled Chinese anti-terror/crowd control unit, charged with protecting the Olympic Games from universally acknowledged threats, as well as those that keep only CCP apparatchiks awake at night. Judging by the way China’s finest are handling their weapons in this photo, however, they look to be more of a danger to each other than to anyone not behaving. July 5th, 2008 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
That is not a sensational boxing headline being concocted; it is the name of an American athlete, being yanked around by some rather pompously programmed software. This morning one of David Thompson’s bits of Friday ephemera is a link to this, which is a link to this, which says this:
This was of course hastily corrected, but the magic of copy-and-paste had already done the damage. Most quoters have quoted the searched-and-replaced version, but I’ll let you do it. Change “Gay” to “Homosexual” in this, from the revised-and-then-revised-back-again version:
Or this:
Or, my favourite, this:
But amidst all the joking, it should not be forgotten that this guy sounds like he might be a real athletics superstar.
I say “might”, because when you hear that an athlete is really, really fast your first thought may be wow, but a close second in a photo-finish is: I wonder if it’s just that the dopesters have now found a new and cleverer way to do it. Gay might, that is to say, be a very quick runner but a fake superstar. If you don’t want to be at the centre of universal suspicion, do not be a superstar sprinter, and in particular, do not come to the boil just for the Olympics. Lawyers may forbid constant reference to this suspicion in official big-media sports reports, but this is what all of us casual onlookers now think, and all the lawyers on earth cannot stop us. For Gay’s sake, I hope that this proves to be a real, drug-free record. I also hope that, come the Olympics, Gay doesn’t choke. Ditto all the other athletes. But then again, if such a PR catastrophe in some way makes the government of China a little less nasty, maybe a bit of athletic choking would be a good thing. Sadly, however, if the story so far is anything to go by, such an eventuality would probably cause that government behave even more nastily, perhaps by inprisoning all the TV cameramen who concentrated too much on the choking. July 4th, 2008 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Duchy of Cornwall proudly announces that the Prince of Wales’s old Aston Martin has been converted to run on bio-ethanol – which is sourced as surplus wine from one of his Wiltshire estates. Which is fine by me. If a very rich man wishes to spend his own money in mildly strange ways, and is not really hurting anyone, then who am I to complain? (I personally benefit from the other-wordly advantages of living on the Crown Estates, and very nice it is too, even as a humble tenant without grace and favour.) I think he should sack his PR, though. What is presented as a noble austerity for the sake of the planet comes across as a highly elaborate self-indulgence, when just laying up the Aston for a slightly less thirsty car would surely achieve the same thing. One might also say (and it might be the truth): “We had a lot of wine we couldn’t sell, so we looked around for something sensible to do with it, and discovered we could use it as fuel – even for the Aston Martin.” But they didn’t. Quite the reverse:
That quote’s in all press, so it isn’t a mis-statement coming out in a single interview. It was what the Clarence House establishment decided it would be best to say. They seem to think it is better to advertise not sane frugality, but his massive use of resources in being green – in judgment. ‘Champagne socialism?’ Is that when middle-class people drink it? In – you know… – restaurants? July 2nd, 2008 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
And nor should they be, but here is Patsy Kensit interviewed in last week’s Observer Magazine:
If it is not a fierce deadpan joke, then that’s a spectacular case of body dysmorphic disorder you have there, Miss Kensit. May 18th, 2008 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is what I call gratitude. On the subject of rare musical instruments, and as a sign of how desperate some investors are to make money away from the standard stock and bond markets, you can even invest in violins. I can see the jokes coming: “So, what do you invest in?” “Violins”. “Hmm, I’ve been on the fiddle myself”. Groan. May 7th, 2008 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Via this blog, comes this awesomely silly story:
Fantastic. Just imagine how one could play with this. Suppose the town council of Dorking, southern England, sues anyone who is referred to, or uses the pejorative term, “Dork”. Greece: did not that country once come up with clever chaps like Aristotle or something? As ever, those interested in silly lawsuits should keep an eye on Overlawyered, an invaluable blog. May 2nd, 2008 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
I recommend this short illustrated talk given by an American academic (no: businessman – see comment) who taught at Beijing University and who went with his family on a trip to North Korea. Here is part of what he says:
He then sees one of those giant stadium displays, done with thousands of big hand-held squares which keep changing.
And then we see this screen in action. It is actually rather impressive, especially when you consider how much the poor bastards doing it probably get to eat each day. And they’re the lucky ones. It often happens that people who report not on “the situation” in wherever it is, but simply on what they happen themselves to see, can supply an extraordinarily vivid feeling of what it must be like there. They don’t tell the whole story. But then again, they don’t pretend to. Meanwhile, the latest “news” from North Korea, is that they are building a huge underground fighter runway, right near the border with the hated South, Thunderbirds style. It is supposed to be invulnerable to military attack. Fat chance. I wonder how many people will die while making it. April 26th, 2008 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Belatedly, I joined the craze and had a go on one of my friend’s Wii games the other weekend. Terrific stuff: I played the golf, tennis, ten-pin bowling and shooter games. Bloody marvellous. You do need to get a large-enough television to make it work; unfortunately, I don’t really want to mess up my sitting room by putting a huge plasma screen on the wall, but some of my friends seem to be less squeamish. The main downside, I find, is that if you are playing this game and have not stretched and warmed up properly first, you can actually do a bit of damage. The next morning, when I woke up, the left side of my back was quite painful. This is what happens to a 41-year-old wealth management geek who has not spent enough time doing sport for real. Time to turn off the technology and put on the training shoes. A link to some Wii-related injuries. I wait for the first politician to try and bleat about the “Wii menace”. April 21st, 2008 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
The reasons why people upset their neighbours continue to grow:
I have not come across this reason for neighbour annoyance before. Anyway, in my experience, the most irritating thing about going to a gym – as I do at least twice a week if possible – is the pounding, Chavvy music that these businesses insist in piping into the rooms. There seems to be some assumption that you get better exercise if there is lots of noise assaulting the ears. Maybe it is to do with the idea that certain sounds encourage quick exercise: there might even be academic studies proving the link between a raised exercise rate and music. I suppose this makes sense; anyway, dancing is one of the best exercises of the lot. Although the JPearce dance technique is unlikely to catch on anytime soon, you will no doubt be relieved to know. April 3rd, 2008 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
The top headlines from BT Yahoo! news a moment ago:
March 25th, 2008 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
In my neighbourhood of Pimlico stands one of the ugliest public buildings in the known universe: Pimlico School. Unbearably hot in the summer (all that glass), miserable in the winter, with the sort of cavernous, Stygian style unlikely to suit enquiring young pupils, the place is being demolished for hopefully something rather more attractive. I cannot help but wonder, though, at the resemblance between the school and the main spacecraft in Battlestar Galactica. Mind you, I have not seen any Raptors flying out of the end of it. Some people actually like Brutalist architecture. March 24th, 2008 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
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