You thought that no one could top awarding a Nobel peace prize to Barack Obama, a decision taken, if I recall correctly, eleven days into his presidency?
They topped it.
This is sublime. This is art.
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“Unlike Mitt, I loathe Sesame Street. It bears primary responsibility for what the Canadian blogger Binky calls the de-monsterization of childhood – the idea that there are no evil monsters out there at the edges of the map, just shaggy creatures who look a little funny and can sometimes be a bit grouchy about it because people prejudge them until they learn to celebrate diversity and help Cranky the Friendly Monster go recycling. That is not unrelated to the infantilization of our society. Marinate three generations of Americans in that pabulum, and it’s no surprise you wind up with unprotected diplomats dragged to their deaths from their “safe house” in Benghazi. Or as J. Scott Gration, the president’s Special Envoy to Sudan, said in 2009, in the most explicit Sesamization of American foreign policy: “We’ve got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries – they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes.” The butchers of Darfur aren’t blood-drenched machete-wielding genocidal killers but just Cookie Monsters whom we haven’t given enough cookies. I’m not saying there’s a direct line between Bert & Ernie and Barack & Hillary … well, actually, I am.” Funny how these trends in kid-friendly TV animals go. Back when I was a nipper, we had Basil Brush, Top Cat, the cast of the Magic Roundabout, the Muppets, and the timeless Tom and Jerry cartoons. A later generation had Roland Rat. Aficionados like to point out that Basil Brush was modelled on the late, great Terry Thomas. Definitely a Tory. October 9th, 2012 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Remember sing-songs down the pub? OK, do you at least remember hearing that once upon a time there were such things as sing-songs down the pub? And Fred would stroll over to the old Joanna and have a tinkle on the ivories… If this sounds as remote from modern life as the Wars of the Roses, that might be because for the last few years Fred would have been liable to arrest. The Licensing Act 2003 made live music at pubs illegal without a licence no matter how small the venue. The good news is that it is no longer a crime to play a mouth organ in a pub without a licence. The bad news is that for nine years it was a crime, and we submitted. October 3rd, 2012 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
I’ve just discovered, while reading a Guardian piece about and against censorship by Nick Cohen, that Salman Rushdie has just published an autobiographical work about what his life has been like for the last decade or so, while being subjected to the calculatedly frenzied threats of the Islamist hordes following the publication of The Satanic Verses. I have never regretted for a single second purchasing my copy of The Satanic Verses, and I still have it. But like many others who voted thus with their wallets, I soon gave up with actually reading the thing. Joseph Anton, on the other hand, looks like it might be quite a page turner. As a general rule I far prefer reading autobiographies by award-winning literary novelists to reading their award-winning literary novels. Whether I enjoy reading Joseph Anton or not, I won’t regret buying that either. Which I just did. I have yet to discover why it is called Joseph Anton, but I’ll find out soon enough. And … I just did. While inserting that “page turner” link above, I found myself reading this:
So there we are. Bloody hell, I also just found out: 656 pages! That’s a lot of pages to be turning. Maybe just bits of it, eh? September 18th, 2012 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
Joan Brady, a previous winner of the Whitbread literary prize, writes:
I liked the comment by scepticalhawkeye:
Joan Brady appears upset that Whitbread has taken over the Costa Coffee chain, so instead of authors being given dosh by noble brewers they are getting it from effete caffeine-fiends. For a moment the flame of hope flickered within me that Ms Brady might be emulating the staunch heroes of of God Emperor of Didcot, in which mighty vows are made that never more shall the arm of the honest tea drinker be made limp by the latte of foreign oppressors! Alas, she just has a thing against Costa:
As every second comment says, if local people in overwhelming numbers do not want Costa Coffee then Ms Brady’s problem will not persist long. Local people in overwhelming numbers won’t go there, and Costa will cut their losses and go. In fact there is an issue worth discussing here. I cannot help wondering what Ms Brady would say if local people in overwhelming numbers expressed the view that they did not want immigrants of a different race, Egyptians for instance, setting up shop in their town and making a profit “at the expense of” UK shopkeepers. Would opposition to incomers on those grounds still count as the “fully expressed will of the people” and if not, why not? Isn’t this supposed to be a democracy? Perhaps if she reads the many pointed comments, the CiF crowd being on the right side for once, Ms Brady will be prompted to question the limits of majoritarianism. Perhaps she will also be prompted to do as so many of the commenters suggest and send Whitbread / Costa back their money. Given that she thinks that only the involuntary contributions of taxpayers are pure enough to fund a literary prize, that would be the principled course of action. September 15th, 2012 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Nowadays I seldom go to the cinema, and this isn’t only because there are few where I live. It’s because, judging from reviews, there is very little I want to see. It’s also partly because I have the impression that directors now despise dialogue, or resent the need for it, and so often have it muttered just out of earshot, or smothered by music. But the real reason goes deeper, and is also why cinema is in terminal artistic decline.” Is he right? I would be interested if commenters could give examples of where they think there are still films getting made that are packed with dialogue. As Brian Micklethwait wrote earlier this year about the film, Margin Call, there are still films getting made that are designed for intelligent people who don’t require lots of car chases to hold their interest. (Not that there is anything wrong with a car chase or a straightforward race, such as when Steve McQueen is involved.) To make a more philosophical point, assuming that Massie is correct – and I think he probably is – does the decline in dialogue mainly reflect the changing demographics of film audiiences? It might do so. The sort of more intelligent material that holds lots of dialogue, credible plots and so on is now increasingly getting made for television, especially in the US. Think of shows (I am not saying they are all good, by the way) such as Mad Men, The West Wing, CSI, 24, Grey’s Anatomy, The Sopranos, etc. And of course another factor is how, as humans, we tend to remember the good stuff and forget, or try to forget, the old 80-20 rule: 80 per cent or so of most stuff that ever gets made is utter crap. Even most Elizabethan plays were probably not all that good. But we remember Shakespeare. September 5th, 2012 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
I’m at least a week late with this picture (illness blah blah), but it remains one of my favourite Olympics images, snapped by one of my favourite bloggers, Mick Hartley:  Suddenly I heard myself asking: Yes, why couldn’t those damn rioters have waited until the Olympics? Not really, but I did think it. (What I really think is that rioters shouldn’t. And before anyone says, it’s different if all you do is call yourselves a Riot and play noisy tunes.) But to take my question seriously, I suppose rioters can tell when they’ll be allowed to run riot for a little while, and when they absolutely will not. Had they tried anything seriously wicked during the Olympics, they would have been crushed without mercy, the crushing egged on by the very people who, during and after the actual riots, were most sympathetic towards the rioters. Interestingly, a little two-part BBC2 TV show about the riots was billed in the Radio Times to be shown just before the Olympics. But then it was postponed. August 18th, 2012 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
Photoed by me in Vauxhall Bridge Road, earlier this week:  I liked this enough when I first set eyes on it to snap it up, and that was two days before I even noticed the “we’ve got one ‘ere” bit. Like I always say, my camera regularly sees more than I do. Website here. August 17th, 2012 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
I was surprised to discover today (unless I have been more than usually let down by my internet searching “skills”) that this, by Douglas Adams, has never been mentioned here at Samizdata before:
That’s from So Long And Thanks For All The Fish. In the place I found it on the www (see the link above), it does not say on what page. I was reminded about this snatch of dialogue by a recent episode of the BBC Radio 4 show Quote Unquote. A lady participant said she thought Douglas Adams very wise and very funny, this quote in particular. I post it here as a corrective to today’s SQotD, below, in which Paul Ryan says something good, thereby proving himself to be a more likeable lizard than nasty lizard Obama and his lizard gang. But, alert readers will note that this is a classic example of a piece of writing that will have everyone nodding, but each thinking his own thing. It’s like if you say you favour “common sense”, “principled government”, or “democracy“. Each person listening to you agrees. Each has his own distinct idea about what each phrase means, in ways that often wildly contradict the ideas in the heads of his nodding neighbours. All agree, that these are fine things. Far fewer actually do agree about anything of substance. For some, reading the Adams quote above, the lizards in charge of us are too capitalist inclined, for others they are insufficiently capitalist inclined. Some want the lizards to be keener on policy X, others curse the lizards for being insufficiently opposed to policy X. All agree only in being unsatisfied with the rule of the lizards, and that the lizards are indeed lizards. Which is one reason why the lizards usually survive and thrive. We, their victims, can so very rarely agree amongst ourselves about what species, or indeed if any species, ought to replace them. August 16th, 2012 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
No long review. Just whose fault the peril Gotham (not New York – honest) was. Indeed the peril of Western civilization. Many people – but three billionaires spring to mind One obsessed with money – no honour, good sense undermined by greed (leading to consequences he did NOT want). Jamie Dimon and so many others who supported for Obama for corporate welfare? One with utterly perverted idealism – the George Soros figure. Secretly financing and organizing the Occupy Movement (and worse). And the good billionaire – who has given up on the world, hiding with his bad memories in his house (thus leaving the world to the evil). Greed. Collectivism. Despair. August 15th, 2012 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
Call me selfish, but the only life I want to ruin is my own. – A rather (I think) noble sentiment, expressed in a recently-shown-on-Brit-TV episode of the show by one of the 2 Broke Girls, the dark haired one who has always been poor as opposed the blond one who used to be rich. Find a bit more of the conversation during which this was said, by scrolling down here, to where it says “Brokeback Girls”. Lesbians eh? Wherever they look, they see more lesbians. Mind you, the brunette character is called “Max”. August 1st, 2012 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
Who’s the coolest? Terry Deary, the author of “Horrible Histories” or Lars the Emo Kid? Deary: “Attack the elite. Overturn the hierarchy.” Lars: “I’ve got so much passion in my body that I just wanna … kill you!” Deary: “I started challenging authority at school, really, and just kind of never stopped.” Lars: “I’m just so complicated that you’d never understand me.” Deary: “It’s why I’m dangerous; inculcating rebel ideas into the minds of innocent young people using humour.” Lars: “I got the cops called in on me last week because I walked outside with a gun and professed my love to a flower.” Thanks for doing Horrible Histories, Mr Deary. As I said in 2005, when my then eight year old son asked me “Who is your favourite Habsburg?”, I knew that was £200 we could afford after all. He literally read those magazines to pieces; we still have them in their free cardboard holders, and the best-loved issues are reduced to stacks of flaky individual sheets of paper, like illustrated filo pastry. Furthermore, Mr Deary, I have a lot of sympathy with your views on education and its ruination by twonks in government, or would if I thought you meant them, though could I just add that it is not without the bounds of human variety for trigonometry, chemistry or French to turn out to be “the skills you are going to need.” Now please stop being such a poseur. You are not Han Solo. Lars is cooler than you. July 14th, 2012 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
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