The top headlines from BT Yahoo! news a moment ago:
* Anger problem ‘ignored’ in UK
ITN – Chronic anger has reached endemic heights in the UK but is often ignored, according to a new report.
* Miss Bimbo website provokes outrage
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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)
As you may or may not know, today is International Women’s Day (IWD) – it falls annually on March the 8th. This anniversary is not especially remarked upon in the Western world, yet it is a widely noted event in many of the countries that were closely allied to, had ideologically similar political ideologies to, or constituted the Soviet Union. I am living in China at the moment, and was first reminded of the advent of this year’s IWD by my Vietnamese girlfriend, and then by the Chinese state press. Otherwise, it would have passed me by completely. I have to say I find it a little amusing that two countries I have spent a fair bit of time in of late – Vietnam and China – so noisily celebrate IWD, considering that women in both countries face considerable and ingrained discrimination, despite the official socialist repudiation of gender inequality. Still, the show must go on and my girlfriend came home from work on the 8th with a gift; the same one that all the women in her company (a large Chinese software firm) received to commemorate IWD. And what was her present? A gift pack of anti-dandruff shampoo and conditioner. A lot of women work at this company, so obtaining all that haircare product would have been a substantial purchase. There must have been a conversation in the HR department a few weeks ago that went something like: “I think this Head & Shoulders pack is suitable. I mean, we’re all for equal rights for women, but can we at least ensure that they are not leaving bits of their scalp about the place if they must work with us? Yes, I know, it’s a shame that the deal on the girdles fell through, but there’s always next year…” March 8th, 2008 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I do not normally like receiving emails selling me products, but I thought I would have to make an exception for this:
I look forward to the Nigerian version: “My name is Mr.Moses Odiaka. I work in the credit and accounts department of Union Bank of NigeriaPlc,Lagos, Nigeria. I write you in respect of a foreign customer with a Virgin Galactica ticket. His name is Engineer Manfred Becker. He was among those who died in a plane crash here in Nigeria during the reign of late General Sani Abacha. Since the demise of this our customer, Engineer Manfred Becker, who was an oil merchant/contractor, I have kept a close watch of the deposit records and accounts and since then nobody has come to claim the airmiles in this a/c as next of kin to the late Engineer. He had only 18.5mllion air miles in his a/c and the a/c is coded. It is only an insider that could produce the code or password of the deposit particulars. As it stands now,there is nobody in that position to produce the needed information other than my very self considering my position in the bank.” February 29th, 2008 | Comments are closed
But not green television the way you think. South African blogger 6000 is “not sure where this came from originally or if it’s true”, but he adds: “But you know, this is SA and people are nothing if not resourceful. It’s a cool story – I choose to believe.” Me too.
Good to know that almost everybody down there can afford to have “spending fever”, even if some prefer to economise on their electricity bills. 6000 has this as a mere scanned image of a newspaper report. I think it deserves the .html treatment. February 18th, 2008 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Via the excellent engadget blog, here is a nifty item to put on the wall for all you health-freaks out there. Perhaps I should strap my arm to one of the controls the next time I read about the Archbishop of Canterbury, the eco-Leninist thoughts of Madeleine Bunting, or watch the English rugby/cricket/football team give up a lead?. Or maybe I should stop doing all these things for a longer, happier life. February 8th, 2008 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that’s what we’re dealing with. – Steven Guilbeault, Greenpeace 2005, as quoted by Canada Free Press Afterwards, another activist clarified the remark by stating that of course taller can also be evidence of shortness, richer can mean living in poverty, baboons can mean chairs, giraffes can mean pencils and hello Ms. Robinson, your lacy trousers are well buttered with smoked trout, can you hear what I’m writing with my toaster? February 5th, 2008 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
My father told me a while back that I was distantly related to Henry Blofeld, landowner and legendary cricket commentator. The Blofelds are an old Norfolk landowning family. Well, if it turns out I am related to a family that has the same surname as one of the greatest Bond villains, then maybe I should invest in something suitably sinister. It may be cheaper than a hollowed-out volcano, if only slightly. Staying with the Bond theme, you can now, if you have the wealth, live in a beach resort in the same part of Jamaica as Ian Fleming’s old beachside home of Goldeneye. Back in 1956, during the Suez crisis, Anthony Eden, then prime minister, stayed at the Flemings’. January 31st, 2008 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
How’s this for a title and opening for an article:
The howls of outrage that framing an article in such terms would cause is easy (and rather fun) to imagine. If ever there were two things that should not have have an impact on whom a person votes for, it should be the genetic characteristics of skin colour and gender. Dare I suggest that ideology and honesty might trump those two non-factors every time? And yet this article will most likely pass without the slightest murmur from a great many people.
But if it is reasonable for black women in South Carolina to vote on the basis that someone is black or female, presumably they cannot object if other people decide to vote for candidates on the basis they are white or male. After all, it does appear that framing the choice on whom to support on the basis of racism or sexism is perfectly acceptable to the mainstream media. And there I was mistakenly thinking that those things were the cardinal politically incorrect sins of our day! Who knew? January 22nd, 2008 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
I would not normally be moved to link to a ‘product listing’ page for a chain of Dutch department stores called HEMA, but that is exactly what I am doing now. Why? Because it is cool and for no other reason than that. Click and just wait a few seconds to see what happens (and no, I assure you it is not another video ‘screamer’). January 18th, 2008 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is a truly bizarre story on Reuters saying that the French car manufacturer Citroën has apologised for running an advertisement featuring a scowling Chairman Mao.
Astounding. The man who was probably the most prolific mass murderer in history, who murdered between 44.5 & 72 million mostly Chinese people and brought tyranny to almost one fifth of the world’s population, is regarded by some people in 2008 as “the symbol of China”? That is truly surreal. Well, I suppose he is in the same sense that Jack the Ripper is the ‘symbol’ of Whitechapel. Yet somehow I cannot see the residents of Whitechapel taking umbrage at an advertisement by Citroen featuring Jack the Ripper being portrayed with a less than congenial expression. Just how many people does a tyrant have to order killed before he becomes absolute anathema in China? How many lives does he have to ruin to stop being ‘the symbol of China’? What kind of moral derangement is required to take insult in this manner? Well people in China should indeed be insulted, but by the fact Citroën used the image of that vile psychopath to portray anything other than horror, death and misery. How dare someone trivialise suffering on such a colossal scale? How would people react if they had used Hitler instead? People would certainly protest but somehow I do not think all too many Germans would be saying “The Fuhrer is the symbol of Germany”. A Chinese person I know described the Mao era as ‘The Long Nightmare’. It seems some people in China do not want to wake up. January 15th, 2008 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)
I was channel surfing the other day when I came across a strange caption at the top of my television that caught my eye, causing a definite double take… WH O RE 1 Anyone care to guess what I was watching? December 29th, 2007 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
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