Sunday, September 30, 2007
Labels: BNP, British National Party, Conservatives, immigration
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Still Hateful After All These Years
Labels: anti-Semitism, David Irving
Friday, September 28, 2007
Labels: authors, Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Another white guy in 'not a terrorist' shock.
"I was hoping to achieve a bomb scare, to shut down a building, but cause no real harm to any individual," he said.
Of course, you didn't intend to harm anyone by sending fully functional letter bombs did you? You terrorist arse.
Labels: racism, terrorism, United Kingdom
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Labels: Alisher Usmanov, blogs, censorship, Craig Murray, Uzbekistan
Labels: Madeleine McCann, media, newspapers
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Well, that's obviously it for evolution then...
Sunday, September 23, 2007
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Recognise that Brian Hoare is a national hero and to honour him as such.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Refuse to recommend that Tony Blair be awarded a Knighthood or Peerage.
Labels: petitions, The War Against Terror, Tony Blair
Labels: education, religion, United Kingdom
Palais De Danse, Hammersmith Station
I went in and, first things first, I've got to give kudos to Kew for providing a map for the public that is accurate and easy to use. I don't know why but most other institutions seem to think the public go to an exhibition intending only to see a proportion of what is on display, or they encourage visitors to use serendipity in finding the various statues, but we got a map, to scale, and every item was where the map said it would be, so I managed to see everything. Bravo to Kew for that.
With twenty-eight pieces in the Gardens I ended up following the paths just looking for the exhibits, it'll be a seperate trip if I want to explore the grounds down to the river bank, or visit the house or enormous greenhouse but that's okay. Now I've been there once I've more reason to go again.
As for the sculptures, I'm illiterate when it comes to art so all I can say is, I liked some more than others. Insightful huh? What was really annoying where the other people. Ignoring the parents who disregarded the signs asking people not to climb on the exhibits and let (or in some cases encouraged) their children to do just that, the number of times people trying to take photos were blocked by other people walking directly in front of them to fondle the sculptures or to take their own photos were beyond count. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that if you walk up from behind me, you can see I'm trying to take a picture, it's the height of bad manners to then come and stand right in front of me with your poxy cameraphone, as happened on several occasions.
Never mind that Kew seems to have taken a more sensible view of the whole photo thing than the Tate, why do so few people seem to bother paying attention to what the people around them are doing, or caring about it?
I really hate it when people make me sound like a Daily Mail leader column...
Labels: art, Flickr, Henry Moore, Kew Gardens, sculpture
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Someone wants to 'bring back' militias to the UK in case we're invaded while the Army is 'busy' in another country. Call me suspicious, but isn't this more about legalising gun ownership again?
Labels: petitions
Friday, September 21, 2007
"You are so sued! I'm suing you in England!"
If you are in any way interested in finding out why Murray feels that Alisher Usmanov from Uzbekistan is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist then there are still many places on the interweb that have the original article, here's one for example. And you may want to spread the word about that Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist Alisher Usmanov and his attempts to gag free speech, it would help if the place you're writing on is not in the U.K.
Septicisle has more on the Bloggerheads angle, he's been thinking about Alisher Usmanov for a while now.
NOTE: Which is not to say I automatically believe Murray's accusations, I just think it's a pleasant sounding phrase that trips off the tongue when in the presence of someone who tries to sue other people out of existence.
Labels: Alisher Usmanov, blogs, censorship, Craig Murray, Uzbekistan
Hillary Not Dorothy
Labels: lesbian, United States
I did enjoy The Sundial Brigade by James Trimarco, in which humanity struggles for freedom when the Earth is run by alien museum curators rather than megacorps or fascistic politicians. It's one of those stories that I wish were longer so that some of the more interesting throwaway ideas could be more fully investigated, like the idea that bad behaviour by the humans is punished by their being given negative personality traits, like being made smokers or alcoholics. On the other hand, if these traits are investigated you get the novel length version of Isaac Asimov's Nightfall, so maybe the short stories are best left alone.
On the train to work this morning I listened to Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane by Jonathon Sullivan. Set during WW2, the war of choice for a country so reluctant to take part in it at the time, it's one of those stories that mingles fact and fiction as it tells of the escape of Danish Jews, including Bohr, through the eyes of a young boy, torn between the competing demands of his rabbi Father and his desire to follow in Bohr's scientific footsteps. I can't really mention the fantasy element without blowing the whole story, but while it's true to say that it's fundamentally a traditional story, I think a number of the plot points won't be surprising anyone, it's notable for the strong relationship Sullivan evokes between father and son, so much so that I'm glad I was busy navigating around the London Underground towards the end of the story and so was occupied at the emotional high points of the story.
On a tangentially connected note, I only recently read Maus and was similarly moved by the relationship between author/artist Art Spiegelman and his father, Vladek, pumping him for the story of how he and his wife survived Hitler's Europe and the death-camps, while finding him so difficult to deal with in the present as he tries to survive in the modern-day USA. The relationship between children and parents seems to be a touchy one for me at the moment, probably the first stirrings of middle-aged angst .
While I'm currently single and don't want a relationship or kids, at the same time there's something buzzing at the back of my head to remind me that by my age my Dad was married with two young children and a mortgage. It's funny how part of me seems to want to measure myself against standards that I feel I've consciously rejected. But I wonder if that conflict is what, at the moment, makes me look for parent-child relationships in stories and resonates with them.
There are more stories at Escape Pod, for sci-fi, Pseudopod for horror and I'm also looking forward to their new show, Podcastle, which will be starting soon to spin off the more fantasy based stories.
Labels: books, personal history, podcasts, science fiction
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Labels: Daily Mail, men, metrosexuality, stupidity, women
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Labels: George 'Shrubya' Bush, humour, Iraq, The War Against Terror, United States, YouTube
"Fuck you with something hard and sandpapery!" (NSFW)
Labels: documentaries, internet
Friday, September 14, 2007
What do you think of the post so far?
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Daily Mail readers are a funny lot. They believe, on the lack of any evidence, that scrounging Eastern European scum are coming to steal benefits from this country. They believe that the BBC are pinko subversives out to transform this country into the U.S.S.R. A lot of them seem to think that if you don't support hanging as a punishment for wearing a hoodie then you're a crazy bleeding-heart liberal. Surprisingly, they draw the line at being an arms manufacturer.
Labels: Daily Mail, DSEI, Government, Mark Thomas, terrorism
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Cooking Instructions
Anniversary
I graduated from university in the summer of 1997. Returning home with no clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life I lasted about a month before my parents forced me to go and sign on. When I did so the job centre had only one library-related job on it's books (or rather in it's database), librarian at a girl's school in Surrey. I went to the interview and, much to my surprise, got the job. I was signed up in my new job before I'd received my first dole check, and ended up being on the dole for all of about a fortnight. We already had the family holiday booked and, because I'd been interviewed at the start of August my new employers allowed me to start a week late. So we went on holiday, Princess Di snuffed it in the early hours of my twenty-first birthday and we came home on the day of her funeral. I had a flat, unfurnished and lacking central-heating, but wasn't able to move into it until after my first week of work, so I had a week of commuting in a massive slingshot, Maidstone to Victoria, then back out to Wallington.
Those years were pretty wretched, I managed to lose contact with all my friends from university and didn't really find any to replace them. Getting a job in North London three years later was a real turning point, but that's a story for 2010...
Labels: personal history
"Leave Britney Spears alone now! I mean it! Anyone who has a problem with her, you deal with me!"
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
A Reasoned Critique of Something or Other.
Bravo Man in a Shed!
Labels: Conservatives, humour, politics
Labels: humour
'Shame on you', chanted an overweight man, You bitch! clutching his 'boyfriend's' hand, seemingly unaware of the paradox of accusing others of shame while foaming out his own shame (Jude 1:13)
...What were the National Front doing turning up half-way down the parade? Homosexuals are not black or Asian as a rule, they are overwhelmingly white, and therefore totally scrumptious from a National Front point of view... Funny how the NF have just picked up on the idea of protesting at gay pride events, three years after we started in London 2005. Could it be that some homosexual in the NF has worked out that their presence could devalue ours? No, they aren't that bright, surely? But just maybe the spirit of homosexuality is still as inseparable from national socialism as it was when the Nazi Party began its obscene life in a Munich gay bar.
Labels: Brighton, Christian Voice, Fundamentalists- Christian, gay, lesbian, queer, Stephen Green
Monday, September 10, 2007
Labels: politics, United States
It would seem that nothing else happened over the weekend. Yes BBC News 24, I'm looking at you. Blanket coverage of the McCann's driving to the airport, then repeated ad nauseam until the plane they were on touched down in the UK, then that was rolled around until they returned home to the village they live in, now that's swarming with reporters with no news to report.
There's been talk over the last weeks of how the BBC should cut back on it's digital channels so that minority interest shows like The Today Programme on Radio 4 aren't axed. Now, as far as I'm aware Today is only listened to by politicians, newspaper columnists who need inspiration to fulminate against the world and retired early risers in the counties. It's The Archers for Westminster folk, of practically no use to anyone else. Still, I'd be quite happy to sacrifice BBC3 to keeping it open, if it could be sealed in concrete, along with the casts of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and TittyBangBang , and dumped in the North Sea, then that is something to be applauded. But hands off BBC4 which, with a few exceptions, is like Radio 4 only people pay attention to it. News24, I still don't understand why our money is wasted on this. If you watch News24 then you realise very quickly that, just because something newsworthy could happen any time, that does not mean that news is happening any time. Or rather, there is lots of news going on that the BBC don't bother covering. It increasingly seems that when anything happens outside of Washington then the BBC turn over coverage to ABC. I can't remember Western Africa cropping up in the news since Mark Thatcher and a load of ex-Eton pupils decided to try and take a country over for a laugh. Those little Russian or ex-Russian states round the edge of the old U.S.S.R. don't get a look in (is there still a civil war going on in Chechnya? I watch News24, so I don't know). And China? Supposedly Murdoch dropped the BBC from a satellite TV package he wanted to flog to the Chinese people, I don't know why because they only ever get mentioned in the financial news.
So yes, let's shut down News 24 and BBC3, and give the money to John Humphrys for his pointless little show.
Labels: BBC, Madeleine McCann, media, news, police
Sunday, September 09, 2007
... You taciturn bastards.
[via Tranniefesto]
Actually, didn't I see some of these guys in this video? What happened to the cute boy doing the second part of the second chorus?
Labels: humour
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to outlaw the practice of Gazumping, when buying or selling a property, or land.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Allow people to do voluntary work and stay on long term income support.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Scrap ID/DNA/Surveillence database plans.
I'm currently loading holiday snaps up at Flickr. You can have a look here, or take a look at all my photos here. Or maybe you want to go to Hell when you die?
Talking of which, Guardian Journalist, guess what DVD I got for my birthday?
Labels: Flickr, personal history