November 2009
Tim Worstall is an idiot →
Therefore all UK-based political bloggers are idiots.
“All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving...”
– Amelia Barr
The Daily Quail: Suri Cruise: A perfectly... →
Even Daily Mail commenters are creeped out by their beloved newspaper’s freakish obsession with Suri Cruise. Whatever gets you page impressions though…
Information is beautiful Friday: the Billion... →
Want to see how the bank bailout looks compared to the other parts of the UK economy and government spending? Yeah, you probably don’t. But the next time that someone tells you that the private sector have some inherent ability to be better with money than the public sector, you can show them this.
Pretending the climate email leak isn't a crisis... →
“But the deniers’ campaign of lies, grotesque as it is, does not justify secrecy and suppression on the part of climate scientists. Far from it: it means that they must distinguish themselves from their opponents in every way.” Monbiot’s right.
“Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling...”
– Charles Lamb, On Books and Reading
Podcast: Mancorr →
In which Thom and Michael talk about the film Moon. Don’t worry about it, Michael doesn’t spoil it. He really really wanted to, by just saying a single word. But despite the fact that it would annoy Thom, he refrained from doing so. It’s not even one of the tags on this podcast.
We’ll probably spoil it next week though. So if you’re planning to watch the film, you’d better do so this week. Or...
“Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.”
– Oscar Wilde, The Remarkable Rocket
“Self-plagiarism is style.”
– Alfred Hitchcock, London Observer, 8 August 1976
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-22) →
Monsters of Folk (28)
Nirvana (27)
The Beatles (20)
Jay-Z (14)
Led Bib (3)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Charlie Brooker on Mariah Carey →
“Her singing voice wavers up and down through the octaves, like someone slowly tuning a shortwave radio in search of an authentic emotion.”
“Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent...”
– Lee Simonson
The London Of Sherlock Holmes...Mapped →
From Londonist, all of the places that Sherlock Holmes visits in his various cases. Some, inevitably, are a bit vaguer than others.
“A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.”
– Paul Erdos
Podcast: Gold →
In which Thom and Michael celebrate their golden podcast anniversary with a bumper special edition, which you might notice looks and sounds quite like all the other episodes. They talk about their experiences seeing Los Quattros Cunts, and Michael gets distracted quite a lot by the copy of Assassin’s Creed II that he’s left on pause in the background. Thom gets angry about Conservative bloggers,...
“If ever there was a theme song for the business end of the industry, it’s:...”
– Frank Miller, On the comics industry
How Belle de Jour's secret ally Googlewhacked the... →
I think my favourite part of the Belle de Jour story is Darren from LinkMachineGo’s role in it all.
“The present age … prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the...”
– Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, The Essence Of Christianity
Five Chinese Crackers →
It’s been a long time since I found a blog that I really liked. I’m late to this party, but Five Chinese Crackers’ dismantling of the media’s idiocy is top rate.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-15) →
The Beatles (42)
R.E.M. (10)
Death Cab for Cutie (6)
Laura Marling (6)
Dave Sitek (2)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy...”
– David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
“Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew.”
– Woodie Guthrie, Notes About Music
“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period...”
– Woodie Guthrie, Message on mimeographed copies of lyrics distributed to fans in the 1930s
Disney Princesses, Deconstructed →
A depressing analysis of what Disney’s leading ladies teach young girls and boys.
Podcast: Scarlett →
In which Thom and Michael talk about some delightful cakes and some foul jelly beans. Which, were they minded, they could make into some analogy about the podcast. Or the world. Or something. And when not talking about food, share their predilection for being astonishingly petty.
“We came across a lad from A company. He was ripped open from his shoulder to his...”
– Harry Patch, The Last Fighting Tommy
Rupert Murdoch: for whom the net tolls →
Cory Doctorow suggests that Murdoch’s trying to reshape the web rather than just being insane when it comes to copyright. A persuasive opinion.
Aerial Virtual Tour of London →
This is pretty stunning. Having got used to Google Maps, it would have been nice to be able to travel wherever you like, but I get why that’s a way off yet.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-8) →
The Beatles (64)
Mumford & Sons (12)
Bright Eyes (10)
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (4)
R.E.M. (3)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
29 Oct: Minister opposed to death
foreignofficeviewsonnews:
Congratulations to those eagle-eyed people - including Sky’s Tim Marshall - who spotted the deliberate mistake in a press release that the FCO put out yesterday.
You’ll be glad to hear that the government is not developing a policy of existential opposition towards death itself, or any other inherent reality of the human condition. For the avoidance of doubt, we...
The Mail needs to clamp down on its racist readers →
Great post by Malcolm Coles. I doubt the Mail particularly cares, since a pretty hefty chunk of its readers are racist, but the point still stands.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-1) →
The Beatles (51)
Oscar Peterson Trio (17)
Grizzly Bear (12)
Noah and the Whale (11)
Portico Quartet (8)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
