March 2010
42 posts
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-28) →
Laura Marling (39)
Camera Obscura (19)
Belle & Sebastian (14)
Fanfarlo (14)
Band of Horses (10)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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Anton Vowl looks at the Daily Mail readers views... →
Clearly it makes for depressing, misogynist, reading. Personally, I don’t mind Winkleman, and although I wouldn’t have thought of her first, she might work out well.
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“Punishment is the last and least effective instrument in the hands of the...”
– John Ruskin, Notes on the General Principles of Employment for the Destitute and Criminal Classes
Advice to Cameron: dump George →
I respect the Heresiarch for his often intelligent views on current topics. However, his suggestion that just before an election, Cameron sacks Osborne because he might be unpopular is laughably insane.
Zero Punctuation review of Heavy Rain →
I think I enjoyed it a little more than Yahtzee, but I think he’s pretty much right on all points.
Alexis Petridis on Compare the Meerkat and Cravats →
I couldn’t agree more. Are there people over three who actually like those fucking adverts?
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“What about whales? They are ignoring animals that are more important. Animals...”
– Lee Ryan, Blue, on 9/11
News Graphics by Megan Jaegerman →
The illustration on how to spot people with concealed weapons is particularly good, although has a great deal of potential for paranoia-creation.
“Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.”
– John-Paul Sartre, Nausea
Charlie Brooker on Drugs and Newspapers →
Articles comparing various things we accept to things we don’t, like drugs, aren’t rare, but Brooker does this well.
Michael Gove used to strike but big questions... →
Namely, how anyone could chant “Management are denying people the chance to be governed by a collective bargaining deal and denying freedom of choice in the workplace.”
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-21) →
The National (25)
Jr Walker & The All-Stars (23)
Belle & Sebastian (18)
Four Tet (16)
Camera Obscura (13)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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“All human wisdom is summed up in these two words — wait and hope.”
– Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Extract from Total Politics' interview with Nick... →
Making Nick Griffin look like an idiot is like shooting fish in a barrel, but it’s good to see that even Iain Dale’s Total Politics magazine managed to kill a few dozy fish.
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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-14) →
Fanfarlo (36)
Mumford & Sons (33)
Hot Chip (16)
TV on the Radio (12)
Vampire Weekend (11)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
‘Tis Pity We Called Her A Whore – And Other... →
Paul Carr on the new potential for libel that the internet provides. He points out that online “the simple fact is that many editors have absolutely no idea how their papers work any more.”
When Guy Hands bought EMI a lot of people thought... →
Sometimes a lot of people can be right.
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Watch70 Million by Hold Your Horses
A video that makes a few trips to art galleries pay off. Caravaggio’s Salome and David’s Death of Marat are particularly good.
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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-7) →
PJ Harvey (14)
The Rural Alberta Advantage (14)
TV on the Radio (12)
Ben Frost (11)
Vampire Weekend (10)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you... →
Ars Technica on ad blocking. Personally, I’ve always thought it a little strange that many of the people believing in ‘free’ content also block ads. At the very least it’s cheeky, at the worst, naive…
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“The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.”
– William Saroyan
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thomyk Podcast 66: Trophy →
In which Thom and Michael try to get Chatroulette to work, while recording the podcast, without any success. They might well try it again - but it failed this time. Nonetheless, they manage to talk about why you should vote, even if you’re a disenfranchised teenager, television programmes that they have enjoyed, the Oscars, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. They also touch briefly on the...
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“The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable...”
– Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
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Don't blame us for political apathy →
This article annoys me so much. The lesson she needs to learn is that politicians don’t care if she doesn’t vote at all, they just care if she gets off her arse and votes for someone else.
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thomyk Podcast 65: Precipitate →
In which Michael and Thom emerge from some Heavy Rain, to find themselves in the National Theatre battling with failing batteries and frequent PA announcements.
Desperately Seeking Sam →
A long piece by Roger Boylan in the Boston Review remembering Samuel Beckett twenty years after his death
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“All I say cancels out, I’ll have said nothing.”
– Samuel Beckett, The Calmative
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-2-28) →
Mayer Hawthorne (25)
Ben Frost (19)
Gene (16)
PJ Harvey (13)
The Rural Alberta Advantage (13)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Why other newspapers ignored the News of the World... →
I suppose it’s rather unsurprising that NI titles ignored the phone hacking scandal, but the fact that most other sources didn’t cover it either is a lot more nefarious.
Daily Mail in dumbing down backlash →
Oh, and if you’re compiling a multi-volume book on Daily Mail hypocrisy, here’s another example.
The Power Elite →
David Brooks argues that as our elites have become more diverse and been populated by those who have got there on merit, we’ve lost trust in them. Interesting point.
Want to read this article? Then enter your... →
Charlie Brooker on the serfdom of creating and remembering passwords.
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“We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a...”
– Richard Buckminster Fuller, New York Magazine