If the publicity photographs are anything to go by, Roddy Doyle has gone from looking like a trendy-“I want you kids to write about what you know”-teacher to his present incarnation as a faintly smiling Tibetan monk.Promoting not just one, but two books: a children’s story and the next novel in the “Henry Smart” trilogy: […]
While she was alive Diana Spencer had the power to turn stolid middle-aged men into gibbering idiots (c.f. Alastair Campbell’s toe-curling accounts of his encounters with the dysfunctional aristo). But even beyond the grave, she exerts her dangerous gifts on hacks of a certain age–particularly those charged with sharing their pensées with the great unwashed […]
Film: An Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore presents a compelling case, delivering another nail in the coffin of the argument that climate change is a debatable/distant threat. (And mid-way through a spookily mild winter who can be confident that our weather is not seriously screwed up?). However, I did have a bit of an issue with […]
A while ago, I came across Charles Baudelaire’s famous poem À une passante in an American journal article that was discussing the evolution of the city during the 19th-century. The poem is often referenced in this context–the new, impersonal city that emerged in the West at this time–because it’s considered one of the first works […]
Tuesday’s Gazeta Wyborcza has a review of two books. The subhead reads: “These two books are crying out to be read in tandem — both were written by Englishmen fascinated by the history of Russia. Can a resident of the British Isles penetrate the darkness of the Russian soul?” Funny how no one ever asks […]
The West’s woes continue…RTE’s website leads with the chilling news that “Belavia has confirmed its once weekly winter service between Shannon and Minsk will cease on 25 October.” Meanwhile, in the backroom of his beleaguered constituency office, a haggard-looking Willie O’Dea peers over the shoulder of his PA. On the computer monitor the pixallated expanses […]
PiS is showing party political broadcasts which boast about, among other things, “improved” security – at this point the TV screen shows some jet fighters, possibly the F16s PiS bought the other year. I’m sure it is entirely coincidental that Lockheed Martin has an advertisement in today’s Gazeta Wyborcza for the F16 Fighting Falcon. It’s […]
With a nod to Dean Baker, here’s a go at today’s Gazeta Wyborcza whose front page sub-head tells us that the cost to the taxpayer of ruling party PiS’s pre-election giveaway is 18 billion zloties. In paragraph three, the insignificant detail that this is over 25 years is given. Not quite so terrifyingly expensive after […]
One of the lazy generalizations about blogs is that they are merely electronic diaries–fluffy, self-absorbed journals that are no more interesting than the authors who pen them. While this characterization can be applied to some of the several million blogs in various states of maintenance, it is also fits some of the “professional journalism” that […]
The searing images captured by Nina Berman of wounded U.S. troops returned from Iraq dissolve any false comfort that might be derived from separating the injured from the dead in casualty statistics. In particular, the photograph titled “Marine Wedding” makes you want to go out and grab a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq–one of […]
