Highlights
Count Binface and electoral theatre
Don’t be a costumed loon — It’s trivially easy to stand for Parliament in the UK. Any loon can do so. You need ten electors to nominate you and £500 for a deposit – and it’s actually been getting easier. The deposit was introduced in 1918 (£150 – quite a lot of money then). Before […]
I hate this
But does it matter? — I don’t usually say that sort of thing here. I try to be more measured, less personal. I’m talking about the police face recognition vans obviously. This might not surprise you: I mean that I don’t like them. I’m an old git after all, a man who’s written here before […]
Where is my patriotism?
Come, love of country, fill my heart… — I do love Britain. I guess I love England more. London most of all. I hope that in my life I’ve honoured the place I live and not disgraced it or undermined it (I support England and GB in sporting events – I fly a little flag […]
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My come-back
I haven’t blogged for nearly a month. It was the shock. My carefully constructed blogger.com weblog exploded. I won’t go on about it. I’m better now. Anyway, I can confirm…
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Normal service will be resumed…
The general weirdness and flakiness of Blogger lately (look at my lovely links!) has pushed me over the edge. I’m going to import the whole lot to Movable Type later…
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The film industry is the least of our problems
I watched an interesting feature about the flakey British film industry tonight on BBC 4. As you’d expect, it was mostly whinging and hand-wringing from all sources ? hyper-interventionist culture-boosters…
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and another thing…
What’s happened to all my links? All my lovely links over there on the right have stopped working (likewise the stylesheet for that bit of the page?). Blogger seems to…
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What’s wrong with being an elite?
A lot of the debate about the Best British Blog comp seems to centre on this word ‘elite’. Maybe I should have said ‘vanguard’ or ‘enlightened’ or ‘pioneers’ or something.…
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A too-careful commentary
The soon-to-be-abolished ITC’s contribution to the imminent Commons debate on the Communications Bill is a book of essays by The Great and The Good (G&G henceforth) from the media and…
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On being a parent
tigerchild.com is one of the many treasures unfairly knocked around by the ‘great crash’. Running a content web site these days must be a thankless task but the tigerchild people…
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A ragged-trousered elite
When a figure of authority (this is me, but not really me because in this I’m just standing in for The Guardian) reaches out to offer ‘validation’ to an emerging,…
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Obscure? Irrelevant? Moi?
It’s always difficult to persuade an elite that the great unwashed might have something useful to contribute. Looks like bloggers are no different. How many weblogs are there in the…
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Sleepless in the blogosphere
Thanks to The Guardian for two consecutive sleepless nights scoring dozens of Great British Weblogs. I’m in awe. Not a turkey among them. I’ve over-dosed on clever, useful, ironic, sometimes…
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Brother, sister, mother and father
A Mother’s Love, The MetersAll Your Sisters, Mazzy StarBig Bayou, The Flying Burrito BrothersBroken Little Sister, Death In VegasBrother Can You Spare A Dime, George MichaelBrother John, Cannonball AdderleyChristine’s Tune,…
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Miss, Mr and Mrs
I Don’t Want Your Millions Mister, Pete SeegerMiss Chatelaine, kd langMiss Lucifer, Primal ScreamMiss Punta Blanca, Jane SiberryMiss Sadie Mae, John Lee HookerMiss Sarajevo, George MichaelMr E’s Beautiful Remix (Butch…