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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Katrina’s consequences
How do you govern a country (and prosecute a costly foreign war) when the complacency and incompetence of your administration has just caused thousands of your citizens to be drowned?…
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I told you they were weird
This suit – not a new one, quite worn in fact, and with a very lairy pink tie over the hanger – spent a while in the hedge over the…
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Radio Apocalypse
Voyeuristic I suppose but gripping and scary too. Live radio from a Clear Channel country station in New Orleans. Lots of live telephone reports from the Superdome and other parts…
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Katrina journalism
I don’t know if there’s a name for this kind of journalism but it’s special: written quickly and by the old rules of American journalism. Simple, percussive, emotional and direct.…
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A Twentieth Century leader for a Nineteenth Century party half way through the first decade of the Twenty-First. Perfect.
Go Tories! Don’t dawdle! Pick Clarke! He’s just what you need. I’d love to see you elect the shambling jazz buff: a thoroughly unreconstructed and entirely fossilised political force –…
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Do something to improve your sad little life
Listen you slippery media smartarse, you trendy, ipod-shuffling, probably-up-in Edinburgh for the TV Festival (“Easyjet? Don’t make me laugh. You get a proper breakfast on BA…”), doing a bit of…
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Parking people
Why are 80% of Central London parking attendants from West Africa? Terrific Radio 4 programme (MP3) by Ade Daramy. These guys take terrible stick from God fearing Londoners who think…
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For sound geeks
I really loved this programme (MP3) by elite sound geek Chris Watson on Radio 4 the other day. It’s all about wind. Likewise, I’ve been really enjoying this book by…
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Unaccustomed calm
We live on the main road through our village (we like to call it a village. It is, of course, a twisted suburb – with good access to the M25).…
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Buy my old camera
Japanese business seems to have a better memory than the rest of capitalism (the oldest firm in the world is, after all, Japanese). Canon’s camera museum is a thing of…
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What should Bush & Blair do for an encore?
Invest in Gaza. I mean really invest in Gaza. Invest like nobody else has ever done. Reopen the airport, build a university, build two hundred schools, build a proper public…
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The eBay effect
As I keep saying, eBay makes a previously illiquid asset (the contents of your loft) marvellously, improbably liquid. According to a report from a consultancy called The Centre for Economic…