During the most dramatic paroxysms of the banking sector last autumn, they kept saying, in the media, that this was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But I think a lot of people (like me, initially) heard that as: the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
And the thing is, they were using [...]
Posts tagged with ‘news’
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Financial pandemic
30 April 2009 – 11:02 am
Wolf flu
27 April 2009 – 11:56 pm
The swine flu outbreak had me thinking: presumably the very nature of infectious diseases means that, if you want to beat them, you have to act fast and take large-scale measures. You have to act, every time, as though this one is The Big One because if it is, then time is of the essence.
But [...]
Let them eat farls
31 March 2009 – 10:28 am
More gloomy news from Northern Ireland. I can’t tell you how depressing it was a few weeks ago to be woken by Radio 4 reporting on the terrorist attack that killed two soldiers in Northern Ireland.
Because really, if you’d asked me to pick one unambiguously good news story from my time on earth, I’d have said the ending of violence [...]
Some names for IRA splinter groups
10 March 2009 – 11:52 pm
Funereal IRA
Eel IRA
Ambiguity IRA
Frivolity IRA
Campanology IRA
Imbecility IRA
Diagonal IRA
Confessional IRA
Digressional IRA
Irish Rational Divination Army
Irish Fashionable Celebration Army
Wiry Publican Calibration Army
Fiery Snatching Lubrication Sarnie
On Prince Harry
13 January 2009 – 2:49 pm
In the wake of my royal namesake’s latest act of fuckwittery, there have been serious questions asked about whether it indicates a racist culture in the armed forces. It seems equally relevant to ask: what does it say about the culture at Eton?
Links
1 November 2008 – 12:00 pm
YouTube – weewoo the talking starling
more talking starling.
(del.icio.us tags: starling video )
YouTube – François Macré – Thriller (reprise a’cappella 64 pistes)
cool video via Metafilter. ‘Here is a remake of the “Thriller” song that I’ve entirely recorded with my own voice, using 64 A’cappella tracks. There is therefore no instrument, synthetizer, beatbox, or even to sampler, [...]
In a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
25 October 2008 – 2:58 pm
Is it just me, or do these market crashes always seem to happen in the autumn?
Maybe the current crisis isn’t the result of years of cheap credit and over-leveraged banks. Maybe it’s actually an atavistic response to the nights getting longer. Too many bankers go for a few days in a row without seeing daylight, [...]
Mood music for the apocalypse
7 October 2008 – 9:30 am
It seems weirdly fitting that the Tate’s two current big exhibitions are Rothko and Bacon. I don’t suppose that the Tate can take any responsibility for the gloomy state of the world’s financial market: I don’t think it’s all because City bankers are popping over in their lunch break and being given the willies.
I wonder, though, [...]
Podcasts I listen to, part 1
6 October 2008 – 10:50 am
Hardly a day goes past without nobody asking me what podcasts I listen to. So, in defiance of public demand, here goes. This is the first of two posts, in alphabetical order.
Adam & Joe
Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish have a radio show on BBC Radio 6; Radio 6 is a music channel, but because of licensing restrictions, [...]
The return of Mandelson
4 October 2008 – 1:29 pm
It was a weird moment to see Peter Mandelson of all people return to the cabinet. Particularly weird, for me, because I had been half-heartedly composing a mental list of the celebrities I would most enjoy seeing on Strictly Come Dancing*, and so far the only people definitely on it were Christiano Ronaldo, Rachel Weisz and Peter [...]
On Sarah Palin
31 August 2008 – 7:42 pm
Scanning over the basic facts of Sarah Palin’s life, I was immediately struck by the fact that 40% of her children are named after witches.* This may say more about me than it does about her.
* Piper and Willow.
An observation
31 May 2008 – 9:13 am
If there’s one lesson I hope everyone concerned has learnt from the current US election cycle: it’s a really stupid idea to disenfranchise a whole bunch of your constituents for any reason. I’m thinking of the debacle surrounding the Democratic primaries in Florida and Michigan.
Of course it has only become such a thorny issue because [...]
Lies, damn lies and religion
8 May 2008 – 5:20 pm
There’s an article in today’s Times about the rapid decline in church attendance in the UK. The particular angle they’ve chosen to take is that within a mere 30 years, the number of people going to mosque every weekend will outnumber those going to church. This is illustrated by a dramatic graph with the Christian [...]
Irony of the week
16 February 2008 – 9:36 am
The Chinese government expressing their sadness and shock at the idea that anyone would be crass enough to sully the Olympic spirit with the grimy taint of a political agenda.
Kidneys! Kidneys! Get your kidneys here!
13 January 2008 – 11:42 am
I’m fascinated by this story—that the British government is considering changing organ donation to an opt-out system. So the surgeons would be able to presume consent unless the patient had specifically asked that his organs not be used.
I think it’s such an interesting ethical question. In some ways it would so clearly be a good [...]
marking the 200th anniversary of abolition
16 March 2007 – 5:01 pm
March 25th is the 200th anniversary of the passing of the Slave Trade Act which abolished the slave trade — though not slavery itself — in the British Empire. And like everyone else, I think, I’m unsure how we, the British, should mark it.
Celebration doesn’t seem quite the right tone to strike: it’s a bit [...]
Continuous Revolution
8 March 2007 – 8:44 am
After only 650 years of a two-chamber parliament, MPs have voted for both Houses to be fully elected.
I just hope we don’t come to regret this headlong rush towards mob rule.
Fucking bootiful
6 February 2007 – 12:28 am
It takes a lot to make me have sympathy for Bernard Matthews, whose company represents everything that’s worst in industrial food production, both the way they rear the turkeys and the revolting processed foods that they make from them. But I did get a twinge of sympathy when bird flu started killing all their turkeys.
I’ve [...]
The Sun on the North Korean nuclear test
10 October 2006 – 4:00 pm
The Sun may be an awful sexist homophobic reactionary rag, but it has its moments. Today’s front cover: a photo of the Kim Jong-il puppet from Team America:World Police, with the headline ‘HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE KOREA?’
Crappy journalism in action
24 August 2006 – 1:00 pm
I nearly posted a link to this story on the BBC website about cows having regional accents because I thought it was mildly interesting. But the internet linguistics police quickly debunked it.
The BBC story starts by saying “Cows have regional accents like humans, language specialists have suggested.” What actually happened was that a PR [...]
You said what now?
1 August 2006 – 8:43 am
I thought I must still be half-asleep when I heard it on the radio, but no, today’s news is Blair signs climate pact with Schwarzenegger.
The fact that Arnie is Governor of California is one of those things that still always comes as a bit of a surprise.