I thought this article by Daniel Finkelstein about the differing rhetorical styles of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair was surprisingly interesting, given the subject matter.
Posts tagged with ‘news’
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Bob Denver & Americana
9 September 2005 – 10:25 am
Bob Denver, the star of Gilligan’s Island, has died. Gilligan’s Island is one of those bits of Americana which feel familiar but I actually know entirely via hearsay. It’s one of the most frequently used pop culture references in other US pop culture - they mentioned it on House just last night - but I’ve [...]
‘Get off the fucking freeway’
9 September 2005 – 9:43 am
A thoroughly depressing article about the official relief effort after Katrina. Via Emily Lloyd.
I’m back.
4 September 2005 – 10:43 pm
I’ve come back from Perigord to the grim news from New Orleans. I don’t really have anything to say about that, for the moment.
I did manage to listen to the cricket on Radio4 LW via a buzzy little radio. I ended up having to hold it out of an upstairs window and nearly had [...]
Charlie sticks his oar in again
24 August 2005 – 1:46 pm
The Queen’s greatest virtue is that that I have no idea what her political views are. On that basis, Prince Charles could be the one to kill off the monarchy. Sometimes I agree with his opinions, more often I don’t - but I don’t want to know them. The monarchy is tolerable as long as [...]
Moog dies
23 August 2005 – 10:30 am
Dr Moog has died. I love the sound of analogue synthesisers. It’s like drum-machines - the overtly mechanical sound of them is part of the appeal. I was about to try and come up with a theoretical justification - something about their overt artificiality and how in a sense it brings you closer to the [...]
Intelligent Design
21 August 2005 – 1:57 pm
God Chimes in on Intelligent Design. Creationism seems like such a soft target. It scares me silly that anyone takes it seriously.
Slavery monument
16 August 2005 – 2:24 pm
There was a documentary on TV last night (which I forgot to watch) in which Dr Robert Beckford argued the case for the government to pay reparations for slavery. What I’ve gathered from the web is: he consulted “an economic historian, a compensation lawyer and an expert on loss of earnings” and came up with [...]
IRA ends armed campaign
28 July 2005 – 3:15 pm
Which is a rare piece of good news in the War on Terror. Having pledged to stop using violence, the next natural step would seem to be disbanding. Though I suppose the IRA could continue in existence as a social club. They could hold cake sales and charity auctions. Like the WI, only with balaclavas.
shot man not a terrorist
23 July 2005 – 9:58 pm
Apparently he was Brazilian and unconnected to the bombings. I appreciate the difficult position of the police, but this is why we didn’t have armed police in the first place. I don’t know what to say.
suspected suicide bomber shot on Tube
23 July 2005 – 10:56 am
The police shooting dead a suspected suicide bomber (who, as it turns out, wasn’t a bomber, even if he turns out to be linked) on the Underground. Now that’s unnerving. It’s so un-British.
“it is the duty of every true Muslim…”
15 July 2005 – 12:08 am
Prince Charles has been commenting on “the duty of every true Muslim” in the aftermath of the bombings.
I get very uncomfortable when people who are clearly not Muslims themselves make pronouncements about Islamic theology. Tony Blair has done it before as well. Now we all know that Blair is high Anglican bordering on Catholic, [...]
Yorkshire suicide bombers
13 July 2005 – 3:27 pm
It sounds like some kind of bad-taste joke - ‘What do you call a Yorkshire suicide bomber?’ but, of course, it’s not.
Oddly enough, the thing which creeped me out most wasn’t that the bombers were British, or even that they were second generation, but that they were Pakistani. It’s invidious to talk about one [...]
last bit of bomb blogging
9 July 2005 – 3:45 pm
Having not been in central London since this whole thing started, I felt the need to go up to town today. I don’t know why - solidarity? a need to touch base? a feeling I was missing all the action?
Anyway, I went up to Borough Market and had a nice lunch - grilled scallops [...]
London bombs
8 July 2005 – 12:56 pm
The police have raised the death-toll to ‘at least 50′.
I think London will cope pretty well with this - we’ve been brought up with terrorism, on a smaller scale, from the IRA, and ever since 911, Bali and particularly Madrid, it was pretty clear that sooner or later it would happen here as well. [...]
London bombs
8 July 2005 – 12:20 am
Well, the death-toll is 38, for the moment. It’s a sombre reflection that, after 9-11, Bali, Madrid and Beslan, to have only 38 deaths - more than any IRA attack ever killed - feels like a relief. And it’s a great deal better to be living in London than, say, northern Uganda.
London bombs
7 July 2005 – 1:46 pm
I was planning to do lots of enthusiastic Olympic-related blogging today, but then this happened. At the moment, at least it looks like the casualties aren’t on the scale of Madrid or Bali, but we still don’t have much information.
good things happening
30 June 2005 – 10:40 pm
Three things which I found pleasing today: the UK had the least road deaths last year since records began in 1926; Canada and Spain have legalised gay marriage; Venus Williams beat Maria Sharapova to get into the Wimbledon final.
full of the joys of spring
2 March 2005 – 3:41 pm
Wel, the weather may be rotten, but it’s hard to be completely gloomy when the people of Carlisle are doing so much to cheer me up (there’s a picture of the Stone here). And hurrah for the Melton Mowbray pork pie.