Author: Harry

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Today’s big question

What did Materazzi say to Zidane to provoke such a violent reation?

EDIT: I’ve had a bit of a spike in traffic because this blog is the top-ranked result on Google for “what did materazzi say to zidane.” Welcome to my blog, but I’m afraid I don’t know the answer. I’ve seen people confidently claim it was “dirty Muslim terrorist” and “son of a terrorist whore” as well as other things, and it’s always claimed as coming from ‘a high ranking FIFA official’ or ‘a friend of Zidane’ or similar. It all sounds like speculation to me. I think I read that Zidane is planning to make a statement over the next couple of days, so perhaps we’ll learn then.

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Culture Other

FSotW: Jumping pictures

The Flickr set of the week is Jumping pictures, from Two loose trees.

pictures are ©Two loose trees.

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Culture Me Other

shook foil

I know why the phrase ‘like shining from shook foil’ is in my head — because I was putting some foil over a dish of coronation chicken. More peculiar is the other thing that’s been going around my head this morning:

“Bush and Saddam sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G”.

I think it’s unlikely that either of the Presidents Bush have ever snogged Saddam Hussein, and even if they have, a tree would be an unorthodox venue. But I suppose you never know.

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Culture Other

17th century fly-by

A cool thing from the people at Digitally Distributed Environments:

See the whole panorama here.

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Culture

In Praise of Shadows

‘Modern man, in his well-lit house, knows nothing of the beauty of gold…’

From Junichirō Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, an essay from 1933 discussing the importance of lighting in traditional Japanese aesthetics. The gold, the lacquer, Nō theatre, even Japanese make-up are all, he suggests, dependent for their effect on low, indirect lighting; bright light makes them look garish.

He contrasts this with a Western ideal of brightly-lit rooms, but I’m sure the same applies. We have an inherited reverence for gold and diamonds, but do they really look anything special under electric light? When I read Anglo-Saxon poetry, I imagine the gold glowing by fire and lamplight.

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Semi-finals

Well, a proper good Germany/Italy game, and a pretty dismal France/Portugal one. I’m still hoping to see Zidane take the final by the scruff of the neck and win it gloriously for France, but at this point I’d be happy just to see an attacking game with a few goals.