Posted in Uncategorized on April 30, 2008 | No Comments »
I’m afraid there won’t be too much intelligent thought emanating from this blog tonight, but I’ll try to present a few low-interest morsels of information, if only for the sake of appearances. Here’s a live session Okkervil River did for pitchforktv.
from pitchfork.tv posted with vodpod
Update: Okay, they actually murder the [...]
Posted in British Politics, tagged British Politics, Conservatism, Internet Activism, Isn't It Annoying How I Use Liberal Left And Progressiv, Liberal Democrats, Netroots, New Labour on April 29, 2008 | 2 Comments »
As the gloom continues to grow over Gordon Brown’s stewardship of both the Labour Party and the country, it’s understandable - if a little premature - that some of us see the awful poll numbers, the bleak prospects in the local elections and the complete saturation of negative media coverage and deduce that it’s time [...]
Posted in Feminisms, Sheffield, tagged Hooters, Sheffield on April 29, 2008 | No Comments »
In a stirring victory for feminists and aesthetes alike, this lovely little development:
Will no longer be spoiled by this godawful crime against common decency.
Now I can get back to trying to persaude people that Sheffield is the best city in Britain. I’ll certainly have more joy than those poor fuckers in Nottingham.
Photo by Flickr user [...]
Posted in British Politics, tagged David Cameron, George Osborne, Trade Unions on April 29, 2008 | No Comments »
If your Dear Leader’s going to waste his days chasing Labour’s mantle as the ‘Party of the Poor’, it’s not a great idea to spend the very next day invoking Thatcher and threatening to further undermine the Unions when they’re fighting for their members’ pensions. This might shock you, but outside of the chino-clad golf [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Glastonbury on April 29, 2008 | 6 Comments »
Even for this old, embittered indie snob, the leaked Glastonbury line-up is far better than I’d imagined. Sure, there’s still much soul-numbing tedium to stand through (James Blunt, KT Tunstall, Shakin’ Stevens, The Verve), and NME-endorsed mediocrity (The Enemy, Editors, The Gossip) to endure, but there’ll be plenty of exciting artists who’re well worth standing in [...]
Posted in Late Night Recovery, tagged Late Night Recovery on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Yeah, I was going to post something more substantial today - one of those epic, self-indulgent rants that groans under the weight of its own internal logic and has the writer dancing around his room like an undefeated champion, proclaiming “No one will ever pick apart this ingeniously-constructed argument. I am the Greatest Political Commentator [...]
Posted in Misc., tagged Barack Obama, Flying Pigs, Roger Waters on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
File this one in the gallery of the absurd. From the AP’s report on Roger Waters‘ headline performance at Coachella:
Waters’ biggest prop was an inflatable pig the size of a school bus that emerged while he played a version of “Pigs” from 1977’s capitalism critique, “Animals.”
The pig, which was led above the crowd from lines [...]
Posted in Barack Obama, Democratic Party Presidential Primary, tagged "crisis? what crisis?", Barack Obama on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
For those of you who’ve been following the “Obama in crisis” myth that’s been doing the rounds, Sunny rightly reubts by pointing out that unless a massive majority of the uncommitted superdelegates decide en masse to disregard the popular vote, alienate their party’s most dependable voters and ‘roll the dice‘ in favour of a woman [...]
Posted in Misc., tagged Marko Attila Hoare, Peter Wilby, Straw Men on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Courtesy of Marko Attila Hoare, here’s Exhibit A of why the ‘Decents‘ come across as so utterly alienating:
Anyone who follows the politics of the ‘anti-war’ left will long ago have learned that the Iraq War is The Most Evil Thing That Ever Happened. The Nazi Holocaust; Stalin’s terror-famine and mass purges; Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural [...]
Posted in Christopher Hitchens, tagged Christopher Hitchens, Prospect Magazine on April 27, 2008 | No Comments »
For those among us who’ve wondered - worriedly, despairingly, even angrily - why a man who spent so much of his life in the uncompromising defence of left-wing ideals could support George W. Bush over John Kerry or John McCain over both Obama and Clinton, this section towards the end of Prospect Magazine’s profile of [...]
Posted in Idiot Hall of Fame, tagged Peter Hitchens = Prophet on April 27, 2008 | No Comments »
Ah, those Hitchens boys and their messianic resolve. This time, it’s the runt of the family:
I sometimes wonder why I bother being a prophet. All my predictions of horrible things come true, and nobody does anything about any of them.
It’s hard not to sympathise; I’m sure Joseph Smith, L Ron Hubbard and David Koresh all [...]
Posted in British Politics, New Labour, Prison Reform, Working Class Britain, tagged British Politics, Cushy Prisons, Glyn Travis, Prison Reform, Working Class Britain on April 25, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The reason I’m writing about ‘Cushygate‘ in two separate posts is that whilst there’s always fun to be had at the expense of the right’s overheated hysteria, our criminal justice system seems so broken, so socially-destructive and so utterly unfit for purpose that we need all the serious words we can muster. But if seriousness [...]
Posted in British Politics, Prison Reform, The Daily Wail, tagged "Exaggerating Stories Gets Me In The Papers!", Cushy Prisons, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Glyn Travis, Talk Sport on April 25, 2008 | 1 Comment »
We live in testing times. Banks are breaking under the burden of bad debt, food prices are rising and fuel costs are soaring. With our bulging overdrafts, credit cards and mortgages, we all have to be a little more careful with our spending – give up on some of life’s luxuries and make sacrifices we [...]
Posted in British Politics, Feminisms, tagged Charities, Dogs And Donkeys, Domestic Violence, Sexual Abuse, Violence Against Women on April 24, 2008 | No Comments »
…All have more protection from abuse than women. File this one under ‘Oh good grief‘:
The British public gives more to a Devon-based donkey sanctuary than the most prominent charities trying to combat violence and abuse against women, a report released today by a leading philanthropy watchdog reveals.
New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) has calculated that more than [...]
Posted in Misc., tagged The Bleeding Heart Show Goes Global-ish on April 24, 2008 | No Comments »
Hope you enjoyed my divinely lyrical (cough) post in support of that racy political issue (cough, cough), proportional representation. Feel free to have a nosey around. In fact, stick around for long enough and I might well post about something exciting.
