Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week – Joseph Addison Blair is on the front pages, Terry on the back ones. It snowed again, so a good, long walk might be out of the question. Still, you don’t want to spend your whole Sunday looking at a screen. Except that I would recommend you [...]
Entries from January 2010
Wednesday 27 January 2010
Justice League
I wrote earlier that Amir Choudhary was ‘wrong, plain wrong’ and was rightly called up on it by this bloke over here in the comments. Rightly because, in one important aspect, Mr Choudhary is right, for reminding us of the non-British war dead, albeit for some very wrong reasons: getting his name in the papers. [...]
Sunday 24 January 2010
The offence of being cocky
I suspect that some Police Community Support Officers (PSCOs) might need retraining if, as demonstrated in this Guardian video, they believe that being “cocky” is now an offence and justification for arrest. Italian student Simona Bonomo was stopped under anti-terrorism legislation for filming buildings in London. She was later arrested by other officers, held in a police cell and [...]
Tuesday 19 January 2010
Say what you see
Despite earlier proof of arse-elbow location difficulties, Rod Liddle was caught in a rare act of sense-speaking this weekend in his Sunday Times column. He hasn’t always used his own freedom of speech in such a sensible manner, but his argument that banning groups for being obnoxious or unpleasant is a crass method for combating [...]
Friday 15 January 2010
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
If any budding dramatists are reading this and would like to see in action an expert blending of political, social and personal history, they will go a long way before seeing a better example of it than in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize. Mantel’s novel doesn’t shrink from the eternal [...]
Wednesday 13 January 2010
Lark Pies to Cranchesterford
It has almost become a new blood sport to bait the BBC for its perceived failings. Left and right, Christian and atheist, lovers of Terry Wogan and those of Chris Evans, it seems hardly anyone is content with the organisation we were once happy to call ‘Auntie’. And ten minutes hate is no different. Except [...]
Monday 11 January 2010
Ross Kemp: Middle East
If you were disturbed last night by a noise you couldn’t identify, it was probably the wailing and gnashing of teeth of those who would consider themselves proper, serious journalists, having just watched the Ross Kemp documentary on Israel. The programme was screened over two weeks, with last week’s showing the situation in Gaza and [...]
Monday 11 January 2010
Housekeeping
A couple of innovations to make your experience of ten minutes hate a more enjoyable one: First, I am now on twitter, so there are even more opportunities to see inside the workings of my brain. Updates on politics, books, music and occasionally football can all be yours by clicking on the icon on the left [...]
Wednesday 6 January 2010
Do it if you must, Labour, but make it quick
So the chickens might be coming home to roost for Gordon Brown. There I was, half-heartedly watching Andrew Marr on Sunday, when the great man himself appeared groaning on about something. It sounded like ‘…targets met… investment not cuts… we offer leadership for the future…’ and then I managed to rouse myself from the early [...]
