Backword: Dave Weeden’s weblog
Monday, 29 December 2008
Steeped In Sage And Onion To The Eyebrows »
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous to bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up and bring it in.
Parents accused of killing obese children with kindness.
The document classes 1.6 million families with children aged between two and 11 as "high risk". It states: "Food has become an expression of love in ’at risk’ families.
Via Alex. Oh, the way we live now! It’s just not at all like how we used to be. Parents never used to express love via food. From an unpublished government report:
"Parents do not value physical activity or accept responsibility for children’s activity levels. Parents believe their children are already sufficiently active at school. Sedentary activity (TV watching and computer gaming) is encouraged by parents....["]
Stupid parents, they probably believe that children are sufficiently taught trigonometry and history and science at school and don’t take responsibility for those either.
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Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Jennifer Palmieri, You’re Doing A Heck Of A Job! »
There’s a very nice juxtaposition on Andrew Sullivan today. At 1:30 pm his time he posted a Quote For The Day:
"Two years from now, I want the American people to be able to say, "Government’s not perfect; there are some things Obama does that get on my nerves. But you know what? I feel like the government’s working for me. I feel like it’s accountable. I feel like it’s transparent. I feel that I am well informed about what government actions are being taken. I feel that this is a President and an Administration that admits when it makes mistakes and adapts itself to new information, that believes in making decisions based on facts and on science as opposed to what is politically expedient." Those are some of the intangibles that I hope people two years from now can claim,"
From President-Elect Barack Obama.
Before that at 12:25 pm his time he had Special Note: Creepiest Blog-Post Ever. That being Jennifer Palmieri.
Shorter Obama: we expect flak. But we want to stay transparent.
Shorter Jennifer Palmier: we mau-mau flak [sorry, DW]. Did someone say something critical? Awwww. We kiss-kiss and make nice. We suck up big time to our friends. Nasty is for private.
Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job. That went well. Let’s do some more of that. Our friends are cool and never make mistakes, so no more bad talk.
I believe there was some talk in Washington about ’hope’ and ’change’. Blimey, if everyone thought like that, we’d never see another Kennedy in office. Who are these people? Like, revolutionaries or something?
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Thursday, 18 December 2008
The Day The Earth Stood Still »
I’m the worst person to go to a film with, because I actually laugh (as in, out loud) at the Orange ads that go out just before the film starts. I think they’re brilliant. (US readers and anyone else who doesn’t know what an Orange ad is: Orange is a mobile [cell] phone network and their cinema advertisements ads always feature the same five actors, headed by Brennan Brown, who play Hollywood producers who receive a pitch from a real celebrity actor whom they then humiliate by rewriting it so that it’s about mobile phones. The Rob Lowe one is on YouTube as is the late Roy Scheider one.) The producers believe a) every film should feature product-placement so it must be b) set in the present and c) should capitalise on their stars’ fame, effectively type-casting (mostly) serious actors. The great irony of this is that these are so close to the truth that they’re practically documentary rather than satire or send-up.
Consider The Day The Earth Stood Still. Gary Farber was awestruck by the ’breadth and depth of the trashing reviews.’ Those reviews are pretty much wrong. Apart from where they’re right. I mean, it’s not as bad as they make it seem, nor quite as stupid. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Keanu Reeves’ Klaatu’s body is supposed to be human (what part of him is not his body?) but he seems to have powers humans don’t have. He’s pretty much magical: he can make a car roll into a policeman just by placing his hands on it (wasn’t the handbrake on? but that’s the least of the obvious problems); he can make unconnected phones connect by fiddling with a lead; he can stood down helicopters (or just interfere with their electrics or something) at a distance, but only when they can see him. You do think the moments of peril could have been escaped less magically by better screenwriting. Well, I did think that. I don’t know about you.
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Friday, 05 December 2008
Quote Of The Day »
Special thanks to Mike Power for his efforts to re-awaken my blogging.
"Drinking was part and parcel of the darts circuit but now they have tried to stop it.
"We were just surrounded by drink. ..."
Gosh, a "sport" held more or less exclusively in pubs was "just surrounded by drink".
I say "!?!" And you can quote me on that. "[N]ow they have tried to stop it." Well, good for them. And darts is entertaining to anyone sober?
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Saturday, 27 September 2008
Did You Read The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion? »
Because Todd brought it home.
Wonderful. Almost better than God’s will has to be done to get that gasline built.
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Thought For The Day »
Not to be confused with the Today programme’s Thought for the day.
If the United States alone can find $700 billion to save Wall Street, why can’t the world find $25 billion to save 20,000 children who die each day? Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Bono, paraphrased by Raina al Abdullah. And I only read her blog because Lance Armstrong got a mention!
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Friday, 26 September 2008
I Preferred The Original »
Bush on Radio 4 this evening:
The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty, but we are going to get a package passed.
Wikiquote gives this to Bismarck, possibly.
Laws are like sausages. You should never see them made.
From anyone else, I’d assume that was a reference. From Bush, it probably counts as an original thought. ("From anyone else", BTW, meant from any other credible politician, commentator, blogger, person on the bus, barefoot shouty person in the street. Anyone bar Sarah Palin in other words.)
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Saturday, 13 September 2008
One More Day »
Jamie asked, "Oh, Lord, how many days more of this witlessness?
I’d vote for these people, and I don’t even like musical theatre (though I am starting to wonder if I’m missing something). An all-singing episode of the West Wing - it worked for Buffy - would have been interesting.
Via Andrew Sullivan.
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Friday, 12 September 2008
Who Remembers The Armenians? »
Marko Attila Hoare in Standpoint on, well god-knows-what actually:
McCain, by contrast, was a champion since the 1990s of the rights of the Kosovo Albanians, at a time when right-wing Republicans - whether out of hostility to Islam or hostility to Clinton - were widely supportive of Belgrade. Although far from uncritical of Turkey, he has indicated his awareness of its strategic importance, including vis-a-vis Iraq, and opposes Congressional recognition of the Armenian genocide as something that would needlessly damage the US’s relations with a key ally.
If you can’t figure out why accepting (that is, Congress recognising) that a historical event actually happened should be opposed because it might
Another Armenia. Belgium.
Captain?
The weak. Innocents. They always seem to be located. On the natural invasion routes.
Oh gee. American network television already offended Turkey. It’s a goodie too: the Federation (goodish) versus the Kilngon Empire (hint in the word ’Empire’) versus the planet of the Gandhis. More subversive than you expect.
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I Heart Siobhain Mcdonagh »
I love this story: Whip out of job after leader call.
A junior member of the government is out of a job after breaking ranks to call for a challenge to Gordon Brown as party leader.
Government whip Siobhain McDonagh said she wanted to "clear the air" about the leadership issue.
A government spokesman said that if Ms McDonagh has not resigned then she will be sacked. The source said her replacement had already been appointed.
Isn’t it great that the "source" (unnamed of course) doesn’t know whether she resigned or has been sacked, but does know that "her replacement had already been appointed." Again, no names. Details are for the little people.
Christ, if calls for elections (hint: listening to people, Gordon) don’t work, the next step is the bomb in the bunker.
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Friday, 04 July 2008
Blair Babe In Mad Cow Shocker »
YouTube video of former ’Blair Babe’ abusing hotel staff. I considered embedding this but I think the poor women may have mental health issues. Or did I say that in the first sentence?
The comments are enlightening. Her former constituents like her not; neither can they spell.
Ex-MP in legal action threat over YouTube video (The [Peterborough] Evening Telegraph):
Material posted on the Internet is subject to exactly the same legal rules as material printed in a newspaper or magazine, or broadcast on television or radio.
That means online statements or footage which have the potential to cause damage to a person’s reputation are covered by the laws of defamation, as they are anywhere else.
To protect themselves against legal action for libel, website hosts have a responsibility to ensure their sites do not contain any defamatory material.
If this is the case, why isn’t Amy Winehouse rich from lawsuits?
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Saturday, 24 May 2008
Redoubled Efforts »
So, I’m back. Long story, won’t go into it now. Will fix the software sometime. Meant to do it before posting, but ... well, you know.
Nick Cohen formerly of the New Statesman, still of the Observer (but for how much longer?), recently came out against Berthold Brecht. Brave man, that. Don’t just wait until they’re dead, wait until the worms are properly bloated and there’s practically nothing left, and then weigh in. Napoleon probably had a line about catching your enemy unawares, and you can bet Brecht wasn’t expecting that one!
I’m not the Brecht enthusiast I used to be. Age is a little like spinal injury: you feel less than you used to. But Brecht came up with three great aphorisms for me. First: "Bread first, then ethics." I’ve always been a little dubious about this; it’s both obvious and yet has a flavour of self-exculpation.
Second: "Only the rich win on one side of a war; the poor on both sides always lose." I remember this because I stuck it into a poem (it’s not theft, it’s (post) modernism). A simplification, sure, but the leftist case for pacifism in a nutshell.
Third, the greatest of the lot: a poem called The Solution which ends "Would it not be easier/In that case for the government/To dissolve the people/And elect another?" There are lines deserving of immortality. At least, they apply today.
Ms Dunwoody said: "I think my mother is turning in her grave.
"She would have respected the democratic decision of the people, but she desperately wanted Crewe and Nantwich to stay with Labour".
We could say - I’m certainly about to, anyway - that the people of Crewe and Nantwich weren’t given the choice. Chris Brooke called that part of their campaign violently grotesque; John Harris had it thus: The tactics of Crewe expose a truly nasty party: Labour. The best that Labour can hope for now is that Stephen McCabe resigns. PS: the Guardian really doesn’t like him. And rightly so. Repugnant Nazi is about as nice as I can manage.
Even the usually impregnable prose of Martin Kettle has turned on Labour:
In reality there are only two ways of getting rid of any leader. One is to overthrow him. The other is to force him to quit. The trouble with the first option is no cabinet minister can challenge for the leadership without resigning, while any backbencher who attempted to challenge would be dismissed as a wrecker. Few Labour MPs have the taste or the nerve for this. Moreover the process would be bloody and protracted, and its eventual outcome is uncertain. For all these reasons it seems unlikely to happen.
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Saturday, 24 November 2007
Disingenuous »
[Warning: this is a semi-drunk post without -- so far -- a conclusion.]
I’ve just been watching the X-Factor (I actually voted tonight, an occupation I usually consider restricted to morons, for Rhydian; worryingly, I got through first time) where Simon Cowell defended his girl group Hope because they’d sung a solo song (which I, being a few million miles behind popular culture hadn’t heard before) and given the lead vocal to one member while the rest, to paraphrase Louis Walsh, "oohed and ahhed". But Cowell chose the song. Everyone’s criticism but his was that one member was carrying the rest. His response was: it’s a solo song: they can’t sing it as a group. This is true, but it goes round the point. I’m glad that the voting thing has done so well in the commercial sphere; I’m a lot less pleased that spin has caught up.
Last night, I went to the Cardiff Beer Festival with DL (who I know I’ve mentioned before). I also met up with a colleague, KH, whose wife is studying for a PhD, and I introduced them, because DL works at Cardiff University and knows about these things. But KH’s 19-year-old son was there (in a hoodie boasting ’Made in the 80s’ in Frankie-Says-Arm-The-Unemployed script) and glasses with lenses in the shape of beer glasses, and he recognised DL from school sports days (DL’s son was in the same year). But after a long, rather strange diversion concerning school sports and whatnot, we got back onto PhDs. I said that tables of average earnings definitely showed that they were a worthwhile investment. Gordon Brown, I suggested, had a PhD. DL did not know that and didn’t believe me. Indeed, the Number 10 site bears him out. No mention of a PhD. (Brown went to uni at 15 there, however.) Wikipedia however, notes that Gordon does have a PhD. I believe the second source. I know Gordon Brown is a clever, studious, hard working guy. While I used to like him (I don’t now), the PhD goes with the character. Why the omission? I suspect it’s a kind of inverse snobbery. But Simon Cowell (him again) was in the tabloids (probably a Murdoch) when he spent some outrageous sum on a car. That doesn’t shock the proles, but a reward for perseverance and effort as well as brains (characteristics I look for in a politician) would turn them off. WTF? Really, WTF? Cowell spends half a million (IIRC) on a vehicle - which is more than most houses and pretty much the average wage in the country over 20 years - when 5% of that gives you something faster than speed limits anywhere outside Germany. And this is news? I like Cowell, his radioactive teeth and flat-top which doesn’t quite fit scare me, but I think he’s a geek pretending to be a smoothie, and I relate to that.
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Sunday, 11 November 2007
Holiday Reading »
By way of reply to Jamie.
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,-
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand fears that vision’s face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now..."
From Wikisource. Fittingly, it’s a poem full of echoes: Christina Georgina Rossetti, Kipling, Hymns, the King James Bible, Shakespeare.
From last week’s Torygraph, Jeremy Paxman on Wilfred Owen.
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Hang The Leaders Of The Conservative Movement »
Free poster with a dozen famous conservatives.
Hang the leaders of the Conservative Movement on the wall in your office, home, or dorm! Young America’s Foundation is excited to offer our latest breakthrough poster that brings together the strongest leaders and advocates of the Conservative Movement in a unique group photo! This is the only poster of its kind that includes these twelve conservative luminaries: John Ashcroft, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Robert Novak, Ward Connerly, Dinesh D’Souza, Walter Williams and many more.
Sadly, the poster says "No education is complete [line break] ... until it include us." I count seven names. 12 - 7 = 5. So Conservative eduction: numbers > 4 = ’many’. I think I’ll pass.
Via Balloon Juice.
Note to self: must really fix all the bugs here and add comments if I’m going to return to this blogging lark.
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