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Meta
Category Archives: Blather
Jonathan Raban on Sarah Palin
What is most striking about her is that she seems perfectly untroubled by either curiosity or the usual processes of thought. When answering questions, both Obama and Joe Biden have an unfortunate tendency to think on their feet and thereby … Continue reading
From the department of wtf
The victorious powers [in 1945] were not imperialist, as in 1918, but anti-imperialist: the US and the Soviet Union. This sentence occurs in the LRB review of Mark Mazower’s Hitler’s Empire. It is written by the newly appointed Regius Professor … Continue reading
Posted in Blather
6 Comments
Penis envy
I bumped into my old friend Brian Harris outside the butcher’s, and he had a brand new Nikon D700 with which he had just spent four days shooting behind the scenes at the National Theatre for the Economist’s Intelligent Life … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, Pictures
2 Comments
Funhouse mirror on the wall
via Razib, I just stumbled on this global obesity chart. No prizes for guessing that the fattest people on earth are Americans, at 30% obese, and it’s reasonable that Britain, at 23% shoud be in third place. But—except that it’s … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, Science without worms, Sweden
6 Comments
Silly mapping fun
I have been playing with the GPS on my new phone — let’s face it: you can’t do more than play — and found a wonderful site here, which offers a split screen view, with a large scale Ordnance Survey … Continue reading
Reversion to the mean
Austrian politics drift, farcically, to the right. Apparently there is a coalition proposed between the Social Democrats and the Freedom Party, as the former neo-Nazis call themselves. This is the outfit that used to be run by Jörg Haider, against … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, Travel notes
13 Comments
Emmylou Harris
Just a brief note to say that her current tour is great. The audience at the Hammersmith Apollo on Sunday was incredibly respectful and seated; the sound, where we sat, was lousy. But her voice was wonderful, the song selection … Continue reading
Posted in Blather
2 Comments
Old-fashioned journalism
I was taken to lunch at a good London club earlier this week and suddenly I can see the point of being rich (and male): champagne before the meal; pouilly fumé with the oysters and very nice burgundy with my … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, Journalism
Comments Off on Old-fashioned journalism
Snippets
You can induce egglaying in frogs (Not safe for frog lovers) by injecting them with human hormones: I learned this indirectly from a letter this morning about my column on wikigenes, which turned out to appeal to an Oxford researcher … Continue reading
Posted in Blather, Journalism, Science without worms
Comments Off on Snippets