Monthly Archives: September 2004

Praying to scorpions

Posted on September 29, 2004 by acb

Martin Kozloff is a Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington; amongst other things, he teaches a course in Classroom management for the mildly handicapped. How would he teach, I wonder, a student who got up … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in War | 3 Comments

Crime and error

Posted on September 29, 2004 by acb

Somone — Tony Howard, I think — wrote the other day that he had never understood Talleyrand’s saying that something was “worse than a crime: it was a mistake.” I think the difference is this. A crime is something for … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

Deux doigts

Posted on September 28, 2004 by acb

élevés à la presse de l’université d’Oxford, se trouvent ici. A fine companion site to the German-English dictionary that lives in my sidebar. Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | Comments Off on Deux doigts

A whole other question

Posted on September 28, 2004 by acb

Steve Bell’s cartoon on Tuesday showed Tony Blair singing a version of “my Way” which rose to the final line “I gave Bush Myyyyyy ass.” This raised an important question of principle. Why not “arse?”. Tony Blair is a British … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | 1 Comment

The benefits of faith

Posted on September 27, 2004 by acb

It is a favourite trope of Dawkins-type atheists to claim that faith is unjustified belief, and thus by definition a bad thing, which could not possibly have arisen by natural selection, except as a sort of metastasis of trust in … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in God | 3 Comments

A work of genius

Posted on September 26, 2004 by acb

Last night I finally watched Aki Kaurismäki’s Leningrad Cowboys go America, for which I had paid $40, with shipping on Ebay. You can’t get it on DVD at all, and the video is out of print. Never was $40 better … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | 1 Comment

A work of imagination

Posted on September 26, 2004 by acb

This link is a complete, short, Project Gutenberg reprint of a booklet of half a dozen Victorian hand shadow postures. You see the hand in the foregrounds, and the animal in the background. That’s it. You don’t see the shadow … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Literature | Comments Off on A work of imagination

Ancient prophet

Posted on September 25, 2004 by acb

“I‘m sure there are plenty of great young songwriters working out there now and yes, I really hate them”. From a rather wonderful talk by Loudon Wainwright. Jim White went to interview him once for the Independent, in Leeds, or … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on Ancient prophet

A note on policy

Posted on September 25, 2004 by acb

Boring abusive comments will be disemvowelled. Persistent offenders may be banned. Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on A note on policy

If you have time

Posted on September 23, 2004 by acb

Prepare to waste it here. It looks as if the new DNB database has been left open for a little while. I recently wrote a wormseye about the absurd pricing of the OED. It turns out that the new DNB … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Literature | 2 Comments