Yearly Archives: 2005

The Brazilian Whacks

This week’s Wormseye (below the fold) an angry reaction from at least one reader, Allan Hodgson. I’ve moved it out of comments in a Voltairean spirit. I could not disagree more with Andrew Brown’s comments in a Worm’s Eye View … Continue reading Continue reading

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The art of punditry

The many fans of Stephen Glover will treasure today’s column in the Independent. He starts with a long nostalgic look at the old days as a leader writer on the Daily Telegraph: ” … There were at least 10 writers, … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | 1 Comment

Search engine spamming wars?

This is really strange: this morning I had six messages from MT blacklist in my inbox reporting suspected new comment spam. It was certainly spam: six comments all saying i come from <A Href=”http://www.google.com”>best search engine</A> http://www.google.com and all apparently … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Net stories | 2 Comments

Russia is our fatherland

P. Smirnovsky’s A Textbook of Russian Grammar is obviously a book that should be written, even if P. Smirnovsky is unable to undertake the task because he is dead, or possibly never lived. This week’s “Author, Author” competition in the … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

lament for the younger generation

Marlborough College is trying to expel a boy merely for being thick and unpleasant. Perhaps you had to have been there to understand how absurd this is. It’s like being thrown out of Big Brother for being a shallow exhibitionist. … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Blather | 9 Comments

The French Atomic Empire

One of the most perfectly done spoofs I have ever read. (via) In this context, there is a Kingsley Amis poem, below the fold, in which the Englishman appears more interested in sex than his French crewmates … Continue reading

Posted in Literature | 1 Comment

Smarter than Feynmann

These videos depict one of the purest pieces of research I have ever seen: research so pure that it is, in fact, impossible to think of a use for this discovery — at the same time, I defy you not … Continue reading Continue reading

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A slogan for our times

A fine anecdote about Claud Cockburn from a recent TLS review of Patrick Cockburn’s memoir of illness: “My father regarded going to St Mary’s (Church) as largely a cultural activity of the Anglo-Irish which he was happy to go along … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in God | 3 Comments

What are you doing here?

all you people who were told by some search engine that my site had the answer to your questions: 1: lincoln cathedral disputes 1995 1: andrew brown darwin 1: katrina skepper flake 1: worst or worse 1: who is the … Continue reading Continue reading

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Coarse fishing in Scandinavia

There’s a short story below the fold that I think I might flog somewhere but everything I write looks like crap to me at the moment, as if my heart had turned to pumice stone. Continue reading

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