Monthly Archives: September 2005

Bloody Michael Crichton

Owing to a tragic scheduling error, his testimony before the senate came in time for the Gdn’s front page, which meant that my carefully crafted thumbsucking was thrown away in favour of a report from someone who had the vulgarity … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | 4 Comments

de mortuis

a [“memorable obit”:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2005/09/28/db2801.xml] in the _Daily Telegraph_ today of M Scott Peck, the self-help guru, which closes with two paragraphs that could hardly be improved: bq. Latterly he suffered from impotence and Parkinson’s Disease and devoted himself to Christian songwriting, … Continue reading Continue reading

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The most disgusting story

I have done for years is “in G2 today.”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1579651,00.html One snag I hadn’t foreseen — the copy was delayed by an hour when it got caught in the company’s spam filter. UPDATE What I originally filed is below the fold … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in War | 8 Comments

Petrol prices, again.

James Surowiecki “reports”:http://www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/050926ta_talk_surowiecki that there is a serious movement in some American states to suspend all “gas” taxes until — well, I don’t know, because things are never going to go back to what was normal in 1999. There used … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

Administrivia

I have [“a sort of review”:http://thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=2] of John “Battelle’s Google book”:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1857883616/andrewbrownssite up at “the First Post,”:http://thefirstpost.co.uk/ which is an interesting shot at a commercial site run by two real journalists (and old colleagues) Mark Law and David Jenkins. I’ve also … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Blather | 5 Comments

small smugness

There may not be many readers of the wrap, but at least one of them is the editor, which is why “yesterday’s worm’s eye column”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1573892,00.html pitched up on the front of today’s _Guardian._ Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | 3 Comments

Serious ethnographic note

The “festival of diversity”:http://www.thewormbook.com/helmintholog/archives/001571.html#001571 took place on a day when Trevor Phillips, who seems a very sharp cookie, was warning that there is a real danger of the emergence of a ghetto-ised and segregated underclass in this country, however much … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in British politics | 3 Comments

Silly Ethnographic note

Yesterday was Uttlesford Council’s “diversity day,”:http://www.uttlesford.gov.uk/news/leisure+and+tourism/uttlesford+diversity+festival+18+september+2005.htm with a fete in the grounds of Audley End house. There was a fair cord and I did see one black person there. Though there are four or five whom one sometimes sees shopping … Continue reading Continue reading

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Another end of privacy

An astonishing piece of research, “found through Bruce Schneier”:http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/09/snooping_on_tex.html which shows that a sound recording of a typist at work for fifteen minutes can be analysed to reveal almost every word they typed. The trick is that the keys on … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Net stories | Comments Off on Another end of privacy

Redesign thoughts

The “new Guardian”:http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2005/09/12/ gets better as you go into it. Perhaps that’s another way of saying that it works better with fewer stories on the page. I hate the front. Making allowances for the fact that all readers hate all … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Journalism | 5 Comments