Monthly Archives: November 2006

Unusual food in Scandinavia

Posted on November 30, 2006 by acb

(Tasteless). According _Svenska Dagbladet_ there is a row going on in Finland over “pictures taken on the Russian front”:http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/utrikes/did_14102114.asp during the war (in which Finland was for a while, unwillingly, an ally of Germany). These have been kept secret ever … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | Comments Off on Unusual food in Scandinavia

Sunday Sillies

Posted on November 26, 2006 by acb

* Is _that_ the way the girls are in Texas? According the _Houston Press,_ via “Wonkette,”:http://www.wonkette.com/politics/shelley-sekula+gibbs/pretend-rep-clearly-beloved-by-constituency-216976.php a Republican woman running for Tom deLay’s old seat had to do so through a write-in campaign. Unfortunate, since her name was the less … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

This is how it ends

Posted on November 25, 2006 by acb

You know that impulse to have a quick game of freecell now and then? Well, “here is a man”:http://www.joegrossberg.com/archives/002074.html who yields to it. To be precise, he claims to have played the first 32,000 games in sequence _four times over,_ … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in nördig | 1 Comment

More fragments

Posted on November 23, 2006 by acb

* Anyone who knows me will be astonished that I managed to score 83.6% on “this test”:http://jakemandell.com/tonedeaf/ — it’s worth ten minutes of your time if you are interested in musical perception. Not safe for work, unless you have headphones … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 6 Comments

Magisterial

Posted on November 21, 2006 by acb

Geoffrey Wheatcroft has “a wonderful piece”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1953116,00.html in the _Guardian_ today on Lord and Lady Black. He is funny both about their social pretensions, which were indeed comic and life-enhancing, and their fanatical American nationalism, which was distinctly less life-enhancing. As … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | Comments Off on Magisterial

Hit and Run

Posted on November 21, 2006 by acb

The Saturday _Financial Times_ is an unfailing pleasure. It offers all the pleasures of journalism: enlightenment, entertainment, and the occasional tingle of outrage all over. This normally comes from the _How to Spend It_ section, apparently edited by the last … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | Comments Off on Hit and Run

The Guardian fund for rent boys

Posted on November 19, 2006 by acb

Readers with a long memory for embarrassment will flinch at the words “Clark -Cook- County” — the _Guardian’s_ attempt to swing the 2004 presidential election by organising a letter-writing campaign to a the voters of a marginal district of Ohio. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 2 Comments

Shutting down scammers

Posted on November 16, 2006 by acb

Does anyone know where one can complain to get entirely fraudulent phone numbers shut down? A friend of my wife’s, a genuine hero, the Russian dissident Mikhail Kukobaka, has been hit by a transparent scam letter telling him he has … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 4 Comments

What I missed out on in art lessons

Posted on November 10, 2006 by acb

Despite going to schools where there were very good art teachers, I had, and have, no talent at all. Or so I thought until I saw [“This video”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eguBFbC11E]. Now I understand that my problem, all along, was that I had … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on What I missed out on in art lessons

Browser truce

Posted on November 10, 2006 by acb

I have been using Opera for nearly ten years now, and for most of that time it has been the quickest and best-thought out browser on any platform. It had tabbed browsing, keyboard control, bespoke ad blocking, and full indexed … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in nördig, OOo | Comments Off on Browser truce