Yearly Archives: 2007

Leaving Facebook

Posted on December 5, 2007 by acb

I have only one friend who uses facebook to the exclusion of other online means of communication, and, while he is a very old and dear freind, I can still initiate email contact if I want to. The discovery that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 4 Comments

A question for Swedes, with a Hungarian bonus.

Posted on December 2, 2007 by acb

How do you crop a photograph in Swedish? The otherwise excellent lexin online dictionary gives Swedish terms for numerous agricultural meanings of “crop”; it gives a bird’s crop and various hairdressing terms. But nothing for the process of cutting a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Sweden | 6 Comments

The end of civilisation, again

Posted on December 1, 2007 by acb

I have just come across a reference to a recipe for stir-fried lutfisk. The Swedish for stir-fried, incidentally, is wokad — “wokked”. I tried to find this recipe, and failed, which is perhaps for the best. On the other hand, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather, Sweden | 1 Comment

After the drugs ran out

Posted on December 1, 2007 by acb

It turns out the Quicksilver Messenger Service still sounded great. The last three and a half songs1 on this concert vault recording are a treasure for anyone who likes inventive hippie music. Much better than almost everything on Happy Trails, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on After the drugs ran out

Apologies for delayed posting

Posted on December 1, 2007 by acb

I have been doing last-minute book edits, and catching up on all the stuff I haven’t been doing while doing last-minute book edits. It occurs to me that I haven’t had a proper holiday all year. No wonder I am … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on Apologies for delayed posting

Thanksgiving

Posted on November 22, 2007 by acb

This one is specially to make American readers feel better today — provided they are in the USA, that is: I was out walking today and noticed that the price of petrol has risen to £1.04 a litre, which is … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 5 Comments

Ultimate procrastination

Posted on November 20, 2007 by acb

Thanks to John Naughton I have just stumbled upon a site which appears to list every public or semi-public talk being given in or around Cambridge University. It is a glorious searchable toyshop of interesting ideas and almost the best … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather, God, Journalism, Net stories, nördig, Science without worms, Software, Worms | 2 Comments

A memory of imperialism

Posted on November 20, 2007 by acb

We were sitting around the kitchen table talking about the violently aborted holiday in France, and my mother said, reminiscently, that her mother hated the Irish; an odd sentiment seeing as how the whole of the rest of my family … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 2 Comments

On hating the French

Posted on November 18, 2007 by acb

I should have been writing this in an agreeable hotel in Avignon. The room was booked, the first class tickets bought. We rose at five to catch the train to London. At the St Pancras retail destination (with attached railway … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

What could be more agreeable

Posted on November 17, 2007 by acb

than to see the Eurabia crowd denouncing anyone else as paranoid fascist nutters? Yet this is the spectacle offered by the latest schism on the far right. The paleofascist nutters around the Brussels Journal hate muslims, of course (no linky … Continue reading →

Posted in War | 2 Comments