Fukuyama says fukutowar

Posted on December 30, 2002 by acb

You have to read this, from the Wall Street Journal, a little carefully to discover that the spine of the argument is three good reasons against the war:

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this picture

Posted on December 23, 2002 by acb

is worth a hell of a sight more than 10,000 words. Danny O’Brien has just place on the web a photograph of some of the forms he must fill in for a permanent US residence permit. (Caution. It is a large picture for a slow phone line).

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Simple admiration

Posted on December 23, 2002 by acb

Andrew Wilson’s Monday column in the Daily Telegraph is unfailingly excellent. He even manages to say something fresh about Christmas this year.

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credit

Posted on December 23, 2002 by acb

I think that Andrew Gimson may have found the antichrist, or at least the perfect consumer:

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The free press

Posted on December 21, 2002 by acb

This is a priceless moment from the transcript of Michael White’s interview with Tony Blair. It doesn’t just stand up the virtues of Western democracy, free speech, etc. It makes me proud to be British. In what other culture, in what other country, would a joke like this be cracked in the Prime Minister’s face?

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fan mail

Posted on December 21, 2002 by acb

I had a piece in yesterday’s Guardian about Rowan Williams’ Dimbleby lecture. While it was being edited, a voice down the line said “Can we use the email address at the bottom of your letter? Does it work?” And I said, yes, of course it bloody works. How do you think you got the copy?

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This old fogey is a yogi

Posted on December 18, 2002 by acb

This one’s for sumac:

I had gone out to California to profileBob Conquest for the Guardian. He should be famous for a lot of things, but one of his talents is an astonishing skill at filthy versification. I could not, when talking to Susan, remember the one about Brigid Brophy, but I have found it in Kingsley Amis’s memoirs on my return:
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California 1

Posted on December 18, 2002 by acb

Apologies for the total lack of bloggery in the last week. I have been in California, having a really interesting time shuffling through the ashes of the boom. One things I noticed: even the grottiest motel I stayed in had ethernet access, as did the very much nicer Stanford Terrace Inn. When I reached San Francisco, I was really shocked to find that the Holiday Inn only had “dataport” access in the telephones. It really isn’t more than two years since that was the height of sophistication; and I still have onthe shelf in my office a special cable for breaking into the wall sockets that used to be common in hotels that didn’t want their telephones stolen from an ordinary socket. Here’s to progress.

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Here we go

Posted on December 9, 2002 by acb

Some of you will have supposed that the idea of sending weapons inspectors to Iraq was to discover if there were any weapons there. Silly you. The Washington Post knows better:

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Cherie and the Mail

Posted on December 7, 2002 by acb

OK. It’s clear that Cherie Blair has behaved foolishly in getting tangled with a conman, and then compounded this by making civil servants lie to the press. She will pay for it all sooner or later, and she should already have paid for her lack of judgment by losing any chance of promotion to become a more important judge.
But it is still a mystery why the Daily Mail hates her so much for believing exactly the sort of New Age crap it tirelessly peddles to its readers.

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