November 11th - November 17th 2002
Sunday Itemised
Saturday Kiddycore
Friday Frying pickets
Thursday Ruddigore
Wednesday Bonus
Tuesday Repubblican
Monday Showing orf
Sunday 17th November 2002
With thanks (along with supportive hugs) to jonno Blogadoon can now reveal news that, to the best of my knowledge, never made it to this side of the Atlantic (though I admit the thought crossed my idle mind): the Washington snipers were an item. (Its from the National Enquirer, so it must be true, right?)
Saturday 16th November 2002
White Swan 0015hrs 16 November 2002: Pam Ann points out that Myra Hindley has died during Children in Need
Friday 15th November 2002
Making my wet and lonely way home from Aldgate at two o'clock this morning, the air was filled with the smell of burning wood - slightly scarey at the best of times, but all the more so given that we're currently in the middle of a firemen's strike.
Turning the corner into Commercial Road, I found the source of the smoke: the brazier burning brightly to warm the (frying?) pickets outside the local fire station.
Crossing the road to avoid having to express solidarity, I couldn't help noticing that the fire seemed to have got a little out of hand, with one of the striking firemen tenderly applying quick bursts from a fire extinguisher to the base of the bonfire.
Good to know they've not given up fire-fighting entirely.
But isn't the use of these braziers, however domesticated, slightly...inappropriate?
"The Duke of York and the Duchess of York have asked it to be made clear that the decision for the Duchess to withdraw from the Parkinson show was made solely as a result of discussions between the two of them and not at the prompting of Buckingham Palace."
Ahem.
Thursday 14th November 2002
I'm rather taken by the suggestion from Andrew Sullivan that the US needs a new name to describe Americans who follow a hard-nosed line on foreign policy yet remain socially liberal. He calls them: Eagles.
I also admire the piece he wrote about blogs in a recent column for the Sunday Times:
"I wonder if there's ever been a technological innovation that has combined such extraordinary new power with such dramatically poor financial rewards."
And, whilst I find myself in disagreement with practically every other position he takes, I find myself in awe of the... let's be polite and call it the self-assuredness with which he prosecutes his agenda.
But I can't resist pointing out that, on his blog particularly, he sometimes finds himself so busy writing that he has no time left to read over what he has written.
As he said in his Sunday Times column:
"In the past, in comparison, if you wanted to get published, you needed a newspaper or magazine or access to a printing press; you had to get past editors, agents, media proprietors, and on and on. It was a gruelling and difficult process making your way as a writer - and some of that grimness made you a better one."
Better inasmuch as one's view remained consistent, for one thing - unlike his recent blog-entries about the American election where, on November 6th he writes:
"This was a vote for Bush, for prosecuting the war on terror, for the tax cut."
And then on November 7th writes:
"This election wasn't a mandate for tax simplification or welfare reform (however important those two things are). It was a vote of support for victory."
But my favourite, by far, is an earlier entry in re the contentious matter of Gore Vidal:
"The only appropriate thing to do with regard to Vidal at this point is: ignore him. (For my review of Vidal's most recent novel, where he accuses FDR of treason, click here.)"
Wednesday 13th November 2002
Conversation at dinner
A: "I've never really understood opera..."
B: "Think panto with bonus tracks."
Tuesday 12th November 2002
It's important amidst all this talk of Royal Gay Rape to remind ourselves that the name so infamously 'revealed' by Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Monday is that of an alleged rapist. Or, as David Aaronovitch puts it in today's Independent:
Now it may be possible as Mr Smith claims to be anally raped while asleep - though an unlubricated entry into your virgin back passage is the kind of thing you would wake up for, I'd have thought, even if you had overdone the Bollinger.
Bear that in mind as you check this out:
L'identità dell'accusato viene mantenuta segreta ma continua a circolare il nome di Michael Fawcett, un uomo sul quale non solo Carlo ma anche Camilla ripongono tutta la loro fiducia. A riportare di attualità questa vicenda è la bizzarra sospensione del processo per furto all'ex maggiordomo di Diana, Paul Burrell.
(Personally, I'm much more intrigued by the part of the conspiracy theory that claims that the reason the Queen stepped in to halt the Burrell trial was to avoid revelations about inappropriate conduct between a member of the royal family and a member of staff: my money's on Prince Andrew - and not necessarily in a heterosexual context either...) (and, hmm, I see Popbitch concurs.)
More showing off
A review of a catty biography of Anthony Burgess arrived headlined 'Clockwork Lemon'; slightly cheesey, I thought, but I'm not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth. The fruit is a scan, the cogs are all my own work:
How to illustrate a review of a new translation of Proust? Something to do with the infamous madeleines, I thought. And even managed to find a picture of one. Add scans of plate and tea-cup. Fill cup with - probably inaccurately milky - tea. And then scrawl the name of the eponymous tea-cake all over the tablecloth. (I'm still not entirely happy about the drop-shadows on the cakes, but let's not quibble.)
For a Barry Humphries autobiography, more drop-shadow work to emphasise the artificiality of the author's most esteemed creation. Can you spot the gladioli, possums?
This was one of my most effortless creations lately, but people seemed to like it. To illustrate a history of Paris, I found a series of photographs of the construction of the city's most famous landmark. Had to adjust the scale to match them up though, and then add a misty triangular cloud to bind all four images together:
Speaking of Paris, it seemed appropriate to illustrate the autobiography of the man who outed Peter Mandelson by putting Matthew Parris back in his closet. Easier said than done, though, so I had to settle for a mocked up photo of the man - plus a whole lot of articial shadow tricksiness:
Previous pictures in this series here should you feel so inclined.
Monday 11th November 2002
The US has about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of the world's population. In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.
Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.
To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming, and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.
We need not decieve ourselves that we can afford the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. We should cease to talk about such vague and unreal objectives as human rights, the raising of living standards and democratization.
The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.
Thus influential State Department official George Keenan, writing in 1948.
To gauge the extent of his influence, look no further than the recent Hellfire strike in Yemen - the remote-controlled assassination of six people, timed to coincide with the midterm elections, executed by the CIA in direct contravention of every known tenet of international law, and justified only by an entirely unsubstantiated claim that one of the people killed was suspected of being a terrorist leader.
......previous week