October 8th - October 14th 2001
Sunday Unmarried
Saturday Forearmed
Friday What am I bid?
Thursday News
Wednesday War
Tuesday Aid
Monday De-construction
Sunday 14th October 2001
Kate Adie. 56. Unmarried. "Awkward and truculent and demanding." Hello?
Saturday 13th October 2001
Friday 12th October 2001
I find myself morbidly fascinated by the mathematics of the Schedule of Compensation included in the insurance spam-mail that just dropped through my letter box:
- Loss of sight in both eyes £40,000
- Loss of sight in one eye £20,000
- Loss of use of two limbs £40,000
- Loss of use of one limb £20,000
- Loss of hearing £20,000
- Loss of hearing in one ear £4,000
Hmmm. Nothing for loss of sense of smell. And what would four limbs be worth, I wonder?
A thumb (or a knee, or an ankle) is worth £6,000, but a big toe rates only £2,000 - the same as a finger. All other toes: £1,000. So a whole hand, presumably, is worth, um, £14,000 whilst a whole foot comes in at £6,000. Hence, 1 hand + 1 foot = 1 eye.
No mention of other organs. Anybody wanna make me an offer on a (slightly-used) penis?
Amidst the one-month anniversary hoo-hah, Jonno spots: National Coming Out Day.
I've been keeping an eagle eye on the nature of the lead story in each issue of my daily paper (The Independent) and can now report a solid month of WTC-terrorism-related front-page stories. The Telegraph, I think, has a similar record - deviating only for the Tory leadership results - and I imagine The Guardian is much the same. (There is apparently another British broadsheet newspaper called The Times, but as far as I know nobody but Rupert Murdoch reads that.)
We must look elsewhere for the first faint signs of closure in re September 11th. So please welcome Graydon Carter, the - ahem - elegant editor of Vanity Fair.
Slightly less than a month ago, Graydon emerged blinking from his velvet-lined bunker to declare that we had reached "the end of irony". Today he is quoted as saying that that was obvious nonsense - what he actually said was "This is the end of ironing."
And hooray to that, say I.
Thursday 11th October 2001
News you may have missed:
Yvonne Ridley, the British journalist recently released from Taliban captivity, omitted to mention that she is, in fact, a former officer in the Army. The Territorial Army.
Tony Blair tells British troops in Oman that one of his sons is considering joining the forces. (Or did he, in fact, say one of his children? Given that he has a daughter who already looks as if she spends her spare time welding, the latter seems much more credible.)
America offers seven million dollars for bin Laden, dead or alive. Even at today's prices, that'll buy you an awful lot of virgins. (And not a few young boys, too.)
As the anthrax scare sweeps through the south-eastern States, hundreds of worried consumers submit mysterious envelopes of white powder to extensive forensic testing. (No change there then.)
Wednesday 10th October 2001
"The British Army still maintains a large and active garrison in Ulster, but despite that war has never been further away from the reality of most of our lives.
"In school, boys who play war games with model soldiers aren't viewed with suspicion by their teachers, whereas boys who carry knives into the playground are likely to be reported to the police. This may be wise, but the boys with knives understand something about war that the boys with model soldiers don't: war is an intimate business...
"At dinner parties, journalists back from war zones are occasionally asked what it was really like. Perhaps the most accurate answer would be to rape the hostess, murder the host, cut the children's throats and set fire to the house, without any explanation."
- James Meek writing in the London Review of Books, 6th September 1991
Tuesday 9th October 2001
Humanitarians will be pleased to note that yesterday the US bombarded Afghanistan with approximately 37,000 packages marked "Food gift from the people of the USA" and containing:
Barley stew
Flat bread
Peanut butter
Raisins
Strawberry jam
Shortbread biscuits
Fruit pastry
Bean salad (aka "beans with tomato sauce")
Utensil set of salt, pepper, napkin and a match.
Cynics will note that these aid packages were seeded randomly over a territory that already contains more active land-mines per square foot than any other space on earth: cue video footage of 37,000 singed and shredded paper napkins blowing in the empty Afghan winds.
Monday 8th October 2001
Armageddon.com is under construction. Again.
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