Thursday, January 26, 2006
So I have this iBook, right. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bang on about Apple, and how Windows is evil. I mean, whatever. It is nice though. Although when I’m navigating my way through OS X
I sometimes catch
The Californian thwack!
Of a hacky sack.
It's a bit Cherry Garcia, is what I'm saying.
UPDATE: Poetry about operating systems is the future.
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I sometimes catch
The Californian thwack!
Of a hacky sack.
It's a bit Cherry Garcia, is what I'm saying.
UPDATE: Poetry about operating systems is the future.
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I have to agree with Galloway, the criticism of him for going on Big Brother is largely "sanctimonious humbug". Dressing up in all those costumes, he showed himself to be quite a good sport.
The moral winner.
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The moral winner.
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Monday, January 23, 2006
Of course Diefenbecker.
ITV3 has certainly gone up in my estimation: they're showing Due South, one of the best programmes of the last twenty years. If they get hold of Joking Apart and Cardiac Arrest I'm theirs forever.
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ITV3 has certainly gone up in my estimation: they're showing Due South, one of the best programmes of the last twenty years. If they get hold of Joking Apart and Cardiac Arrest I'm theirs forever.
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It used to be easy to categorise people. There was the aristocracy, the middle-classes and the working class - broadly speaking: those with titles and country estates; home-owning office-workers; people who worked with their hands. But in a post-industrial Britain with an increased proportion of homeowners and graduates, how to distinguish between people like us, and the horny-handed sons and daughters of toil? The distinction now is between the tasteful, and the vulgar. What was once determined by production is now indicated by consumption. Things which are enjoyable must be offered with a patina of tastefulness if they want to attract the self-proclaimed middle-class. They must also be more expensive - some people must be put off, leaving the buyer smug in the knowledge that they are more discerning than the majority.
Some examples:
"Vintage" clothing
Vinyl
Director's Cuts of films
Non-representative art
CDs with bonus tracks
Unpopular music
Second-hand books/hardbacks
This bowling alley (thanks Marty)
The class-warfare is fiercest over food:
Marks and Spencer hand-picked Brussel Sprouts
Vietnamese food
Espresso
Anything organic
As these things filter through and become more widespread, they become vulgar - e.g. ordering a cappuccino or latte is now common. In order to maintain a position of self-regarding superiority, the tasteful must forever be looking out for the next thing.
There are loads of examples, feel free to leave any you think of in the comments.
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I have never wanted anything as much as I wanted to go to Alien War, back in the days when the Trocadero was the coolest place in the world.
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Friday, January 20, 2006
Did anyone see Paul Ross on Celebrity Mastermind? If you didn't see it, what do you think his specialist subject was? I'll give you a million guesses.
ANSWER! "The Life and Works of Ezra Pound".
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ANSWER! "The Life and Works of Ezra Pound".
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Thursday, January 19, 2006
Within a dreary article in the Guardian about Manchester United, this caught my eye:
Of Best, he (Eric Cantona) said: "I always felt his presence and the importance he had at United. But the past was not a burden. It carried us. It was a reference point, something we could lean on." And he added a final gem of gnomic wisdom. "The genius," he concluded, "is the one with the gift of lighting up a dark room."
This piece of Hallmark banality is described as "gnomic wisdom". I'd forgotten that people insist on painting Cantona as a deep, troubled Romantic - all from that famous quote:
"When the seagulls... follow the trawler... it's because they think... sardines will be thrown... into the sea."
Which is about as cryptic as "too many cooks spoil the broth". He's no poet, but why should he be? Admire him for what he was good at: kicking balls, racists.
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Of Best, he (Eric Cantona) said: "I always felt his presence and the importance he had at United. But the past was not a burden. It carried us. It was a reference point, something we could lean on." And he added a final gem of gnomic wisdom. "The genius," he concluded, "is the one with the gift of lighting up a dark room."
This piece of Hallmark banality is described as "gnomic wisdom". I'd forgotten that people insist on painting Cantona as a deep, troubled Romantic - all from that famous quote:
"When the seagulls... follow the trawler... it's because they think... sardines will be thrown... into the sea."
Which is about as cryptic as "too many cooks spoil the broth". He's no poet, but why should he be? Admire him for what he was good at: kicking balls, racists.
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Wednesday, January 18, 2006
When I open my third drawer down it makes a noise very similar to the opening sally of the Beastie Boys' Sure Shot.
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Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
I do wish Victoria Coren would look forwards when she talked to me. Victoria, love, keeping yourself in three-quarter profile is fooling no one.
Coren: fooling no one.
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Coren: fooling no one.
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I could almost feel sorry for George Galloway: his political career is over, and everyone knows it but him (that he still had a career to throw away is remarkable, but still...). He gambled correctly that many on the left were morally bankrupt; but he reckoned without their snobbery.
If you didn't see George as a cat, there's a video of some of it here. You might find it difficult to watch.
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If you didn't see George as a cat, there's a video of some of it here. You might find it difficult to watch.
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Saturday, January 14, 2006
Yeah, I know, those books.
Nightmare.
I'll finish that up at some point.
So I bought an iBook: this may well make me a prick. At the moment I'm watching Hugh Laurie on American TV here: he's killing. His massive success in the States is one of the high points of my life.
UPDATE: He's being exactly as you'd hope you'd be in his situation- funny, and self-deprecating without being embarrassing. At last the world knows the true power behind the Fry and Laurie brand.
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Nightmare.
I'll finish that up at some point.
So I bought an iBook: this may well make me a prick. At the moment I'm watching Hugh Laurie on American TV here: he's killing. His massive success in the States is one of the high points of my life.
UPDATE: He's being exactly as you'd hope you'd be in his situation- funny, and self-deprecating without being embarrassing. At last the world knows the true power behind the Fry and Laurie brand.
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Tuesday, January 03, 2006
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
I have reservations about this - the narrator's story is occaisonally unconvincing, and I attribute these failings to Shriver. Still, by some distance it is the best modern novel I've read in a long time.
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I have reservations about this - the narrator's story is occaisonally unconvincing, and I attribute these failings to Shriver. Still, by some distance it is the best modern novel I've read in a long time.
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