If we look at Iranian cities, we won’t find a single billboard publicizing a book. IRIB [Iran’s state broadcaster] doesn’t advertize any books. The national media doesn’t advertize even a single book shop from all across Iran, but there are advertizing posters on the walls across the city inviting people […]
Here via the Browser, going from strength to strength with its insightful and witty links, is a terrific piece deconstructing what at first glance looks like a photograph of a fine example of curvalicious womanhood. But on closer inspection see how the image has been … manipulated. Does it matter? Is this […]
Another Browser link, this time to a fascinating interview with Stephen Lucas, a heavyweight expert on Soviet Law. This is well worth reading since it casts some light on an area largely neglected in Western analysis of Communism, namely the way the Soviet regime tried to give legal effect to […]
Perusing Hacker Factor I found this notable device, a Gender Guesser programme for (yes) guessing the gender of a writer from 300 or so words of prose. Worth a try. So I cut and pasted this passage from a recent blog entry of mine: The strength of the Iranian protest […]
Reader Norman Fraser in his amazement despises this site: I am amazed at how intellectually short-winded most of your posts are… Yet mothishly he flickers to and fro around its warm glow. See his latest comment on my posting below about those climategate email Source Code Hiccups: Still kidding yourself in ever […]
As 2010 looms one looks back at one’s website stats for the site’s second full year: 2009 79000 Unique Visitors 178,000 Visits 634,000 Pages 2,076,000 Hits 2008 42,600 Unique Visitors 97,000 Visits 458,000 Pages 1,429,000 Hits Not clear to me how many of you follow by RSS feed and where if […]
In our family the period immediately before Christmas Day is taken up with the annual ritual of home-made Christmas cards. This tradition started when Crawf 1 appeared and has developed over the years as successive Crawfs have appeared and grown. Originally simple coloured drawings with some sort of family theme […]
As the children get older it is highly efficient to buy smart presents for oneself but make a play of bestowing them on the progeny. Such as, for example, the remarkable ‘graphic novel’ Logicomix: Rush off and buy it with your remaining Christmas money. Now. It is the long, wry, subtle […]
Having got nowhere in 2009, I am going to have another self-indulgent shot at the 2010 Orwell Blog Prize. 2009 winner was Nightjack, a UK policeman writing his blog anonymously who was later ‘outed’. He is on the jury this year, so my own thoughts on the fact that his […]
Goes to the Times website today: Bad, bad and very bad. Our critics’ butcher this year’s turkeys
