Is the best hope for mass communication in a globalised world a boiled-down version of the English language called Globish? A Frenchman Jean-Paul Nerriere has been trying to codify this phenomenon into some 1500 words and simplified expressions. The crafty French sub-plot seems to be to concede a historic linguistic defeat […]
How dazzling is President Obama? So dazzling that he didn’t merely give a dazzling inaugural speech. Any old timeserving hack could do that. Instead, he had the sheer genius to give a flat dull speech full of the usual shopworn boilerplate. Mark Steyn. Who else? When I try to explain […]
Here are the entrants for the first Orwell Prize for blogs. I find myself on the list sandwiched between Charlotte Gore (Reluctant LibDem) and a splendid blog extolling the Greatness of Tony Blair, the rather one-dimensional subject-matter proclaimed with verve and gusto. Archbishop Cranmer may be hard to beat: stylish, […]
A sturdy piece by Harry Phibbs who got to the point about David Miliband’s misplaced informality and linked it to Blairish ‘anti-stuffiness’ before I did: In a triumph of style over substance, Blair declared a moral crusade against stuffiness in our domestic affairs. Not being addressed as Prime Minister was […]
An enticing new business opportunity arrives in my Inbox: Dearest One, My late father deposited 6.5millon dollars in finance company hear in Cote d’lvory, before he die, for on-word transfer aborad through diplomatic cargo for investment purpose, This is an a confidential matter to be delt with carefulness to enable us understand […]
The main technical problem with killing someone for personal gain is not getting caught. Here’s a plan. The target hosts tea for a worthy, clever and believable sucker. The target’s shattered body is found soon afterwards, when you + sucker have obviously been somewhere else. How could he have been killed in that short […]
My previous whimsical posting has prompted several pertinent comments leading me to this marvellous site: 419 Eater. I now know more about this scam industry – much of it (but not all) originating in Africa – than is healthy. Some of the exchanges between Scambaiters and the would-be scammers intended […]
A deft and interesting Observation on The Old Curiosity Shop by David Frum. A pleasure to read someone who loves books and ideas sharing his thoughts with the rest of us, without truculent ideology or any obvious ‘angle’.
PJ O’Rourke starts at a canter (h/t Instapundit): Is it too soon to talk about the failed Obama presidency just because Obama isn’t president yet? Accelerates: Bringing the government in to run Wall Street is like saying, "Dad burned dinner, let’s get the dog to cook." And ends at a […]
