For some bracing feminist-inclined fresh air after all this fetid Westminster stuff, swing by BBRU 217 hosted by Philobiblon. Plenty of gripping links. Not least this startling account of the way Jersey is run these days. And this angry but confused piece from Penny Red about why it’s OK – […]
Former Ambassador Brian Barder has been trying to crank up the argument that Guido has to carry a sizeable share of the blame for spreading the odious contents of the McBride emails: … virtually all the smear stories sent privately as possible blog material by McBride to Draper are now […]
Wrinkled Weasel has been sharing some interesting ideas with me on the value or not of blogging as a propaganda tool. He argues that blogging lacks ‘semiotic subtlety/stability’: Unless you state your case unequivocally, the point tends to get missed. If one were to attempt a propaganda blog, the writer […]
When I saw the Prime Minister’s letter to Sir Gus O’Donnell about the McBride affair I at first thought it was a spoof as it was so oddly drafted. But it turns out to be real. What’s odd about it from a literary and substantive point of view? Various things. […]
Here is another fine site looking at English words (HT Ken Buxton) – where they come from and where they are going: World Wide Words. What should you say? He weaved his way through the traffic Or he wove his way through the traffic? The answer and an elegant explanation […]
Michael White at the Guardian broods on the what the headline over his piece terms "… the rightwing dominance of political blogosphere". Thus: If I understand the situation correctly, McBride got mixed up with Labour blogger and psychotherapist, Derek Draper – not always a wise move – in trying to […]
What exactly was wrong with apartheid? At root the act of defining people in arbitrary phoney ‘racial’ categories then allocating them special territories accordingly (‘homelands’). Just as happens in some bookshops these days (HT Ed Driscoll): What a great idea! Putting all the novels about black people in a single […]
Ever-alert reader Ken Buxton picks up my posting about dying expressions and points us all to this excellent site about Eggcorns, words and phrases whose use is mutating mainly but not only through ignorance: In September 2003, Mark Liberman reported (Egg corns: folk etymology, malapropism, mondegreen, ???) an incorrect yet particularly […]
Why do positive things happen today? In good part because previous generations have acted ruthlessly to suppress the forces of destruction – to establish the principle that for good behaviour to spread, really bad behaviour must have really bad consequences. Hence for a long period piracy on the high seas was […]
The BBC reports a ruling by a top Polish court that Poland’s cyclists may face imprisonment for riding while intoxicated, as do drivers of motor vehicles. This has to be the right answer, despite the ingenious but specious counter argument that cyclists should be treated as pedestrians who face lesser […]
