Cross dressers

From the NYT: A small number of [Sarkozy’s] plainclothes police officers are wearing dreadlock wigs, hoods and Palestinian kaffiyehs to try to blend in with the street toughs. I do hope they remember not to wear their black shoes.

Dr Kitsch / Dr Kitch MP3

Would someone be an absolute darling and send me an MP3 or WAV or whatever of Dr Kitsch in the original calypso version? Talk to me here, and I will love you forever (or at least until that gorgeous girl comes back from work on her scoot-scoot-tricycle). Solved: thankyou Dave.

Destitution of Valencia’s King Harlot

Someone told me once that the best brothel in Spain, ever, was a mythical one run in medieval Valencia by one Rei Arlot under licence from the King of Aragon. The reality is slightly more predictable: King Harlot was the popular name given to the government official charged with regulating prostitution, and the office was…

Precariousness

David Rennie notes a popular reactionary meme: Her piece picked up the great buzz-word of the current French protests, “précarité” – which means something like bleak uncertainty, and carries a sense of horror at life outside the state’s swaddling embrace. I don’t know where or when it was born, but it’s been painted on the…

Chinese cockle-pickers verdict

I suspect Dani Sanchez Llibre has not been following the case. There’s a moving interview with the coastguard here and with a survivor here. The image of the bodies lined up by the tide is one that lingers.

Gaypimp

Someone told me last night about Jonny McGovern. Our next show’s going to be even worse.

Removals

I’m getting about 3,500 visitors a day now & am moving over the next couple of days to a more reliable provider with better rates. I’m taking none of the recommended precautions, so things may get messy.

Permanent truce

Here‘s a very funny thing by Pedro de Miguel on what to do during the contradiction in terms to which we are to be subjected starting midnight.

BBC: ETA “blamed” for killings

Neither the terrorists themselves nor anyone else is in disagreement about who murdered 851 fellow citizens, injured thousands more, and drove tens of thousands from their homes over the past 38 years, but the BBC has some lingering doubts: Eta is blamed for killing more than 800 people in its four-decade fight for independence for…