The other day I was having a beer with Simon Hughes when he suddenly said, “Trevor, I want you to know that I’m gay,” and then tried to cover it up by asking the barman for yet another Freudian Pils. (Thanks Paul. Furt is appearing April 3rd in Norwich and April 22nd in Leeds.)
I went through a phase in which I agreed (although slightly less volubly) with R Hughes re R Rauschenberg, but then I found WS Burroughs playing with similar ideas with more aggression and originality (although with less skill) and I changed sides. Further, Rauschenberg couldn’t write, while Burroughs’ Tangier stuff is better even than that…
I’d like to see Guus Hiddink take over England asap, but then I was supporting Mark Oaten (go on, get me one for my birthday!) to run the Lib Dems until he started chasing the England job, leaving Boris Johnson as the LDs’ only potentially electable leader. (Apparently the Koreans gave Guus a villa on…
It’s extraordinary that there’s no discussion of the UK in the paper by György Frunda (via Arcadi Espada) being debated today in the Council of Europe (countries without formal constitutions obviously don’t count). I’m of the view that cultural nations, like religious sects and Ruby programmers, should be self-financing and not be allowed anywhere near…
The NYT editorial Army Troglodytes in Spain is misguided and reactionary (as well as being factually inaccurate re Spain’s history and constitutional order). Troglodytes are good, forward-looking people whose choice of housing reflects a concern for energy conservation; unlike nomads, troglodytes rarely form armies and are generally nice, romantic things like shepherds, brigands and Ruby…
There’s a good organ miscellania page here. The Sultan and I anecdote was one of the few useful pieces of information I knew as a child. The Spanish connection lies in the Novelda rock organ, of which more here, and the information that “Spanish organs of the 18th century include a number of mischievous sound…
When I worked in an office, one day someone in a suit came in to sell me something IT-based. It turned out that she was a horror porn star (this genre) in her spare time, which was much more interesting. I believe revelation of this information to have been partly responsible for a colleague’s heart…