If you’re going to have a king, then make it a human

An image to die for. It’s curious how individuals from another time and place worm their way into your personal soap opera, and incredibly curious to see at last what they look like. I’ve read a fair pile of Transition recollections, but I don’t do telly, or moonlight and romance in general. So sudden visions…

Russia to annex Belgium?

What with the Antwerp port mafia, arms smugglers, pornographers and tax allergics, not to mention earlier Hasidic refugees from the pogroms, there are quite a lot of ex-Russians in the country who live in constant fear of barbarian hordes consisting of Phlegms, Whales, Moors, and, of course, the European Emission. Peter the Great’s maps would…

Juxtapofuckup

Disturbing evidence of a top-secret Russian plan to buy off the entire Ukrainian officer corps with tennis pro contracts in more pleasant climes.

Iberian pork lion, not

What’s the point in translating stuff correctly when most of Anglophonia wallows in a post-literate swamp? (H/t AG)

Central nervous system fail

Think to turn off gas ring Realise I can use it for something else Realise the instruction has already been sent, curse aloud Turn off ring The British Empire was rather like this before the invention of telegraphy. I hope it is a sign of sleepiness after 75 savage children yesterday rather than of some…

Ancient history

I wasn’t around and missed this pearl (Sky < Mr G < IRQ; Southampton:Portsmouth::Army:Navy, as I well remember): “Umm Qasr is a town similar to Southampton”, UK Defence Minister Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons yesterday. “He’s either never been to Southampton, or he’s never been to Umm Qasr”, said one British soldier, informed…

Who’s afraid of a new Cold War?

Bilbo Hague seems to think the forces of freedom won the last one, despite Barraco Barner tracking my every move in ways the Stasi wouldn’t have dared dream of. Why, only yesterday I was out in my dinghy when. I did actually vote once, in local elections in The Hague, for the “green-left” (but actually…