Nick Lloyd is posting literary references to the miserable state of the costa. I believe that we should learn to accept that it is destined to be repeatedly laid waste by entrepreneurs: Everyone … could see with their own eyes the desolation of the Spanish, French, and Italian coasts, thanks to the pertinacious infestation of…
The Taoiseachracy got sick of being hassled during the Irish presidency of the EU by lobbyists for various unloved languages, so here’s a little bit of revenge that should end discussion of EU institutional language policy for the next decade: LONDON — Ireland said yesterday it wants Irish to be made the 21st official language…
Paul Welsh writes: Lord Butler’s report may have been produced for the British Parliament, but it is being poured over and digested around the world. What, though, is being poured? Scorn? I’m going to try some nice cold custard.
I know it’s just a formula, but I still don’t like the tag on the Allawi quote: BAGHDAD Iraq will create a security service to tackle the insurgency in the country, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Thursday. The new service, the General Security Directorate, “will annihilate those terrorists’ groups, God willing,” Allawi said during a…
LONDON (Reuters): The Butler report on Iraq intelligence has sparked accusations that Prime Minister Tony Blair has adopted a presidential style and runs “government by sofa” with a coterie of unelected advisers. This is very worrying since, as every student of history knows, it were all them Grand Vizier geezers sitting around on sofas smoking…
John Prescott was actually being extremely clever when he announced yesterday that Labour “will reduce and probably eliminate the homeless by 2008.” Eliminate, says the OED, comes from eliminare, to thrust out of doors, expel (e, out of + limen, liminis, threshold), so it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Mr Prescott was constructing…
It seems that the local parasite class is going to stop moaning about Bush and his Saudis for long enough tomorrow to welcome Prince Sultan ibn Salman, apparently secretary-general of the Saudi “Supreme Commission for Tourism”, who is here to open some anti-democratic jamboree down at the Forum, to which local women’s groups presumably haven’t…
Philip Resnik is not convinced that there was any “tradition of valuing other cultures as successive waves of immigrants settled in the United States”: Yup, a great tradition, exemplified so nicely by our nation’s coining the term “liberty sandwich” to replace “hamburger” during World War I … and exemplified more recently by all those good…
With no disrespect intended, and given that it is easier to organise wars and other historical events in the mind when they are grouped in series, the Charles Jenkins incident is probably all that will be generally remembered of the Korean War, and Charles Jenkins has outstanding lugs, would it not be pragmatic to begin…
I haven’t seen anything in the Japanese press, but this Straits Times story is a giggle anyway. According to the ST, Japanese pundits were expecting to concentrate on one thing when Mr Jenkins stepped off his flight in Jakarta: If Mr Jenkins brought the dog, it meant he intended to stay for some time in…
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