One of the stupidest pieces of evidence cited in anonymous briefings by the regional police in their attempts–based as far as I am aware purely on inter-corps rivalries–to pin Islamic terrorism charges on the 10 Pakistanis detained here on the 15th is that the gentlemen in question used Western Union to send and receive money.…
Someone told me this morning that the Royal Ulster Constabulary used to be known as the Trevors. It’s unclear to me whether this is a reference to the low incidence of the name in Catholic families, to Tacitus’ pigheaded Treviri, or to something completely different–please tell me if you know. Here, anyway, to strike terror…
Reading (and trying to sing) bits of Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues over lunch, I came across the following in the 118th chorus: It’s all the same to meThe radio I dont wanta hearAnd cant have to hearPlays one thing and anotherOf great Sarah Vag A musician once told me that, during one of Ms…
Price estimates had dropped so rapidly following recent news that the accountants figured it would be cheaper just to keep him locked up in the town hall until the next elections. 11,000 lots are up for sale–mostly office attributes–but I’m going to be bidding for the Flatiron Building, in which I plan to house my…
In tribute to this noble undertaking, here a select list of blogs written in English by would-be Spaniards currently resident in the Cambrillish Empire who were bitten this morning on the calf by a tiger mosquito and are wearing a pink fluorescent wig to soothe the pain: Kaleboel You can’t expect me to keep that…
The Times of India writes of the late Raja Ramanna that he had the capacity to design a nuclear bomb with one hand and play Bach, Beethoven and Lizst with the other. Given that most of us need at least two hands in order to pursue either hobby, the survival of this planet in the…
I hope that Europeans realise that it really only is absence that makes their hearts grow so strangely fond of Noam Chomsky, and that they don’t take up Eric Bakovic’s suggestion and deprive the Empire of a major source of export revenues. I first bumped into Chomsky when an ambitious professor thought it would be…
Someone claiming to be in LeMeaux has mailed to refute M’s suggestion that our mayor, Joan Clos, had made some kind of artificial addition to his beloved Hampton Wick. So what the hell’s wrong with him then?
André Hazes, the notable (but not notably abstemious–he famously lit up in the no-smoking cinema in which his life-film was being premiered) Dutch singer, died yesterday morning. RIP, one would think, but the Dutch music industry is smart–and tacky–enough not to miss a fiscal-friendly moment like this: Enschede a/ Zee has scanned the condolence ad…
From Popbitch: Abu al-Zarqawi is the mastermind behind this week’s gruesome hostage beheadings in Iraq. By filming himself doing the beheadings and then selling the resulting snuff movies as DVDs all over the Middle East, al-Zarqawi has turned himself into radical Islam’s hottest celebrity. What nobody has pointed out is how influenced by hip hop…