11/10/99 - Today's Telegraph has interviews with Sue Townsend, of Adrian Mole fame, and George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman books.  I've always liked the Flashman books as they relate to history we were never taught at school. 

"Flashman is a subversive figure, and when his first adventures were published in the 1960s they were seized on with joy by the Left as debunking the pompous heroics of Victorian legend. "I got a rave review from the Daily Worker, which said, "This is putting the Empire in its place, by God it is!" And they couldn't see, or they didn't want to see, that in fact there was, not expressed by Flashman but by me, a considerable affection for the Empire.""

It's pretty weak on the events of the first book.  This was the first time I'd heard of the First Afghan War (we fought in Afghanistan more than once?!))  It has to go on the list of ignominious failures, the entire British army, 9000 men, save one, a Dr. Brydan, was killed while retreating from Kabul.  Not even a victorious retreat like Dunkirk. 

11/10/99 - There's a job opportunity at Oak Ridge but I hope safety procedures have improved. (via RobotWisdom) 

"He tinkered with two hemispheres of uranium, each less than critical mass, using screwdrivers to slide them back and forth across a rod. He watched the dial of a neutron counter, which told him when he was getting close to a chain reaction. The experiment was a screw-up waiting to happen."

10/10/99 - The most worrisome phrase in the English language "If you are not involved in anything, you have nothing to be worried about." 

10/10/99 - Another link extracted from some old email, I was amazed how dedicated these people are.  Of course the only people more dedicated are those who specialize in these quite brilliant assassinations: 

"Within days of an NBC Dateline story hinting at a possible run for the Senate seat currently assumed to be the property of HillaryClinton, JFK Jr. and his wife and sister-in-law died when the Piper Saratoga II TC JFK Jr. was piloting crashed in to the ocean just short of Martha's Vineyard."

10/10/99 - Vote for America's Greatest 20^th Century Music at NPR. (via StuffedDog) 

Interesting choices: 

ALWAYS ON MY MIND, words/music JOHNNY CHRISTOPHER/MARK JAMES/WAYNE THOMPSON; as performed by WILLIE NELSON (1982) 
ENDTRODUCING (LP), DJ SHADOW (1996) 
 4:33, JOHN CAGE (1952) 
FUCK THA POLICE, N.W.A. (1989) 
MARDI GRAS IN NEW ORLEANS, PROFESSOR LONGHAIR (1949)

10/10/99 - I've been following the genetically-modified food controversy for months.  It looks like the US public is finally coming up to speed: 

"Charles Margulis, a Greenpeace spokesman, said: "It is a myth that attitudes in the US are different. The biggest difference is awareness, and that is changing. The more people know, the less they want to buy it.""

Some older stories on GM.  The CIA works hand in glove with Monsatan: 

"Mr Meacher [the environment minister] said last night that he was "astonished" after the US government confirmed that the CIA keeps a file on him. Compiled recently, it is believed to contain details of Mr Meacher's reservations about genetically-modified foods, which Washington promotes in Europe."

10/10/99 - One guilty pleasure is watching Fox's 'shock' TV programmes.  I saw the show that is the subject of this story, the Bradford football stadium fire. (via  MediaGossip) 

8/10/99 - Mmm, delicious! 

7/10/99 - This is classic.  A serious guide to getting served in British pubs: (via ALD) 

"Don’t call out to the bar staff, tap coins on the counter, snap your fingers, wave like a drowning swimmer, bang your hand on the counter, shout “service” or “barman” or wave money about. In fact, it is best to avoid all speech or obvious gesticulation... 

Do adopt an expectant, hopeful, even slightly anxious facial expression. If you look too contented and complacent, the bar staff may assume you are already being served."

"The correct etiquette for offering a drink to the publican or bar staff is to say “and one for yourself?”, or “and will you have one yourself?” at the end of your order... Make your offer a question, not an instruction, and do not bellow it out as though determined that the entire pub should be aware of your generosity. If you want to be impeccably British about it, avoid using the word ‘buy’. To say “Can I buy you a drink?” is acceptable, but it does suggest that money is involved. The natives are quite aware that money is involved, but prefer not to draw attention to the fact."

"While the actual list of words is not known it is assumed that words such as these will trigger the system: Kill FBI CIA NSA IRS ATF BATF DOD Militia gun weapon manifesto terrorism bomb Special Forces SOF Delta Force Constitution Mossad NASA MI5 Revolution Terrorist "

7/10/99 - When I want keep my language pure I turn here for advice: 

"Other Americanisms are euphemistic or obscure so avoid affirmative action, rookies, end runs, stand-offs, point men, ball games and almost all other American sporting terms."

"Vilest of all is the habit of throwing together several nouns into one ghastly adjectival reticule: Texas millionaire real-estate developer and failed thrift entrepreneur Hiram Turnipseed . . . "

7/10/99 - Subtle re-titling in action.  I found this while surfing.  LM? LM? Ah yes Living Marxism! 

7/10/99 - Congress Passes "America is #1" Bill, says The Onion. (via email) 

Need a little more patriotism, then visit Mr Lee Greenwood.  I'm surprised that giant GIF doesn't show him wrapped in the flag. 

You can hear his classic "God Bless America" here.  Or a whole bunch of patriotic tunes. 

6/10/99 - They kicked her out but now she's back. Margaret Thatcher, or "that bloody woman" as my mum calls her, STILL doesn't get it: 

"But it is an affront to common sense as well as a caricature of justice to maintain that a head of government [Augusto Pinochet] must automatically accept criminal responsibility for everything that is done while he is in power. On that basis Messrs Blair and Straw should accept criminal responsibility for everything done in every prison or police station throughout the United Kingdom - and then be extradited to Spain to answer for it."

Personally the arrest of Pinochet made me proud to be British, and that's not a sentiment I like expounding. 

Of course Thatch was saying even more ridiculous things yesterday: 

"In my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world." 

6/10/99 - This link was really difficult to find.  It is the site for a TV show in Holland, called Big Brother, that was featured on ABC news at the weekend.  It was described as being like The Truman Show but seems more like Real World or that Japanese guy. 

Searching for Big Brother did lead me to this site which leads onto the latest civil rights news. 

6/10/99 - I was going to collect together the few articles that appeared on our local 'character' King Love who passed away over the summer but unfortunately all the newspaper sites don't archive them. 

This is an older piece that interviews him.  It turned out that he was a doctor, he ended up on the streets after his wife died and he went bankrupt.  As a child he'd been a prodigy and played piano for the King of Egypt.  It was rather sad really. 

6/10/99 - If you're in town around Halloween you could check out the Haunted House. 

6/10/99 - From the Break (our local what's on guide), here's an interview with Stephen Merrit, of The Magnetic Fields. 

Or there's a piece on great local surf group, Stingray International. 

5/10/99 - The train crash in London reminds me of a conversation I had only last week about disasters  that come together.  It was brought on by the earthquakes in Turkey and Taiwan.  The second half of the 1980's in Britain was freakish in terms of accidents. 

Actually just found a link that does what I was going to do, summarize: 

"The period 1985-1989 is often referred to as "the UK disaster era", with a number of tragedies hitting the headlines (fatalities are in brackets): 

12 May 1985 Bradford City Football Stadium fire (40) 
29 May 1985 Heysel Stadium crowd disturbance (56) 
22 Aug 1985 Manchester Airport fire (55) 
6 Mar 1987 Herald of Free Enterprise sank (187) 
19 Aug 1987 Hungerford shootings (16) 
11 Nov 1987 Enniskillen bombing (11) 
18 Nov 1987 King's Cross underground station fire (31) 
6 Jul 1988 Piper Alpha North Sea oil rig fire (167) 
12 Dec 1988 Clapham rail crash (35) 
21 Dec 1988 Lockerbie plane crash (270) 
8 Jan 1989 East Midlands Kegworth air crash (47) 
15 Apr 1989 Hillsborough Football Stadium disaster (95) 
20 Aug 1989 Marchioness pleasure boat sank (51)"

4/10/99 - I'm supposed to track down some absinthe while I'm in England, so after a thorough search of the web I get: 

This is where you can buy it in England but there are no prices.  It does however give a list of bars where you can try it out. 

Or you can buy it direct from Czechoslovakia. 

This review says that both of these types are not much good. 

For the chemists amongst us here is the active ingredient, thujone.  {Time to power up your RasMol!} 

According to the Telegraph, Labour is poised to end our debauchery. 

This is a great little piece about absinthe and the resulting problems: 

"On Thursday, September 18, 1997, I received an email from a very nice lady, congratulating me for my web site having been mentioned in that day's newly-published edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. She said,

"In case you didn't know, some dumb-ass read about absinthe while visiting The Gumbo Pages and decided to drink wormwood oil to get high!"

This was perhaps the most astonishing email I have ever received."

3/10/99 - Long interview with Ann Widdecombe.  I should start a series - Bizarre People in British Politics. 

"The self-proclaimed virgin and Roman Catholic convert gave great quote: on Michael Howard ("Yuk"), on sex ("Yuk") and on the Church of England ("Increasingly ghastly")." 

"Perhaps it is this impression of invulnerability that has encouraged people to describe Ann Widdecombe in the most grotesque, cartoon terms - warder from Prisoner Cell Block H, Albanian goalkeeper, Giles's Granny."

I do laugh at Yobs though. 

3/10/99 - Short article interviewing authors concerning film adaptations of their novels: 

"[E.L.] Doctorow: "The absolute ideal thing for me is to have the book bought and never made into a movie."

3/10/99 - Short article on Elephant 6 artists. 

2/10/99 - A personal bugbear.  On the necessity of adults wearing bicycle helmets, a doctor debunks the perceived wisdom, and concludes: 

"Rather than encasing cyclists in armour-plating, we should be directing our attention to that nut behind the steering wheel."

"It's always astonished me how little sensitivity Americans display toward their former colonial masters. Nazi Germany was, by any measure, a far more loathsome enemy than the British Empire  yet most Americans would be hard pressed to identify what V-E  Day is, let alone celebrate it. Why can't you extend the same tact and magnanimity to Britain that you display toward Japan?"

2/10/99 - An interview with Dan Savage. (via Obscure Store) 

You can check out his unexpurgated column here.  Or his warm and cosy column here. 

2/10/99 - Short, boring article on the Y2K situation in the UK. There was someone on the World Service who made a lot of sense. It seems apart from pubs, clubs and taxis, businesses will be slowing right down from mid-December into January.  And small businesses will be shafted by everyone blaming non-payments on Y2K. Alex has it right. 

2/10/99 - If you've ever had to wait tables or deal with the public (or the great seething, stinking mass of humanity as I call them) then you will appreciate this.  And if you've ever wondered if someone has spat in your food (or worse) then this will confirm your worst fears. 

2/10/99 - Another piece on the new Momus album. 

And here is his wife's website.  She has the complete story of her marriage to Momus, including the (sympathetic) tabloid treatment: 

"RUNAWAYS WED IN FEAR! A SCOTS musician and his teenage bride are living on the run. After she fled her family in Bangladesh to escape an arranged marriage..."

2/10/99 - An interesting article on the modern calendar. (via Anthropology in the News) 

This is the most relevant part for anyone thinking that A.D. 2000 will have any special meaning (and allows us to add another name to the list of 'Stupid Names in History'): 

"The church assigned the Julian Calendar a new start date -- the birth of Jesus. The year chosen was A.D. 1. This move, made in large part because of a Scythian monk whose name roughly translates to "Denny the Runt," posed some problems. First, most historians now agree that Jesus was born somewhere between 7 and 3 B.C. If true, that means we're already in the third millennium."

2/10/99 - Quirky Japanese links.  I read in the New Scientist of a electronic dog walker available in Japan.  Here it is with cute little Quicktime movies.  The company also seems to be selling bizarre face exercisers.