Library cuts
I love libraries. Always have. I could spend all day in a library, working my way through the stock. I even love the weird library smell (what is that? It’s not the smell of books, because bookshops don’t smell like…
Strange experience in a public toilet
I was coming out of a public toilet in central London today (Paternoster Square, near St. Paul’s, if anyone’s interested), when I saw a strange sign on the door: “Images are being recorded for security purposes…” (so far so good)…
Rip Your Heart in Two
The Sunday papers often have sad stories. People with cancer, children needing transplants. Tug-at-the-heart-strings-over-your-tea-and-Cornflakes stuff. This Sunday’s Observer was different, though. The story of Noel Martin doesn’t tug at your heartstrings — it rips them out of your body, shreds…
Good on you, Hugh!
It’s not often that I support violence, but in this case I completely support Hugh Grant, who is in trouble for throwing a tub of food at a photographer. I mean, seriously, how many photos of celebrities leaving their houses…
If it’s good enough for Einstein…
It’s funny how conservatives always complain about left-wing thought dominating academia. They set up absurd organisations like Campus Watch dedicated to rooting out liberal bias, and hound anyone who dares to criticise capitalism, the government or the status quo in…
Mao: Crazy or not so Crazy? Discuss.
Monthly Review has one of those articles on its webiste that makes you sit up and take notice. It’s title: Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? My immediate response: well, yes, he did. But I think…
I almost agreed with David Cameron!
I had a real shock just now. Read a BBC News story about David Cameron talking shit, and actually found myself agreeing with part of it. (Well, at first I admit I was distracted by wondering how the man’s forehead…
In-Dependence from Bondage
This book seems worth reading. It looks at the work of Claude McKay and Michael Manley, an interesting combination, and more broadly at the effects of globalization on the African diaspora. My only real view of Manley up to now…