Sorry if you’re totally bored by the football by now, but I’m afraid I’ve been continuing to enjoy this year’s competition. Last Thursday, I joined a bunch of Aussies in a central London pub to watch their final group game. With a somewhat depressing predictability, the beeb had chosen to show Brazil as their main BBC1 game (which offered only the remotest of outside chances of Japan qualifying), instead of the one remaining group F…
Many, many months ago I half considered buying tickets to go to this year’s wireless festival. Not the James Gray/David Blunt/KT Thingie nonsense that happened over the weekend, of course, but just the first day of the event, the “indie” day: I’m very much enjoying The Raconteurs’ album, for one, the Dirty Pretty Things remind me of The Libertines when they were good, and it’s always worth seeing the likes of The Strokes or Belle…
Wireless festival, Behind Us, watching the Strokes. IT’S: Edith Bowman Who’s that on the tube? Chubby girl in business suit? Her off Apprentice
– Is it wrong that, on seeing this 1978 photo of Microsoft staffers that’s been doing the rounds again recently, that my main thought was “I wonder what happened to their tech author…”? – Despite it being nearly three weeks since my (private) company moved into a floor of a building otherwise occupied by a government department, I only noticed this morning that there is a permanent sign in reception displaying the current “bikini alert”…
For some reason, TNT Magazine have decided that I’d like to receive email updates about the World Cup progress of the Australian football team. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see the Aussies winning for once–it’s got to be good for the domestic game in Australia, for one thing, which, who knows, might come in handy for me personally at some point in the future, and it’s not as if I see them…
BBC: Release of 53 lifers under fire. Well, I suppose it makes things interesting, watching them dodge the bullets, doesn’t it?
According to the leaks from the latest report into the de Menezes shooting, Sir Ian Blair didn’t actually lie to the media after all, because the people who knew the truth were too scared to tell him. Apparently, according to some people, that makes everything ok. Well, then… he’s just an incompetent manager, feared by his subordinates, but at least he’s not a liar. Now, I’ve always felt that he was in something of a…
I’ve been rather enjoying the World Cup so far (and not just because my fantasy football team has been doing rather well for once–today’s been particularly good, with both Tim Cahill and Tomas Rosicky in my team). Maybe it’s just because, unlike the European Championships two years ago, this time we’ve got two tellies, so Sal can happily retreat next door with Big Brother leaving me happily ensconced in front of Italy – Ghana. On…
In response to a blog post I made almost two and a half years ago, “brookfield” writes that [s]he is “terribly sorry that [I’ve] gone entirely mad”. From what I remember, at the gig in question, Damien Rice was being a bit of a petulant, precious, artiste, and I believe that was the point I was trying to make in the blog. I do actually quite like Mr Rice’s music, but apparently I “wouldn’t understand,…
I didn’t have my book today, so I found myself sitting on the tube reading Metro this morning. After I’d got past the utterly vacuous Rumsfeld quote on the front page (“no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands than Zarqawi”–look Rummy, I know you are contractually obliged to pretend that getting the terrists is the most important thing ever, but think about…