Southern Railways’ new Electrostar trains – the last one of which was delivered the other day – have broken the London – Brighton rail speed record, setting a new time of 36’56”.
Author: Anthony
London & Brighton Democracy meetup
The first meeting of the London and Brighton Democracy meetup has been arranged, for 5 October at 1930, at the Mitre, off Hatton Garden.
Burma Shave Slogans
Burma Shave signs were iconic American advertising from the fifties. Witty billboards posted along a stretch of highway so they read as a little snatch of doggerel, either advertising the benefits of shaving, or with a little safety message. Fiftiesweb has a collection of the old slogans, and more on their history.
Example:
If your peach
Keeps out
Of reach
Better practice
What we preach
Burma-Shave
and
On curves ahead
Remember, sonny
That rabbit’s foot
Didn’t save
The bunny
Burma-Shave
When not in Rome
MetaFilter links to a great site full of 360° panoramas of Rome. Personal favourite – the view of the Pantheon. I sat in exactly that spot over thirteen years ago, just before I started university.
German elections
Confused (or more likely apathetic) about the German elections? Don’t be! They’re important, quite interesting, and now Der Spiegel’s English language edition gives you a handy primer to the issues and people. Link via A Fistful of Euros.
Adlestrop
Photo from http://www.mjausson.com
I went out to Worcester today, to give a talk, and the train passed the site of the old Adlestrop station, made famous by Edward Thomas’s beautiful poem. The poem’s always been a favourite of mine, Jane and I had a poster of it up in the first flat we had together, but I’d never been to the place itself.
You can see why Thomas was moved to poetry – the view from the railway line between Oxford and Evesham, running along the Evenlode Valley, is absolutely spectacular. So much so, in fact, that when faulty line-side equipment kept us waiting at a signal for 35 minutes, I was almost pleased.
Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
Salon.com (click-through advert or paid sub, sorry) has a good review of the new book The Republican War on Science, talking about such things as stem cell research, the anti-global warming campaign, and – of course – intelligent design.
See the John Stuart Mill quote in the title.
Bush and Blair at the UN
Just been watching Bush and Blair speaking at the UN Security Council (clips on Newsnight for the next 24 hours, about 10-12 minutes in).
My God, Bush is an atrocious public speaker. He reads from his notes, he gabbles, he hesitates, he mumbles. I’m glad I’m not his translator. Compare that with Blair – still reading, but using his notes intermittently, speaking forcefully. World of difference. Now, who’s the leader of the free world again?
Rousseau: Government of Poland
Thought for the day from Rousseau’s Government of Poland.
As long as luxury reigns among the great, cupidity will reign in all hearts. The object of public admiration and the desires of private individuals will always be the same; and if one must be rich in order to shine, to be rich will always be the dominant passion. This is a great source of corruption, which must be diminished as much as possible.
Ranting nutters defiant
Someone sitting opposite me on the train is reading the Daily Express, house journal of paranoid xenophobes. He has that pinch-faced disapproving look that seems to go with reading the Express or the Mail.
I see from the cover that the “World’s Greatest Newspaper” (© Daily Express) has put the Union Jack behind the crusader emblem, and added a subtitle ‘Britain defiant’.
I’m not sure whether this is pathetic or disturbing. One the one hand, the siege mentality of the far right is deeply, deeply contemptible and stupid. On the other, the power of the stupid is not to be underestimated, and I’ve always thought Richard Desmond was a natural for Fascist dictator.