Concrete Achievements

Blog

  • Paris to Rīga

    On the way to Tallinn for a friend’s stag weekend, but going the long way round. Stayed in the Nord Hotel, a rather shabby two-star place right by the Gare du Nord. Not as plush as the neighbouring Hotel Terminus Nord, but fine for the half an hour I spent there awake. Wandered down to Maison Berthillon and had dinner at the Place d’Italie, a slightly soulless square on the southern side of the city, with a massive cinema.

    Then a long train journey to Warsaw, made all the longer by a nasty cold, and a night in the plush and fairly reasonably priced Novotel Centrum, on Al. Jerozolimskie by the central station.

    Finally, a long overnight coach via Eurolines from Warsaw’s tediously remote central bus station to Rīga, via Kaunas.

  • Delors interview on Europe and the French Presidentials

    Le Monde has an interview with Jacques Delors on the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.

  • Euromyths exploded

    Happy birthday for tomorrow to the European Union – 50 years old. In celebration, the BBC explodes some famous mythical European regulations, including the straight bananas, the Mumbai mix, and the end of the pint.

  • What do we need to do to get your attention?

    WIRED blogs reports a great new advertising campaign by the Red Cross to get the people of the Bay Area to prepare for an earthquake. The best stunt was parking a two-sided advertising trailer in front of the Ferry Building. From one side, it shows the Ferry Building on fire. From the other, Market Street with half its buildings collapsed. Pictures on the blog.

  • Dreadful news

    Chris Lightfoot, MySociety’s first developer and all-round e-polymath, has died unexpectedly. He was 29. R.I.P.

  • Two examples of how useless Internet debate is

    Exhibit A: the comments on an Observer article claiming that climate change exists. All in agreement with the Channel 4 lunacy about climate change being a big hoax, plus personal invective at the author and RANDOM capitalisations to SHOW that there is GREAT CONSPIRACY afoot. Thank you, representative sample.

    Exhibit B: A poll on the website of the Sussex Express, whose question is “Do you think the Council tax has gone up too much?”. Amazingly 88% of people think it has.

  • I wish I’d had a camera

    I was in a meeting in someone’s office earlier today, and I noticed behind her shoulder a switch marked ‘press’, with a sign fixed to the wall above it reading ‘do not press’.

    Unfortunately I didn’t get a moment alone to take a photo.

  • Little MP3s

    When I was in Amsterdam last, I heard a song from the new musical version of “Wat Zien Ik?”. Searching for an MP3 version of it, I came across the fantastic word MP3’tjes – surely only the Dutch language could add a diminutive to an acronym.

    For cultural cross-referencing purposes, I should note that the site I found this word on described itself as “Het forum van DE Nederlandse Backstreet Boys fansite”. So if you were confused by the large number of Nederlandse Backstreet Boys fansites out there: this is the one to go to.

  • Elections in the House of Lords – right here, right now

    If you ever doubted the case for reform of the House of Lords, take a look at this PDF which bubbled up onto the frontpage of Parliament.uk today.

    The document is the notice of an election – yes, an election – for a Tory member of the House of Lords. It’s to replace one of the hereditaries who died the other day, and the most extraordinary thing is that the electorate is 47 other hereditary peers.

    No, wait, the most extraordinary thing is that the people eligible to stand for election are only other Tory hereditary peers.

    No, no. Surely the most extraordinary thing is that the election result will be decided on by proportional representation.

    Must be great to be a hereditary peer – you get to stand in a restricted pool, to be selected by a restricted electorate, using a more representative system than that for the Commons.

  • We have always been at war with Eastasia terrorists

    Iraq war a bad idea? Not to the committed Republicans of the Victory Caucus, which is always a reliable place to find upbeat reporting on the fledgling democracy that is Iraq today (think Switzerland, with oil, apparently). If you think their logo and terminology is a little familiar (Victory Mansions, anyone?) Glenn Greenwald in Salon points out that you might be thinking of 1984.