Rolling Stone magazine excoriates “the worst Congress ever”.
The birth of the iPod
Wired tells the story of how the iPod came about.
Travel notes: Reading
To Reading for a meeting. Stayed at the Royal County Hotel, an old-fashioned place in a central location. Friendly staff and nice rooms, but on lift.
Dinner on Sunday night at Santa Fe by the Thames. Chainy but nice American-Mexican place. Tonight ate at the fantastic Sweeney & Todd’s pie shop on Castle Street and ate heartily for £6. Then to the Three Bs cafe bar in the old town hall, which showed historic public sector randomness by not serving coffees after 4pm.
The real battle of Hastings
940th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, and I’m in Battle for a huge re-enactment. It’s very spectacular, though of course the result is never in doubt. Even more spectacular, and a lot less organised, is the melee of kids with wooden swords charging around while their parents watch the battle.
Pofigism
An piece in this week’s New Republic, not available for free online,
talks about the large Russian community around Brighton Beach, in New
York state. There’s a fierce battle going on between two Russian-
speakers for the Democratic nomination (and hence the seat in November).
The Russian community, interestingly, have been excluded from the
political process in the past, and that has bred in them a sort of
apathy that I find quite recognisable from disengaged people in the
UK. The speaker is Gene Borsh, a voter-education activist who works
with the Russians in Brighton Beach:
“The result is this terrible apathy.What will my vote
change?” He summed up the communal affliction as “pofigism,” a one-of-
a-kind Russian neologism that roughly translates as “I-don’t-give-a-
shit-ism.” Borsh’s colleague Marina Belotserkovsky described it as
trepidation before the unknown that became expressed as disdain: “We
stand apart—we don’t get involved in the things these idiots do.”
Pofigism – a word we have use for.
Making a bad situation worse
The BBC reports on a foolish joke by a local councillor, who made some unwise remark about gay marriage. Unfortunately, in the interview, he just makes a bad situation worse:
“”I believe in the law of Moses. I’m not a religious fanatic. As long as they do it behind closed doors, I don’t mind, but now they [homosexuals] control the media, the television. They have much stronger control over this country than they should have”
Oh dear.
Conkers
It’s that time of year again, when papers run stories about conkers being banned by town hall bureaucrats. The tale in Worthing, reported in today’s Argus, is a bit more unusual, however. Worthing BC are taking the conkers off the trees because they are having to pay thousands to people who have their windows broken by children trying to knock conkers off the trees.
What? Are Worthing so flush with cash that they can run a free repair service for their residents? Are the children employed by them? Why not say ‘tough luck, guys’?
At prayer no longer
A piece in this morning’s Birmingham Post contains an interesting factoid. Only twelve Tory conference visitors attended morning service at Bournemouth’s parish church. You couldn’t get away with that if you were a Republican!
A little victory
One piece of good news in the struggle between terrorism and politics: IRA ‘no longer a terrorist threat’ (Guardian).
The two faces of Birmingham
To Birmingham for a conference yesterday and a meeting this morning. Stayed in the Holiday Inn on Hill Street, which really needs a refurb internally (and is getting it), but is comfortable enough. Free wi-fi broadband as well, which is more than can be said for some hotels.
Had dinner at Zinc, on the canal near Five Ways, which was a pleasant experience – unlike the 80s retro bar across the road. A stylishly-designed Pitcher and Piano nearby was more relaxing, if a bit corporate.
This morning, out to a meeting in Star City, a casino-bowling-cinema development at Nechells in Aston. Took the bus out there like the good boy I am, but it was a fairly depressing ride. Row after row of sad looking 60s/70s houses – still maintained by their owners, but looking very faded overall. The slaughter of central Birmingham by the ring road is really tragic.
There were a few architectural high spots – a nice row of possibly mid-Victorian terraced houses on Nechells Park Road, and a wonderful public baths, which might be a bit later: full of Victorian civic pride with a vast coat of arms on the front. A bit of research shows that it closed in 1995, and is now the home of the local regeneration project. They couldn’t pick a better building: the city’s motto is proudly emblazoned over the door: FORWARD.