Concrete Achievements

Blog

  • For xenophobes and numismatists

    The Royal Mint has shown off its new coin designs, reports the Guardian, and they are pretty grim. Designed to look like bits of the royal coat of arms, that perfect symbol of everything British, the coins’ design works when they are arranged in a rather odd pattern (see the pic on the Graun website), but not in other ways.

    For starters, there’s no numerical statement of value, so if you’re someone who doesn’t understand the English words “one”, “fifty” and “twenty”, for instance, you can just piss off back to Bongo Bongo Land or wherever you came from, with compliments of the Royal Mint.

    What’s more, the royal coat of arms itself is not without unfortunate historical echos. No Wales, of course, which is part of England in heraldic terms (goodbye, Welsh Assembly), and the inclusion of the Irish harp, bits of which appear on the penny and the 50p, has a long story behind it.

    Bring on the Euro, please.

  • Bagel Delight Bakery, Cricklewood

    A bit of a hidden gem this, on the Broadway in Cricklewood near the Crown hotel. Great range of cakes, all very fresh, and good coffee.

  • Compensation for T5

    Interesting but not surprising that the BBC Q&A on the rights of those stranded at Heathrow leaves until the third screen any mention of the fact that the rights derive from EU legislation. If it had been straight bananas, it would have been “new EU rules” in the headline.

  • Haven’t they suffered enough?

    The BBC reports:

    A man bidding to buy Mansfield Town is planning to rename the club Harchester United after the former Sky series The Dream Team

    Which just goes to show that the ‘fit and proper person‘ test needs to be extended to cover coin-eyed publicity-seeking nobodies without the sense to understand the what a club’s history and reputation mean to its fans. I mean, Dream Team, for fuck’s sake. Even Fulchester United would be better.

  • Come to Blackpool. Please.

    The BBC news is reporting a desperate publicity stunt (sorry, but it is) by the leader of Blackpool Council. According to the report, the Council, whose watch committee banned the group from the town in 1964, are going to write to Mick et al and invite them back.

    The BBC’s report says that the watch committee’s decision “has effectively kept the band out of the resort ever since”. That, and the fact that it’s, you know, Blackpool.

  • Gordon Brown in le Monde

    Gordon Brown has given his first foreign press interview, to Le Monde. It’s here.

  • Credulous Bayesians

    I posted this – a paper on extremism and online debate, among other things – over at the Demsoc blog.

  • Café Pascucci, Clapham Junction

    Grabbed breakfast this morning at Café Pascucci on St John’s Road near Clapham Junction. Great little Italian cafe with comfortable modern surroundings and fantastic espresso. Their English breakfast was also very good.

  • How journalism works

    New from the Daily Hate: make up a story about how immigrants are all lying thieving bastards. We won’t check the facts, and we’ll pay you one hundred pounds!

    (Greenslade)

  • The need for the war on Terror

    I don’t always agree with Glenn Greenwald, a political blogger at Salon, but his piece today, on how the supporters of the GWOT are motivated in part by a desire to be seen as soldiers in a great cause, really hits some good points. Bonus credit, too, for referencing the Paranoid Style in American Politics, which describes a lot of Internet debate avant la lettre.