From the Rodent: It would've been wiser and more useful in military and diplomatic terms; more humane, productive and billions of pounds less expensive if the US and Britain had responded to 9/11 by crashing two planeloads of US marines into the centre of a randomly-chosen Afghan city at 700 mph and executing 300 randomly-chosen … Continue reading Depressing but probably true
Category: Foreignery
The latest insane euromyth, as faithfully invented by the Daily Mail, is that the EU is planning to ban the sale of eggs by the dozen or half-dozen. As usual, the Littlejohn Rule applies here: if the story sounds like something you "really couldn't make up" (thanks, Mr Dale), then somebody doubtless has made it … Continue reading Eggscerable reporting, or ‘no, the EU won’t ban eggs by the dozen’
There are two possible meanings that the phrase 'anti-Europe' can carry. One is the Fox News interpretation, under which Europe is full of gay, garlic-eating communists, and therefore should be bombed, or at least avoided. The other is the opposition to European political integration, or to the view of Europe as a political rather than … Continue reading ‘Anti-Europe’ is an accurate term for UKIPpers
Charlie Brooker sums up Britishness with t3h excellence: I was born in the 70s and grew up in a tiny rural village. There was, I think, only one black kid in my primary school. One day, someone pushed him over and called him "blackjack". The headmaster called an impromptu assembly. It involved the entire school, … Continue reading A thing of beauty
...for its glorious living-up-to-stereotypes-ness: The latest unemployment figures could not be released today because statisticians are on strike
So, when I said "don't bother switching banks," what I actually meant was "don't bother switching banks unless your bank, instead of falling under the UK compensation scheme, falls under the compensation scheme of a small, rainy, historically very poor island which crazily overexpanded over the last five years and has absolutely no chance of … Continue reading End of the world update: time to buy tins and shotguns?
I'm deeply annoyed that I work for a company that places onerous restrictions on my ability to trade shares, even on my personal account - if I didn't, then I'd pile some serious money into HBOS stock right now... September 17 update: Fuckery. That's £3,000 I would have made, buying at 150 yesterday and selling … Continue reading Another get-rich-quick scheme thwarted
From Poland, an excellent piece of life imitating art.
I've got a new piece up on the otherwise increasingly moribund Sharpener, about the terrifying public and press reaction - both in the UK and in Iran - that risks escalating a minor diplomatic incident into a casus belli. Hopefully sanity will prevail: ideally on both sides, but at the very least on ours...
I've just had a fabulous holiday in ex-Yugoslavia; I'd recommend a trip to Croatia and Slovenia to anyone, with the possible exception of people I dislike. The new-found prosperity in both countries is amazing, given their past of communist stagnation and civil war - even in Slovenia, albeit briefly - as is the scenery. And … Continue reading Europeanisms