Bad puns, old Internet memes, very out-of-date 'cute animal news' stories, and aviation references, all in one photograph. I'm spoiling you all, just like being left in the sun for a week spoils cream. Yes, she really is at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle. Incidentally, this post was based on a tweet by @anattendantlord, which was itself … Continue reading Cruel and unusual pun-ishment
Category: The generic nonsense you love
There's been some chat this weekend about a sale of Virgin Atlantic. Very much like the sale of Cadbury, this is a point where my general views about the free market are coloured by views by the awful bastards who might end up owning things that I like to have [*]. Virgin Atlantic are the … Continue reading Airlines and Virginity
Note: this post was written at 1AM on Australia Day, following an evening in which many traditional Australian beverages were consumed. While I stand by its emotional truth in the cold light of day, I'm not making any claims of accuracy for any of the 'facts' cited below... So, today it's Australia Day. We're celebrating … Continue reading Poms, Paddies, Wogs & Asians All Let Us Rejoyce
In Anglophone countries, we tend to view race through a US prism. The recent Teacupgate saga that black (meaning black, not BME) students are underrepresented at Oxbridge is a good example. In the UK, and every other majority-white country except the US, black people are just another immigrant group - they're people who've mostly come … Continue reading The American race narrative is unique and irrelevant
OK, so as an Englishman following the World Cup bidding whilst living in and loving Australia, the last 20 minutes have been kinda sad. My pre-draw, pre-looking-up-facts take on things would be "it's most likely that Russia and Qatar will win, because the draw is decided by crooked bastards from the third world appointed by … Continue reading Soccer, with added self-loathing versus racism
It being Sunday, or Monday, or one of those kind of days, and this being a Journal of Record [*], I thought I'd put out the kind of quiz that only my readers could answer. What do the following UK-headquartered banks: * HSBC * Lloyds Banking Group * Standard Chartered * RBS ...have in common … Continue reading It’s a Jolly Fun Bank Quiz
From a post on the correlation between studying engineering and becoming a violent extremist, commenter Tom Bach: Hitler was notoriously lazy and profoundly ignorant; in large measure because he never studied anything and read less. He enjoyed rambling monologues filled with made up facts. Commenter Stuart: It sounds as if Hitler had been born a … Continue reading Crooked Timber comments deliver, again
The Awl, which is still excellent, has a poem purportedly in the style of Philip Larkin on the UK cuts crowdsourcing farce: An Elegy For England We sold the swans for meat and all the toffs came 'round to feast Big Ben went to a very wealthy sultan from the East The price we put … Continue reading A gift for old times’ sake
Apologies for complete lack of recent content: I've been assortedly in the UK and Hong Kong, trying to squeeze a year's worth of catching up with people, a wedding and a stag do into two and a half weeks. I'm now planning to chain myself to the desk for a couple of weeks and do … Continue reading And the JB returns
1) no act that is committed without malicious intent can ever be morally wrong, no matter what its consequences are. 2) if you are harmed by something that wasn't malicious, you have an absolute moral duty to forgive whoever did it. 3) people who fail to forgive people who've non-maliciously harmed them are the worst … Continue reading Shorter this post: don’t BACAI