Brit Pundit

Old news, but good news

2006-10-18T10:02:00.000Z

Crystal Meth has been reclassified as a Class A drug in the UK. This is great news.

I'll scoot around for reaction...

Limbo

2006-10-09T08:51:00.000Z

Here's one for Patrick. The Vatican are considering getting rid of Limbo. What are they going to replace it with? Milton Keynes?

BoJo alert!

2006-09-21T17:54:00.000Z

The Big Man is back! And this time he's getting prickly about the new laws on car seats.

Hmmmm. Remember this?

It's not all bad

2006-09-21T17:11:00.000Z

After the BBC's 'sting', most real football fans will be tempted to cast their minds back to a time when the game we love wasn't ruined by the greedy few. This should help:

Eyes on the ball?

2006-09-21T16:19:00.000Z

Over at Oxblog, David and Taylor are having great fun getting stuck into the Remnick article on Bill Clinton in the New Yorker. It's all great fun, of course - Remnick rambles on for 24 pages (!) giving us insight into Clinton's view's on Bush (W, but not HW, which is actually more interesting), Hillary and the Presidency, impeachment and the Beautiful Game. It's even nice to see a bit of debate on a group blog, rather than the usual united front.

But...it seems to be missing the point, really. A vast chunk of the article deals with Clinton's post-Presidential role fighting the spead of AIDS (it's actually more critical than you'd think), and this gets no mention at all. Guys, isn't this vastly more important than his approval ratings?

Or maybe I'm just a massive party pooper...

Shoes

2006-09-15T15:53:00.000Z

I find it unspeakably sad that I'm just far too old for these.

Phew!

2006-09-14T17:21:00.000Z

Well, last night was really fun. I was on Christopher Lydon's Opensource show. And there were some great guests on - I felt a bit like a fraud. Two great bloggers, Iain Dale and Rachel North, were on, as was Robert Guest (he writes for The Economist, so it's probably no wonder I've not come across him before).

They were all brilliant. As for me, the hour went by so fast it was unbelievable. The hardest thing was not knowing when to speak. It was a telephone interview, so I missed all the visual cues you usually get in conversations. I'll dig out the link to the show and you can see for yourselves!

Sample quote:

"Are you talking to me?"

Good grief.

As for my horrific morning. I made it... Just. Interesting job developments too. More later.

Video killed the radio star

2006-09-13T19:28:00.000Z

I'm doing a radio show on WGBH at midnight GMT tonight. I'm lowering the standard a bit - there are some incredible people on. I'll let you know how it went...

And my bonus prize? A 5am start tomorrow. Yay!

Relaunch!

2006-09-12T12:42:00.000Z

After many months, I've finally decided it's time to start blogging again. Mostly to restore some much-needed sanity to a world that seems to revolve around writing, job applications and not much else...

Will I keep it up this time?

P.S. I'm enjoying the fact that scrolling through previous posts is like travelling back through time.

Finally back online/Marmite blogging

2005-10-11T15:25:00.000Z

Well I'm here, and I've finally got my office pc hooked up to the internet. I'll post properly a little later, but I just wanted to thank all the marmite commenters. I am having serious withdrawal symptoms! I'm definitely keeping an eye out for the stuff in NY.

Otherwise, I just wanted to say that the university here is incredible, if scarily efficient. People don't seem to interact during the working day - the routine is very geared around solitary labour in our respective offices. I'm missing the raggedy edges and 11am coffee breaks back home (I'm currently forlornly sipping my coffee by myself).

Things I might miss

2005-09-28T20:56:00.000Z

Only two days to go and I haven't even packed yet. What essentials do I need? Do they have Marmite in the States?

What blogging should be

2005-09-28T20:01:00.000Z

Whatever you think about Andrew Sullivan, he's right on top of the Fishback affair. Goodness knows I don't agree with everything he writes, but his commitment here shames the likes of Instapundit. Credit where it's due.

Conference stuff

2005-09-27T14:00:00.000Z

The Guardian is live-blogging the PM's speech here.

Waste of time

2005-09-27T12:58:00.000Z

So the Hunting Act is full of holes. What a surprise! This is just typical of the standard of legislation passed in this country in the last few years, and I really wonder why the government bothered.

Don't get me wrong, I'm yet to hear a single convincing argument as to why fox hunting is an entertaining passtime (in particular, I find the ritual of the whole thing disturbing and obscene). But at a time when the gap between rich and poor in the UK is growing ever wider couldn't the time spent drafting the Hunting Act have been used a little more productively?

Temporary move

2005-09-26T22:05:00.000Z

By the way, from next week I'm going to be spending a month or so blogging from Ivy Tech, on America's East Coast. I've absolutely no idea what to expect in terms of the culture and atmosphere on the campus, so any advice etc from that side of the pond (or from anywhere else) about the main differences would be greatly appreciated.

My gut feeling is that it won't be too different to my current environment (except without the building work and frequent coffee breaks). Either way the faculty there are incredibly accomplished (to a scary degree), so expect lots of feverish blogging about how great they are...

List of things I want #1

2005-09-26T21:51:00.000Z

A Jack Kerouac bobblehead!

By the way, shrewd conference shennanigans afoot. Hopefully I'll have the time to write a bit on this later.

I swear I cannot tell a lie

2005-09-21T20:19:00.000Z

Back on track with the work, thankfully... Just taking a break to post this - apparently scientists have discovered that they can use MRI scans to tell when cirminals are lying. Isn't science wonderful?

When do we get to use it on the politicians? It'd make PMQs way more interesting.

Closet Francophiles

2005-09-21T14:26:00.000Z

Lets be honest, it's a slow day toiling at the thoughtmines. So I've had a peek at Blogthings and decided to post the French names of a few conservative pundits.

Ann Coulter: Chantal Martinais
Matt Drudge: Delmar Olive (bless)
Bill O'Reilly: Percival Crosnier

Not so scary now are they? Have a go yourselves!!!

Update:

Simon Heffer: Cheney Dupin
Jeremy Clarkson: Mason St. Jaques

Comments

2005-09-20T18:44:00.000Z

I've set it so that anyone can comment now (I think).

Good grief

2005-09-20T15:26:00.000Z

Is there anyone else who finds this slightly scary? I mean, it seems funny to begin with, but a closer inspection reveals the site to be not altogether ironic.

A site dedicated to BJ is fine, but it set me to thinking about other Tories1 whose movements I'd rather know about. I've decided that I'd rather the energies of the web were turned upon Rif, principally because of the rumour about him and the UFOs (google it). Anyone out there care to oblige?

1 I'm writing about the Tories at the moment because, well, they just seem funnier somehow.
2 I saw BJ walking around Ivory Towers once. He's bigger than you think.

Ta big man!

2005-09-20T13:46:00.000Z

Brit Pundit would like to thank Patrick for his very kind plug, and remind him that he's supposed to be working!

Note to any Oxblog readers referred to this site: I solemnly swear not to reveal any incriminating stories/photos about PB no matter how much you beg in the comments. Well, unless you ask really nicely...

A ray of hope

2005-09-20T10:39:00.000Z

There's some dark stuff in this (admittedly thin) report of a multicultural marraige in divided Holland. But I thought it was worth the link to show that there's always reason for optimism if you look hard enough. Best of luck to them both.

What next for Germany?

2005-09-19T18:58:00.000Z

With the election result so close (why didn't I put money on the SPD?) it's probably worth taking a moment to examine the most likely outcomes in a coalition government. My gut feeling is that while noone wants to run the election again, Schroeder won't let go easily.

A coalition is far more likely and I expect we'll see some movement during the night. Here are the most likely outcomes:

The Grand Coalition
Between the CDU/SPD with Germany's Thatcher (that worked well for her) Angela Merkel at Chancellor. Bookies favourite.

The traffic light coalition1
Of the SPD/Greens/FDP, although this is unlikely due to the objections of Guido Westerwelle, the FDP leader.

More possible, for my money, is the chance of the CDU forming a coalition with the FDP and the Greens, if Merkel can make concessions to Fischer. But hey! Don't take my word for it, follow it all on www.politicalbetting.com

1 Look, it's to do with the colour of each party OK? Even I wouldn't make that up.

Exposing inequality

2005-09-19T15:11:00.000Z

Sometimes wonderful, sometimes infuriating, often both. Andrew Sullivan continues his defence of conservatism over at the Daily Dish, this time criticising the Bush administration's inaction over Katrina.

He's right, of course, if you like that kind of thing. And despite the fact that we're from very different ends of the ideological divide, I find myself agreeing with him in a roundabout way. As he notes, many of the problems that have occurred in Katrina's aftermath have simply served to expose the inequalities existing in America (and elsewhere) today. Now there's a huge debate here that I won't go into now (but will return to later), but I think it's worth asking whether, now we've lifted the lid on this thing, we can ignore the problems around poverty, healthcare, education etc that every western country is facing.

Just saying is all...

Tory leadership contest: ahead by a hair's breadth

2005-09-19T14:31:00.000Z

Yes, I've decided to start as I mean to go on, with a mixture of the serious, the frivolous and the badly-edited. And it strikes me that after Michael Howard's brillo pad effort, and two spectacular failures by leaders with absolutely no hair at all, the Tory faithful are looking for someone who can coquettishly stare the New Labour machine out from behind a boyish fringe.

Which explains DeeDee. Front-runner by virtue of this imaginative flat top!

As for the outcome, just be grateful you don't have to decide. But if I had too, I'd cast my vote for the luxuriant locks of Michael Fabricant.