The European electorate has spoken.

( The b'stards. )

If I'm LJing again, I suppose I'm preordained to return to the usual rotation of gig updates, rants, cycle trips, and very occasional gaming cons.  Well, here's the rant.  I happened across this piece in the Daily Beast by Andrew Roberts.  If hobbits were British Conservatives -- which in many ways would be about right, at least at the 'One Nation ( Read more... )

Bettany Hughes was just on 'telly banging on about teaching Duh Classics. I must admit to a certain shudder at this, partly from having been victimised by a year of secondary school Latin myself, and partly from guilt by association with Toby Young, Boris Johnson, and that entire Tory "bring back grammar schools and call them something different" ( Read more... )

1)  Red pandas aren't "bears". It's not their name, and they're not part of the bear taxon. (They're more closely related to raccoons.)
2) There's no such thing as an "Irish race". Even if "race" were a sensible term in general as applied to humans, which it isn't. Especially not in an item about gene sequencing, in such a way as to encourage belief ( Read more... )

... as an atheist, that is, if I was understanding right DM's comment at the end of the discussion with JW, and some poor 'agnostic Catholic Quaker' (I think by the name of John McKenna).  ( FList mercy. )

I got an email today from the "customer service" (I use that phrase... quite incorrectly) people for Biffy Clyro website mail order. Exactly four months from the official release date, and alleged original dispatch, and over a month since they told me they'd be sending a replacement to a "backup" mailing address, they now tell me that instead of ( Read more... )

I was somewhat tempted to post a "what's been boggling and exasperating me in the news" rant (a semi-regular feature here, I suppose, but in large part, Vincent Browne has saved me most of the trouble.  ( Remaining trouble. )

I didn't even realize there was a vacancy, but apparently UKIP have elected a new leader, in the form of Lord Pearson. ( More on this, and worse besides )

Oh dear; not only was the clerical sex abuse on the RTE 6.1 news again, it's the lead item of the Channel 4 News, too. This reminds me of Monday's vexation...

Must have been my fault for invoking the dread name of Bill Donahue, but there was what someone aptly described as a "wingbat priest" on Pat Kenny's increasingly Kilroyesque Frontline ( Read more... )

Still no sign of my (ludicrously overpriced) Biffy boxset, two weeks after its release (and alleged dispatch). Apparently it was sent by bog-standard post -- others seem to have had theirs DHL'd -- and thence, caught up in the postal backlogs. Several emails to the "Customer Services Team" later, I'm still being told to wait a while longer before ( Read more... )