I've been unusually politically engaged this time round -- faced with a local slate of Conservative (incumbent), Lib Dem, Labour, UKIP, Green and Socialist Party of Great Britain, I went to the local hustings ( Read more... )

Given ongoing debates about sex and ethnic balances in sf anthologies, here's a row on US poetry, complaining about multiculturalism over quality: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/22/poetry-anthology-race-row

Annoyingly the flu jab on Friday meant I lost two hours in London in which I would have gone (probably walked) to the Quaker centre in Euston to pick up a white poppy, the ones from the year before last being lost or decomposed ( Read more... )

I look forward to the sixteen page supplement to pull out and keep and treasure forever, the limited edition doll, the Royal Doulton commemorative plate, the 30 issue part work that builds into a unique resource and the model pipe ( Read more... )

"I said to them, 'I don't have to tell you what I am doing. I am an American citizen.' But they put me in the deportation room," said Galper this weekend from New York.

The Visa rules do sound pretty daft, but I can imagine what would happen if I'd said the equivalent to a US border official

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/22/gove-50-books-children-laureate

White supremacists urge Thor boycott over casting of black actor as Norse god.

The reason to boycott the film is it's Kenneth Bloody Branagh, who made such a spalsh with Mary Shelley's Young Frankenstein.

I read this this letter in the Grauniad last night, but didn't register its author. I'm not quite sure I follow all the logic about the hypocrisy (I don't think a cultural boycott is the same as what people complain Israel is doing in Gaza ( Read more... )

My sleep pattern is shot again, and the news is depressing. I see Henning Mankell was on the flotilla intercepted by the Israeli. The Israeli state depresses me, especially in the dealings with Palestine. Every time I hear an Israeli spokesperson it turns out that it wasn't their fault, and it was some bastard doing it to them. Sometimes it must be ( Read more... )

I await with interest how Private Eye satirises the ConDemmed years - it feels somewhere between The Odd Couple (Clegg as Jack Lemmon) and Ant and Dec (Cameron is the one who stands on the right, I think). I guess there was a fear that satire would have nothing to do in 1997 - we were sadly wrong - and we'll need it even more. Even if it achieves ( Read more... )