"Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea." - Sydney SmithGeorge Orwell, scourge of the right and of the wrong-headed left alike, fought the forces of repression with well-written essays, polemics and books. And even with actual guns bullets in Catalonia. Like most humans, he was ( Read more... )

The Chemical Brothers' latest album, Further, is bloody brilliant.

That is all.

This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/207150.html, where there are
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As yet another Significant Birthday activity, I've decided to become a wine bore.

A bunch of friends from the village get together now and then to taste lots of wine. I say tasting - it's mostly drinking. The deal is you turn up at someone's house, get a glass in your hand, and then listen to someone drone on for a bit about the theme of the evening ( Read more... )

Work is a little bit up-and-down at the moment, for various reasons, but most pressingly including a general danger of "We're doomed! Doomed I tell ye!" syndrome around the entire university, and a specific plan to split my department up which threatens to cause a local outbreak of the same disease. I don't think we are (necessarily) doomed but it ( Read more... )

I went to see Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now at the Barbican on Saturday. It was pretty good, I thought, but not half so edgy as it seemed to be making out, and pretty under-theorised.
( Warning: Text behind cut contains copious discussion about erotica but nothing directly arousing ... )