(no subject)
The coverage of what the press like to call the "race for the White House" - as if the candidates set off from Iowa and are literally sprinting towards Washington (now that would be a neat way to settle it) - is quite amazing to me considering the election isn't till when? -November is it? That's nearly a year away, yet it's still all over the first four pages of my paper. By the time they actually get round to the pregnant chads I'm going to have full-on White House fatigue.
It's funny because I don't imagine elections anywhere else are much reported on in the States - in fact Lionel Shriver said today that two-thirds of her compatriots probably have no idea who the Prime Minister of Britain is, and the remaining third still think it's Tony Blair. But then the situation is not the same, because everyone feels like they have a vested interest in who's running America. In fact it's kind of reached the point where you feel, well, I've read so much about it all now, it kind of seems like we should just go the whole hog and be allowed to vote as well. . . (hey, maybe that would help with the turnout).
----
During the New Orleans part of Against the Day, the characters kept drinking cocktails called sazeracs, which I had never heard of. So last night I was in a Cuban cocktail bar and I ordered one - man, that is one fucking awesome and unbelievably strong drink right there. Whisky, angostura bitters, absinthe and some brown sugar - no mixer or anything like that - what you basically end up with is an inch of red liquid and the challenge is to drink as much as you can before it evaporates.
Speaking of alcohol, someone got me a bottle of sloe gin for Christmas, and as I was putting it in the cabinet next to a bottle of Montenegrin šljivovica, I suddenly thought, hmmm, sloe, šljiva, some connection there? Bingo! Same word; well probably anyway - this pleases me because I had always vaguely wondered where the Slavic sliva came from and whether anything like it survived in Germanic, and the answer is apparently yes.
-----
The regulatory body for cosmetic plastic surgeons in Britain is called BAAPS.
See, sometimes the world is a good place.
It's funny because I don't imagine elections anywhere else are much reported on in the States - in fact Lionel Shriver said today that two-thirds of her compatriots probably have no idea who the Prime Minister of Britain is, and the remaining third still think it's Tony Blair. But then the situation is not the same, because everyone feels like they have a vested interest in who's running America. In fact it's kind of reached the point where you feel, well, I've read so much about it all now, it kind of seems like we should just go the whole hog and be allowed to vote as well. . . (hey, maybe that would help with the turnout).
----
During the New Orleans part of Against the Day, the characters kept drinking cocktails called sazeracs, which I had never heard of. So last night I was in a Cuban cocktail bar and I ordered one - man, that is one fucking awesome and unbelievably strong drink right there. Whisky, angostura bitters, absinthe and some brown sugar - no mixer or anything like that - what you basically end up with is an inch of red liquid and the challenge is to drink as much as you can before it evaporates.
Speaking of alcohol, someone got me a bottle of sloe gin for Christmas, and as I was putting it in the cabinet next to a bottle of Montenegrin šljivovica, I suddenly thought, hmmm, sloe, šljiva, some connection there? Bingo! Same word; well probably anyway - this pleases me because I had always vaguely wondered where the Slavic sliva came from and whether anything like it survived in Germanic, and the answer is apparently yes.
-----
The regulatory body for cosmetic plastic surgeons in Britain is called BAAPS.
See, sometimes the world is a good place.