-
Putin embarrassed to be Bush-like
Sarkozy meets Putin to discuss the crisis in Georgia back in August. Sarkozy tells Putin that the world will not accept any overthrow of Georgia’s Government. Putin is apparently massively unimpressed. Putin: “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls.” Sarkozy (in disbelief): “Hang him?” Putin: “Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.” Sarkozy:… — read more
-
John Renbourn
Listened to John Renbourn’s “The English Dance” on Radio 3 this morning as we arrived at school. Both kids loved it so I bought the album, “The Black Balloon” this evening on iTunes. Will investigate more. — read more
-
RIP Tony Hillerman
Sad to learn that Tony Hillerman died. I liked his books, especially the slightly earlier ones. Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn were good characters. — read more
-
Menil Collection, Houston
Here are my after-the-visit thoughts on this gallery in Houston. Set in beautiful old location, with old houses very like Manila as was. Trees, birds (Mynah?), fat red squirrels runing all over the place. Lawns. Manicured but not too much. Byzantine Chapel — beautiful, but much less actually physically there than I’d thought. Christ Pantocrater… — read more
-
New Riders of the Purple Sage
I love Westerns. Films and books. Grew up in the era when they still had “the Saturday afternoon Western” on telly and spent many a happy hour with Audie Murphy, Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott and Robert Mitchum. Rio Bravo is still one of my favourite films. I’ve been dipping into Elmore Leonard’s Western stories for… — read more
-
Mobile Me
Quite apart from the fact that this whole “me” thing from Apple is embarrassingly named, it’s apparently not working very well. I just had this message from Apple: We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users’ patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber… — read more
-
Not bloody “NoHo”
It’s really irritating that iPhone app Vicinity gives my home location as “NoHo”, an entirely artificial marketing construct invented by the likes of the Candy brothers to flog their loft apartments. It’s either Bloomsbury or, at a (long) stretch, Fitzrovia. Or just WC1. — read more
-
Italy: Fishing the River Nera
The last three Summers have seen us in Umbria, spending the last week of the holiday in Spoleto. The most under-rated of the central Italian towns (save perhaps Ascoli Piceno), Spoleto has a marvellous duomo dating from the XII century, with painting by Fra Lippo Lippi amongst others, and a larger historical centre than nearby… — read more
-
Advice to youngsters
First off: Reputation, Posterity and Cool are traps. They’ll drain the life from your life. Reputation, Posterity and Cool = Fear. Let me put that another way. Bob Hope once said, “When I was twenty, I worried what everything thought of me. When I turned forty, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. And… — read more
-
Sandstorm
Amazing sequence of a sandstorm approaching a (presumably) US base in Iraq. — read more
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
notsokrates 