Author Archive
Good ideas, well expressed
I’m reading the fascinating and cleverly written book about the worldwide spread of the English language: Globish by Robert McCrum. Gosh it’s a good read. I am learning a lot, and I’m really enjoying the care he takes with his writing. He uses long sentences (like wot I do) and carefully, sometimes exquisitely chosen words. […]
Taking a direct approach
Remember my comment from ‘When ‘gurus’ attack …’ I was encouraged by a comment recently in a BBC interview with John Podesta, former Clinton chief of staff and Obama administration transition head… Podesta says he sets out to be an independent even critical voice, and adds this proviso: “If you’re going to be critical of […]
An utterly useless waste of a person’s time
This popped up in a random Google search this morning … He does “gaming” of the computer game kind. I told him I had a blog and that while blogging was an utterly useless waste of a person’s time, “gaming” over the age of 10 seemed to be a hundred times more futile. – from […]
Backstabbing, conniving, and insensitive — just what we need?
From a New Yorker profile of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg: “He stole the moment, he stole the idea, and he stole the execution,” Cameron [Winklevoss] told me recently. The dispute has been in court almost since Facebook was launched, six years ago. … To prepare for litigation against the Winklevosses and Narendra, Facebook’s legal team searched […]
BBC – ‘The Interview’: Tony Blair
I listened to this interview twice last night (as a podcast). I was impressed with Blair and his argument, I have to say. I always thought he was a great communicator, but didn’t expect to be struck, even inspired by his reasoned resoluteness and his thoughts about the challenge of radical Islam and Iran’s […]
Mr Phil Jones: re-heating cold horseshit
Ugh. I’ve just been slimed (again) by a man I personally regard as a dishonest and obnoxious bully-boy. So, in keeping with my general policy of confronting and directly answering criticism, here’s a response: (Only read it if you’re actually interested … OK?) It was a case of ‘speak of the devil’ — A couple […]
Google Is Now Officially Evil
Google Is Now Officially Evil — Business Insider Worth reading, and so is the lawsuit filing from Skyhook (PDF hosted at Daring Fireball) In short, Skyhook says that Google effectively forced Motorola to cancel a deal with Skyhook in which Skyhook would have provided location-based services in Motorola phones — because Google wanted Motorola to use Google’s […]
Agree or disagree?
A Member of Parliament admits he has a criminal past. But he does it very badly, slowly, and destroys his own credibility in the process. I agree with this comment from my old Press Gallery colleague John Armstrong: When he was asked on Tuesday if there was anything else in his past which warranted mention, […]
Playing along
One evening a little while ago I was driving home and encountered a Police ‘booze bus’ breath-test checkpoint. Cars queued up in a funnel pattern set up with cones and flashing lights … when it was my turn, the police officer reached in through my car window, held the breath screening thingy in front of […]
Creative genius
I’ve been thinking about the Shepard Fairey vs AP copyright dispute I referred to yesterday. As clever as Mr Fairley is, there’s no doubt his Obama HOPE image rests as if on a foundation on the Mannie Garcia photo (copyright owned by AP, it transpires). As the side-by-side comparison demonstrates, without the Garcia photo, what […]
Propaganda?
Here’s a ‘new’ poster, designed by Shepard Fairey, the guy who adapted an AP photo of Barack Obama into a HOPE poster etc which sold gazillions, sparking AP to come after him for using their intellectual property without acknowledgment or royalties. (I personally think they had a point. Fairey’s unacknowledged use of the AP image […]
Nasty and devious
From the New York TImes: Above the Law Russia Uses Microsoft to Suppress Dissent By CLIFFORD J. LEVY | New York Times | September 11, 2010 IRKUTSK, Russia — It was late one afternoon in January when a squad of plainclothes police officers arrived at the headquarters of a prominent environmental group here. They brushed […]
Mortality. Leave a legacy.
My family and I attended Malcolm Smith’s funeral in Howick today. Chances are you don’t know who Malcolm was. Don’t worry, he wasn’t famous or a celebrity but boy, was he a good man, and boy, did he contribute to his local community. Malcolm was one of those quietly strong, ethical people who make the […]
September 11
I feel I have no words adequate for events like this. – P
