Monthly Archives: November 2006

Unusual food in Scandinavia

Posted on November 30, 2006 by acb

(Tasteless). According Svenska Dagbladet there is a row going on in Finland over pictures taken on the Russian front during the war (in which Finland was for a while, unwillingly, an ally of Germany). These have been kept secret ever … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Sunday Sillies

Posted on November 26, 2006 by acb

Is that the way the girls are in Texas? According the Houston Press, via Wonkette, a Republican woman running for Tom deLay’s old seat had to do so through a write-in campaign. Unfortunate, since her name was the less than … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

This is how it ends

Posted on November 25, 2006 by acb

You know that impulse to have a quick game of freecell now and then? Well, here is a man who yields to it. To be precise, he claims to have played the first 32,000 games in sequence four times over, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in nördig | 1 Comment

More fragments

Posted on November 23, 2006 by acb

Anyone who knows me will be astonished that I managed to score 83.6% on this test — it’s worth ten minutes of your time if you are interested in musical perception. Not safe for work, unless you have headphones or … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 6 Comments

Magisterial

Posted on November 21, 2006 by acb

Geoffrey Wheatcroft has a wonderful piece in the Guardian today on Lord and Lady Black. He is funny both about their social pretensions, which were indeed comic and life-enhancing, and their fanatical American nationalism, which was distinctly less life-enhancing. As … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Hit and Run

Posted on November 21, 2006 by acb

The Saturday Financial Times is an unfailing pleasure. It offers all the pleasures of journalism: enlightenment, entertainment, and the occasional tingle of outrage all over. This normally comes from the How to Spend It section, apparently edited by the last … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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The Guardian fund for rent boys

Posted on November 19, 2006 by acb

Readers with a long memory for embarrassment will flinch at the words “Clark Cook County” — the Guardian’s attempt to swing the 2004 presidential election by organising a letter-writing campaign to a the voters of a marginal district of Ohio. … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Journalism | 2 Comments

Shutting down scammers

Posted on November 16, 2006 by acb

Does anyone know where one can complain to get entirely fraudulent phone numbers shut down? A friend of my wife’s, a genuine hero, the Russian dissident Mikhail Kukobaka, has been hit by a transparent scam letter telling him he has … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Net stories | 4 Comments

What I missed out on in art lessons

Posted on November 10, 2006 by acb

Despite going to schools where there were very good art teachers, I had, and have, no talent at all. Or so I thought until I saw This video. Now I understand that my problem, all along, was that I had … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Browser truce

Posted on November 10, 2006 by acb

I have been using Opera for nearly ten years now, and for most of that time it has been the quickest and best-thought out browser on any platform. It had tabbed browsing, keyboard control, bespoke ad blocking, and full indexed … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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