Archive for January, 2009

 

This week, I have mostly been listening to…

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Spinnerette. Some people might remember the Distillers; lead singer Brody Dalle has set up a new group, Spinnerette, and they’re rather good. Admittedly, somewhat different to the Distillers, but nevertheless you should listen to this: and this: xD.

 

Finding Ada

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Ada Lovelace Day will be celebrated on 24th March, 2009. Who, I hear you ask, is Ada Lovelace? ‘The world’s first computer programmer’ is the answer, writing for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine. So, I hear you ask, what is Ada Lovelace Day? It’s an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in [...]

 

LabourSpace and tax justice

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Via Luke Akehurst, I’ve found a rather good idea called LabourSpace. You can propose a campaign and then people can vote up or down and the one with most support at the end is looked at more seriously. In its own words: Labourspace lets you quickly and easily set up a campaign and share your [...]

 

The year of the ox

Monday, January 26th, 2009

Gong hei fat choi – congratulations and be prosperous! xD.

 

Progressive London Conference

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

Yesterday saw the Progressive London Conference at Congress House in London. All in all, I thought it was pretty good. There seemed to be very few nutty lefties there and I was pleased that there were a few people there I knew and recognised from my CLP, from blogging, from uni and around and about [...]

 

Obama's inaugural speech

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

I cannot honestly say I was blown away by Obama’s speech. There were some interesting glimpses of his vision of America and his politics along with some rhetorical flourishes, but this was not a killer speech. Perhaps it is unfair to expect it in a modern inaugural speech; it would dominate the news agenda and [...]

 

A song for the inauguration

Monday, January 19th, 2009

Eight years ago, almost to the day, I was in Washington, DC, and attended the inauguration of George Walker Bush as the forty-third President of the United States of America. It is premature to make judgments on how good Bush’s presidency has been; we are too close in time. It’s probably fair to say that [...]

 

Of Hansard and of maces

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

Pity the Hansard scribes who had to record and commit John McDonnell’s mace-laden protest against the lack of a substantive vote on the Heathrow expansion. Unable to bring themselves to actually describe what happened, they’ve plumped for Mr Hoon: [...] Necessarily, when judgments have to be made about the interests of the country, those decisions [...]

 

xkcd on Windows 7

Friday, January 16th, 2009

LOL. xD.

 

Guest post: On darts

Monday, January 12th, 2009

My good friend and professional flâneur, Mike Withey, writes… I was destined to be one of the great athlete of my generation – however, in granting me a physically weak and small body, with little-to-nothing in the way of gainliness, Fate provided its typically intractable foe to Destiny. This point was brought home to me [...]