D'oh!

Texan attempts to cash cheque for $360 billion.

Boris Johnson wins London Mayoral election.

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May 3, 2008 | Filed Under General, Politics, UK | 1 Comment 

"We are the new falange" - Berlusconi

Just when you think Spain's bad, Italy jumps right!

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April 29, 2008 | Filed Under General | 1 Comment 

Album review: Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners

Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners

I'm a big fan of country music. Not the real, commercial 1990s shit, but the fake and made-up 60s and 70s country produced by Gram Parsons and the Rolling Stones. So I wasn't disappointed to see that Neil Hamburger's new album, Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners (SCW from now on) is just what the title suggests: a collection of country songs, sung by one of America's greatest comedians.

The songs range from The Recycle Bin, an expletive-ridden piece about recycling and failure (more on this later), to a new interpretation of Hamburger's popular classic, Zipper Lips. But pervading the entire album is a sense of sadness, depression and bizarrely, jubilation.

Naturally, the lyrics are very funny. In Please Ask That Clown To Stop Crying, Hamburger recounts an episode where he witnessed a children's party in a local park, ruined by a clown who, instead of entertaining the kids, slumps at the table with 'a cigarette and a shot of gin' and cries. The clown, of course, is Neil Hamburger. Meanwhile, in Jug Town, we hear of the solace a man can find in 'a jug of wine' down in Jug Town. At Least I Was Paid is a tribute to Hamburger himself, who has chosen to work as a hugely unpopular comedian sometimes paid in casino chips - but at least that's payment.

For me. the big hit on the album is Recylce Bin, a song that combines a forceful rebuke to those who put unrecyclable items in recycling bins ('You pricks, you fucking pricks') with a heartbreaking ode to the things that just can't be recylced ('Not everything goes into a recycle in: a shattered dream, a divorce? Those are just waste').

Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners probably started its life as a joke. But the final product will immediately be rated as some of Neil Hamburder's best work. I'm obviously a fan and I think it's fair to say that his material will mainly appeal to drink-soaked, single, depressed, male fans of sick humour (which obviously excludes me: I'm married). That said, I really believe that with a bit of effort, anyone who enjoys really good comedy could learn to love Neil Hamburger. The 'Great Moments At Di Presa's Pizza House' as well as the numerous 'live' albums, along with the original 'Great Phone Calls' are all indicative of a great talent which will probably only spoil if it gets too much recognition.

Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners - 1/1

Out now on Drag City Inc.

And here's a video of Jug Town:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_gCkVmBQo

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April 26, 2008 | Filed Under General | 2 Comments 

MLK, 40 years ago

Continuing the protest theme, Mick at Organised Rage has a thought-provoking post about Martin Luther King, assassinated 40 years and two days ago.

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April 6, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Happy Easter!

With thanks to Lenin's Tomb, who posted it first…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1loyjm4SOa0

By the way, check out his post about how it's us who'll pay for the economic disaster, not the wealthy.

We spent the weekend in Port del Comte, again… skiing, again (now before this sounds like archetypal cava socialist stuff, let me note that we have friends who own an apartment there and there's no hob-nobbing with wealthy industrialists whatsoever). The snow was fantastic and the only problem we had was that today, the winds were so high that we couldn't ski at all.

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March 23, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Anthony Minghella 1954-2008

Sadly, another obituary. The filmmaker Anthony Minghella, who directed The Talented Mr. Ripley and The English Patient, among many other films, has died suddenly aged 54. See Peter Bradshaw's obituary here.

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March 18, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

No Country scoops Oscars

Now I don't usually follow award ceremonies (except to complain about them) but I'm really pleased that the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men did so well at last night's Oscars. They deservedly picked up the best film, best director and best adapted screenplay awards. Javier Bardem also fully deserved his award for best supporting actor.

Those of you who haven't yet seen No Country For Old Men: don't worry about the fact that it's an Oscar winner. It's still a brilliant film and well worth watching.

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February 25, 2008 | Filed Under General | 2 Comments 

French bank used as excuse for everything

After the news emerged that Société Général (SocGen) had been defrauded to the tune of €5bn, gasps rang out across the financial world. Well, gasps and relieved sighs. Because it turns out that the entire financial crisis we're heading into now ('the worst in living memory') isn't caused by systematic problems with the capitalist financial system. Oh no. It's all SocGen's fault.

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January 25, 2008 | Filed Under Capital, General | Leave a Comment 

Stop the presses: former 'extremely rich' man now just 'very rich'

A desperately sad story in today's Pravda Guardian. Apparently, one of the victims hardest hit by the economic instability is one of those 'camera shy yet flamboyant' property tycoons who goes by the name of Robert Tchenguiz. The poor chap has lost £560m in recent months as a result of investing his money in property and pubs, neither of which have been hot bets of late. Yes, pity the Tchenguiz brothers. And although I was THRILLED to learn that his yacht is 'safe', I must say I worry whether he'll be able to 'date' the likes of Caprice Bourret (28) again.

When you hear about the sort of problems a man like this can suffer, it really puts your own silly mortgage repayments in perspective.

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January 24, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

George MacDonald Fraser: 1925-2008

I was sad to hear about the death yesterday of George Macdonald Fraser, author of the Flashman series of historical comic novels. His books were politically incorrect, naughty, adventurous, educational and above all seriously funny. They charted the story of the British Empire through arch-cad, Harry Flashman's eyes, placing this coward and poltroon at many of the key events and battles of the mid to late 19th century. He wasn't, as some will claim, an apologist for empire or colonialism… far from it. In fact, MacDonald Fraser occasionally used his writing to warn of the dangers present in the waging of imperialist campaigns far from home.

Flashman remains, in my opinion, one of the great comic characters of the English novel and now his creator has died without giving any answer as to how Flashy managed to fight on both sides during the American Civil War.

I nearly shed a manly tear.

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January 3, 2008 | Filed Under General | 3 Comments 

Confirmed: Labor win in Australia

OK, so Labor aren't perfect but they're a hell of a lot better than the Liberal-National coalition.

Better still: John Howard seems to have lost his own seat!

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November 24, 2007 | Filed Under General | 2 Comments 

With friends like this…

Rape victim sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail.

It's lucky that Saudi Arabia is such a close ally or otherwise we'd have to invade them on moral grounds.

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November 17, 2007 | Filed Under General | 2 Comments 

Anti-king protest in Cerdanyola

Actually, this happened a week or so ago. I was alerted to the posters by a work mate,  so I decided to go along as a non-aligned observer. The protest was against the Spanish royal family and in favour of protesters charged after burning photos of the king in Girona and elsewhere. I turned up about 5 minutes early and had to wait for about 20 minutes before the demo got going. There were approximately 50 people there (I counted 40 a couple of minutes before the start, and more turned up after that). They were all under 30 (probably under 20, but I can't tell any more), save for a couple of older gents who were obviously grandees of some local political office. The mixture was typical: young ERC and Communist party supporters (better dressed, on the whole), with a bunch of crusty-type hippies and redskin-type anarchists (who'll turn up for anything).

As I waited for a good photo opportunity, one of the organisers was called over by the lads I was with:

"Oi! Can you give me a picture of the king?"

"What?"

"I want a picture of the king"

"What for?"

"To burn!"

"Oh, you have to bring your own"

"Fuck. We don't have any pictures of the king at home"

"…"

I hoped to take loads of insightful photos but unfortunately, my camera's battery ran out before long! This is the only decent shot I got.

Anti-king protest at Cerdanyola Ajuntament

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October 26, 2007 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Religion and reason. Again.

About a week ago, the head of the Catholic  Church in Mozambique claimed that some European countries intentionally manufacture condoms which are infected with HIV. He went on to say that the aim of this secret policy is to wipe out Africans, an evil new form of colonialism. He wouldn't name the countries, so it's currently nigh on impossible to investigate his claims, but I'm pretty sure that he's wrong. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he's lying in a way which he knows might cause people to become infected with HIV, just to support a particular article of Catholic dogma. And this isn't some crazy soapbox fanatic. This is an Archbishop, the spiritual leader of 3 million people… a well respected man.

Meanwhile, on The Guardian's Comment is free,  Theo Hobson condemns atheism via a poorly written critique of Richard Dawkins. He claims, among other things, that:

The definition of an atheist, as opposed to an agnostic, is someone who has the chilling arrogance to say that the world would be a better place if I ceased to say bedtime prayers with my children.

- a fallacious claim, because an atheist is someone who lives without god or religion. To attach a single political ideology to atheists is totally incorrect. I reckon that he forgot the distinction between atheism and secularism… and that's a pretty big distinction. He goes on:

And Dawkins wonders why such people are disliked. May God save us from such people.

Dawkins doesn't wonder why at all. It's theists like Hobson who, when their mystical beliefs fail them slip into fallacy and untruth, do all they can to make atheists unpopular. But it's a fairly self-defeating position: when the choice is between the reasoned, arguable words of Dawkins and Hobson's confused ramblings, rational people aren't offered a tough decision.

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October 2, 2007 | Filed Under General | 1 Comment 

What's in a name?

One of the silliest changes which occurred during the ignominious years of the dictatorship was the re-hispanicisation of Catalan place names. Lleida became 'Lerida', Girona 'Gerona' and my town, Cerdanyola del Vallès became 'Sardañola del Vallés'. While many of these names had existed previously (see 1929's Plaza de España in Seville), these towns changed their names officially during a time when Catalan was officially discouraged.

Now, they're not used at all. While some older people from a more 'Castilian' background may still use the Spanish versions, the Generalitat and the Spanish government now exclusively use Catalan toponyms, probably for a mixture of reasons. I figure that the main reason behind using Catalan toponyms is that having two names for a place would be silly. Especially when the Castilian toponym is rarely if ever used.

Or so I thought. I happened to take a look at the Spanish wikipedia entry for Cerdanyola del Vallès and was surprised to see that it redirects to a page called 'Sardañola del Vallés'. Weird, I thought: that's not the name I recognise for this town. Those of you who are regular Wikipedia users will be aware that there are a lot of rules in place which govern the naming of articles, 'point of view', sources and so on. Before clicking on the 'discussion' page, I was fairly confident that this naming convention would have caused some dissent - and I wasn't disappointed.

The crux of the argument that is laid out in defence of the Castilian spelling is that the Spanish Wikipedia does not use foreign language toponyms. For example, Bangkok is not referred to as "Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit", it's called Bangkok. Girona redirects to 'Gerona', but as with Cerdanyola, notes that the Catalan naming convention is also the official one. As supporting source for the Castilian toponym, one or two books are offered, but other editors note that these books simply repeat the spellings used during the Franco years rather than establish a modern precedent for a Castilian toponym.

I'd argue (though I haven't ventured to do so in the pages of Wikipedia) that while in the cases of Gerona and Lerida, there is some historical precedent for the use of a Castilian toponym (both are provincial capitals and as such were considered important enough to have Spanish names; Sardañola del Vallés is nothing more than a translation, invented for political reasons and within living memory. I'd also argue that given that the Castilian toponym is never used, and that the Spanish government and the National Institute of Statistics  both use the standard 'Cerdanyola del Vallès', the Castilian toponym is nothing more than a relic of days gone by. Finally, in Spain, it is up to towns and Autonomous Regions to decide official names. According to both the Town Hall and the Generalitat, the official name of this place is Cerdanyola del Vallès. It seems to me that there is little linguistic or toponymic justification for the Wikipedia entry.

But what's in a name, anyway?

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September 18, 2007 | Filed Under General | 4 Comments 

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