The Create Your Own South Park cartoon thingummy is great fun. Following the inspiration of my brother Michael, and keeping up with the Icelandic Saga Blogging theme, here’s an attempt at a self-portrait:
And here’s Josephine’s rendition of herself. I think she’s probably lecturing.
Oh dear. Both Jonathan Derbyshire and Robert Jubb have passed me the Black Spot. So here goes.
You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
Augustine: City of God. In both English and Latin, if that’s (a) allowed and (b) humanly possible.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
No. Can’t think of one, at least.
What are you currently reading?
Hmm. There’s a pile of journals, photocopied articles, drafts of pieces by other academics, etc. in my various in-trays, but I�ll restrict this list to stuff at home that I’m reading that doesn�t have much to do with my worklife. There are still quite a few things on the list�
- Selecting the Pope, by Greg Tobin. Doesn�t say much that we haven’t already all absorbed from the newspapers over the last few days, but it’s solid enough. It makes me think that all the people who are photographing the pope with their mobiles as he lies in state are probably going to go straight to Hell.
- The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard Evans, which does its job nicely.
- A Savage War of Peace, by Alastiar Horne. Hmm. About 100 pages from the end of this long book (a history of the Algerian war), and I got a bit bogged down in French politics at the turn of the 1960s. Should go back and finish it off soon, though. Good book.
- The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould. About half way through, and it’s as interesting as I wanted it to be.
- Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright: The Bob Marley Reader, ed. Hank Bordowitz. A disappointing collection so far, but then good writing on pop music is a very rare pleasure. (Frank Zappa’s remark on rock journalism, written for people who can’t read by people who can’t write about people who can’t talk describes the general problem well.)
- Britain’s Gulag, by Caroline Elkins: Like many people, I acquired Elkins’s book together with David Anderson’s Histories of the Hanged, and I now know a lot more about Mau Mau than before. Anderson’s book is terrific; Elkins’s is good, though not quite in the same league. (Exactly half way through it now; will finish off soon.)
- Dick Turpin and the Myth of the English Highwayman, by James Sharpe. It’s not especially good; I bought it to read on a train, and almost finished it on that journey, but still have a few pages to go, which I�ll probably knock off fairly soon in an idle hour. David Wootton gets things about right in his LRB review. In the World of Blogs, Ophelia Benson has some critical comments by way of response to Wootton, which make me think she hasn�t read the book.
- Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel, by my friend Daphna Baram. Again, about halfway through. V. interesting stuff.
- The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. It’s in chronological order, so this really is a dictionary you can read from cover to cover. Though I�m not sure I�m quite going to do that. But a reference work I’m consulting on a daily basis, this week at least.
- Fascists, by Michael Mann. On the strength of the first hundred pages or so, this is really excellent stuff, and I’m already looking forward to the sequel volume on ethnic cleansing.
The last book you bought is:
As blogged below, the two Pope books, from Borders in Oxford on Sunday.
The last book you read:
Witch Craze, by Lyndal Roper.
Five books you would take to a deserted island:
I wouldn’t need the Augustine, as I’d have memorized it. So it’d be:
- In Search of Lost Time. I’ve finally acquired a copy, and am looking forward to making a start, but it may be that desert island exile is still the only way to really get cracking. Still, I motored through A Dance to the Music of Time, so I should have the staying power for Proust
- Hobbes, Leviathan: you can’t go anywhere without Hobbes.
- Ulysses, of course.
- Paradise Lost: never read it, think I’d enjoy it.
- And Bayle’s Dictionary, just in case I was there for a long time. I spent a big chunk of the Summer of 1998 reading Bayle, but there’s seven million words in the Dictionary, and I’m not going to read the rest of them any time soon.
Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
Matthew Turner, because everyone else is passing it to him, and we must break down his resistance, False Alarm Sarah, to get her posting again, and Peter the Great, because I’m curious about his desert island books, and he needs the practice for when he goes on DID in later life.
Mark Steyn. [via.]
This may be one of them.
Nick Barlow’s found some ignorant bigots.
I’ll play the non-fiction version, via Normblog:
Rules: ‘You copy the list [of books] from the last person in the chain, delete the names of the authors you don’t have on your home library shelves and replace them with names of authors you do have. Bold the replacements.’
1. David McLellan
2. Ellen Meiksins Wood
3. Ian Kershaw
4. Alasdair MacIntyre
5. Primo Levi
6. Raymond Chandler Epictetus
7. C.L.R. James
8. Ralph Miliband
9. Brian Barry
10. Pierre Bayle
No bloody David Horowitz for me, thank you very much. I bet Norm’s got more Primo Levi than I have, too. And it’s still a fact I should be a bit more ashamed of than I am (i.e., ashamed enough to actually do something about it) that apart from the complete novels of Raymond Chandler, each read several times (apart from Playback, only twice, because it’s shite), I’ve read practically no American fiction (though I keep meaning to make a start on Moby Dick).
UPDATE [5pm]: Some people may have noticed that I’m not too solid on the distinction between non-fiction and fiction in the list I posted, above (and before anyone makes rude remarks, it’s the Chandler that’s fiction, not the MacIntyre…) So I’ve made a slight correction.
Following on from last month, Santorum’s unchanged at #1, British National Party’s fallen two places to #5, though this isn’t such a bad thing after all as it’s been displaced by two Wikipedia entries (for British National Party and National Front) which are full of valuable information and can themselves usefully be googlebombed as part of an attempt to knock the BNP’s own pages off the top spot. Swivel-eyed loons is unchallenged at #1, of course, and, equally obviously, we’re all still Proud of Britain (up one place to #4).
Any others I should be worrying about?
Not bad right now. Santorum’s still comfortably at #1, British National Party is at #3, Proud of Britain is #5, and a real coup for Anthony Wells, whose Swivel-Eyed Loons appears to go straight into the chart at #1!
Are you Proud of Britain?
I learn from Dave that it’s already up to #3!
Googlebomb Update: We’re now up to fourth and fifth place for the googlebomb on British National Party…
One more heave!
Have you read this, about the British National Party?
It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day today, for the first time in twelve months, so please feel free to use the comments box below to, er, talk like a pirate.
There’s advice here, and if you’ve never admired the Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates then perhaps you should.
(Nice, too, that ITLAP day this year coincides with the French Revolutionary “jour de la raison”!)
UPDATE [4.30pm]: Arrrrrr!, they be talkin’ like parrots pirates’ over at Backword Dave’s and John B’s cabins, arrr! arrr!
Good lads.
Matthew Turner has enlisted the help of Steven den Beste in order to establish what will happen in the event of a new English Civil War between the Countryside Alliance and the UK government. It’s inspired stuff.
Back in the days when we were playing around with uncollapsible dichotomies, SIAW’s Patrick proposed “Klingons or Clangers?” Everyone sane plumped for Clangers, obviously, but the revolutionary case for Klingon has just received a boost from someone’s decision to translate the Internationale from French into Klingon (here, and scroll down).
| Hoch qo’ roghvaH DIvI’ | L’Internationale |
|---|---|
| peghuH, Hoch Sep mayHa’ghach vub law’, petay’, Hoch Segh luQIHlu’bogh! QeHmo’ tIqDu’maj qoDDaq pub Daw’, wa’leS jorDI’, jor je logh. pe’vIl qo’ ral wIbI’rupchu’jaj, toy’wI”a’, peghuH! petay’! vaj pIghDaj DungDaq chenjaj ‘u’maj, DaH pagh maH, Hoch maHjaj jay’! |
Debout ! les damnés de la terre ! Debout ! les forçats de la faim ! La raison tonne en son cratère, C’est l’éruption de la fin. Du passé faisons table rase, Foule esclave, debout ! debout ! Le monde va changer de base : Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout ! |
| batlh may”a’ Qav wIghobjaj, Qoy, be’nI’! Qoy, loDnI’! ‘u’ choHmoHbej ghobmaj, – Hoch qo’ roghvaH DIvI’. |
C’est la lutte finale : Groupons-nous, et demain L’Internationale Sera le genre humain. |
| pagh maS, pagh lIy je wuvlaH Sanmaj, nutoD pagh Qun, nuHub pagh qup; matoD’eghmeH betleH wIyanjaj ‘ej nItebHa’ jaghpu’ DIHup! nIHwI’ ror je’ ‘e’ mevmeH mIpmaj, woQ jeghmeH HI’ qur, qaSDI’ po, DIqIpqu’jaj ‘ej nom DIqIpjaj, qul DIr wISopjaj, — vIHtaH gho! |
Il n’est pas de sauveurs suprêmes : Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun. Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes, Decrétons le salut commun ! Pour que le voleur rende gorge, Pour tirer l’esprit du cachot, Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge, Battons le fer quand il est chaud! |
| jup, ‘u’ Somrawmey maH, ‘u’ yab maH, quv Hutlhmo’ pInmey, HoSghajbe’; mavummo’, yuQmeymaj DIDablaH, luSpet ‘oH Qovpatlh buD Daq’e’. DaH chaHvaD Soj luDataH porghmaj, ‘ach reH taHbe’bej HI’tuy bov! ‘ej ngabDI’ toQmey, rInDI’ norgh jaj, vaj chalDaq wov ‘e’ mev pagh Hov. |
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes Le grand parti des travailleurs ; La terre n’appartient qu’aux hommes, L’oisif ira loger ailleurs. Combien de nos chairs se repaissent ! Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours, Un de ces matins disparaissent, Le soleil brillera toujours. |
“I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night” has also been Klingon’d. [via]
Seeing Dodgeball last night (fun film, fun film) reminded me to remind you all that 19 September is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, so get practicing.
I’m told that the advertising slogan for Dodgeball in the US is “Grab Life By The Ball”, and that the UK slogan adds the letter “S” to make the last word into “Balls”. This is entertaining, if true.
Those who want to practice T-ing like a P might want to ask themselves what letter comes before “S” in the alphabet, saying it loudly in a preposterous voice.
Responding to this, I’ve just sent in this pretty arbitrary ranking:
1. Macbeth
2. Hamlet
3. King Lear
4. Othello
With the caveats that I agree that Macbeth is really difficult to put on stage, so works better on cassette tape or film (Throne of Blood) than in any staged version I’ve seen, and that Verdi’s Otello is a really fine opera, and I wouldn’t want my (comparatively) low ranking to suggest otherwise…
Favourite Shakespeare play of all: The Winter’s Tale.
Shakespeare play I like that no-one else seems to: Coriolanus.
Continuing the tradition of Friday pie-blogging on Wednesdays, Fafblog lays the smack down on the Okra Tofu Pie.
Over here, if you haven’t seen it already.
Just a quick dissent from Norm’s opinion that the results of his poll show that the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan constitute a “collective Sir Donald Bradman of their sphere”.
The point about Bradman is that almost everyone agrees that he was the best (see, inter alia, details of the Wisden survey not so long ago). To have about half your survey nominate each of three bands when you’re allowed to nominate up to ten isn’t remotely the same kind of thing, either individually or collectively.
Anyway, something’s gone radically wrong with a poll that can put Led Zeppelin in spitting distance of Elvis Presley, at the same time as it keeps Elvis out of the top three. I blame the voters.
Enough said.
From today’s Independent on Sunday (p.14):
A woman is awaiting trial in Memphis, Tennessee, for battering her boyfriend to death with an iPod. Arleen Mathers was most put out when she discovered that Brad Pulaski, worried about her illegal downloading of songs, had erased 2,000 of her tracks. So she allegedly took her digital music player and bludgeoned him about the face and chest and estimated 40 to 80 times.
Just below it there’s another fine story about a man who went into a restaurant in Sweden saying that he was the “alcohol inspector from the local council and that he needed to check the alcohol content of each drink they served… Only when his investigations began to involve slurred speech, loss of muscle control and throwing things around did the owners realise he might not be all he claimed.”
Virtual Tophet Josephine (yes, yes, interest declared, etc.) has decided that the quiz everyone’s taking is too skewed to an American audience, and has augmented and adapted the existing lists…
So, here goes:
1. Cats or Dogs? Cats
2. Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton? Neither
3. Royal Opera or ENO? I’ve seen better stuff at the ROH.
4. Ancient or Medieval? Late Antique.
5. Titian or Caravaggio? Caravaggio, just.
6. Yeats or Eliot? Yeats.
7. Bruce Forsyth or Larry Grayson? Oh, Christ….
8. George or Ringo? George.
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca? Casablanca
10. Tracey Emin or Rachel Whiteread? The latter.
11. The Who or the Stones? The former
12. Dylan Thomas or Ted Hughes? Dylan Thomas
13. Robinson Crusoe or King Solomon’s Mines? Haven’t read the latter, like the former.
14. Fellini or Begnini? You can’t be serious. The former’s a genius, the latter a criminal.
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? D.
16. Oxford or Cambridge? O.
17. The sixties or the seventies? 70s (just because it annoys so many people. OK: there are other reasons too)
18. Burger King or MacDonalds? BK
19. Jonathan Ross or Angus Deayton? AD
20. Peter Mandelson or Alastair Campbell? !! Good timing: AC, but they’re both odious.
21. Verdi or Wagner? Verdi
22. Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet? Duran Duran, for “Hungry Like A Wolf”
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? I only take Cash.
24. The Iliad or the Odyssey? Iliad.
25. Hello or Heat? Heat
26. London or Paris? London
27. Moscow or California? Moscow. (But see below)
28. Athens or Rome? Rome
29. Red wine or white? Red
30. No�l Coward or Oscar Wilde? Wilde
31. Vanessa Redgrave or Judi Dench? Hmm. Dench, probably, but haven’t seen much of either.
32. Brown or Blair? Brown
33. British Museum or Natural History Museum? BM
34. More museums: Louvre or Pergamon? Haven’t been to Berlin, so Louvre.
35. Pubs or bars? Pubs. Even pubs in which people smoke.
36. Comedy or tragedy? Comedy
37. Fall or spring? Autumn (shit: Pollard made this joke too. I must be crap.)
38. Coffee or tea? Coffee
39. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf? Austen
40. Bull-fighters or gladiators? !!! Bull-leapers, -wrestlers or -shitters, please.
41. Renaissance or Enlightenment? Enlightenment, of course.
42. Sunset or sunrise? Sunset.
43. Town or Country? Town.
44. Mac or PC? Mac.
45. Charles or Diana? Is this for “first up against the wall”? (Well, that was Diana…)
46. Tuscany or Provence? Tuscany
47. Email or Telephone? Email, email, a hundredfold email.
48. Fruit or Cake? The Ship of Fools Fruitcake Zone.
49. Football or Rugby? Rugby Football. The kind played by the Rugby Football Union, to be precise.
50. Dolphins or Tuna? Dolphins.
UPDATE [8.7.2004]: Mike and John b have both risen to the challenge. Good stuff.
… I asked myself after reading Norm’s latest which introduced me to one (and a very good one) that I hadn’t heard before. And google came to my rescue and served up this highly relevant page.
