Absolutely adore the work of English punk TV Smith. And he's a nice guy to boot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsDilQ9Tm0s The sights I've seen, the things I've heardWhile sliding down the learning curveTheir contract promised me the earthThrough toothy grins and weasel words With normal jobs and normal livesThey force us to this compromiseWhere labour lives and leisure... Continue Reading →
Book review Testimony by Anita Shreve or “let’s go to the video tape…”
There's an American sports journalist (? commentator?) called Warner Wolf, and one of his catchphrases was "let's go to the video tape." It came to mind while I was reading this rather good novel by the late Anita Shreve. The novel is told in mosaic format - chapters told by characters (central and peripheral) before,... Continue Reading →
The Intellectual Tradition (Chomsky interviewed by Pilger in 1992)
From a documentary broadcast on BBC2 on November 25 1992. PILGER: And yet you’re often described as an extremist CHOMSKY: Sure. I am an extremist. Because a ‘moderate’ is anyone who supports western power, and an extremist is anyone who objects to themPILGER: Now you’ve had some quite spectacular rows | Arthur Schlesinger accused you of betraying the... Continue Reading →
Everyone gets fat and old, the moorhen showed me…
Everyone gets fat and old, says someone fat and old, if they're lucky. I just saw a juvenile moorhen do proper flying - like a proper bird. (I was feeding its mum or dad, and it wanted in on the action). Distance, style, the works. Won't be able to do that this time next year,... Continue Reading →
Doomer dirges: “No, we ain’t gonna make it”
This post, about Tom Lehrer, might help explain where I am coming from. In 1965 Tom Leher said that if we were going to get any songs about World War 3 “we’d better start writing them now.” Ditto for the Anthropocene (others have made a start - I will blog separately on that). So I... Continue Reading →
Tom Lehrer as the first great song-writer of the Anthropocene
The 37 or so songs of American satirist Tom Lehrer (1928- ) should all be part of the vocabulary of, well, everyone. They are dirty (Smut, I’m a market they can’t glut), sick (I hold your hand in mind and “Be Prepared” - “don’t solicit for your sister, that’s not nice; unless you get a... Continue Reading →
Moorhens, Disney and Hyenas
[Sobs] My illusions shattered. I've just seen two moorhens having a go at each other over food They were next to the towpath, on the grass. (yes, crappy photo - cameraphone, poor light etc) I was able to throw them food and not feed the ducks. [Ducks are, in my opinion, the humans of the... Continue Reading →
Letter to the Guardian abt CCS and George Monbiot (unpublished)
Last week George Monbiot had an article in the Guardian on Carbon Capture and Storage, which he isn't a fan of (for entirely justifiable and well-backed up reasons). The same day I sent in this letter below. It seems not to have made the cut. The Guardian did however publish three letters here that largely... Continue Reading →
Battles between technologies, defensive efforts go wrong, are irrelevant. – Twitter vs Bluesky et al.
Twitter is going to change the blocking function So people you blocked can see what you are posting. Then they can set up new accounts and spam you/troll you whatever. Musk-ovites will defend it blah bah. Other people will set up accounts on other platforms (Threads, Mastodon, Blue Sky) and for a while do ‘double... Continue Reading →
Salvation rituals, the US election and what next: “The last records from Norse Greenland are of a Christian marriage and a burning for witchcraft.”
Talking to a super smart friend (1) last night about the State of The World, we got onto the fun and games to be had before, during and after November 5 (the US ‘elections’). I found myself saying that all of us - even those who should and do know better - find ourselves hoping... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 