We've all been there

She's down.

And he's down:

Fisk on high-horse

Robert Fisk: King Abdullah flies in to lecture us on terrorism - Independent Online Edition; Robert Fisk

The sad, awful truth is that we fete these people, we fawn on them, we supply them with fighter jets, whisky and whores. No, of course, there will be no visas for this reporter because Saudi Arabia is no democracy. Yet how many times have we been encouraged to think otherwise about a state that will not even allow its women to drive? Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister, was telling us again yesterday that we should work more closely with the Saudis, because we "share values" with them. And what values precisely would they be, I might ask?

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Two pomes

It just so happened, on one day, I clicked on two poems from the same rough corner of the poetic landscape.

The first, which I'm not supposed to reproduce, but which you can read here, Elizabeth Bishop's superficially chirpy One Art, a sort of whistling-past-the-graveyard poem, in which she makes a virtue of a necessity by designating losing as an art. You probably know it by its first line rather than its title:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Then, via John Baker, came the poignant hymn to lost love Le vase brisé by Sully Prudhomme, written in 1865, for which John helpfully provided a source (warning: pop-up infested site) for an English translation, by Pete Crowther. It's not a bad job, though he seems to have bunked off home before finishing the final stanza. Bloody Friday afternoon translations, eh?

The Broken Vase

A fan’s light tap
Was enough to chip
This flower vase
In which the roses
Now are dying.
No sound it made

But a hairline crack
Day after day
Almost unseen
Crept slowly round the glass
And dropp by dropp
The water trickled out

While the vital sap
In the roses’ stems
Grew dry.
Now no-one doubts:
“Don’t touch”, they say,
“It’s broken”.

Often, too, the hand one loves
May lightly brush against the heart
And bruise it.
Slowly then across that heart
A hidden crack will spread
And love’s fair flower perish.

The end of this blog

So right Google has revised its Page Rank erm rankings, and this site has dropped from like ten million eight hundred thousand fourhundredteen and blankety twelve to only a paltry sixteen million thousand and two!

I mean WTF? I've never had a bad word to say about Google in my life. I use all their products/services. I subscribe to Google Food, Google Sleep, Google Sex and Google Leisure in preference to the real thing. My offspring are all Google Kids. When I go outside (brrr!) I get assailed by Google Weather and none eather other.

So why you no show me some-a respect? Why you no invite-a me to yo home? Instead you come to me widda Godfatha this anna Godfatha that ...

Sorry, wrong whinefest.

Have you seen them? Gawd, you'd think anybody GAF about their stupid Page Rank.

Boys, grow up. The only thing the world cares about is, does your site/blog have any importance to me. Well, that's what I care about, of course. Who gives a shit what the rest of the world thinks?

I had to laugh devilishly at the fact that the biggest whipped-cur-like yelps came from guys who do nothing but shadow Google and write about every molecule of every fart Google lets off under the blankets. Google Tutor, Google Blogoscoped, Google Operating System. Tick-birds one and all, and now they're all surprised and offended when the giant beast they've been loyally servicing all this time shakes itself and sends them all sprawling into the dust.

* The title for this post comes from something that's not.

Pet peeve

People who turn on their automatic out-of-office mail responder on evenings and at weekends.

I fucking know you're not working on Sunday. I sent you an email today because it suits me. You don't have to tell me you'll be back in the office on Monday, because I know you work for the EU Commission, and therefore do the very minimum allowed, and sometimes not even that. In fact you're such a dispensable, lowly drone that I'm surprised anybody ever expects any answer from you that isn't, "Yes, sir". So you're not fucking fooling me into thinking there are people pestering you for decisions 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Important people don't turn on their auto-responders. They have their PAs deal with everything. That's how I know you're not important.

So spare me the update on your weekend activities, I didn't ask. I sent you a message for you to read. Just read it and STFU. Over and out.

Jon Stewart on Crossfire redux

The HuffPo has tape of a Q&A with Ben Karlin, who was head writer on the Daily Show for a time until he quit kinda suddenly. He talks about the whole cliche about people getting their news from TDS, and what he says makes sense.

What makes less sense is his take on the famous Jon Stewart Crossfire appearance, when Stewart roasted the two hosts of the show and accused them of "hurting America". (The above link includes the whole Crossfire appearance too.)

According to Karlin, the bit was suggested in an offhand manner by Stewart in a car, and not really prepared, and then they were all really surprised -- and a bit upset -- when it took off the way it did, which you'll doubtless remember.

I don't buy it. I remember the fuss, and I thought at the time and still think that Stewart's position is entirely consistent with his show's approach to stuff. And he didn't just toss off a remark, he came in there with his shtick all prepared, as you can see from the couple of actorly-comedic tricks he pulls, talking about "h-h-hurting us" and so on.

And why not, indeed? He's an intelligent man, so he must have been outraged at the whole Crossfire ethic at some point. And he's a comedian, so why not present his points in a comedic way? None of that is in the least exceptional.

But what is Karlin's message here? What point is he trying to make? Does he have some agenda?

Anyway, happy ending: Crossfire was taken off the air not long after. TDS goes from strength to strength, including a new dedicated website. The good guys won.

Sour Grapes through the Ages

I'm posting all my old published Sour Grapes columns to a blog, over on WordPress just for a change. It'll take a while to get them all up, and then it'll be one a fortnight if that. All this in an effort to avenge my post-count humiliation by you-know-who. Or is it whom?

So if you're looking for something faintly amusing to read, that's over quite quickly, you know where to go.

Sour Grapes through the Ages. Or should that through have a capital T? I can't decide.

Now with occasional links!

PS: the blog address is a clever pun on the name "Sour Grapes". See if you can ypot it!

PPS: Here's a picture of my eye, which shows up at WordPress for reasons I can't fathom remember:

New Left Hipster

Everybody's doing it, and I'm not even American, but ...

My Liberal Identity:

You are a New Left Hipster, also known as a MoveOn.org liberal, a Netroots activist, or a Daily Show fanatic. You believe that if we really want to defend American values, conservatives must be exposed, mocked, and assailed for every fanatical, puritanical, warmongering, Constitution-shredding ideal for which they stand.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

I think the Daily Show thing is the most European characteristic of the evaluation. That kind of approach to politics has a veeery long history here, while in the US it's not been so much of a thing. Stewart is the latest in a long line going back to the pamphleteers, Addison and Steele, Swift, Hogarth, Pope etc. I take it as a sign of political maturity. America's desire to cohere as a nation has prevented it in the past from laughing at itself. Colbert standing for President, meanwhile, is a re-run of Coluche in the French presidentials of 1981 (qv). Nothing new under the sun.

h/t UV from JJ

For Jefe

From the aforementioned moustache blog:

In fact, a man without a mustache is no longer a man. I do not care much for a beard; it almost always makes a man look untidy. But a mustache, oh, a mustache is indispensable to a manly face. No, you would never believe how these little hair bristles on the upper lip are a relief to the eye and good in other ways. I have thought over the matter a great deal but hardly dare to write my thoughts. Words look so different on paper and the subject is so difficult, so delicate, so dangerous that it requires infinite skill to tackle it.

The Mustache Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

NB: "Good in other ways". Fnaar-fnaar. Earlier she writes: "You cannot imagine, my dear Lucy, how it changes him! I no longer recognize him-by day or at night." I think we all understand what that means, hmm?

Moustache blog

Only moustaches. Not other sorts of facial hair. Are you mad?

And only from the 19th century, goes without saying.

Bring the tumbrils round to the front

Just in case you're in Europe when the Revolution comes, and you're short of a few ideas of who to put up against the wall, here are 73 pages of likely candidates. The 2007 Capitalist Ball organised by the Centre for the New Europe, who claim to adhere to the liberal tradition of Adam Smith etc, but don't they all. I'm not sure how objectionable their policies are, in specific terms, but they're doubtless up to no good. And they look like they need a decent dose of Terror.

So let it be.

Watch with your eyes covered

This is, I hope, the creepiest thing you will ever see. It's science, though, so that makes it all right.

I don't know if it's SFW or not. It's so far out there the terms don't seem to apply.

A century ago

That last post was the 100th this month, trailing Miz UV by hours'n'hours. Gotta admit, what's lacking in quality is made up for in quantity.

Still and all, back in May I got to 134. No way that's going to happen in October.

Roll on November!

Don't panic, grab the Gucci

Lifehacker, clearly with the California situation in mind, asked what people would pack if they had half an hour until an evacuation.

Check out the comments, most of which are nuts. These people will be fleeing for their lives with more stuff than the Joads took on their trip from Oklahoma. Obviously they'd spend the half-hour dreaming up reasons for carrying as much as possible -- stuff like a cordless drill, screwdrivers and other tools. What for?

An evident sense of lack of panic among the readers of Lifehacker.

The best of all: "Luggage. Chances are, you are going to be moving quite a bit in the near future. Good luggage is indispensible." Obviously a lesson all those shabby Darfur people could take to heart. I mean, have you seen those people?


Lifehacker dudes head for the hills, yesterday

Things with faces

There are blogs out there about simply everything.