Does AA Gill really have a penis like a cobbler's thumb?

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AA Gill
What this crisis has really been about is not cash flow or credit. It’s nothing to do with liquidity — what it’s really been all about is words. It’s the drying-up of mouths, the logorrhoea jam, the stammer and mutter of politicians who are incapable of making a confident sentence. Nobody has been able to speak to inspire. They all retreat to quavering caveating and timid obfuscation. Politicians talk with the empty grandiloquence of butlers and the bogus jargon of technicians. They steal meaningless, empty constructions from each other’s mouths like excited myna birds. They have lost the oratory and we have lost the ability to believe or trust them — and, worse, to be inspired or moved by them.

The skill to declaim and convince was once a fundamental political tool; now, not one of them could sell a Big Issue. When was the last time any of us heard a great political speech? You’d need to be over 40 for it to have been in your lifetime. The death of political oratory and the authority of language is a more serious threat to the state of free nations than the price of gold.


And here he is again, on 'River Cottage and all that:
One of the first casualties of this depression has been organic everything. Growing your own vegetables is a bit like making your own fridge or whittling a car. Possible, but stupid. And no furrow has been as intensively and commercially ploughed as Fearnley-Whittingstall’s back garden. If we asked him what he gets to an acre, he could probably tell us: “Twelve episodes, a couple of books, a diffusion range of chutney, 50 public appearances and an endorsement in a pear tree”. Not bad for a back yard. If you work out his carbon footprint, however, it’s probably the size of Milton Keynes.

A Tale of Two Tossers

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Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross could face prosecution after obscene on air phone calls to Fawlty Towers actor, 78
The BBC could face prosecution over obscene phone calls that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made to 78-year-old Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.

The controversial presenters left a series of lewd messages on Mr Sachs’s answerphone claiming, in shockingly explicit language, that Brand had had sex with his granddaughter, Georgina.

Mr Sachs, who played waiter Manuel in the classic sitcom, was left deeply upset by the crude calls – which were also broadcast to about two million listeners to Brand’s Radio 2 show.

The Diva from Alaska

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Palin ‘going rogue’
With 10 days to go until election day, long brewing tension between Sarah Palin and key aides to John McCain has become so intense, it is spilling out into the public.  “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser, “she does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

Carp, eh, diem?

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‘John McCain was never tortured in my jail’, says Tran Trong Duyet
“In Vietnam we are taught to honour the whole unit, rather than the individual but I know it is different in America. Even so, I really don’t think that McCain qualifies as a hero. The truth of that day is that he failed and I succeeded. He failed to destroy what he was supposed to bomb and just killed some fish. That is not a hero.”
Via Aaron


No news is good news?

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Michael Schwartz, Iraq in Hell
In a sense, the (often exaggerated) decline in violence in that country has allowed foreign reporters to move around enough to report on the real conditions facing Iraqis, and so should have provided U.S. readers with a far fuller picture of the devastation George Bush's war wrought.

In reality, though, since there are far fewer foreign reporters moving around a quieter Iraq, far less news is coming out of that wrecked land. The major newspapers and networks have drastically reduced their staffs there and...what's left is often little more than a collection of pronouncements from the U.S. military, or Iraqi and American political leaders in Baghdad and Washington, framing the American public's image of the situation there.

In addition, the devastation that is now Iraq is not of a kind that can always be easily explained in a short report, nor for that matter is it any longer easily repaired. In many cities, an American reliance on artillery and air power during the worst days of fighting helped devastate the Iraqi infrastructure. Political and economic changes imposed by the American occupation did damage of another kind, often depriving Iraqis not just of their livelihoods but of the very tools they would now need to launch a major reconstruction effort in their own country.

As a consequence, what was once the most advanced Middle Eastern society - economically, socially, and technologically - has become an economic basket case, rivaling the most desperate countries in the world. Only the (as yet unfulfilled) promise of oil riches, which probably cannot be effectively accessed or used until U.S. forces withdraw from the country, provides a glimmer of hope that Iraq will someday lift itself out of the abyss into which the U.S. invasion pushed it.

The same goes for the UK as well

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America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree
Colleges should be held at least as accountable as tire companies are. When some Firestone tires were believed to be defective, government investigations, combined with news-media scrutiny, led to higher tire-safety standards. Yet year after year, colleges and universities turn out millions of defective products: students who drop out or graduate with far too little benefit for the time and money spent. Not only do colleges escape punishment, but they are rewarded with taxpayer-financed student grants and loans, which allow them to raise their tuitions even more.

Bogey(wo)man

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The myths of Thatcherism
The idea that Britain has, until these past few weeks, been under the ‘spell’ of Thatcherism, even that her so-called ideology unleashed a wave of ‘mental illness’ amongst a consumption-obsessed public shows the powerful grip that the bogeyman of Thatcherism still has on public debate. But that is all Thatcherism is today: a bogeyman, a dirty word uttered by liberal commentators to describe everything bad that has happened in British politics since 1979.

I am implacably opposed to everything Thatcher stood for, but the transformation of this woman into a uniquely powerful, ideologically driven maker of crises, who single-handedly turned Britain from a fair country into a place of ‘unbridled capitalism’  is built on historical ignorance, political cowardice, and a desperate desire to avoid at any cost a serious debate about capitalism itself.
Brendan O'Neill

'My ears would be ringing like an old fire bell when I'd lay me down in some cheap motel'...

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Tinnitus sufferer Guy Kawasaki links to this page Famous People with Tinnitus

I knew Pete Townsend had suffered major hearing problems from his years of playing but some of the others on the list came as a surprise. William Shatner's was so bad it led to the breakup of his marriage and he even contemplated suicide.  Others include Charles Darwin, Bono, Jimmy Saville and Garrison Keillor.

I've been plagued with tinnitus for the last 18 years or so. I can pinpoint the exact occasion when the damage was done. I was at a club listening to a very loud local band while standing next to a bloody great speaker.  It comes and goes in intensity (it's particularly bad at present thanks to a heavy cold) but it never goes away. At least it isn't accompanied by any substantial hearing loss, beyond the usual diminution in high frequency hearing which is fairly usual as we get older.

For richer for poorer...

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Rich-Poor Divide Worst Among Rich Countries
The greatest inequality between rich and poor among OECD countries was found in Mexico, where the wealthiest 10 percent of households had more than 25 times greater income than the poorest ten percent. In Turkey, the ratio was 17 to one, while the U.S. was just below that, at 16 to one.

The average for all 30 OECD nations in 2005 was about nine to one, with the smallest gap, less than five to one, found in Sweden and Denmark.

After Mexico and Turkey, the U.S. also has the highest poverty rate of the 30 OECD nations, according to the report, which defined poor households as those whose income was less than half of the media income in each of the member-countries.

For all OECD countries, the average poverty rate was just under 10 percent in 2005. In Mexico, the rate was highest at more than 20 percent. Turkey and the U.S. were tied at 17 percent. Lowest poverty rates were found in Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Norway.

Throw in the towel?

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Paul Boutin: Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004
Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug.

Writing a weblog today isn't the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It's almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.
Read the whole piece. Boutin makes some good points which are hard to deny. In addition most people under 20 wouldn't touch blogging with a barge pole, seeing it as old-fashioned and nerdy.
The web is going to become much more visual over the next few years and we will see a huge expansion in video postings and photo based posts from mobile phones. Better start practising in front of the mirror, old buddy.

But then again, on the other hand...