fourth edition

“..there is beauty in everything. What ‘normal’ people would perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it” – Alexander McQueen
British fashion designer, Alexander McQueen committed suicide today. He was only forty years old. McQueen was one of the very, very few who deserved to be called a genius in his chosen [...]

J.D. Salinger has died. I wonder what unpublished works he has left behind?

“Denmark is losing its reputation for being a good world citizen.” – Naomi Klein
Danish police arrest 150 demonstrators as world leaders arrive at Copenhagen conference. Mainstream groups such as Friends of the Earth have been barred from the conference centre (“Every delegate from the international environmental campaign group arrived at the centre this morning to [...]

.. are condemned to repeat it.
Or, in other words, try reading this news article about Switzerland banning minarets, replace the words “minaret” with “synagogue” and “Muslim” with “Jewish” and then ask yourself what it reminds you of? A simple semantic trick, but a very useful one.
Meanwhile, I have become slightly addicted to Galaxy Zoo. When [...]

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in [...]

Sitting here in dark, rainy Scotland does not feel so bad, when I look at the Danish Budget for 2010. Among all the talk about a new super-hospital and whatnot, the government is now going to offer non-Western immigrants up to £12,000 for giving up their legal residency and returning “home”. The Budget also includes [...]

Twenty years ago today my mother woke me up early. She was crying. Last time she woke me up crying, Olof Palme had just been assassinated. This time, though, my mother’s tears were not angry, horrified and sad tears. She was crying with joy. The Berlin Wall had fallen.
I went to school that day. My [...]

Being ill has its benefits. Last time I was stuck in bed for more than two days in a row, I ploughed through Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell which I had previously failed to get into (the plot starts unfolding one-third through the novel). This time around I am knitting whilst listening to podcasts on [...]

Last night the leader of the British National Party was part of the panel on a BBC politics programme. I was glad he got the chance to be on the panel. Last time I checked Britain was a democracy with free speech and I thought it just that the leader of the BNP got a [...]

.. and they lived happily ever after – they being the knitter and her own Liesl.
I frogged a scarf I knitted last year but only wore twice and miraculously I got an entire top out of my three re-purposed skeins of Noro Iro. Liesl is a magical pattern, I think.
Right now I’m really using [...]