An apology and some other stuff…

I think I owe my colleague Hugo Rifkind an apology for my comments about his piece on climate change a week or so ago. I think I said that he was a gibbering idiot, a lice-ridden whore and the source of all evil in the western world, I can’t remember exactly – something typically measured. Maybe not all that.

Anyway, it was a silly and disproportionate thing to say to a bloke who is a lovely writer, even though I disagreed with the gist of his piece. In brief, Hugo seemed to be suggesting that we should stay away from the science of climate change because we are incapable of understanding it, which struck me as rather anti-intellectual. He’s slightly modified that stance in this week’s mag and I don’t disagree with much of what he says, anyway.

But there we are. Hugo – I’m sorry. Let’s chill together to the sounds of Groove Armada:

I see you baby, shakin that ass, shakin that ass, shakin that ass, I see you baby, shakin that ass, shakin that ass, shakin that ass.

Alright, don’t touch me.

I see you baby, shakin that ass, shakin that ass, shakin that ass,
I see you baby, shakin that ass, shakin that ass, shakin that ass.

Alright, don’t touch me. Alright.

I see you baby, shakin that ass, shakin that ass, shakin that ass,
I see you baby, shakin that ass, shakin that ass, shakin that ass. This may not seem entirely relevant to the climate change debate, but it is because one of the two men (pictured above) responsible for the song has written a book about climate change and how all the polar bears are going to die. Andy Cato, one half of the duo Groove Armada, and himself a history grad, was in one of our national newspapers agonising.