From the Department of Getting Away From It All. How far away from a branch of McDonald’s is it possible to get? What, in other words, is the McFarthest Spot? Weather Sealed offers this map of the continental United States coloured by distance from a branch of the Golden Arches. As expected, McDonald’s cluster at
How is it possible that this series has, until this point, failed to include Willie Nelson? A mystery, folks, a mystery. Now Willie has some odd views and is perilously close to being a 9/11 Truther but, frankly, we don’t hold that against him. The music’s the thing and he’s written enough and done enough
The news that Iran has a second, secret nuclear installation can hardly be considered a surprise. Nor, alas, is there anything surprising about Charles Krauthammer’s reaction to Barack Obama’s decision to make nuclear proliferation an issue at the UN General Assembly: What did he accomplish? Nothing. This is really quite surreal. As we speak, the
Somehow or other I missed the 60th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s birth this week. The Boss turned 60 on Wednesday and if that seems oddly perturbing then, I suppose, at least it’s not as cor-blimey a thought as realising that Martin Amis celebrated his 60th birthday last month. Aye, the times are racing on right
President Barack Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama welcome Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to the G20 dinner on September 24, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photo: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images. My latest piece for the Daily Beast takes a look at the grimly entertaining Silvio Berlusconi: Were you to be so unwise as to combine the
Vaclav Havel, Timothy Garton Ash, Bernard-Henri Levy and Adam Michnik are among those calling for the EU to take a stronger line with Russia on matters Georgia. They write: Looking at Europe today, it is abundantly clear that history has not come to an end and that it remains tragic. Twenty years after the emancipation
Let us accept that Barack Obama is going to disappoint many of us in many different ways. Let us further accept that this is only to be expected and that, yup, one of the awkward things about democracy is that sometimes the other mob wins. There is, however, no need to lose your mind when
Tom Clougherty makes a sadly good point: We can’t rely on a Conservative government doing much to fight the nanny state. On the contrary, what we’re promised is an army of local directors of public health, dedicated public health budgets, a bigger, stronger chief medical officer’s department, a “holistic strategy to focus public health across
From Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations today: Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges. If we are honest with ourselves, we need to admit that we are not living up to that responsibility. Consider the course that we are
The kerfuffle over Lord Ashcroft’s purchase* of a majority stake in PoliticsHome is not something, I suspect, that mch interests anyone beyond the Westminster village. That said, I think Hopi Sen has the best take on this midget-brouhaha: The result of these expert polls was usually a story like “Westminster insiders think Clegg needs to
Conferences on a Decade of Devolution are ten a penny these days. But the latest at least offered the potential for some entertainment given that not only was Alex Salmond speaking but so too was his principle opponent: Jim Murphy. Many of those who remember Mr Murphy from his days at Strathclyde University and the
The other thing to be borne in mind about the Liberal Democrats – apart, that is, from the fact that they betray proper liberalism every day – is that they’re hopeless at politics. Vince Cable’s proposals on freezing public sector pay, reforming pensions and increasing the personal allowance are actually all very sensible. Good policies
Hell thath no fury like a speech-writer with a book to peddle: When the sun rises over our capital city this morning, its denizens will awake to a truly novel tale: The aggrieved ex-staffer—wait for it!—disillusioned by Washington. The tome out today is by former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer, who describes the White House as
The New York Times actually paid someone to write this about a new video game: Luckily Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with the widows of George Harrison and John Lennon, seem to understand that the Beatles are not a museum piece, that the band and its message ought never be encased in amber. The
I don’t pretend to understand Japan at all, but while this may seem rather funny, it’s surely also terribly melancholy: Japanese couples, too busy for a normal social life, are increasingly turning to actors to play their friends on the most important days of their lives. Several agencies have sprung up offering actors to attend
Could government ministers in London have stepped-in to prevent the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi? A report in Scotland on Sunday yesterday says yes they could: Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy could have overruled Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill and stopped the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi if the case was deemed to have breached
Sometimes, you know, I wish I could. Then the Liberal Democrats come along to remind one how difficult it is to support them. But, in theory, could one vote for a truly liberal party? Of course one could. And would, if only one were so available. In Massie’s Better Ordered Political Landscape the Liberal Democrats
A few years ago, around the time that Bob Geldof was arguing that George W Bush had done much more for Africa than Bill Clinton ever did, I appeared on a BBC Radio Five show to try and explain this apparently mystifying, confusing, aspect of the Bush presidency. Well, it was mystifying to the BBC.
The Church of Country is a broad brotherhood (and sisterhood) and it’s fair to say that Lyle Lovett, like many others, has sometimes left it to worship elsewhere. But, again, like others that sometimes stray, he’s always welcome back for the Church of Country is a forgiving house that espouses tolerance, an open mind and
As Ezra Klein says it would be remiss not to give this transparently link-whoring Observer list of The 50 Best Foods in the World and Where to Eat Them the attention it so desperately craves. And like Ezra I’ve only had two of them: the pastrami-on-rye at Katz’s deli in New York and currywurst in