Dolly Parton is a lady and Emmylou Harris is a dame, but Patsy Cline was a broad. A rootin’ tootin’ bar-room broad as fond of cussin’ as she was of a beer and a good time. You gotta have her in this series sooner, rather than later. Unusually for a singer, she’d hang out with
Writing the diary column* for this week’s edition of the magazine, I can’t believe I failed to quote from HL Mencken. The insufferable nonsense provoked by what passes for a healthcare “debate” (on both sides of the Atlantic) would have entertained the Sage of Baltimore no end. As Peter Suderman reminds one, Mencken viewed these
I’d never heard of xeroderma pigmentosum until Bronx Banter alerted me to Rick Reilly’s latest ESPN column. I generally consider Reilly an intolerable jackass but this column is very good. Just the thing to leave you feeling a little warmer on a wet Friday afternoon. Even Red Sox fans should tip their hats to the
I like it when Fraser gets, you know, all kind and helpful: Mr Osborne’s positioning is perfect. He has chosen the right trajectory, and is expressing the Tory mission in the right language. All he needs now are the policies. Yes indeed. Once upon a time we had policies first and then wondered about how
Back when I worked at Scotland on Sunday I was never the Lockerbie Guy. Nor was I even the Lockerbie Guy’s Assistant. For years every paper needed a Lockerbie specialist, not least because having one ensured that the rest of us didn’t have to follow the tortuously complicated story any more closely than the readers.
Well, according to Dick Cheney, George W Bush was just as almost as bad as your average America-hating euro-weenie or member of the Democratic Congressional caucus. Barton Gellman – whose sourcing is pretty good – reports that: Cheney’s disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to
Ian Elliot, Grouse Keeper views a grouse moor, at Horseupcleugh estate in the Lammermuir Hills in the Borders. The Glorious Twelfth is the official starting date for the red grouse shooting season in Scotland and parts of northern England. Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images. I don’t really understand the mad dash to get grouse to
It may be counted a sign of progress – small, for sure, but real nonetheless – that the Guardian and Telegraph editorials this morning largely resist kneejerk calls for tightening sanctions on Burma in the wake of the absurd sentence given to Aung San Suu Kyi (though the Guardian spoils this by calling for action
There are, I think, two essential truths in international health policy. No-one sees fit to copy the National Health Service and no-one sees fit to copy the American system. Still, for all that we need NHS reform (hardly a surprise since just about every health system is under strain and needs tweaking), the picture of
Left Back in the Changing Room and More than Mind Games have already commented on Simon Kuper’s* article in the FT that argues that football managers have no real impact on their teams’ fortunes. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a say too! Kuper writes: The obsession with football managers is misguided. Hardly any
I must say I was surprised by Fraser’s praise for Mikheil Saakashvili on Friday and his support for the stance taken by David Cameron and Liam Fox on matters Russian and Georgian. Surprised, because I’d thought Cameron’s dash to Tbilisi last year one of the more reckless moments of his leadership that demonstrated that, like
Perthshire Moorland, by Aberfeldy. By Claudia Massie. There is, of course, plenty to do and see in Edinburgh in August. But amidst the many joys of festival Edinburgh, may I suggest that readers might care to have a gander at my sister’s latest exhibition of paintings? Of course I may. And will. She’s exhibiting at
Selkirk vs Langholm at Philiphaugh, 8/9/08 Actually, it wasn’t a completely disastrous cricketing weekend. Selkirk did successfully chase 206 to defeat Langholm in the Border League. Not called upon to bowl or bat, your correspondent’s contribution was limited to taking a simple (but vital!) catch. Elsewhere, of course, doom and gloom and despair reign supreme.
One of my favourite blog features is Norm’s Friday blogger profiles. This week he profiles Willie George Haggard and, frankly, its a doozy. It reminds me that I’ve been a little slack in posting Saturday Morning Country lately. My bad. And I can’t quite believe we’ve got this far in the series without featuring Merle
God bless America. Last year Mark Muller ran a summer promotion giving away a free hand gun with every car his Butler, Missouri dealership sold. This year he’s upping the ante and offering an AK-47 with every truck sold. Better than “cash for clunkers” for sure. Below the fold, Mr Muller defends his offer on
The great thing about Mitt Romney is that he’s so darn subtle. Hence the title for his new campaign* book: No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. Gee, I wonder what that means? Romney must be considered the front-runner for the 2012 Republican nomination if only because other would-be candidates have either ruled themselves out
Let’s hear it for Liz Jones – “funny, outrageous and downright rude” according to her employers at the Daily Mail – for this piece that, really, you’d think must actually have been written by Glenda Slagg. But, no, apparently it’s not a parody… I have long derided so-called ‘spas’, but the modern hairdressing salon is
As any fool knows, the principle benefit of the United States Congress is to make other legislatures seem positively benificent by comparison with the gallery of clowns on Capitol Hill. Compared with these people, even Westminster seems as though it must be populated by latterday Solons. Verily, we live in a Periclean age compared to
No-one could mistake back-bench Conservative MPs for advocates for limited government. So it’s scarcely surprising that Nadine Dorries and Edward Leigh are up in arms over proposals to “clarify” the law (in England and Wales) on assisted suicide. You might think it’s your body and your life but that doesn’t mean you have the right
Apparently there’s a stooshie over Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. Whatever. As might be expected, America’s worst Congressman, Peter King of New York, is busy offering his opinion: Robinson’s views are well out of the American foreign-policy