Commenting on this post, WPN asks: “What would a list of the Top 10 British films of the last 25 years look like? As an American, British films are not ‘foreign’ enough for me to think of them as a separate category in my own mental space. I’d be curious what Brits think.” Good question!
Well, one assumes the dear old New York Times wouldn’t run a story saying she’s accepted the offer to be Secretary of State unless it was pretty well certain that she will. That sound you hear is foreign editors tearing up their pages right now. The groaning comes from Sunday newspaper hacks who now need
By which I mean, natch, should El Gordo toddle off to Buckingham Palace and call for a general election next spring rather than hanging on until 2010. Danny Finkelstein says yes he should. I rather agree. Admittedly this agreement is to some extent predicated upon my dislike of Brown and the rest of his miserable,
Well, according to this site – which purports to “analyse” your blog – I’m a Mechanic or an ISTP on the Myers-Briggs scale, just like Andrew Sullivan. This means that we’re: The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously.
Nuff said, methinks. Vouchers and proper school choice programmes aren’t the only answer, of course, but it’s simple decency to extend to the working class opportunities taken for granted by the middle-class, including, of course, many teachers themselves. More details on the chart here.
Time to return to TP O’Connor’s Sketches in the House, his account of the 1893 parliamentary session. Back then, happily, the government could not yet guillotine a bill and so obstructionism – or filibustering – was a legitimate, if infuriating, parliamentary tactic. Much to Mr O’Connor’s irritation… Again I repeat, obstruction is a matter not
I’m a sucker for any story headlined “Where Did the Libertarian Party Go Wrong?” and sure enough Brian Doherty’s Reason article is a fun read. I particularly liked his opening line: From the outset, Bob Barr’s Libertarian run for the presidency was fraught with great expectations. The biggest problems for the LP? Apart, that is,
The countryside can be a wild and dangerous place: Farmers have been warned to be on their guard as scrap metal thieves target large gates in southern Scotland. Three farms in the Selkirk area of the Borders were struck at the weekend. Farmers said the thefts were not only costly but also put livestock at
One thing I’d like to do next summer (if, that is, we have a summer) is devote some time to doing some proper BBQ. No surprise, then, that I was a sucker for Calvin Trillin’s New Yorker piece on the small Lexington BBQ-joint hailed by Texas Monthly as the home of the Best BBQ in
Ewen MacAskill reports that Hillary is indeed going to be Obama’s Secretary of State. His report in the Guardian is entirely unsourced however – which is interesting because MacAskill is not a reckless reporter by any means. Even so, Josh Marshall says he doesn’t believe anything any British paper publishes about American politics. My old
Mary Beard, in good form today: I’m surprised that no-one seems to have spotted an obvious Roman parallel for the success of Barack Obama. Or have I missed it? In the second century AD, Lucius Septimius Severus became the first ‘African-Roman’ emperor of Rome. Like Obama he was of mixed race — his father from
David Frum is leaving National Review to set up a new online venture called NewMajority.com which will launch once Obama takes the oath of office in January. Frum explains himself here: Over the past three years, I have been engaged in some intense rethinking of my own conservatism. My fundamental political principles remain the same
I’m pleased to see that Jack Shafer is calling the New York Post’s sudden admiration for President-elect Barack Obama a fine example of the time-honoured tabloid tradition of the Reverse Ferret. (See TDL here and here for more on the importance of ferrets to tabloid newspapers). But there’s nothing terribly surprising here: Obama is enormously
Until the BBC’s Culture Show reminded me of it this evening, I had no idea that it is now 25 years since Local Hero was released. Christ, that makes one feel old. If Bill Forsyth’s classic is not the best British movie of the past quarter century, it is certainly the loveliest. And, oddly, timely
Spotted at Edinburgh airport recently. Just in case, like, you weren’t sure how to use a staircase.
My friend James Forsyth asks a daring question: “Will Peter Mandelson end up a National Treasure?” A crazy notion, you may feel, but not an impossible one! Now, of course, in many respects Mandeslon is a dreadful character, but whereas, say, Alastair Campbell is a mere thuggish bully, Mandelson is a subtler operator who enlivens,
I don’t know. You go away for an internet-free weekend and everything seems more or less normal. You return and discover that there’s much talk that Hillary Clinton could be the next US Secretary of State. Blimey! Andrew is, I think, depressed by this but concludes that shoving Hillary over to Foggy Bottom means she
The day after the Presidential election Matt Yglesias spotted this map that shows the counties across the country which swung towards John McCain this year. As you can see, there aren’t that many of them. But what’s interesting is where they are: Matt quipped that, “You can see why John McCain’s principled stand against higher
Another mini-break: I’m heading north to visit my sister. I’ve said it before, but it deserves saying again that she’s the person to contact if you need or even just feel like commissioning a painting. As a rather eminent Fund Manager said to me the other day, “Art may well be a safer investment than
Peter Suderman endorses the idea that life in Washington would be considerably improved if the American president were subjected to some kind of equivalent of Prime Ministers’ Question in the House of Commons. By life, I mean, of course, the quality of political entertainment. And given the dreary nature of most of what happens on