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'Irish Blood, English Heart' Venn

‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ Venn

(I'll be popping a few more of my homages to GraphJam and Indexed up in the next few weeks. Keep 'em ... Read more »
A sonnet by a broken-hearted geek

A sonnet by a broken-hearted geek

Sonnet by a broken-hearted geek Shall I compare thee to a MacBook Air? No. Thou art confusing and much thicker. Ctrl. Alt. Delete: You crashed our affair. I found out why by looking on Flickr. And now you're running Boyfriend 2.0, Ignoring all my pokes and pings and tweets, I know your ... Read more »
31 things I have learnt in the past year

31 things I have learnt in the past year

Last week I became 31... here's are 31 things I have learnt in the last 12 months: 1) Online scrabble is great. But time-consuming. 2) Very few people know what an Oxford Comma is. Let alone give a fuck. 3) I was wrong about Catherine Tate. She was a superb Doctor Who ... Read more »
Vampire Weekend: the end of the affair.

Vampire Weekend: the end of the affair.

On saturday night I saw Vampire Weekend for the last time. There were as entertainingly dazzling as they have ever been but my giddy schoolgirl obsession has to stop. I've seen them live six times this year. They're undoubtedly my 'band of the year 2008'. But it's just different now. Not as ... Read more »
On my 31st Birthday in 31 Words.

On my 31st Birthday in 31 Words.

Thirty-one today. Cripes. At thirty-one Jimi Hendrix had been dead for four years. Jesus had two more but had hardly begun. Must pull my finger out. Mine's a pint though. Cheers! Looking at the brightside. ... Read more »
Dan Wilson Links...*

Dan Wilson Links…*

Here are some links to things I've been enjoying online recently: Politics I'm totally glued to the US Presidential Election. And I get my daily dose of polls from http://electoral-vote.com/. I'm really grateful to Jesper for posting this link about the Obama 08 campaign logo. It's an ... Read more »
Welcome to my new blog

Welcome to my new blog

Slightly belatedly, because it went live more than a week ago, welcome to my spruced up, redesigned blog. I love it. And I hope you love it too: let me know. The blog functionality is powered by Wordpress: a free bit of open source software that I can't praise highly enough. Not only is it ... Read more »
Thinking about NaNoWriMo

Thinking about NaNoWriMo

I'm 90% certain that I'll have a pop at NaNoWriMo this year. Never heard of it? Basically, you have the 30 days of November to write 50,000 words. Why would I do this? In my desk drawer there are three hefty chunks of novels in various unfinished states. The first I worked on for about 3 years ... Read more »
Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live

Satire lives. I thought that everyone had been enjoying Tina Fey's totally brilliant impersonation of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live for the past few weeks. But several people I know haven't seen it and more than that, the Governor of Alaska's genuine appearance on SNL last night has just been ... Read more »
Reporting America, Reporting Britain

Reporting America, Reporting Britain

The Eccles Institute for American Studies hosted a fascinating talk at the British Library on Monday evening. Entitled 'Alistair Cooke: Reporting America, Reporting Britain' and commemorating the centenary of the great journalist and broadcaster's birth, the panel reflected on the differences and ... Read more »
My Old Boiler

My Old Boiler

It certainly has a Tardis-like charm and has provided me with a lot, an awful lot, of hot water. But it's 23 years old and has been replaced by an upstart combi boiler. If your boiler says 'Made in West Germany' on it, may I suggest it's time to bid ... Read more »
The Guardian on Class and Diet. Would you like Fries with that?

The Guardian on Class and Diet. Would you like Fries with that?

Using Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food as a hook, the Guardian published an interesting piece about how class is a key determinant of diet and always has been. There's much lefty hand-wringing about working folk munching on takeaways and high-calorie, high-fat food with little nutritional value. Not ... Read more »
The Sun and Middle-class Angst

The Sun and Middle-class Angst

It's one of those things that I can't square. I like The Sun. And yet The Sun is full of nonsense, knee-jerk near Nazism on occasion. But it is also a humourous and brilliantly crafted newspaper that knows its readers. Here's the sort of thing it does so well. I was flicking through my (papery) ... Read more »
Lots of Love. Labour's not lost.

Lots of Love. Labour’s not lost.

I spent two hours phoning voters on Saturday afternoon, on behalf of the Labour party. From a personal perspective, it's an activity I loathe. After all, who wants to be disturbed by an activist (of any persuasion) on a glorious sunny Saturday afternoon? I'd rather give them my mobile number so ... Read more »