ninme

So, it’s quick links time!

Telegraph Blogs – Daniel Hannan: The Internet is dragging Britain away from Europe and towards the Anglosphere

Brett McS sent me this one within moments of me reading an excerpt from it in The Corner. It’s an interesting and perhaps obvious point, though I think perhaps a little optimistic. And I’m not [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

This is so cute. £.

Categories: Politics

The Times (£) – From Beijing to London in 48hrs? Now that’s a great rail journey

High-speed technology and investment is about to make railways competitive again. Bargain airlines may have made previously forgotten cities accessible but security and congested skies have added hours to the journey. Trains can offer [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

I think I’d intended this for yesterday, but it’s a good thing I forgot because lord, there is nothing going on. But this was quite hilarious:

If you’ve ever traveled by budget airline, and I’m an American so I never have, you’ll really appreciate it.

Categories: Business & Media

The Times – Is giving away £5m a reason for such hatred? By David Aaronovitch

Tony Blair announced he’d give the proceeds from sales of his new autobiography to a veterans charity (a quarter of his net worth, apparently), and this sparked a most incredible reaction. Yesterday a letter was published in the Guardian (natch) calling [...]

Categories: War and Peace

This is very good:

The Times – The British girls disappearing into forced marriages, by Lucy Bannerman

“I was told I was staying here for ever,” she says [Tania (pseudonym), 16]. “For ever” often used to mean until 18 – the minimum age at which a Briton could sponsor a spouse’s entry [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

Yesterday as I was pulling into Target, Radio 1 (still have the free Sirius radio in my car) played Jay Z’s Empire State of Mind, which is a very good song, but which I didn’t need to have in my head all day (especially as I mostly just loop the Alicia Keys bits over and [...]

Categories: Entertainment

India Knight’s column today is really incredibly sweet (and, given that my illness convinced Peter to watch half an old Miss Marple last night before going to bed spending a half hour chasing a spider the size of a bloody cockroach around the room from atop a couple of chairs with a spray can of [...]

Categories: People and Current Events

James Delingpole:

On Any Questions I apparently told a joke so offensive that it had to be censored by the BBC. I say “apparently” because I wasn’t even aware I’d told a joke, let alone one worthy of censorship, till I discovered that the BBC had cut it out of [...]

Categories: Geography and Foreign Affairs

This is interesting. Because I’m a nerd. I’m a nerd okay? A nerd! Jeez!

Nick Patrick – Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

While most American accents are rhotic, the standard British accent is non-rhotic. (Rhotic speakers pronounce the ‘R’ sound in the word “hard”; non-rhotic speakers do not.) So, [...]

Categories: History

And not in an ironic way? Anyway, this is just the most BOOTEEFUL story:

By day, he worked on the sites, by night he’d gig at the working men’s clubs. Within six years he was managing himself out of the phone box at the end of his road, gigging around the clubs of South [...]

Categories: Entertainment

In Caitlin Moran’s TV column this week (see, she writes a TV column):

Over on Channel 4, and another piece of respectable documentary-making was tarted up in the stockings and suspenders of a sensational title — Amish: The World’s Squarest Teenagers. The premise was simple: before officially getting their hats nailed [...]

Categories: Entertainment

This is England is a very good movie. I’d like to point out, though, that none of those people were voting for Maggie before the NF man came along. Ahem.

Has anyone done any research why in the 60s – 80s, the British went so spectacularly batsh.t? I mean, you have your Mediterranean countries which protested [...]

Categories: History

This is amazing. All the artsy Brits in my Twitter stream have been moaning about the UK Film Council getting the axe, but then the author Ian Rankin mentioned this article as a “sharp and persuasive critique”.

The Times – Good riddance to the UK Film Council, by Chris Atkins

The real scandals, however, came [...]

Categories: Entertainment

Well, Cameron Diaz is annoying. Tom Cruise is weird. But mostly he’s weird because he should be so very good. But then he’s weird and that makes him weirder. But when he’s on, he’s very good. Anyway it’s nice to hear this:

The Sunday Times – Jeremy Clarkson talks cars, fighter jets and biscuits with Hollywood [...]

Categories: Sports and Leisure