July 2011
45 posts
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Top baby names of 2010: get the full list | News |... →
So what do you make of the list? Hang on for the racist outcry about how popular Mohammed variations are… (See here for last year!) I notice there are lots of nicknames-as-proper-names. I generally disapprove of this, as I am an old stick in the mud. But really: Alfie? Is that the name of a responsible adult?
I’m interested to see that my name, which was a very popular name for a long...
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Dark and Stormy Nights: the Bulwer-Lytton prize →
The Bulwer-Lytton contest challenges entrants to compose bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Here are this year’s. I think some of them are a little self-consciously bad. The best efforts are those that make it seem as if the writer is truly unaware of the torturous, ham-fisted or meandering gem they have inflicted on the world.
Here are my favourites:
As I stood among the...
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Iconclass: a classification system designed for... →
I’m not an art historian, so I’ve not come across this website/system before. “Iconclass is a subject-specific classification system. It is a hierarchically ordered collection of definitions of objects, people, events and abstract ideas that serve as the subject of an image. Art historians, researchers and curators use it to describe, classify and examine the subject of...
New York says 'I do' to gay marriage - in pictures... →
Phyllis Siegel, 76, kisses her wife Connie Kopelov, 84. (Photo: Michael Appleton)
Aaaaah. <3333333333
ashwednesday | The rest is silence. →
I wish I could write something about the hideous events in Norway. This morning, getting up to see that the death toll was far higher than had been estimated yesterday, I read about teenagers trying to swim for their lives - swim for their lives, like something that would happen in a teen slasher movie but it’s real - and I started crying. It’s almost impossible to say anything about...
Jane Eyre Pencil Set by bouncingballcreation on... →
Lots of other novels-as-pencils available from this seller. Shame the cost of postage to Europe is more expensive than the pencils themselves!
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Watchkhami8:
askarsswedishmeatballs:
Aww, his family was laughing at him cause they’re real doctors and he’s a fake one. It’s ok, bb.
I wonder which brother is a doctor? Thought the siblings were all actors.
Mainly reblogging this because (a) Alexander Skarsgard seems like a really sweet, down to earth guy, and (b) because it tickles me that he went to university just down the road from where I...
BBC News - Amy Winehouse found dead, aged 27 →
Sad to say I’ve been expecting this to happen for years now. But shit, it’s still sad. 27 and talented and such a waste.
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NHS services to be opened up to competition |... →
I know all anyone cares about at the moment is hackgate, but frankly for most Brits this has more impact!
A spokesman for the British Medical Association questioned “the assumption that increasing competition will always mean improving choice. The ultimate consequence of market failure in the NHS is the closure of services, restricting the choice of patients who would have wished to...
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Oh please. →
searching4glamour:
with ash in your mouth you’ll ask it to burn again: uglybuthonest: barf-prince: i don’t support marriage, period. marriage…
miniar:
iamwhoiamandidontgiveadamn:
jadedfucker:
uglybuthonest:
barf-prince:
i don’t support marriage, period. marriage…
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Wedding traditions do not equal marriage. And no one here actually says anything...
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NASA - NASA TV →
The last NASA shuttle launch. Watch it here.
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate.
<3
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Is Murdoch free to destroy tabloid’s records? |... →
If you weren’t feeling suspicious about this whole News of the World closure already… Way too early to be jubilant, guys.
Under British law, Stephens explained, all of the assets of the shuttered newspaper, including its records, will be transferred to a professional liquidator (such as a global accounting firm). The liquidator’s obligation is to maximize the estate’s assets and...
Maggie Bj�rklund | Musique gratuite, dates de... →
So apparently this girl gets to have Calexico AND Mark Lanegan on her debut album. Good connections! Some quite nice sounding tunes, too.
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“You look at the shuttle, it’s not as if it’s this pristine, shining, gleaming...”
– What does the final shuttle flight mean for space exploration? | Science | The Guardian
(via lastyearsgirl)
Really fascinating article. The space age: a reflection of both Man’s hubris and endless imagination. This is a poignant moment.
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mellifluousmadness:
9 favorite photos → David Bowie on tour
I refuse to be thought of as mediocre. If I am mediocre, I’ll get out of the business. There’s enough fog around.
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The moment to stop Murdoch →
This is a powerful article. Sadly I am fairly sure British apathy will once again mean this is brushed aside and Murdoch’s tentacles around our media will fasten ever tighter. But if there’s a chance we can make things better, we should take it. Do read this and pass around.
[T]he story of Milly Dowler’s mobile phone speaks of infinitely more than the posthumous violation of...
“My safety word is “Kim Wilde”.”
– McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: List: What Your Favorite ’80s Band Says About You.
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What is Masculinity? : Palgrave Macmillan →
Yay! So excited. This collection is awesome, and not just because I am in it…
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Don't ask, don't tell... Or we'll drop your opera. →
For the past year I have been working on the libretto for my next project … commissioned by Opera North. … The opera’s main character is a gay, retired painter, and in one scene he is the victim of taunting. At the school’s request, I agreed to tone down the violence of the language in this scene, but not the character’s straightforward defence of his sexuality....
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“I don’t believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is vertical, so...”
– -Eduardo Galeano (via mexiroccan)
I think this is a profound misunderstanding of what it means to be charitable. There should be no humiliation in charity. Charity. ἀγάπη - caritas - kariteþ: love. To be charitable is an act of love. Faith, hope and charity are listed as the chief Christian...
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Applying literary anthropology to Dickens →
If exoticising academic tropes annoy you, check out this parody! Awesome.
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