There goes the neighbourhood

Proof, if proof were needed, that we are living in strange times: only 53% of American adults believe that capitalism is better than socialism.

Here's the New York Dolls with a song about Creationism. Life was so simple back then, when all we had to worry about was losing the Culture Wars.

500

This is the 500th post. Yay me.

This sort of milestone event involving a big round number usually provokes bloggers to do something silly, like write a "why I blog" post. I am sure you will be relieved to learn that you will get no such thing from me.

That said, Dottore Tiso issued me a challenge, to read all 181 thousand results of a Google search for the phrase "why I blog." I see no such need. His initial point concerned posts entitled "Why I Blog." Google, being rather primitive in some respects, cannot distinguish between titles and text. A more subtle search engine is Exalead, which allows searches on titles only. A quick search of such produced a mere 559 results. In no time at all, my task was complete; I had read all the "why I blog" posts.

So I can now reveal to you, gentle readers, why bloggers blog.

sanity compulsion Africa words sharing company catharsis security peaches hermeneutics knitting order orchids discipline Terri safety Jesus zeal sad verklempt God hypocrisy homeschooling snuggery writing tigers life mormons craziness dog you compulsion ? ministry book therapy racism lovecat sundae sex

I could go on. I still might.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and for commenting.

Here are Dan Ackroyd's friends:

Situation vacant

The 20th century is well behind us, but we have not yet learned to live in the 21st, or at least to think in a way that fits it. That should not be as difficult as it seems, because the basic idea that dominated economics and politics in the last century has patently disappeared down the plughole of history. This was the way of thinking about modern industrial economies, or for that matter any economies, in terms of two mutually exclusive opposites: capitalism or socialism.

Eric Hobsbawm

If wishes were horses

Cohen also confirms the key fact that not all Palestinians are the enemies of Israel – something I have documented for more recent times. This offers cause for hope; indeed, were the 20 percent of Palestinians who accept Israel expanded to 60 percent, the Arab-Israeli conflict would close down. Such a Palestinian change of heart – and not more "painful concessions" by Israel – should be the goal of every would-be peacemaker.

As a would-be peacemaker, it is your duty to convince Palestinians to accept Israel. It's a hearts and minds thing. On the other hand, you might prefer to ask how Daniel Pipes gets away with writing this sort of thing, and constantly referencing his own work while reviewing that of another.

Partyhat-tip to HTML Mencken

A fish called Colin

After all this time, it turns out that Elton John and Bernie Taupin were wrong. Sorry does not seem to be the hardest word. The hardest word in fact is Pollack. Yes, it came as a suprise to me. It is going to be particularly tough for Jake.

One wonders, as one so frequently does, what drugs these marketing people are taking. Pollack is a perfectly respectable name for a fish. Colin is a name for a cat. Colin is one of those names which it is unfortunate to possess when one is a boy, like Keith or Nigel. Every class has a Colin - a rather weedy, quite nerdy boy who collects stamps and who gets jokes about fifteen seconds after everyone else. Colin's parents, who own a commercial stationery business, married late; he is their only child. His mother is over-attentive, much to Colin's embarrassment and the mirth of his schoolmates.

This characterisation of Colins is utterly unfair. Colins can be cool, and they can get to hang out with chicks, as the following musical interlude shows. Here, the coolest Colin of them all, Colin Blunstone, sings with his beat combo, the Zombies:



Of course, the marketing men will protest, the new name for the fish is not the English personal name but the French fish name, pronounced co-lan. This should not be confused with colon, the well-known unpleasant piece of anatomy, but it will be. Again, questions of pharmacy arise. In any case, have these marketing men not noticed two self-evident truths about the English: (1) they loathe the French, and (2) they cannot and will not pronounce French words correctly?

And, just to make sure their rebranded fish sinks like a stone, they have put it in "Jackson Pollock-inspired packaging" Oh yes, Abstract Expressionism; that will be popular with the housewifes at home.

So, why are they doing this? Because the British ate all the cod, that's why. Or, to put it in bouncy, upbeat marketing speak:"At Sainsbury's we're passionate about sustainable sourcing and protecting dwindling fish stocks. We want to help highlight that there are species to eat other than cod and haddock, which are just as tasty and often cheaper. Many people have said that they can't even tell the difference in taste between cod or pollack, so we urge everyone to try 'colin and chips' on a Friday."

Of course there are species to eat other than cod and haddock, such as cabbage and carrot. Since every commercial caterer thinks that fish is a vegetarian option, why not turn things around and pretend vegetables are fish? The marketing men could rebrand them. The Brussels sprout has negative connotations of Belgium, so let's call it Darren. Aubergine is a French word, so let's call it Leonard. After all, if Sainsbury's rebranding exercise is an unexpected success, there will soon be no more Colins left, so the English will have nothing left to eat but Darren and chips or Leonard fingers.

Meanwhile, in the Phlippines, the 41st Megamouth Shark ever to be sighted was sauteed in coconut milk.

But wait, there is one way to save endangered fish: call them sea kittens. Or, we could listen to a song about Nigel. Which would you choose?



With thanks to Sam for the lead.

Dumb and dumber

A statement released by Fox News said that the company and Roger Friedman had "mutually agreed to part ways immediately". The studio also weighed in to say that Friedman's behaviour was "reprehensible" and that it "condemned this act categorically".

That events should have come to this pass should not be too surprising. Not only did Friedman offer his opinion on the early cut of the film on his Fox 411 blog, joining the estimated one million people who have seen it since it first emerged last week, but he also praised the convenience of downloading films illegally and pointed out that the entire current US box office top 10 was available on torrent sites. "It's so much easier than going out in the rain!" he wrote.

In which a film critic makes a career decision.

Ghost town

Outside the shop, I meet a man named Peter Waldren, who runs a B&B a few doors down. He is keener to make the connection; he markets his guest house as being adjacent to the first woman prime minister's birthplace. Does it work?

He gets a few who are interested. Mostly foreigners. "This German chap came to stay a while back," he says, "and he said he understood he was staying close to where Margaret Thatcher was born." When the German expressed surprise at the fact there wasn't more of a memorial, Waldren explained to him how the former prime minister was not necessarily loved among her own people. The German visitor thought about this for a moment. After a while he said: "It is always the way with politicians in their own country. In Germany, it was the same with Hitler."

The Guardian visits Grantham.

Rezillos:

Art beat

Whilst visiting Che Tibby's place (for Proust fans, that would be du côté de chez Che Tibby) I came across an invective against one of Wellington's public sculptures. And I thought of Auckland's public sculptures.

And, reader, I wept. I wept tears of sardonic laughter. For, while Tanya Ashken's Albatross may not be to everyone's tastes, it is at least recognisibly a work of art. Here in Auckland, we have a statue of Freyberg in the Airfix style, one of Dove Meyer Robinson which is best described as regrettable, a novelty rock and Spiky Red Thing. But, worse still, we have the Five Rams. These were a gift from our twin city, Guangzhou. In Guangzhou, rams look like goats and have udders (or unfeasibly large testicles; take your pick). I suppose it was a gift so we couldn't say no; and it is carved from granite, so it would take an awful lot of plastic explosive to destroy it (if you have an awful lot of plastic explosive, do let me know); but it is not even original: it is a copy. And it disfigures a very pretty park; the things we do for trade preference.

I could go on, but it is difficult to know where to stop. We win this game. When it comes to unintentionally hilarious sculpture, you can't beat Auckland. They should make a tour of the city's sculptures part of the International Comedy Festival. Come, one and all! See the light sculpture in the pavement which symbolises the river which once ran where Queen street stands - the light sculpture which isn't lit. Yes, ladies and Gentlemen, before your very eyes - kitsch abstraction; out-of-service kitsch abstraction! Marvel at the big pointy thing outside Burger King, which marks where the beach once was! Take the Waterfront Art Trail and be amazed by the burning twin towers and the giant hook. Fall over the one with the seabird on a rack!

Yes folks, in Auckland a sculpture of an albatross looks like an albatross. In Auckland, all public sculptures have to represent something, either with plodding realism or wispy abstraction. We can't cope with complexity in Auckland. We don't know much about Art, but we know a lot less about urban design. We like our sculptures to represent things, plainly, without fuss or thinking. So come to Auckland, where everything is obvious!

But is it art?

We looking for young performer for special art and entertainment videos and chats.

What you have to do:

art performance and presentation in front of camera or webcam

We are searching open-minded women and men who will act as a performer in several art chats and videos.

We are located in Auckland Glendowie.

You can start asap.

Full time, part time and on a casual basis (it s up to you/working times to be discuss)

Salary is between 25,- and 45,- NZ$ per hour or 100,- to 250,- NZD per session/video

You don't need to bring any particular skills!

This advertisement, which appeared on Seek, gives some encouragement to art lovers in these troubled times. Not only is Performance Art alive and well and living in Glendowie (of all places) but it pays rather well.

Jacques Brel:

The history man

Foucault alleges, for example, that the 1815–16 House of Commons inquiry into the state of England’s madhouses revealed that Bedlam (Bethlem) placed its inmates on public display every Sunday, and charged a penny a time for the privilege of viewing them to some 96,000 sightseers a year. In reality, the reports of the inquiry contain no such claims. This is not surprising: public visitation (which had not been confined to Sundays in any event) had been banned by Bethlem Royal Hospital’s governors in 1770, and even before then the tales of a fixed admission fee turn out to be apocryphal. Foucault is bedevilled by Bethlem’s history. He makes the remarkable claim that “From the day when Bethlem, the hospital for curative lunatics, was opened to hopeless cases in 1733, there was no longer any notable difference between the London hospital and the French Hôpital Général, or any other house of correction”. And he speaks of Bethlem’s “refurbishment” in 1676. In reality, it had moved in that year from its previous location in an old monastery in Bishopsgate to a grandiose new building in Moorfields designed by Robert Hooke.

In short, Foucault was talking bollocks. Andrew Scull shows how much bollocks he was talking. I only mention this because the work of Foucault came up in discussion, in another place. And because I struggle to see why people take Foucault so seriously. The errors of fact which Scull mentions here are not trivial. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of 18th Century English history could see them, and could see that they undermine his entire theory. He is simply wrong about the past. So why is Foucault constantly invoked as an authority and guide?

Answers on a postcard, please, to the usual address.