Shooting Pains

Just read this on Popbitch:

"Matthew J Hogan has just been appointed by the
Bush Government as director of the Fish and
Wildlife Service. Interestingly, Hogan was the
lobbyist for Safari Club International - an elite
club of exotic animal trophy hunters, as well
as a keen exotic hunter himself.

SCI has 40,000 members, and promotes global
competitive trophy hunting, with Grand Slam
and Inner Circle competitions. These include
Africa Big Five (leopard, elephant, lion, rhino,
buffalo), North American Twenty Nine (one of
each species of bear, bison, sheep, moose,
caribou, and deer), Big Cats of the World and
Antlered Game of the Americas. To complete all
29 awards, a hunter must kill 322 separate
species. Enough to populate a large zoo.

(FYI: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is the
agency charged with granting or denying such
trophy import permits.)"

Are we actually living in some deranged, satirical novel? What the hell is going on over there? Is Bush the devil?

Battle for the black hole

Interesting tale of an Indian astrophysics student getting unfairly stuffed by the pre-war Cambridge establishment.

Colin's right, I can't get a template that renders properly in both Firefox and IE

Back to basics until I can devote some time to sorting this out?

Product Placement

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4391955.stm

I know the world has got more important things to worry about, but product placement is one of those corrosive things that convinces me that we are gradually slipping into ruin. Fifteen years ago the idea of novelists and songwriters being paid to mention brands in their work have been satirical. Now it's seen as the inevitable future of advertising..

Just sold my mountain bike as I never use it these days

And immediately started thinking about the one to buy when I get back up to Scotland. This one. A beauty.

Blair joins the wristband craze

Conviction politician or opportunist? I think Blair manages to be both, somehow. (I'm probably voting Labour again this year).

Actually this one is even better!

http://www.luckykazoo.com/media/2005/03/e-sure-remix.html

Cillit Bang Remix

http://www.luckykazoo.com/media/2005/03/cillit-bang-remix.html

Granta: The Factory

Excellent new Granta this quarter (89: The Factory). (Annoyingly www.granta.com is still showing the previous edition) . A good mix of fiction, social history and feature journalism around manufacturing, particularly its decline in UK.

Could be early signs of something analogous to 18th century pastoralism in literature: a celebration and nostalgia for industrialism, in the same way that writers once addressed the agrarian economy (of course, as discussed in Fitzroy, both were shit).

Cripes...

'Big cat' attacks man in garden

City Churches

Went to a function at St Mary at Hill yesterday, a Wren church just off East Cheap. Astonishing, beautiful place. Even at weekends there is a sense of some ineffable energy in the City - the 1000 year old streets connecting the most ancient structures with the most modern...

Mr Magoo Goes to the World Bank

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/03/17/wolfowitz_nomination/index.html

slow blogger

blogger *has* been pretty slow the last couple of days. i reckon we should monitor the situation with a view to moving to a different platform at some stage. am going to try and set something up when I get some free time...

False Dawn

Spring is in the air! It's sunny and warm! Yay! Winter's over! (As with every year at this time, this does of course mean that it's bound to snow at the weekend.)

Bloggies

Gah! Fitzrovian passed over again in the weblog awards.

Grime Scene

Bloody hell, grime in The New Yorker. Nekkle!

On the Roof

My flatmate interviewed the writer Geoff Dyer the other day. This is quite a nice piece by him in an old Granta, about being a dole-bludging, aspirant writer idler in Brixton in the eighties - ending with some reassurance for those of us in the rat race who yearn for a life of chat and books instead.

Seeing spots

What's going on? What happened to comforting, familiar orange and white Fitzrovian? I'm in early middle age - I'm resistant to change! By the way John, do you know they're making a film of this?

comic relief

http://bbc.co.uk/rednoseday tel. 0857 910 910

google adwords

Guys, why don't we start running adwords on our site? I'm sure advertisers would love to get access to our high quality content and affluent audience. It could pay for drinks at the Fitzroy.

http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/