An introduction

This is a semi-public place to dump text too flimsy to even become a blog post. I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you have a lot of time to waste. You'd be better off at my livejournal. I also have another blog, and write most of the French journal summaries at the Eurozine Review.

Why do I clutter up the internet with this stuff at all? Mainly because I'm trying to get into the habit of displaying as much as possible of what I'm doing in public. Also, Blogger is a decent interface for a notebook

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Trade secrets

I've just been reading an ancient JK Galbraith book. True to Galbraith's reputtion, it's packed with little facts and asides. I particularly love the British companies formed in the early 18th century, including one "for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is" [p.43]

Friday, October 16, 2009

Philip Pullman writing on Athensius Kircher (in the form of a book review) is a treat, lightly linking him to the post-pomo cultural melange, and the return of magic:

Kircher lived on the cusp between the magical world of the Middle Ages and the rational and scientific world of modernity – as perhaps we do again today, except that we're going in the other direction. His half-sceptical, half-credulous cast of mind is very much to our current taste.

Qiu Xiaolong

Qiu Xiaolong is a bestselling Chinese author of crime thrillers. But his depictions of Shanghai as a city of crime and corruption haven't gone down well with the authorities.
Le Monde Diplomatique is in deepening financial trouble

Thursday, October 15, 2009

German documents on wikileaks

Wikileaks seems to be getting a steady stream of German political documents, at the moment particularly concerning coalition talks. Unfortunately I'm no longer following German politics closely enough to figure out the backstory and meaning of the leaks.

New Europe

The Wall Street Journal is, judging by its website, one of the few media organizations to pay serious attention to Central and Eastern Europe. It's mostly paywalled, alas, but there is at least a dedicated [blog](http://blogs.wsj.com/new-europe/) for us shallow-pocketed types.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Class A blinkers

Simon Reynolds speaks truth:

one of my fiend heros (ex this parish) is said to have said that deconstruction did more damage to him than the drink and the drugs ever did.


My past life peddling MMORPGs to children made me deeply uncomfortable; I'd lump (some) online games in with twitter, religion, Marxist introspection and, yes, deconstruction as serious memetic dangers.

[written with a certain flippancy. Deconstruction has its uses, but too often it forms part of an inward-looking academic world unable to make much connection to the rest of reality. I'm very fond of those rare theorists who can harness deconstruction to achieve real-world ends]

media in spain

This is a notes-to-myself entry, in which I try to figure out the best online sources for Spanish news in English. There doesn't seem to be much, which I guess is useful encouragement to learn Spanish

Saturday, October 10, 2009

PS in the regions

The Parti Socialiste may be disintegrating at a national level, but according to AG it's much stronger at a regional level.

The second president

Forget who will be the first EU president. The more interesting question is, who will be the second? After 2+ years under the new constitution, what kind of figure would make a plausible president? Will interest groups trampled by the first president push for a low-key successor? Would the position -- having, as it does, few formal powers -- turn out to be of minor importance? Will the first president be re-elected again and again? (is that possible under the Treaty of Lisbon?) Will politicians start openly campaigning for the office, rather than putting up a public face of being surprised and honoured to be considered?

After the Irish referendum

This [via CT] is a good overview of the state of play on the Lisbon treaty:

But some diplomats say it is the foreign policy high representative who may emerge as the strongest figure in the new set-up.
....
The foreign policy chief will be powerful because he or she will not only speak on behalf of EU national governments but will also hold the title of Commission vice-president. The holder will oversee the EU’s multi-billion euro foreign aid budget and control a diplomatic service that will ultimately employ up to 3,000 officials.

Goth clubs in Berlin

[from a comment posted elsewhere]


There's a goth club listing at http://etoile.de/; Berlin is in the section 'PLZ-Bereich 1'. You can probably read through the genre descriptions and club addresses without needing much German.

The Kit Kat Club is -- well, if you've had it recommended, you probably have an idea. I like it, although I've not been since a couple of years ago, when it was in a different venue. [I stopped going after seeing a page on their site seemingly saying that they don't want Turks or feminists in the club. Probably it's just an unfortunately-worded page, but it didn't make me want to go back]

Also on the sex end of the spectrum, check out Insomnia. It's a fetish club, with a monthly goth night called 'angel in bondage'.

K17 is the largest and most regular goth club, with a big dose of metal and industrial. On a Friday or Saturday, they generally have four floors: one trad goth and 80s, one electro/industrial, and two small ones for metal. The venue is ugly as hell, but also huge.

If you fancy going out on a Monday night, Duncker is a lovely smallish club, with a lot of regulars and a friendly atmosphere. They (always?) have some kind of barbeque-type food in their back courtyard, and will keep going until Tuesday morning. I think there's also a small goth market there every other sunday afternoon (http://www.darkmarket.de/).

Other places: Kato is more rock-oriented, and has lots of smallish live gigs. ACUD and Sama-Cafe are squats (perhaps legalised; I'm not sure), which do goth/wave nights. They're incredibly cheap (to make them accessible to everybody; do pay a bit more if you can!). Expect plenty of shabby-looking punks and people out of their heads on (cheap) Sternberg beer.
Turkey and Armenia are set to normalize relations today. They're setting up a commission to establish the history of the Armenian Genocide (doubtless carefully skirting that term). Boy, that's going to be one of the most scarily politicised pieces of work going!

Hillary Clinton is witnessing the signing. Wonder if she's bringing with her Samanta Power, author of A Problem From Hell and once-and-future Obama advisor.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Le Figaro poll on whether Obama deserves the Nobel peace prize currently at 29% yes, 71% no.

Der Spiegel also pretty sceptical. Global Voices rounds up similarly bemused reactions from the rest of the world.

I like Obama, but this is ridiculous

Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize? I can only add to the chorus of WTF. Looking back over previous winners, I see a lot of unexciting, so-so awards, but not that many out-and-out fuckups. Dare I say it, I think this is even worse than Kissenger. With Kissenger (also Arafat/Rabin/Peres), at least they were recognizing a warmonger belatedly trying to wind down a war. The Obama nomination doesn't even have that excuse.

books

I've just arrived back at my mother's place in Oakham, with the plan of spending a couple of weeks quietly working. And now, I realise, also leafing through the piles of books that have accumulated here. Books once read and forgotten; books I've been itching to look at gain for months or years; reference books I never have in the right place to refer to them.

I'm very much looking forward to getting to know them again.

Monday, October 5, 2009

FT on the French integration debate

On the never-vanishing topic of Islam in France, this article in the FT is pretty good.

Farhad Khosrokhavar, director of research at France’s Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, estimates that 15 to 20 per cent of French Muslims do not practise Islam at all. Fasting during Ramadan is considered a basic duty of the religion, yet only about 70 per cent of French ­Muslims even claim to do it. In short, European Islam has many of the same problems as European Christianity.


Via Art Goldhammer, unsurprisingly

Sunday, October 4, 2009

This list of topics for a design magazine was composed in the year I was born. Nothing, it seems, has changed: they're still interesting, still important, still underexplored. Disappointing, that, it a way.