The least worst bits of Think of England...
Flotsam
The dogs on St Mary Street howl
The Bright Lights, the Desolate Shores
Men and guns
Ed, Will and Ginger
France
A wasted quip
An incident in a public shower
Two objectionable employers
The Windy City
He lived with a girl in Ilkeston
The Warning Berry... and The Rolling Hill
The Guernsey Tomato Museum
Jetsam
Ball's Favourite Balls - and other Radio 4 Favourites
John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood
The Ballad of Black Lace ... and Push Pineapple Syndrome
A pint and six shots with Jase Rooney
The Demolition Man - interview with Rick Dakota, the world's most dangerous blog commenter
Beatlemania abounds
Thirty years of pop music - a narrative
Book Review: Sweeper! by Steve Bruce
Muggsy Spanier - the man behind the legend ... and A Competent but Unmemorable Drummer
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Pastoral
A poetic warning on the dangers of walking in the countryside has been added to ThinkofEngland.co.uk: Up Lansdowne Lane.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
…But is Born Again
The most enjoyable (for me) and apparently most popular thing to come out of TofE has been the poetry.
I have put the best poems, and some new ones, on a new website: http://www.thinkofengland.co.uk/.
This is an ongoing project, and I intend to use this blog to flag up additions as they emerge.
(If you are interested, you could subscribe to the feed – thus saving you the need to check up on this site when it isn’t doing anything much.)
I have put the best poems, and some new ones, on a new website: http://www.thinkofengland.co.uk/.
This is an ongoing project, and I intend to use this blog to flag up additions as they emerge.
(If you are interested, you could subscribe to the feed – thus saving you the need to check up on this site when it isn’t doing anything much.)
Think of England dies
Following the month-long intermission, it seems unlikely that Think of England will be continuing in its traditional rip-roaring, nearly-daily form. As such, I apologise to the people who’ve been kind and bored enough to read the blog and demand more.
I suppose the concept of ‘demand’ is really the problem. Blogs are curious things – they start (and continue) as vanity projects/outlets for quiet loudmouths, but can end up being almost a moral duty and a daily grind. I don’t have the time now to spend on writing lots of posts, and the time and energy that I do have should really be spent on more profitable (literally and literarily) pursuits.
Brit will continue to post comments on other blogs, but a lot less prolifically.
For the record – this is not about the Islamophobia thing, though that did help put things into perspective.
Thanks to all who have contributed, with a special mention for my ex-fellow Duckians, and a very special mention for Peter and David. I’ve spent more time locked in forthright argument with them than with anybody else alive (apart from my sister), despite actually agreeing with them on nearly everything that I think is important.
TofE may be back at some point. Never say never and all that.
Andrew
I suppose the concept of ‘demand’ is really the problem. Blogs are curious things – they start (and continue) as vanity projects/outlets for quiet loudmouths, but can end up being almost a moral duty and a daily grind. I don’t have the time now to spend on writing lots of posts, and the time and energy that I do have should really be spent on more profitable (literally and literarily) pursuits.
Brit will continue to post comments on other blogs, but a lot less prolifically.
For the record – this is not about the Islamophobia thing, though that did help put things into perspective.
Thanks to all who have contributed, with a special mention for my ex-fellow Duckians, and a very special mention for Peter and David. I’ve spent more time locked in forthright argument with them than with anybody else alive (apart from my sister), despite actually agreeing with them on nearly everything that I think is important.
TofE may be back at some point. Never say never and all that.
Andrew
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Intermission
There will be an intermission while Think of England recovers its identity.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for your patience.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Double Hitch ties Shirley up in knots
The Hitch is currently doing the rounds in Blighty, principally plugging his latest Dawkins-esque God-bashing book, but stopping last Thursday to appear on Question Time. Like Bryan Appleyard, I find QT almost unwatchable these days on account of the thicko audiences and their shameless manipulation by applause-triggering politicians). But this was a rare good one, with an all-star line up of the Hitch, his mad brother Peter and the always-enjoyable Boris Johnson.
The lot of them team up to give the crapulent Shirley Williams a well-deserved kicking for her craven criticism of Salman Rushdie's knighthood on the grounds that it causes offence to Muslims.
Nobody could possibly admire everything Chris Hitchens says - that is the point of him. But when he's good, he's very very good. (Note for bigots: watch to the end for a nice distinction between Islamist nuts and real Muslims. Peter Hitchens later makes the equally true observation that the 'protests' in Tehran - Union Jack burning etc - are entirely stage-managed, and if you pulled the camera back from the 'crowd' you would see it consisted of at most a dozen pillocks.)
The lot of them team up to give the crapulent Shirley Williams a well-deserved kicking for her craven criticism of Salman Rushdie's knighthood on the grounds that it causes offence to Muslims.
Nobody could possibly admire everything Chris Hitchens says - that is the point of him. But when he's good, he's very very good. (Note for bigots: watch to the end for a nice distinction between Islamist nuts and real Muslims. Peter Hitchens later makes the equally true observation that the 'protests' in Tehran - Union Jack burning etc - are entirely stage-managed, and if you pulled the camera back from the 'crowd' you would see it consisted of at most a dozen pillocks.)
Friday, June 22, 2007
Talking of crazy Germans
The Berlin Wall may be long gone but communist East Germany lives on in the form of lovingly maintained Trabant cars and now an old-fashioned hotel.
"Ostel" takes its guests back to some time before 1989 - an era of ugly brown and orange wallpaper, spartan furnishings and Politburo portraits.
The hotel, which opened in Berlin in May, offers guests a choice of rooms in the style of the old eastern bloc.
The "Stasi Suite" is more expensive than the budget "Pioneer Camp".
The hotel is a former East German Plattenbauwohnung - the kind of mass-produced concrete apartment building that came to symbolise life in the communist bloc.
In the reception four clocks are another throwback to the "socialist" camp, showing the time in Moscow, Berlin, Havana and Beijing.
First as tragedy, then as postmodern irony.
Goodbye Lenin is a fantastic film about ‘Ostalgie’.
"Ostel" takes its guests back to some time before 1989 - an era of ugly brown and orange wallpaper, spartan furnishings and Politburo portraits.
The hotel, which opened in Berlin in May, offers guests a choice of rooms in the style of the old eastern bloc.
The "Stasi Suite" is more expensive than the budget "Pioneer Camp".
The hotel is a former East German Plattenbauwohnung - the kind of mass-produced concrete apartment building that came to symbolise life in the communist bloc.
In the reception four clocks are another throwback to the "socialist" camp, showing the time in Moscow, Berlin, Havana and Beijing.
First as tragedy, then as postmodern irony.
Goodbye Lenin is a fantastic film about ‘Ostalgie’.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Alien nation
A lawyer who landed an out-of-this-world job defending people who have suffered at the hands of aliens has started his first major case.
Former industrial law specialist Jens Lorek announced last year he would defend those whose close encounters with outer space visitors left them physically and mentally shattered.
Now he has his first client - hotel chef Paul Hoffmann, 23, who claims he was kidnapped by aliens and has never been the same since.
… The chef closed his bank account, squatted in an empty property in Dresden and bathed nude - "as ordered by the aliens" - in a municipal fountain. When police caught him naked on a bike, he was sent to the psychiatric ward of a local hospital.
Lorek thinks that police acted wrongly and is demanding his client's release. He has brought a lawsuit against the city in which he places the blame for his client's behaviour on "things unknown".
.."The state is socially responsible, even for alien shamans, if they cannot protect them from abduction.Aliens stick needles in their victims' genitals and interfere with their organs. Since 1961 there have been tens of thousands of alien abductions."
This story has everything: crazyyanks Germans, improbable law suits and aliens.
So can anyone finally explain this one to me: what is it about Americans and alien abduction?
Are there any parallels for this sort of mass national delusion? Voodoo in West Africa? Socialism in France? The belief that the national football team can win something in England?
Former industrial law specialist Jens Lorek announced last year he would defend those whose close encounters with outer space visitors left them physically and mentally shattered.
Now he has his first client - hotel chef Paul Hoffmann, 23, who claims he was kidnapped by aliens and has never been the same since.
… The chef closed his bank account, squatted in an empty property in Dresden and bathed nude - "as ordered by the aliens" - in a municipal fountain. When police caught him naked on a bike, he was sent to the psychiatric ward of a local hospital.
Lorek thinks that police acted wrongly and is demanding his client's release. He has brought a lawsuit against the city in which he places the blame for his client's behaviour on "things unknown".
.."The state is socially responsible, even for alien shamans, if they cannot protect them from abduction.Aliens stick needles in their victims' genitals and interfere with their organs. Since 1961 there have been tens of thousands of alien abductions."
This story has everything: crazy
So can anyone finally explain this one to me: what is it about Americans and alien abduction?
Are there any parallels for this sort of mass national delusion? Voodoo in West Africa? Socialism in France? The belief that the national football team can win something in England?
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Out of the frying pan, into 60% of the national median
Around 600 illegal immigrants die every year in a bid to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to southern European coasts, said Malta’s Home Affairs and Justice Minister Tonio Borg while addressing European Union (EU) Interior Ministers conference on Tuesday.
The Minister pointed out that since the beginning of 2007, Malta has saved 315 shipwrecked immigrants attempting to enter Europe by sea, 250 of whom were taken on board Maltese ships in a fortnight.
While criticizing the present state of affairs, Dr Borg added that "It is unbelievable that on the doorstep of Europe we are having this tragic situation and not enough is being done."
Malta has urged the other 26 EU member states for the setting up of a burden-sharing system under which illegal migrants rescued or intercepted by EU ships outside of European waters would be taken in by the bloc's countries.
You have to wonder about these crazy Africans, packed like sardines into tiny fishing dinghies to make perilous journeys to Europe. Don't they know they're only going from the relative happiness of their absolute poverty, to the misery of the west's Relative Poverty? Really, we should be going the other way....
The Minister pointed out that since the beginning of 2007, Malta has saved 315 shipwrecked immigrants attempting to enter Europe by sea, 250 of whom were taken on board Maltese ships in a fortnight.
While criticizing the present state of affairs, Dr Borg added that "It is unbelievable that on the doorstep of Europe we are having this tragic situation and not enough is being done."
Malta has urged the other 26 EU member states for the setting up of a burden-sharing system under which illegal migrants rescued or intercepted by EU ships outside of European waters would be taken in by the bloc's countries.
You have to wonder about these crazy Africans, packed like sardines into tiny fishing dinghies to make perilous journeys to Europe. Don't they know they're only going from the relative happiness of their absolute poverty, to the misery of the west's Relative Poverty? Really, we should be going the other way....
Men's needs
For the trendier, White Stripes-loving section of Think of England's readership, I was going to point to a simply corking new song by the British twin-based band The Cribs.
Men's Needs has been nagging away in my brain for a couple of weeks. But then I discovered that the video is an X-rated shocker with nudity, vegetables and decapitation. For goodness sake, don't watch this.
Men's Needs has been nagging away in my brain for a couple of weeks. But then I discovered that the video is an X-rated shocker with nudity, vegetables and decapitation. For goodness sake, don't watch this.
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