The first thing to be said of a test in which a side batting third can score 517/1 is that the wicket was not fit for test match cricket. The second is that, for once, this did not matter. Hilarity trumped common sense. None of us, not being present for the Melbourne test in 1912,
If you thought the Wikileaks brouhaha would bring Peter King crawling out of the woodwork then award yourself a prize. America’s worst Congressman appeared on MSNBC this morning and called for Wikileaks to be classified a terrorist organisation: “The benefit of that is, we would be able to seize their assets and we would be
So, the latest Wikileaks docu-dump is out. Full details here. Among the highlights from the initial reports: Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if
Hello winter. So long no see? No, not really.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the country of country imagine the shame of this. “So what did you do today, honey?” “I arrested Willie Nelson”. How can that* be right? A U.S. Border Patrol spokesman says country singer Willie Nelson was charged with marijuana possession after 6 ounces was found aboard his tour bus in Texas. Patrol
Back after a rugby-related hiatus. Here’s Caitlin Rose with her Sinful Wishing Well…
To all American friends and readers: Happy Thanksgiving. It’s the best of all holidays. From a sensibly-sentimental piece I wrote a few years ago: Thanksgiving is the most genial holiday. I know this because the Canadians have their own version of the greatest of all American holidays. If one were to select a single word
Four years later than should have been the case, Andrew Strauss will skipper England in Australia. English cricket has righted itself since the Flintoff and Pietersen debacles. For a spell one sensed that marketing considerations were influencing cricketing decisions. The great strength of the present Strauss-Flower regime is that it is, in the end, almost
Hannah Rothschild’s BBC4 programme following Peter Mandelson during the months running-up to the election was, like almost everything involving the Prince of Darkness, a hoot. But, blimey, there were parts of it that seemed to come straight from The Thick of It. I mean, here’s the voice of frustrated image-makers and strategists the world over:
Well, perhaps he’s never left. There’s much to enjoy in – and something nostalgic about – this piece by Michael Chessum and Jonathan Moses in today’s Guardian. Apparently “politics as usual has failed” so, naturally, alternative methods must be sought. Now, as it happens, one can understand why students are disappointed by the Liberal Democrats’
Following this post on Fianna Fail, a Dublin correspondent cautions against underestimating the stubbornness of their hold upon the people: Fianna Fail will rise again. For two reasons: i) Fine Gael and Labour may need the support of lots of other parties to get anything done. The scope for internal disagreement is immense. It is
Meanwhile, elsewhere in whimsy the nice folks at Foreign Policy asked me to write a piece about Prince William’s engagement. Somehow this ended up with another modest proposal: the United States should ditch the Presidency, join the Commonwealth and become a parliamentary democracy. You know, like Canada. They have the trappings of royalty already, but
You can get yours here. In passing, let’s observe that Osborne is right to offer the Irish whatever assistance he can. Not because of economics or even politics but because it’s the right thing to do. Friends help friends and that’s about all that really need be said on the matter. [Via Joe Wiesenthal]
We often hear people suggesting that 16 and 17 year-olds should be allowed to vote. We don’t hear enough about voting at the other end of the spectrum: why are pensioners allowed to vote? The news that, despite everything, fully 28% of Irish pensioners still support Fianna Fail (compared to 17% of the population as
You’d never guess that Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan are members of Fianna Fail, would you? Oh, you would? Fancy that. Grotesque. Unbelievable. Bizarre. Unprecedented. Ireland has known crises before, many of them extremely serious. But the GUBU days now seem the stuff of comic opera when set beside the battering Ireland has taken these
John Rentoul may have cornered the market in Questions to which the Answer is No but there’s an opening for Questions to Which the Answer is Yes. Clearly, this is a niche market. Nevertheless, Iain Dale asks numbers one and two this evening. Or, rather, the topics for his LBC radio show invite pithy responses:
Hard though it may be to imagine, it is entirely possible that Cricket Australia (as they style themselves these days) are even more cloth-headed and reprehensible than their counterparts at the ECB. At the very least they give a more than passable impression of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. If
The More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette! advertisement is, I think, pretty familiar. Those were the days! Here’s a terrific collection of splendid (and some not so splendid) ads from the Mad Men era (and some from before it). Among my tobacco-favourites: “Born Gentle”? Class. Don Draper would have been proud. Rightly so,
Yes, it’s from the Daily Record but if there’s one thing the Record does well it’s cover gangland Glasgow: Scots gangsters are using “waterboarding” terror tactics to torture rivals. Hardened crooks have copied the CIA-style interrogation technique where water is poured on to a cloth covering the victim’s mouth and nose to simulate drowning. We
More legal matters: remember the case of Gail Cochrane? She’s the 53-year old Dundonian who was jailed for five years for the crime of possessing her father’s service revolver. The sentence, its defenders claimed, was justified since her gun was, for admittedly curious reasons, stashed beneath her bed and not in a box in the