Those New Year music lists, in brief.
TWENTY ALBUMS OF 2008
The What?
Yeah, Right.
Oh, That… I Remember That Coming Out…
No, They’re Making These Up.
Ah, Now I Was Actually Thinking Of Getting This One.
They Were On Later, Weren’t They? Didn’t Think Much Of Them.
Bloody Hell, Are They Still Going?
Ah, No, These Are The Ones Who Were On [...]
Apologies for the long silence – and for the post that’s about to follow, which will be of much greater interest to some than others.
Unlike Liam and Andy, I am not now and have never been a member of RESPECT. Like Liam and Andy, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the fallout within [...]
Sing it:
I charm you and tell you of the boys I hate
All the girls I hate
All the words I hate
The clothes I hate
How I’ll never be anything I hate…
Bitterness can be a problem, even when you’re out of school uniform. It’s a particular problem for political writers, bloggers very much included. You hate the Other [...]
Tonight, we burn the king of straw
I’ve been critical of Chomsky’s political work for some time; his writing on the Balkans, in particular, strikes me as not only obstinately self-deluded but actively poisonous. Francis Wheen, Oliver Kamm and David Aaronovitch (a fairly unlovely troika, I admit) have now published a devastating case against Chomsky, focusing [...]
Political radicals and activists are often stereotyped as people who’ve got something wrong with their lives – it’s just displacement, his Mummy wouldn’t buy him a pony… This is mostly wrong, of course, but I think it’s also partly right – and for the same reason that it’s mostly wrong. After all, everybody – with [...]
So the psychologist stops the Rorschach test halfway through – there’s no point continuing this, he says, you’re clearly obsessed with sex. The patient’s outraged. I’m obsessed? You’re the one who keeps showing me the dirty pictures!
While this is primarily a political blog – it has been up to now, anyway – there’s a lot [...]
“Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear” – Harry’s Place, strapline
“Why don’t you all just fuck off to your own websites. I’m sick of reading your crap on my site now.” – Harry
“In an era when extremists shout loudly, it is time for men and [...]
