Category Archive

Just discovered this.  A movie blog from the godlike one - the man who makes radio’s only genuinely unmissable show.

With the Tyneside Cinema opening again on Thursday it’s gearing up to be quite the movie week.

Because it appears that those Tory Bloggers are not nearly as big as they may have you believe.

Clearest round up here.

Link to the above “willy waving” came from Bob Piper.

Fight, fight, fight here.  Quite fun - especially Iain Dale losing it.

Meanwhile I get the impression that scrapper and scuffle instigator Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads is rather enjoying this.

In a nutshell from Westmonster (posted at the first link above):

Now, we’ve been in many meetings over the years with clever people in suits whose eyes glaze over at statistical definitions, but suffice to say: Dale is completely wrong.

My stats?  Very small indeed.  My willy will not be waving any time soon.

Good to see Rachie, at the excellent Living for Disco, is back to blogging regularly as she prepares for her upcoming wedding.

It’s particularly interesting to see how another ex-VSOer is settling back into “normality”.

In particular check out this post and its comments.

And it’s all as beautifully written as ever.

Can anyone make sense of this metaphor from the Richard Williams on Guardian sports pages:

There have been times, I must admit, when dipping into the offerings of the blogging community reminded me of the time my parents went off on holiday leaving food in the fridge and the instruction to do something about a dead rabbit left lying in the woodshed. Preoccupied with pursuits of a teenage nature, I forgot about the rabbit until the day before they returned. On picking up the creature, it became obvious that half of its corpse had been eaten away by thousands of wriggling white maggots.

I can’t work out whether he’s being rude to bloggers or not.

Update:  This from Football365:

The Guardian’s Richard Williams can afford to be sniffy about the geeks and parasites that lurk around the internet.

And sniff he does in his column in this morning’s edition:

‘There have been times, I must admit, when dipping into the offerings of the blogging community reminded me of the time my parents went off on holiday leaving food in the fridge and the instruction to do something about a dead rabbit left lying in the woodshed.’

Someone at The Guardian should probably tell Richard that his scribblings don’t only appear in the refined pages of the newspaper.

Where else? Why the Guardian Unlimited Sport Blog, that’s where.

It’s rabbit for tea tonight in the Williams household.

An emotional post over at Cikgu Tans, describe Kenny’s run up to Chinese New Year, here in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Kenny is a Chinese Malaysian PHD student studying in Newcastle with his young family.  His writing, in English is first rate and it’s fascinating to read of my home city from a foreign perspective.

Anyway, as Chinese New Year approaches he is understandably feeling home sick.

He writes:

Chinese New Year 2008 for my family in Newcastle (NCL) will be a quiet one and perhaps the coldest one. This will be my first time in my life not to celebrate CNY in Kuching with my parents and this will also be the first CNY for little Aidan. I wish I can be back at home to celebrate CNY together in Kuching so that I can bring my little Aidan to collect some AngPows and to show him to my relatives.

He adds:

I MISS HOME, I MISS MY PARENTS, GRANDPARENTS, IN-LAWS, SIBLINGS, NIECES, NEPHEWS and OTHER RELATIVES, CLOSE FRIENDS etc.
I also miss my dog (Lucky), my terrapin (Ah Hock), my ….what else did I leave behind anyway…well. I guess I only have 2 pets.  I MISS LAKSA, KOLO MEE and KUEH CHAP.

ARRRAAHHHH. It’s turning me mad. I can just smell the aroma… I want laksa, I want laksa, I want laksa…..If only someone is selling the Sarawak Laksa paste in Newcastle…

Later in the comments section Vrouw says:

Yeah Tan, I am also very homesick. Kuching is the best but then again a lot of people want to get out of the place to overseas and us being overseas want the opposite. Yeah, I still have two laksa paste with me, you didnt bring some over meh???

So, the long and short of it Kenny and his lovely family don’t have Sarawak Laksa paste for Chinese New Year - it seems that being away from his family and home is the big problem but a little SLP might just soften the blow.

Any ideas from anywhere?  Can it be bought in Newcastle?  Any local restaurants selling it?  Is anyone living somewhere where it can be bought and can send it over?

All ideas welcome.  The big day is Thursday, with CNY celebrations on Sunday in Newcastle.  If we can find the paste then the sooner the better - even if it just means that Kenny and family have the paste to enjoy in the Year of the Rat.

Okay some pinging of Asian/Food Bloggers - please help if you can or spread the word.

Eating Asia, Masak Masak, Noodles and Rice, Chubby Hubby, Yummy Corner, Weird Meat, Noodlepie, Vkeong, A Whiff of Lemongrass, My Local Cuisine, Malaysia Best, Backstreet Gluttons, Eatinout, Malaysian Food Review, Kampungboy City Gal, My Sarawak, Kuchingfest, Sarawak Dot Com, Boy from Limbang, The Real Leng Luis, Mum Mum.

If you want the full spiel then check Bloggerheads here.

But in short, turdish right-wing blogger Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes is behaving like you’d fear horrible right wing people might, by metaphorically waving his shot gun around and shouting “Get orf my laand”.

Or to put it another way: he’s gone crying to his lawyer over a squabble with Bloggerheads man Tim Ireland.

Staines, for the uninitiated is not a good guy.  His many Toryboy misdemeanours include this where he recounts his Tory youth (gosh what fun).

“I was lobbying at the Council of Europe and at Parliament; I was over in Washington, in Jo’burg, in South America. It was ‘let’s get guns for the Contras’, that sort of stuff. I was enjoying it immensely, I got to go with these guys and fire off AK-47s. I always like to go where the action is, and for that period in the Reagan/Thatcher days, it was great fun, it was all expenses paid and I got to see the world. “

Well, albeit briefly, I used to live in Nicaragua, where the Contras once raped and pillaged. They undermined what was firstly a genuine people’s revolution which later became a real democratically elected government, all at the behest of Reagan and the USA.

I visited the places, where those guns that Staines had so much fun sourcing, were used.

But for the Nicaragua link I might have steered clear of this particular spitting of dummy incident but…

Bloggerheads - you have my support.

Haven’t once been a Geordie in Asia I’ve had a brief but enjoyable flick through the blog of an Asian in Geordieland. I like it.

Welcome to Newcastle, Kenny.  Good luck.  I shall be reading and if you’re missing Asia, well, you’re not the only one.  Me too, but I hope you enjoy the Toon too.

A truly fabulous post (here) by Kate Belgrave at Liberal Conspiracy.

It includes such marvellously spiky rantings as this:

Why do followers of God still get airtime in politics and press? In all other (normal) forums like parties and pub nights, they’re laughed out of the room and never invited back. The person who brought them is usually expelled forever as well. If you see a Christian preaching on the street, you cough the word ‘loser’ and cross the road. But there they are in Brown’s cabinet. Go figure.

It may make you grimace but Kate has a point.

I also liked this from Anton Vowl in a very lengthy comments section:

I agree entirely about religious figures being granted undue significance. Why, simply because someone believes in Jesus (or Allah, or the flying spaghetti monster) should that person’s views be considered more weighty than any other non-expert source?

Couldn’t one argue that their weird belief in some mystic deity, contrary to all scientific evidence, is a reason to take them +less+ seriously than a non-believer? It’s anachronistic nonsense that the modern media can’t shake off even in an increasingly secular society where church attendances are falling off a cliff almost as fast as newspaper readerships.

As the comments here show, even otherwise intelligent people blithely assume ‘facts’ about Jesus Christ’s life and existence (look at the annual outcry about children not being taught the Nativity story)

It’s not ‘intolerant’ to point this out, and I’d say it’s fair enough to be mocking about people who frequently think you’re going to hell and suffer for all eternity just for not believing what they do.

Of course everyone has the right to believe and worship. But that doesn’t make them more important, more spiritual, more intelligent or more worthy to give an opinion on subjects like abortion than anyone else.

It’s worth noting that amongst all these comments, on a political, rather than religious blog, there are only a couple of dissenting voice despite the tone of the language.  Like the Americans coming out of their post 9/11 closetsand admitting, now that there is a fashionable option, that they never really liked Bush - people are realising it is okay not just to be un-religious but also to speak out against religion.

In addition, perhaps, while people should be respected (unless they prove unworthy of it), religion is now no longer being afforded respect by default.  I believe it is okay to question - and it is okay to ridicule the ridiculous.

Update: Paul Linford reacts (from a more Christian point of view).

Pic and words from South of West.

“Kids in Kibera have a new game. They have fashioned their own cameras out of mud, baked hard in the sun, and run around “filming” the mob of journalists that gathers on a hill overlooking their slum each day.”

I’ve been tracking through the blog that that above is taken from.  Right now it’s only fuelling the wanderlust.  Africa has always scared me but I’m getting braver.  Who knows?

Hat tip to Noodlepie for the link (plus other interesting ones too)

Following Noodlepie’s unearthing of the worst restaurant review ever (via Pittstop Works), today I read what surely the most awful,  most laboured, match report I have ever seen.

The match was good though.  Big smiles today.