Posted in belief, cars, cliques, correspondence, cycles, enmity, friends, individual, intuition, lies, mind, morality, opinion, person, psychology, research, safety, society, transport, truth, understanding on August 11th, 2010 2 Comments »
To the editor of Cycle, the CTC magazine:
Sir,
It’s always a shame to see factions of CTC cyclists still arguing with each other over whether one “ought” to either wear, or be forced to wear, a helmet. The argument last in a recent couple of letters pages rears its head so often that the editor might [...]
Posted in body, cliques, commerce, consumers, enmity, food, france, intuition, location, opinion, person, rants, society, tourism, understanding on August 1st, 2010 No Comments »
In the most recent LRB, Stephen Shapin reviews Michael Steinberger’s book about the fall of French cuisine. While Steinberger’s frankly bizarre neoliberal, uncontrollable-market afterwords can probably be discarded, the basic premise—that French cuisine is ossified and tedious—is one with which I can definitely concur.
I’ve suggested before that vegetarian food is a national cuisine’s “canary in [...]
Posted in amerika, belief, christianity, cliques, enmity, establishment, friends, geography, here, location, love, metaphor, organisations, people, politics, pragmatism, race, responsibility, society, understanding on June 1st, 2010 1 Comment »
My country has no flag. Its has no national anthem, although some of its citizens are partial to folk music and Morris dancing. No seething, populous crowds cheer my country on, with loud or incoherent cries in the street. Its citizens do not rally round meaningless symbols and engineer fake outrage at nonexistent bans, nor [...]
Posted in belief, body, class_warfare, cliques, diary, election, enmity, entertainment, establishment, experience, fatigue, housing, lies, opinion, people, person, philosophy, politics, pragmatism, responsibility, society, understanding on May 10th, 2010 2 Comments »
The dust has yet to settle; yet any election blogpost is already out of date. Other more savvy political commentators than me (and probably ones with more time on their hands) like Obsolete and Anton Vowl have already digested much of the results and have largely pre-empted much of the points I might make.
When I [...]
Posted in charity, cliques, enmity, environment, friends, garden, here, lies, location, loyalty, near, society, understanding on April 30th, 2010 2 Comments »
Our garden share has fallen through, unfortunately. The circumstances are quite complicated to relate, but a précis would go something like this. Our sharer—the elderly woman with a garden—turned out to be simultaneously unwilling to keep in touch and also very demanding, a headily passive-aggressive mix. Last time we spoke a few weeks ago everyting [...]
Posted in cars, cliques, crime, cycle_accessories, cycles, enmity, opinion, people, rants, responsibility, safety, society, transport on April 10th, 2010 4 Comments »
I’ve mentioned before how much I love my yellow cycling jacket, but seasons change and eventually it becomes time to put away clothes better suited for the wet. The sun has started to show a more regular appearance, and I have a dowdier pacamac which I can stash in my panniers for the times when [...]
Posted in climate, cliques, consumption, crime, education, enmity, environment, location, people, politics, pragmatism, research, responsibility, society, truth, understanding on December 31st, 2009 2 Comments »
Christmastime and Christmastide wait for no man, and there’s been plenty to prevent me from following up on my doom-laden thoughts about COP15 and what might happen if it failed: which it did. Before 2009 draws entirely to a close it’s probably worth a few brief words on the subject.
It’s important to acknowledge from the [...]
Posted in blogs, cars, climate, cliques, coaches, commerce, consumption, cotswolds, councils, cycles, enmity, environment, establishment, journeys, location, media, mopeds, near, nu-media, ownership, oxford, pedestrian, petitions, politics, public, roads, society, transport on May 21st, 2009 5 Comments »
When I first heard someone complaining in the local press about it taking them forty minutes to get into Oxford from west Oxfordshire, my immediate reaction was: so what? That sounds about right, and if you have the misfortune to be trying to travel on a Sunday and catch a gap in the bus schedule [...]
Posted in art, charity, climate, cliques, dickheads, enmity, entertainment, environment, establishment, humour, location, media, opinion, patriarchy, race, radio, rants, society on November 25th, 2008 4 Comments »
Yesterday, Sir Henry Woburn managed a wonderful juxtaposition on his early-morning Tory Funtime Hour. Shortly before 8am, he made a risky-for-the-BBC if banal racist joke about the Japanese—yes, he used the word “rubbery” at around 21.5 minutes—and followed that after the news with a complaint about the government introducing a new top rate of income [...]
Posted in art, articles, cliques, commerce, enmity, establishment, experience, humour, journalism, media, opinion, overheard, patriarchy, radio, rants, society on October 30th, 2008 3 Comments »
I love my Dad. For some time I couldn’t cope with him, and it looked to all intents and purposes like I didn’t love him at all. But now I can deal with him, and we have a lot more fun together. He can be a dickhead sometimes—and a racist to boot—but I love him. [...]
