Well, one shattered illusion anyway. George Orwell is one of my heroes, but even his biggest fans have to admit that he could be a bit dour. So the jibe that “he could not blow his nose without moralizing on conditions in the handkerchief industry” has always made me laugh. Until today, I had always believed that it was made by Evelyn Waugh. But in his collection of essays, Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics
Category Archives: Asides
Updike at work
If, like me, you’re fascinated by the process of writing, and how writers work, then you will find this lovely interactive feature by the NYT fascinating. It takes a fragment of Rabbit at Rest and traces its evolution from handwritten ms to typed draft to typescript. Best thing I’ve seen today.
The bee’s-eye view
Abundance
Strange to think that this poppy seed-pod contains enough seeds to sow hundreds — if not thousands — more of the same. And that the necessary DNA is encoded in each.
Flickr version here.
The wisdom of ages
Today’s Observer has my “Everything you need to know…” piece which encapsulates some of the stuff in the book I’ve been working on. I particularly like one of the comments:
This article reads as if it is written by an 80 year old for other 80 year olds. Something to talk about at bingo.
LATER: Generous comment from Cory Doctorow in BoingBoing:
John Naughton’s feature in today’s Observer, “The internet: Everything you ever need to know,” is a fantastic read and a marvel of economy, managing to pack nine very big ideas into 15 minutes’ reading. This is the kind of primer you want to slide under your boss’s door.
Go, England, Go!
Spotted in the entrance hall of Cambridge University Library. Who says eggheads aren’t interested in football!
Oops
From a blog post by Dan Ariely entitled “7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People”.
Tony Blair, technophile (for a fee)
This morning’s Observer column.
“Blair to join venture firm as adviser on technology” said the headline in the New York Times. Eh? The first thing that came to mind is the celebrated story of the emperor Caligula and his attempts to have his horse, Incitatus, appointed as a consul. Anyone familiar with our former prime minister’s encounters with technology one thinks, for example, of the time he tried to order flowers for Cherie over the web will have been puzzled by this development. Tony has many talents, but the one thing he doesn't do is technology.
So who’s playing Caligula in this particular farce? Answer: Vinod Khosla, an Indian-American venture capitalist with impeccable academic and technology credentials, who now runs a $1bn fund that invests in ‘green’ technology aka cleantech and IT…
Going the distance
Spotted today at a (BP) filling station!
So who’s really behind the anti-BP hysteria in the US?
The answer, as hinted in this NYTimes piece, is Exxon, which sees a once-in-a-lifetime chance to exterminate a commercial rival.
The idea that BP might one day file for bankruptcy, particularly as part of a merger that would enable it to cordon off its liabilities from the spill, is starting to percolate on Wall Street. Bankers and lawyers are already sizing up potential deals (and counting their potential fees).
Given the plunge in BP’s share price — the company has lost more than a third of its value since Deepwater Horizon blew — some bankers and analysts say BP is starting to look like takeover bait. The question is, who would buy BP, given its enormous potential liabilities?
Shell and Exxon Mobil are both said to be licking their chops. And already, flinty legal minds are dreaming up scenarios in which BP would file a prepackaged bankruptcy and separate the costs of the cleanup — and potentially billions of dollars in legal claims — into a separate corporate entity.