Posts by Rob Hosking
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It's also why the only history books anyone actually reads are usually written by journalists. :)
Thank you Thank you Thank you for the most uplifting comment I've seen all week.
(OK, I'm a journalist in the middle of trying to write a history book and wondering whether its worth it).
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He would start running upside down under your bed clinging to the mattress from the underside, running in crazy circles. When you'd reach under the bed to pull him out, he'd rip your hand to shreds. Ah, cat humour.
Ah, yes. We had a family cat like that.
He was actually quite smart. When he first arrived as a kitten, Dad muttered something disparaging, but Cat quickly worked out Dad was the real soft touch in the family. Used to sit on his chair at the dining room table. Dad would come in from the farm, pull the chair out, cat would look up angelically and purr. Dad would make shooing noises, Cat would meouw. Dad would then go and get the spare chair from the lounge.
After a bit Mum noticed the catfood going down very fast. Quizzed my siblings (I'd already left home) they denied doing this. Dad had to admit he gave Cat a feed when he got up at 5am to milk the cows: Cat then got his official breakfast at 7am when Mum got up.
Came the end of the milking season: Dad got the luxury of lying in until around 6am. First day of this, Cat howls outside bedroom door, but no response.
So he goes next door into the den and stomps up and down the piano keyboard until someone gets up to fed him.
Which is how he got named Mozart.
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If writing "Derrida, etc." isn't a sign of antipathy, I don't know what is, and you're more than entitled to it, but I think it speaks to Phelan's argument some.
I don't see how you can claim that, given Phelan himself uses the phrase "the insights of critically engaged thinkers like Marx, Foucault, Bourdieu, Laclau, Fairclough, etc …”
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To be fair, Giovanni, there are some writers who have discussions informed by theory without the theory being so in your face. Pomo is a bit self-consciously confronting like that - and excessively turgid at times, which I wonder isn't partly a cross-cultural phenomenon in itself.
One of my tutors in political philosophy used to despair that the best writers, as writers, on the course were the classical conservatives - Burke and Oakeshott (her own thesis was on something to do with feminism).
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Phelan sneers at practitioners, but no activity would exist without its practitioners. Academic theory is only an interpretation of practice. What Phelan appears to want is influence over practice, a desire which is beyond the normal bounds of academic work.
It does strike me that many PoMo theorists talk about power and privilege in derogatory terms while demanding power and privilege for themselves. They will not even let authors speak for themselves; only the opinions of the theorists matter.
Thank you for summing up in two neat paragraphs
The other thing which occurred to me - and which Russell's anecdote provides a very good example of - is the sheer distance between those who theorise on journalism and those who practice it.
I can't think of a single discipline where the gap is so great. And yes, I think the onus is on the theoreticians to move towards the practitioners, instead of squirting out a lot of defensive ink about a group of long-gone French and German philosophers.
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Anyone else seen that live concert footage where halfway through, they do "Eagle Rock" with Captain Feathersword flying around the stage? Classic, absolutely classic.
I have indeed. It's on 'The Wiggly Big Show', a concept album, where they took the band in a new and exciting direction.
Although aspects of the cover art led to a 'Anthony is Dead' rumour spreading amongst fans.
More seriously, the original 'Eagle Rock' came on the TV music channel a few months back: my daughter heard it from her room and hurtled into the lounge crying 'Captain Feathersword!' when she heard the opening chords. She was most disappointed when Daddy Cool's lead singer cried 'Now listen!'
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Spot the parent that knows more about the Wiggles than his own actual favourite bands.
I know the syndrome well.
Did you know if you play 'Big Red Car' backwards you can hear them telling the kids to eat their brocolli?
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Someone (don't remember who) once quipped that Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles.
I think that was Lennon.
I love a lot of Ringo's drumming on Abbey Road. Esp. 'Come Together' - McCartney's bass work on that track too.
Was in a pub a while back and 'Ticket to Ride' came on over the jukebox and the drumming on that track knocked me sideways too.
And I've always liked this solo track:
Oh, and the 'Oo... I gave them a miss. They were perhaps the first band I really got into as a teenager (almost wrapped the folks' car around a fencepost, one afternoon, because 'Who Are You' came on the car radio and it kind of summed up how I felt and I just planted the foot).
But I sort of feel they'd never live up to the albums, now. (I don't though feel the need to sneer at anyone who does go, esp. if they enjoy themselves. Each to their own. )
I'm kind of resigned to the fact the only concert I'll be going to this year will be The Wiggles . Which is not as tragic as it sounds: my daughter will love it, and I'll get a real buzz out of seeing that.
I shall entertain myself, watching Captain Feathersword and Dorothy the Dinosaur. I have long held a suspicion they are more than friends, and will be looking for any signs of this.
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I was just reading up on that looking for an alternative take on the IMF, so I have asked the Labour party to respond to this view.
Given they have criticised the government for having too timid a stimulus package, I shall be very interested to see what that is.
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Yep - they're the ones who think Frank Miller is a good writer, Rorschach is some kind of role model, and the Dark Knight was really about George Bush being right.
See, I haven't heard of any of these, (OK, except that George Bush bloke)
So let's borrow 40 billion! Cycleways for all, or should that be for all the children to pay back :(
We're borrowing $40 billion, cycleways or no. Had Labour been re-elected, they would have had to do much the same. The alternative being massive cuts in govt spending and/or reversing tax cuts/working for families.