Author Archives: Mike

About Mike

An otherwise-unflustered observer of life's rich pageant

Is This Really The End Of The World?

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So the coalition has released its agreed priorities with admirable promptness. Glad I didn’t bother with the manifestos; now I can read two at once.

Disclosure: I am a non-politico, but I have friends with strongly held views across the spectrum. And I also understand the difference between a stated intent and an executed policy, but I am essentially handing out the rope here for these good folks to use.

But essentially, I was kind of hoping we’d get the Tories doing the financial stuff and the LibDems doing the social stuff, because the Tories may have detoxed after the bitter insult of Section 28, but I am not going to blindly start trusting them without some evidence of goodwill. The work is for them to do, not me.

Overall verdict: a lot of fine words, a lot of stuff I want to think about more, but this may not be the end of all things as we know them.
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Annals of Patronising Everything

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We all know know that everything is labelled in line with the principle that, whatever it is, it is fatally dangerous when misapplied; and must therefore be warned of to within an inch of its (and my) life, lest I accidentally snort a litre of toilet cleaner or try to put out a housefire with a teabag. I have just accumulated the latest gem, found on an air-freshener I bought to remove the scent of damp plaster from the flat: “Air fresheners do not replace good hygiene practices”. This means, presumably, that I will have to go and fish my toothbrush out of the bin….

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Tattoos, me?

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OK, so I don’t do the whole body-adornment thing, mainly because in respect of me, it fires up the sense of the ridiculous well before my sense of the aesthetic.

On the other hand I could be persuaded to do certain things to myself, including this absolutely stunning Dr. Teeth tattoo…

via boingboing.net

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Films

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So, having never really been one for film, I’m now starting to go all filmnuts. Specifically, I’ve realised I want to see this, this, this, this, this and this; and that tomorrow, all things being equal, I’m going to see this;
and I guess also that I’m slightly dreading this. Oh, and over the last two weeks I’ve been to see this and I’ve also watched this. All of which makes me virtually contemporary and possibly even vaguely up-to-date, which can’t be right. Hmmm.
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Tercet of the day

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Always nice to have a tercet to waft one off. Today’s is owed to the great Denise Riley, from “Wherever you are, be somewhere else” in her 1993 collection Mop Mop Georgette:

Stop now. Hold it there. Balance. Be beautiful. Try.
—And I can’t do this. I can’t talk like any of this.
You hear me not do it.

An occasional feature brought to you by this rattling round inside my head during a bout of insomnia.

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Updates to darklooks

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In response to quite literally millions of requests*, two small changes to darklooks. First off, all the photography is now my own, including the Holkham skyline, some books from the library, a sunset in Richmond and some mountains in New Hampshire; and, second, users need no longer log in to comment on posts. Of course if you’d like to you’re extremely welcome, but I’m aware registering is a barrier to entry, and nothing seems to stop the Russian spambots anyway.

That is all. I thank you.

* i.e. zero to one

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