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They’re mad aren’t they?
I thought this was a spoof at first – but, incredibly, it isn’t. Can we just nuke Macdonald’s, please? Maybe the Earl of Sandwich can press the button…
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Little things I loathe No. 4: Bob Harris
Before I get to Bob, and I don’t actually loathe him per se, let me put my cards on the table. The Private Eye headline when John Peel died – “Man who played records on the wireless dies: a nation mourns” did strike a chord with me. I liked Peel, but couldn’t see why he…
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Shooting Fish in a Barrel
This is an easy target, I know, but I just can’t resist: Health and Safety. At my place of work, we recently had installed, at great expense, and over a long period of time, special fire safety doors to stop the spread of the fires which, of course, regularly break out… These doors are situated…
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Let’s grow up
Michael Bywater is always worth reading, and this piece is brilliant at exposing the way people are increasingly infantilised in today’s society.
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The last Mughal and a clash of civilisations
New Statesman – The last Mughal and a clash of civilisations This is fascinating, and demonstrates once more that we seem incapable of learning from history. By a melancholy coincidence, I was reading the excellent Philip Hensher novel The Mulberry Empire while the Afghan death toll was rising, and couldn’t help noticing the parallels there…
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Back home
My eagle-eyed reader will have noticed a change in the Topsyturvydom profile. We are now in Manchester, home city for both of us, and we feel we’ve come home.Doubtless blogging will be intermittent while we settle in.
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Welcome aboard
Fear of flying | Welcome aboard | Economist.com Recently back from Norway, which involved six flights, so this rang a bell…
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Dumb WAG
The Dumb Britain column in Private Eye is always good for a laugh – recent sample:Anne Robinson: Which is the only letter in the alphabet with three syllables? Contestant: Z. They haven’t picked up this great exchange, though, which I saw on the BBC sport page: Question on BBC1’s Test the Nation: “Who was Winston…
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Fame at last
I’m grateful to Pablo Fanque for pointing out that Topsyturvydom was recently featured in the “Blogwatch” section of the North – West Enquirer web site. By that strange internet process that James Joyce would doubtless call the commodius vicus of recirculation, the first name I saw there was that of someone I taught twenty eight…
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Arlo still has it…
To Manchester, to see Arlo Guthrie perform. Arlo is a girlhood hero of ‘er indoors, and a favourite of mine. He rarely makes it to these shores – the last time we saw him was 1988- so this was a must-see for us.He was great. Backed by son Abe and grandson (!) plus an excellent…