From our UK edition
Matt Yglesias correctly suggests that these photos are the Obamas attempt to reduce the “National Cuteness Deficit.” But there’s something else too: besides being charming, it’s striking how these photographs of Malia and Sasha preparing for their first day at a new school are both so very ordinary and yet also a reminder of howit
From our UK edition
There were all manner of reasons for Barack Obama to pick someone other than Jim Webb as his running-mate (though there was a case to be made for Webb too). But, via Ross Douthat, here’s a reminder of why Webb is, as he might put it himself, a serious politician: This spring, Webb (D-Va.) plans
From our UK edition
Some New Year cheer, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph’s obituaries column. The deceased, in this instance, is Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck, one of Britain’s largest landowners who, had she not been born on the distaff side, would have been the Duke of Portland. Anyway… Her grandfather, the 6th Duke, a younger half-brother of the Countess of
From our UK edition
You probably heard about the new school in Sheffield that won’t call itself a school because that word has “negative connotations”. Watercliffe Meadow will instead call itself a “place of learning”. Seriously. It’s all very Decline and Fall : “We class schools, you see, into four five grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School, School
From our UK edition
We were here for the primary debates last year. We covered Obama vs Clinton. We live-blogged the Presidential debates and we dared not miss Biden vs Palin. But all of that was but a warm-up for the main event tonight. Yup, taking live-blog absurdity to new heights, we’ll be live-blogging the final of the World
From our UK edition
In general, I suppose I don’t have too much against the idea of a cricket Hall of Fame though given that we’ve managed to get along fine without one for centuries there doesn’t seem any pressing need for one. But if you are going to have such a Hall, then for god’s sake include the
From our UK edition
For once. Also, for once, good news for a newspaper. Colin Freeman, the Sunday Telegraph’s chief foreign correspondent has been freed 40 days after he and his photographer, Jose Cendon, were kidnapped by Somali pirates. BBC report here; brief piece by Colin here. *Granted, if you’re actually Somali the news is, generally speaking, probably as
From our UK edition
Back then and not before time. Or, rather, back rather sooner from a holiday hiatus than was the case last year. Anyway, I hope you all had a splendid Christmas and New Year. Matters were quietly entertaining here. Christmas in the Borders and then Hogmanay at my sister’s place in Perthshire. All very agreeable, capped
From our UK edition
There are times when it’s good to be away from the hurly-burly of American politics. Doubly so when the subject of gay marriage comes up. Here, for instance, is a story it is hard to imagine happening in the United States: Nick Herbert, the Conservative party’s Shadow Justice secretary has apparently become the second member
From our UK edition
If my RSS feed is anything to go by, American bloggers are much keener about blogging between Christmas and Hogmanay than are their British counterparts. Good for them, I dare say. I’ll be back after the New Year holidays. That is, next Monday or something.
From our UK edition
So, here it is again. Well, here’s wishing all friends and readers out there a most jolly Christmas. May it be all you dare hope it could be. Blogging to resume here in three or four days time. Meanwhile, here’s a seasonal scene featuring a rather forlorn-looking Clumber spaniel:
From our UK edition
John Judis: I think it would have made most sense for Barack Obama to have appointed Caroline Kennedy a delegate to the United Nations in the manner of Shirley Temple Black or William F. Buckley. But I am not going berserk as my colleagues seem to be over the prospect that she will be appointed
From our UK edition
Mike Crowley asks whether Barack Obama will offer any “substantial” change to America’s drug policy. There’s an easy, short answer to that: No. At least, during the campaign Obama offered little reason to hope that he’d adopt a saner drugs policy. Now, true, that was just the campaign, but his website suggested that there’d be
From our UK edition
Why has the United States never produced a great darts player?
From our UK edition
Andrew suggests that Caroline Kennedy is, in most important respects, less qualified to be Senator from New York than Sarah Palin was to be Vice-President of the United States. There’s something in that, for sure, and Caroline’s sense of entitlement is nauseating. Still, Andrew writes: The model now, of course, is similar – finding a
From our UK edition
As a member of the English cricket team’s supporters club (vital for snaring Ashes tickets next summer) I was pleased to receive this email from the ECB today: ‘Tests are best’ say fans – We received a fantastic nearly 3,000 responses to the recent online TwelfthMan survey where, amongst many other things, you indicated that
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Conor Cruise O’Brien’s death, at 91, comes as a jolt. By the end, the Cruiser was something of a reactionary (his hostility to nationalism had led him to embrace Bob Macartney’s UK Unionist Party) but that shouldn’t detract from his achievements as a historian (especially his books on Parnell and Burke), journalist and public intellectual.
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Well, you wouldn’t expect Christopher Hitchens to be impressed by Barack Obamas decision to ask Rick Warren to give the invocation at the new President’s inauguration, would you? Sure enough, he’s not pleased: A president may by all means use his office to gain re-election, to shore up his existing base, or to attract a
From our UK edition
A reader notices an absence of blogging on the subject and asks: “What’s happening in Scotland?” Answer: Bugger all.
From our UK edition
As mentioned in this post on the best newspaper corrections of the year, the Guardian acknowledged that Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude not, as the paper suggested, One Hundred Years of Solicitude. A shame, really, since this latter would seem a more entertaining, lively read. In that spirit, readers are invited