Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Monday

Alex Massie

Cats lie down with dogs…

From our UK edition

And other oddities. for perhaps the first time ever, I find myself agreeing, in broad terms, with John Prescott. How did this happen and how, for the love of god, did Prezza end up besting my old pal Fraser Nelson? Ah, yes, immigration... As Fraser put it himself: I’ve just done a BBC1 Politics Show where they introduced me as being from both The Spectator and The News of the World. As a result of this I was savaged by the Labour-supporting audience. Perhaps vengeance for my being rude to John Prescott in the middle bit, which was off-air . I have to say Prescott came out of the exchange better than I did. We had a set-to about debt figures, jobs and immigration. “How many of those 3m new jobs you were talking about are immigrants?” I asked.

Alex Massie

Politics Explained

From our UK edition

Nurse Bloomberg reveals all: "Nobody knows exactly what they should do, but anything is better than nothing," New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Bloomberg assuredly knows much more about high finance than I do. Nonetheless, one should treat ideas and policies that have bipartisan backing with an extra level of scepticism. They are especially likely, after all, to function as a conspiracy against the public interest even as they claim, of course, to be furthering it. Equally, the notion that just because something must be done and this is something so let's do this does not seem an entirely persuasive response to the current financial troubles...

Alex Massie

Outrage of the Week

From our UK edition

Kudos to Outskirts Bar and Grill in Canton, Illinois for making possible the best headline of this troubled week: Liquor license suspended after topless 'midget wrestling'.

Sunday

Alex Massie

Rural life

From our UK edition

No blogging for the rest of the day, I suspect. Why? Because I* just unloaded and stacked 200 bales of hay. Best cold beer of the summer being enjoyed right now. *OK, other people helped.

Friday

Alex Massie

Global Crisis Deepens

From our UK edition

Uganda's ethics and integrity minister recognises that these are perilous times. Women wearing mini-skirts, he says, are a danger to public safety, responsible for all manner of traffic accidents. What's wrong with a miniskirt? You can cause an accident because some of our people are weak mentally." He continued arguing that, "if you find a naked person you begin to concentrate on the make-up of that person and yet you are driving." According to Foreign Policy: The BBC notes that [Mr] Buturo is seeking to rid Uganda of its many vices, and inappropriate dress is just one of the many indecent items that appear on the minister's list. Among others are theft and embezzlement of public funds, sub-standard service delivery, greed, infidelity, prostitution, and homosexuality.

Alex Massie

Lance Armstrong: A Sceptic Writes…

From our UK edition

More Culture11: I've a piece arguing that no-one should be terribly happy about Lance Armstrong's decision to come out of retirement next season. Snippet: Unlike fans in other sports, such as baseball or track and field, many cycling fans simply don't see doping as a criminal or ethical offense. In its way, then, cycling is the purest distillation of the logic behind elite sport: Super-human performance demands supra-human resources. It is the cost of doing business. We might more profitably ask why our attitudes to drug-use have changed. Everyone has known for decades that the peloton has been a pharmacy on wheels. Until recently, this bothered few people.

Thursday

Alex Massie

The Audacity of Hirst

From our UK edition

Clive Crook is on good form today: I am a huge admirer of Damien Hirst. Not of the art, which is rubbish, but of the sheer productivity and exuberance he brings to his life's work of fleecing rich idiots. "Oh Damien, you're a genius. Screw me over again." "Why not," he says, munching a bacon butty. Quite so. And why not indeed?

Alex Massie

Sports for people who don’t like sport

From our UK edition

At Culture11, Michael Brendan Dougherty has a fine piece on how the people who run sports are more interested in catering to people who don't like sport than for those who, like, actually do. He's writing about the modern baseball experience but everything he says also, of course, applies to cricket. Especially Twenty20 cricket: Like so many modern stadiums, the Nationals Ballpark experience doesn't trust the show it is ostensibly putting on: a baseball game. It partakes in the sensibility the brain-zapped sensibility that's come to dominate live sports. That's perfect for the jerks who don't care for the sport. For the rest of us, though, it's disheartening. The operating philosophy is that no one could possibly enjoy our national pastime without slathering it in techno-pizazz.

Alex Massie

Taxpayers’ Fantasy Football

From our UK edition

Small guest-posting at The Plank on taxpayers' football. We have Newcastle United and Northern Rock, the Americans get AIG and Manchester United. Sums up the "Special Relationship", you might say... [Link corrected.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Outsourcing Blogging.

From our UK edition

Christ. The US government seems to have, more or less, bought AIG. Like most bloggers/journalists I don't for a second pretend to understand these matters. But Megan McArdle doesn't merely pretend to know something about all this, she actually does. Accordingly, I recommend you read her blog for a smart, savvy, properly sceptical take on matters.

Alex Massie

Andrew Sullivan and Sarah Palin.

From our UK edition

Let me make something very clear: I like, admire and respect Andrew Sullivan and his writing. I can’t remember when I first started reading his blog, but I think it must have been in early 2001. Certainly before 9/11. Since then I suspect I must have read more words written by Andrew than by any other journalist or blogger. Before his blog moved to Time and, subsequently, The Atlantic, I regularly contributed to his bi-annual pledge drives. I’d recommend his book, The Conservative Soul to anyone interested in the subject. Heck, he’s often been kind enough to link to this blog  and, indeed, I once helped fill-in for him while he took a well-deserved break. In other words, I owe Andrew rather more than the nothing he owes me.

Alex Massie

Not in My Name

From our UK edition

Tom Harris, urbane and sensible blogger and, despite that, Labour MP for Glasgow South, writes: It’s called “Scotland’s shame” for a reason: sectarianism makes you feel embarrassed to be Scottish. I hate it when the subject is even raised when I’m with English friends because I imagine they must look at us as a backward nation. That is, after all, a logical conclusion: what kind of people still think it’s remotely acceptable even to care about what religion other people follow, never mind object to that religion? What kind of nation still tolerates this kind of mindset? This, of course, is the standard formula used by politicians and pundits. Sectarianism is a national badge of shame which must be worn by all right-thinking Scots.

Alex Massie

Political Advertising. Episode 1.

From our UK edition

British observers of American politics tend to love the Yanks' political advertising, even if many of those same observers might think it quite a good thing that we don't permit (alas!) such advertising in Britain. Anyway, with the election now just six weeks away, this seems like a good time for an occasional series spotlighting classic, or at least memorable TV ads from previous elections.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Hoots Mon, there’s a Moose Loose… No, not that Moose

From our UK edition

Today's episode of the Sarah Palin chronicles comes via Matt Yglesias who asks: I continue to be baffled as to how moose hunting, which surely almost nobody in the United States does given what a small portion of the country is within moose range, has been construed as an all-American hobby. I assume Matt is being arch here, since really this is not something that should baffle him or anyone else. Hint: the moose is not the heart of the matter. It's the hunting that counts and, of course, the unapologetic, natural way Palin talks about hunting and outdoor life. It's not a ploy or a fatuous attempt to curry political favour (cf. Mitt Romney's "varmint" hunting or John Kerry's trying-too-hard shooting trip days before the 2004 election), it's just something she does.

Alex Massie

Gauging the Palin Effect

From our UK edition

American readers may consider themselves fortunate that they have no idea who Tavish Scott is. English readers may do likewise. For that matter, so may many Scots. Nonetheless, Mr Scott, the new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats (titter ye not) did provide one public service at his party's UK conference last week. He demonstrated the extent to which the Sarah Palin phenomenon has rippled across the world. In a speech watched by dozens, he told party delegates that if Scottish politics were American politics: you would observe that the only difference between Alex Salmond* and Annabel Goldie** is lipstick What a wag. *SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland **Leader of the Scottish Conservative & Unionist party. The SNP relied upon Tory support to pass their budget.

Alex Massie

Life in a Green Suit

From our UK edition

Visiting friends or family with small children? Stuck for a present (toy drums and trumpets are not, I believe, generally considered thoughtful)? Well, my default gift is a collection of Jean de Brunhoff's wonderful Babar books. You cannot, in my view, and that of most tiny children, go wrong with Babar. So, amidst all the sturm und drang on Wall St and the hurly-burly of the American presidential campaign, it was a relief to be able to turn to Adam Gopnik's lovely essay on Babar in this week's edition of the New Yorker. It's a fine, perceptive piece, not just on Babar, but on French culture, colonialism, the bourgeoisie and the differences between British, American and French children's literature.