Eton College has been hit by further controversy after it emerged that boys studying there were sharing details of our most important national institutions. A major inquiry suggests that cheating may be widespread at the ancient school, with students going to extreme lengths to achieve an unfair advantage in public examinations, their future careers, and…
Read More Eton pupils exposed “cheating at life in general”So which is it to be – a Nigel Farage-sized badger, or 10 badger-sized Farages? This is a really great question, far better than the classic horse-sized duck. The problem with the duck is that it won’t scale; anything broadly duck-like that got as big as a horse would be hopelessly immobile on its funny…
Read More badger-sized Farages considered dangerousIf Burchill had used similar venom against Jewish or black people, would there be any backlash against the article being withdrawn? — Owen Jonesđš (@OwenJones84) January 14, 2013 Well, I’d seen the twitterflap, so I read the bloody thing in the paper. The obvious point that came to mind was that if you tried to…
Read More stop repeating your insultsThinking about the political castration of Ken Clarke and the fact that not even the Treasury in its most R.G. Hawtrey-esque mood seems to be able to stop the expansion of the prison industry, it struck me that the political class’s attitude towards the public service known as justice is fundamentally different to its attitude…
Read More Why not foundation courts?China’s neo-con blogging fever-swamp, via (of course) Jamie K. For instance, Gao Yi, a well-known music critic, tweeted: “Compared with a war, US$7 billion is much more worthwhile. Right now, we lack the off-shore staging capacity for a mid-intensity war. A well-known music critic? Now that’s special. You don’t get detailed comment on the Royal…
Read More as for the Mahler, I think it could do with a helipadThis Melanie Phillips piece is remarkably insightful.
Read More various official agencies knew about the usual lobotomised pc crowdDaniel Davies is notorious for making more than full use of a joke once he gets hold of it. I think this is the original source (perhaps even the Urquell) of his line that Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb must be furious at what Hollywood did to his book in development. Well, I watched…
Read More three lessons on risks: a movieChurnalism is a brilliant idea – no surprise that it was originally one of Chris Lightfoot’s. Basically, it allows you to determine how much of a given newspaper article was copied from which press release. There’s a nice graphic visualisation, and a diff, so you can see precisely what was altered and what taken over…
Read More Fun with nonsense and hash functionsAlso a neat remix here, although my Internet link still tends to jam every time a comment comes up on soundcloud. Tangentially, I saw a poster for Jon Pleased Wimmin (of all possible DJs) the other day, which made me think “Bloody hell, I thought he was dead? Or at least rendered generally harmless?” So…
Read More not Thursday, so it must be a music link“Richard sent me photos of his private parts before I’d even met him,” says the redhead. “I thought this was very odd for a politician.”
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