personal history – Page 2 – The Yorkshire Ranter

June 1, 2008 by yorksranter 0 comments

People say to me just be yourself, it makes no sense to follow fashion. How could I be anybody else?

Ackerman reckons we should be impressed that he suggested a Turkish-Kurdish rapprochement two years ago. The evidence for the rapprochement is pretty good – there are meetings going on between the KRG and the Turks, under the chairmanship of (Kurdish) Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, about issues connected with all the business Turkish companies are doing…

May 14, 2008 by yorksranter 3 comments

Kly! Kly! Boing! Boing!

You thought Keighley were having a good year? We’re having a fucking good year. Yes. 1 Keighley 7 6 0 1 215 118 192 Doncaster 6 6 0 0 216 74 183 Gateshead 6 5 0 1 204 129 164 Barrow 5 5 0 0 199 50 155 Oldham 6 5 0 1 196 136…

May 4, 2008 by yorksranter 2 comments

Doomed To Technology

BoingBoing apparently thinks this little line-shaft workshop is bizarre and incredible. Maybe. But I had one of these as a kid in the 1980s; it went with a Mamod steam engine, and had various tiny machine tools – a press, a pillar drill, a buffing wheel, and eventually we rigged a little dynamo to have…

April 20, 2008 by yorksranter 4 comments

The Bombardment of Walthamstow Rages On

This NYT story is nonsense. Various rightwing barkies have taken the opportunity of the French armed forces’ deliciously 007-esque mission to rescue the sailing yacht Le Ponant to tout the following story around the media: the Royal Navy has been ordered not to detain pirates under any circumstances, for fear that they might something or…

April 4, 2008 by yorksranter 4 comments

Torture Lawyers

If you can read you should read this if you read nothing else this decade. It’s all about how the Americans started torturing people, whose idea it was, how men like John Yoo came to provide the legal justifications, who was keen (the ideological core of the administration), who didn’t want to know (the FBI…

March 19, 2008 by yorksranter 3 comments

Two cows

He imagined that satellite broadcasting might help a hundred Indian villages save two cows a year and understood what an impact that might have. Says a commenter at PZ Myers’ place, on the occasion of Arthur C. Clarke’s death. Two cows a year; now that’s genius. I can’t presume to say whether this came true;…

February 17, 2008 by yorksranter 5 comments

Very Short 90s

Yes, I miss Melody Maker too, for most of the same reasons. And The Face. Look, at least there are no rockets in this post. So you get a gratuitious Justin Robertson track.

January 20, 2008 by yorksranter 1 comment

Open up my eager eyes…I’m Mr Brightside

Ken Livingstone is surely unelectable now, sez one of the sinister faceless committee/gaggle of sockpuppets attached to Daniel Davies that is Aaronovitch Watch. Jesus, I hope not; the prospect of Boris Johnson being put in charge of London is too much to contemplate. Consider this; Ken brought a load of old hard-left mates with him…

June 15, 2007 by yorksranter 15 comments

Four More Years!

I nearly forgot. It’s four years and five days since the very first post on this weblog. And it’s Magna Carta day! To mark the blog’s anniversary, I’d like some of the lurkers to stick their heads out from their stones. Who are you all?

May 20, 2007 by yorksranter 1 comment

Dan predicts a riot

Responding to Dan Hardie’s latest BNP screed, I think there are several important points here. First of all, Dan Dsquared is half-right that BNP voters don’t matter. There are not enough of them ever to get elected to run anything, and their candidates usually manage to teach their own electors a lesson about voting for…