The Yorkshire Ranter

An official email reaches me, telling all staff that our company’s journalists must now pay the full delegate fee, plus 10% if they want lunch, when they attend conferences arranged by our conferences division. So – let’s get that straight. I pay £1,000 to the conferences division and charge it to expenses. Publishing is down…

..the things that set the parameters of our ideas. Those formative events and thoughts that go with us on whatever weird trajectory we take through life. Politics is always like that, which is one of the reasons I mourn Robin Cook. A short list of my own founding concerns would run something like this: The…

Just in case you’ve yet to become convinced I harbour a blood loathing of Hull…Annie Mole of the Tube blog reports that Hull City AFC fans were heard chanting “You’re just a town full of bombers” at Queen’s Park Rangers this weekend, bearing out everything I said about them.

Over at t’Sharpener, Justin has a long post about Basra, the growth of theocracy in Iraq, Steven Vincent’s criticism of the British occupation authority’s alleged indulgence of political Shi’ism, and a perceived lack of support from the pro-war side for secularism in Iraq. I was moved to drop off this comment, which ought to be…

Nobody will go. As the right honourable gentleman said last week, there will be no regrets and no resignations. Not only is this a Government that cannot accept blame, it is a Government with no shame. Robin Cook MP, House of Commons debate on the Scott Report on illegal arms exports to Iraq, 1996. He…

First: TYR is the second result on Google for “What was Ernest Hemingway doing when he was falsely reported dead? You can’t begin to imagine how proud I am. Secondly, it’s about time to recognise some blogs I’ve started reading. So: Actually Existing Phil, Irregular Anthony, Indigo Jo of Blogistan, John B of Shot By…

Replying to this post, “Kevin” writes: You’re right about Hull fans. The only time I’ve ever been scared at a rugby league match was watching Wigan at Hull in the 1980s when some of the home fans charged the away stand. But it was a midweek match on the other side of the country so…

IN the past I’ve suggested that one of the essential problems facing the US armed forces in Iraq, and more broadly all modern armies in a world of messy little wars, is best thought of in economic terms. In any firm, there is a theoretical optimum combination of capital and labour used to process one…

We haven’t had anywhere near as much sportblogging here as I thought..so it’s time to remedy that. Yesterday saw a first in league’s history, as a French team ran out in a Challenge Cup semi-final. Toulouse made it by beating Widnes soundly, in a match held on their home ground. However partisan you may be,…

No doubt everyone else noticed the report that the Govt. was again interfering with the exact details of the ban on tobacco advertising, exactly as a large donor to the Labour Party from the Formula One racing world would have wanted. I’m just trying to work out why Blair loves F1 so – clearly he…