I had a good day in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago. Some pleasant beers, excellent company and an interesting new city for me to explore. Oddly I probably had the classiest drink I have had this year in the Vodka bar there, which reminded me I should […]

Last Life In The Universe is a Thai film by a director (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang – of Mon-Rak Transistor fame) who is well aware his audience is predominantly in the West. Why else would this slight love story between a morbid Japanese youth and a me[…]

Boy in the corner
Private Eye seem to have taken sides in the on-going “was Hawking wrong?” debate.[…]

Darts for the Big Guys
I mean, of course, the Shot-Put. The highlights made this event look exciting. No doubt in real time it lasted hours, but the BBC shoe-horned it into ten minutes.
It had everything that defines the modern Olympics; Grunting, a […]

Bad Science at the Guardian has a crusade against You Are What You Eat’s Dr Gillian McKeith (PhD – ahem), who they point out does not really seem to have a proper PhD at all. Last week they spent much of their time moaning about this lack[…]

My Favourite Olympical Things (So Far)
Pete I rise to your challenge!
– Tiny weightlifters. Big weightlifters are better represented by Worlds Strongest Wo/Man but the tiny ones are ace, how can they lift so much! The Thai lady who won her cate[…]

Maps the way I like it
Every morning I wake up at 8am. I listen to the Today programme for 10 minutes. I so my ablutions and get ready for the day, which takes about 30 minutes. But every day, I still leave the house at 9am. The cause of the 20 minut[…]

(I love the way this seems to be the only regular Olympic coverage on TMFD)
Archery: Okay, there is a subtle cheat to the Olympic Avoidance Log which, if I am to break my personal best time of one hour needs to be okay by the TMFD Olympic Committee b[…]

LE TIGRE
“New Kicks”
I admit, I’ve never really been much of a Kathleen Hanna fan outside of one or two bits and pieces. I’m all for righteous energy and hatred of fools, but that just won’t translate into good music al[…]

1991, refracted — the next in the series of Russian history books I’m reading is David Pryce-Jones’s The War That Never Was, covering the last years of the Soviet Union. The author’s a combative and discursive sort, not quite[…]