normblog

Dead rich

Here's a list of the top-earning dead celebrities:

1. Elvis Presley
2. Charles Schulz
3. J.R.R. Tolkien
4. John Lennon
5. Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel
6. Marilyn Monroe
7. George Harrison
8. Irving Berlin
9. Bob Marley
10. Richard Rogers

Political theorists don't figure. Gee!

The Momma 'n' Daddy Collection 14

Sticking where we were last time, with the older folk, here's another song from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: 'Old Upright Piano':

For as long as I remember, when friday night came round
The family would gather out at grandpa's house.
With supper over and the dishes done
It was then the best time came
At an old upright piano that only grandma played.

Chorus
She played beautiful dreamer, my wild irish rose;
She never played 'em perfect, and there was love in every note.
Grandpa sat beside her, in harmony they sang,
At the old upright piano that only grandma played.

Another verse and another chorus - and then this:

I was almost 17 when my grandma died;
I stayed all night with grandpa; the old man never cried.
He sat at her piano, there was nothing we could say
It was the first time in my life I ever heard my grandpa play.

It wasn't beautiful dreamer or my wild irish rose
It was a song he played from memory and he never missed a note
I sat right there beside him until the morning came
What a friend we have in jesus was the only song he played.

Chorus

The clocks, the clocks

With the clocks in Britain going back an hour during the course of tonight, think positive. I always do. It means you've got a longer weekend. You can either grab an extra hour's sleep, or - my own choice - get up just as though nothing had changed, and then craftily pick your moment some time during Sunday to snatch back the hour. It makes the day so long.

Then again, if the encroaching darkness bothers you, listen to the people of Iceland:

"We love winter," said Thorarian Sveinsson, a doctor cocooned in a scarf and puffy coat to repel the freezing drizzle that falls on the streets of Reykjavik. "We have 24 hours of light in the summer and that is enough." Icelanders meet the black eye of winter with a steely gaze and a touch of bravado. "Those who cannot live with it," said Dr Sveinsson, with the chuckle of a James Bond villain, "They will die."

... Many rediscover the joys of playing together, and staying together, as a family. Board games are popular, if Icelanders are not obsessing over the movies.

"On the west coast almost everyone is an expert in something, whether it is stamp collecting or classic cars," said Valur Gunnarsson, editor of the Reykjavik Grapevine. "We have to have something to do in the winter. Most Icelanders are movie buffs. There are always arguments about whether Anthony Hopkins deserved his Oscar for Silence of the Lambs because he spent so little time on screen."

Jigsaw puzzles are also big in Iceland. Some run into thousands of pieces.

Obviously, you don't have to listen to everything they say.

Speedy Adam Gilchrist

Adam Gilchrist has secured a slice of history by distinguishing himself as Test cricket's fastest run-scorer.

Faster than the legendary Victor Trumper, faster than West Indian master blaster Viv Richards, and faster than his bludgeoning teammate Matthew Hayden, Australia's extraordinary wicketkeeper-batsman heads a top 100, to be published in the new edition of Wisden Australia, that includes 30 present players.

There's a picture of Adam Gilchrist here, celebrating Australia's victory over India in the third Test, by which they clinched the series. He looks... odd.

The power of the word

William Styron:

Not long ago I received in the mail a doctoral thesis entitled: Sophie's Choice: A Jungian Perspective, which I sat down to read. It was quite a long document. In the first paragraph it said, 'In this thesis my point of reference throughout will be the Alan J. Paluka movie of Sophie's Choice.' There was a footnote, which I swear to you said, 'Where the movie is obscure I will refer to William Styron's novel for clarification.' This idiocy laid a pall over my life for a dark brief time because it brought back all those bugaboos we have about the written word.

It won't be a tie

It isn't easy settling on a prediction for the outcome on November 2, but I haven't had an entry like this:

With four days to go to an election that every poll suggests is too close to call, American political scientists fear a new quirk that could threaten the country's embattled electoral system: a tie.

Naah... I'm bold enough to bet against it.

A grim record

Having been away yesterday I'm late on this, but just in case there are readers here who haven't already found their way to it via Harry or Oliver, I post the link to, and an excerpt from, Nick Cohen's latest piece in the New Statesman:

[T]he anti-war movement marked a new low, even by the standards of the SWP's grim record. The supposedly Marxist party allied itself with the Muslim Association of Britain, which supports sharia law, with all its difficulties with democracy, women and homosexuals. The unlovely couple then claimed to represent the millions who opposed the war, and those who marched under the slogan "Not in my name" did not go out of their way to contradict them.

Naturally, no criticisms of Saddam Hussein and no alliances with his victims could be permitted. George Galloway, who had saluted the tyrant's "courage, strength and indefatigability", became the movement's leader. Since then, we have had gay rights campaigners being surrounded by howling Trots and radical vicars when they tried to speak up for persecuted Palestinian homosexuals, and the former left-winger Ken Livingstone embracing a far-right Islamic cleric who has supported wife-beating, queer-bashing and the murder of Jewish civilians.

What has been disorientating from the start has been the ease with which the opponents of Saddam's 22 years in power have been forgotten. They were victims of a state that was authentically fascist, to use that abused word correctly for once. It was fascist not only because the founders of the Ba'ath Party were inspired by Nazi Germany, but because Iraq had the classic fascist programme of the worship of the great leader, the unprovoked wars of aggression, the genocidal campaigns against impure ethnic minorities, and the suppression of every autonomous element in society, including free trade unions.

Flat earth vote

Tim Hames in the Times:

Abba Eban, a former Israeli Foreign Minister, said of the UN General Assembly that: "If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the Earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164-13 with 26 abstentions." Matters have deteriorated since he made that observation. Were there to be a UN motion today that the Earth was flat because Ariel Sharon had sat on it, it would prevail with only Israel itself and the United States voting against...

(Hat tip: Sally P.)

My revolting past

You can read about it, if you've a mind to, as described by Huw Richards in today's Times Higher Educational Supplement. You'll need to sign up for a free trial subscription, but it only takes a minute. Is it worth the minute? Not necessarily.

He remembers Oxford in the early 1960s - pointing out "the 1960s didn't really begin until 1965" [-] with some affection. "I had a bloody good time."

Brain operation

Whatever next?

Surgeon performs brain operation on live television

I hope it was under anaesthetic.