January 2010
7 posts
1 tag
Emma and Annotations
James Ward recently wrote a blog post about tracking down the owner of a secondhand book in his possession. Its excellent, and worth giving your full attention. But the reason I mention it is that he quotes from Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road - which is the book we bought my sister and her husband as a wedding present, and is the starting point of the following semi-literate wankery....
Englishness
The following is extracted from Chapter Seven of Jeremy Paxman’s (really rather splendid) book “The English”
In 1835, a young Englishman named Alexander Kinglake decided to mature himself between leaving Cambridge and taking up a law career by travelling across the Syrian desert on a camel. He was making for Cairo, accompanied by ‘a brace of pistols and a couple of arab...
La Traviata
This has floored me. As I said on Metafilter: The guy crying at 2:33? I know why he’s crying. Its because a part of him has been walking around for his whole life wishing that something as beautiful as this would happen.
Dear Damien of OK GO:
I choose to believe you.
OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.
Half penny (British decimal coin)
citationneeded:
It was nicknamed the “tiddler” on account of its size, and soon became Britain’s least loved coin.[2]The Treasury had continued to argue that the half penny was important in the fight against inflation (preventing prices from being rounded up),[2] but by the early 1980s it was practically worthless and its main utility was as a driver of small screws.[citation needed]
Link
...
Fuck yeah, sandwich that killed Elvis →
Our Graves In Gallipoli
Over on Metafilter, a few people are pointing out their favourite unregarded comments of the year - those comments that people found moved, entertained or touched them without attracting tons of attention.
Amongst all these, user patricio mentioned this comment by KMZ that quotes a piece by E.M Forster in full - mentioning that its hard to find online in its completeness. I liked it a lot, and so...