On the occasion of the launch of Google Maps Street View, the latest step in that firm’s endeavours to pixallate the known world, this blog offers a one-paragraph story by Jorge Luis Borges (with Adolfo Bioy Casares), “Of Exactitude in Science.” In a feint characteristic of Borges, this jewel of an idea is smuggled into […]
Headline in last week’s Polityka: “How to demand a pay-rise that will give you a good living and not bankrupt your employer.” In the olden days employers were expected to look out for their own interests. Now it seems this burden is also to fall on the employee.
I was sufficiently impressed by Joshua Ferris’s debut, Then We Came to the End, to check out the book that inspired that somewhat sales-unfriendly title, Don DeLillo’s first novel, Americana (opening line: “Then we came to the end of another dull and lurid year”. DeLillo, whatever his limitations, has an undeniable knack for the arresting […]
In the case against Dr. G, the doctor falsely and publicly accused by Poland’s minister for justice of murder, the prosecution intends calling on expert witnesses, from abroad if necessary. Marek Celej has this to say about it in last week’s Polityka Nie bardzo sobie wyobrażam, jak taki biegły miałby zeznawać w sądzie. Przecież język […]
Stalled in a traffic jam snaking up one of the M50’s off-ramps this morning–only in Ireland do road planners think motorways and roundabouts mix–I caught the tail-end of RTE’s Morning Ireland. It featured a report on the canonisation of the 19th-century priest Fr. Charles of Mt. Argus, due to take place this weekend in Rome*. […]
With hindsight, I suppose it was inevitable that the ruling establishment in Poland turn its guns on the teletubbies. Inevitable, too, that I would at least mention it, even though Beatroot already has too. The Spokesperson for Children’s Rights, Ewa Sowińska, thinks one or all of them is propogating homosexuality. She thinks they should be […]
The champagne’s being put back into cold storage. Just like all those voting machines. Martin Cullen is now back in. It’s beginning to feel like a bad zombie film…
In my constituency, Conor “Kebabs” Lenihan has just got in on the first count.
To quote Dick Tuck, who spoke on the occassion of losing the race for a California Senate Seat, “The people have spoken, the bastards.”