So there's yet another alcohol-bashing study out. This one says [*] that sports stars' drunk behaviour has no impact on young adults' drinking behaviour (that's 'over 18s', or 'legally responsible adults'), but that alcohol marketing does. This isn't surprising. Of course alcohol marketing makes people drink more of the brand being marketed, otherwise people wouldn't … Continue reading Missing the point on booze marketing, again
Banditry
Good news, everybody. I'm online, with a real Internet connection and not a telephone, which has been my sole means of Twitter and email for the last week aside from taking my laptop to cafés and pubs [*]. Thanks, Telstra and iiNet, for only taking a month to sort it out. I've also begun writing … Continue reading Back with a vengeance
From this week's Popbitch: "About your item last week on John Lennon's psychic mate, Joe Power, I interviewed Joe about four years ago for a London newspaper. We were doing a 'walkabout' at West India Quay and he was introducing me to the various spirits that popped up along the way. I had a photographer … Continue reading Local media medium scepticism fail
RT @HowardLovecraft There is a gnawing in my abdomen which at first I mistook for festering hunger. That is, until discoloration appeared. # Oddly, Communist Party enter #ge2010 with sensible economic manifesto: http://bit.ly/boElfb - wealth taxes are the best taxes # Another day, another #ebz refill http://fallenlondon.com/c/50394 # hates: a) iinet b) TP-Link c) Vodafone … Continue reading What I’ve been up to, week ending 2010-04-18
Vodafone Australia must die. GARR. Useless eejits. Who builds an epayment site that rejects domestic debit cards *and* foreign credit cards? # Looking 4ward to Times going paywall: website badly coded w/plain text pages 1MB & breaks mobiles. Nasty Twitter surprises will diminish... # Tookey's review of Kick-Ass daft for obvious reason: 0% overlap between … Continue reading What I’ve been up to, week ending 2010-04-11
I originally posted this in the comments at Crooked Timber as an aside, but thought it deserved elevation of sorts: It’s worth remembering the very limited harm that was done by Tony Blair’s stupid and wrong decision to get involved in Iraq. The net result was that: a) a lot of people internationally thought the … Continue reading Consequences, or their absence
Child abuse claims "petty gossip"? Sorry, Catholics, but the Pope is a massive eejit: http://bit.ly/aZ6MxH # I've always liked Mark Webber; I now like him even more: http://bit.ly/ckeT3G # #ebz I'm supposed to go shopping this afternoon. Hmm. http://fallenlondon.com/c/42876 # Excellent piece from @jackofkent on the Catholic Church: http://bit.ly/9o8tgz - I wonder, could they be … Continue reading What I’ve been up to, week ending 2010-04-04
Something which surprised me when I first researched moving to Sydney was that the city (in the sense of "wide urban area") has no governing authority: the CBD and some of the inner suburbs are called the City of Sydney, but the vast majority of the city (including places that are only 10 minutes' walk … Continue reading Why pointless parliaments don’t and shouldn’t exist
In the comments at CiF, a commenter called Heyone summarises their supposed 'non-racist' objections to immigration: It's ridiculous that whenever immigration is talked about there's always people shouting "racists!" and everybody starts debating what's racism. This is just counterproductive. These people have all missed the point. The majority of people are not concerned what race … Continue reading A point of view, albeit not a good one
While there's been a lot of commentary on the British Airways strikes, the analysis (whether pro-company or pro-union) tends to miss two major points. The business model is unsustainable - but that's the management's fault, not the unions' BA’s model before the global financial crisis was to charge a fortune for excellent service in Club … Continue reading Those British Airways strikes