In the China Daily newspaper

You wonder whether the Xinhua journo saw the irony in this:

BEIJING - The Silk Street Market here, which has long offered copies of international designer and branded goods, has unveiled its own brand - SILKSTREET - and warned that anyone who tries to counterfeit that brand will be held liable.

Moody's mood

Eric Moody, former BA pilot, was on on Radio 4's PM programme yesterday evening, providing some analysis on the 777 crash landing, as well as recounting his own tale. He is a master of understatement:

'Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.'

Bouncing Biggles

I'm very glad that everyone on the BA flight from Beijing made it to LHR today. I did however, find this headline, on the same day. Just a coincidence?

Move over, Kahlil Gibran

I have been meaning to post this for a long, long time. Rumsfeld in verse.

Please God, don't let me dream tonight...

It's just occurred to me that Hartley Hare (from kiddies TV show 'Pipkins' in the 1970s) looks like Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho.

I need to get out more.

What I am not doing this weekend...

Well, I won't be reading any of the books that sit there, patiently waiting for me.



With my other committments, it has all gone helter-skelter.

I won't even be scouting out and about, observing and scribbling.

I'll just be studying.

Although looking at the book's spine, the right-hand side implies a tawdry gay tale deep in Texas. Maybe. Ahem.

Reflections, questions

'One of the few survivors was quoted as saying: "But they knew me; we were neighbours. I thought Peter was a friend - a good neighbour. How could Peter do this to me?"

I had heard the same puzzled cry from Bosnia. I had heard the same cry from Iraq. I had heard the same, same words from Rwanda: "We were neighbours; we'd married into each other. How could this happen?" '

Ngugi wa Thiong'o on the BBC.

Go on, OD

Interesting perspective on Kenya in this new article from OpenDemocracy.

Art from science

Here and there.

The general financial crisis in popuar culture

It's not just subprimes, but the emerging Web 2.0 bubble. It's like 2000 all over again (yes, my options submerged and never came back up for air).

Wanna know more? Checkout 'Here Comes Another Bubble' by Matt Hempey, The Long Johns and of course, Colbert. If you like country, there's Merle Hazard.

Oh, and an op-ed piece about BB by William Dalrymple in the New York Times.

A great line...

...from this week's Economist magazine's correspondent's diary:

'Everything that’s charming grows quotation marks'