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That Paul Krugman, announced today as the winner of the made-up Nobel Prize for Economics, appears to be a massive sci-fi geek who loves Charlie Stross, once wrote a paper called “The Theory of Interstellar Trade”, and corrects his own employers on the finer points of Doctor Who lore. Apparently he only decided to become an economist when it turned out that psychohistory wasn’t actually a real discipline.
I’m counting this one as a win. Also, the economics stuff, I suppose.
Blogs dedicated to pictures of Sad Guys on Trading Floors.
Compare and contrast:
and
My vote’s going to the dude pretending to be a dude confused for another dude.
It’s just been publicly announced that the vitamin pill magnate Matthias Rath has pulled out of his gruelling legal case against me and the Guardian. He bought full page adverts denouncing Aids drugs while promoting his vitamin pills in South Africa, a country where hundreds of thousands die every year from Aids under an HIV denialist president and the population is ripe for miracle cures. I said his actions were highly worrying, in no uncertain terms. I believe I was right to do so.
This libel case has drawn on for over a year, with the writ hanging both in my toilet, and over my head… For the duration of the case I have also been silenced on the serious issues that Rath’s activities raise, the chapter on his work was pulled from my book, and I have been unable to comment on his further movements around the world.
This will now change…
A couple of points need to be raised here. Firstly, Ben officially joins the pantheon of the greats for the line “This libel case has drawn on for over a year, with the writ hanging both in my toilet, and over my head”; secondly, you have to go and read the Guardian’s coverage of the case, because – significantly, and very positively, I think – they’re giving this biiiig coverage, the sort of coverage they’d give to defeating a junior government minister in a libel action, or something of the sort. Not quite “a liar and a cheat” territory, but getting close. They clearly care, in a way that I wasn’t entirely sure the Guardian did care. Good on them.
The third point is more simple, and has been better expressed by other, wiser men before me:
This breaking news over at the BBC probably shouldn’t have seemed as ridiculously exciting as it did:
Fortunately for those of us who like to get our beer legitimately, the booze heist went about as well as you’d expect from people who’ve decided that stealing trucks of beer is their vocation in life.
After a hiatus last year, when I forgot to do it, here’s the 2007 instalment of this blog’s ongoing project to fight the crude pigeon-holing tendencies shown by other end-of-year lists. No longer shall Neon Bible be relegated to the “best albums” parade, just because it was, in fact, an album. If Gordon Ramsay’s refurbished gastropub in Limehouse wants to compete for Best Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, rather than best restaurant, then it is free to do so. We not not bracket, compartmentalise, or divide. We celebrate unity through diversity.
So, here you go – here are the 19 best things of 2007:
19. The Arcade Fire at Glastonbury
Was it such a borderline epiphanic experience in spite of the drug-addled hippy with a poor sense of personal space who kept on trying to walk through my back during the entire set – or was it, in part at least, because of him? No. It was nothing to do with him. But thankyou anyway, kind sir.
18. Tony Blair fucked off
And for a precious, golden few days, it seemed like good sense, quiet competence and a dignified sense of principle might be restored to our government. Of course, not so much. But it was nice while it lasted. A clear winner of Vegetarian Restaurant of the Year.
17. The finger-tapping, eye-staring thing that The Rock does in Southland Tales to indicate that he’s going mad which is a bit like someone doing a Stan Laurel impersonation except they’ve never actually seen footage of Stan Laurel and have in fact just read about him on Wikipedia
Majestic.
Continuing the theme of picking out only the least relevant, most trivial details from the Mother Of All Data Cock-Ups for attention, I would like to point out that the emails (PDF) released today give us a vital insight into how such a catastrophic failure could have happened. Not, as others have surely noted, the fact that the requirements of the Data Protection Act are never mentioned by any party; nor that the contracting-out of services in government has gone so far that not even the most basic action can be taken without a third party being necessary, and the absurd cost implications associated with it; nor even that nobody in an organisation devoted solely to handling data appears to have any understanding or ability whatsoever when it comes to actually handling data that their own system has given them.
No. The most salient fact is this:
ONE OF THE KEY PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE USES COMIC SANS AS THEIR DEFAULT EMAIL FONT.
I’ve warned you about those people, and did you listen? Did you listen, you crazy fools? No!
Updated to add: In a more-serious-but-still-highly-amusing note, Ben Laurie points out that the redactions in the PDF aren’t actually good enough to conceal the names of the individuals involved, if anybody really wanted to find out who they were. Nice to know that HMRC are as incompetent at protecting their own ID data as they are with other people’s…
I’ll leave it to other, wiser heads to debate the serious ramifications of the hilarious “all your data are in the post” cock-up by BRMC HMRC that was revealed today. What I want to know is – how on earth did the Open Rights Group manage to arrange for this news to break on the day that they launched their big fundraising drive?
Good work, Becky, Michael, Suw, Danny, et al! But, um… could you give back the disks with everybody’s bank details on now, please?
In the run-up to 2012, a cross-section of athletes, volunteers and disabled children will carry the Stratford bus garage disused Moss Bros warehouse through the streets of every country participating in the Games, its eternal flame a symbol of the noble Olympian ideals that unite humanity.
(Taking Chris up on his suggestion.)
I feel this letter from today’s Metro needs to be preserved for posterity:
In response to Debby Wakeham’s comments about a fair trial for potential suicide bombers in light of the case of the mistaken identity of Jean Charles de Menezes (Metro, Thu), she seems to forget that these suicide bombers do not have consideration for anyone.
So, personally, yes, I would prefer the police to take action rather than give a suicide bomber a fair trial after he had killed innocent people – particularly when there is a possibility he might get away with it and do it again.
S Huson, Essex
I’d love to be able to tell you that this is a spoof. Sadly, I’ve no idea if it is or not.
In case anybody’s wondering what complex economic reasons are behind the entertainingly third-world sight of Northern Rock customers queuing round the corner to close their accounts, you might be forgiven for thinking that it’s somehow related to a worldwide meltdown in the banking sector provoked by years of highly dodgy sub-prime lending. Nope. Actually, it’s all Michael Owen’s fault.
You might be familiar with the Curse of Northern Rock: the bank, big sponsors of sport in the North-East, used its three biggest stars in a series of adverts a while back. Johnny Wilkinson, Steve Harmison and Michael Owen. It didn’t escape people’s notice that, the instant they appeared in adverts for Northern Rock, each one of them was suddenly hit by long-term recurring injury crises from which they utterly failed to recover. Most amusing was the pre-World Cup ad featuring Owen on a luggage carousel, with the tagline “Can we have him back in one piece please?” The answer, underscored by the percussive clanking noise of Owen’s cruciate ligament going to shit, was “er, no.”
But now that Owen’s fit again and back to scoring form for both Newcastle and England, it’s quite clear what’s happened: a lump of curse has been removed from him, and – like a salmon drawn upriver to the place it was born – it has returned home. Curse material is clearly a finite, tangible thing (perhaps much like the gooey black witch-substance of Western African traditions) that exists in fixed amounts, cannot be created or destroyed, and has a strong homing instinct. As such, with Owen fit, Northern Rock now has a large portion of curse lurking in its vaults.
What does this mean for the future of the bank? Well, with Wilkinson crocked again and Harmison unable to recapture any sort of form, they’re probably okay for the short-term future, and the people queuing to get their money out are over-reacting. However, there is a clear potential threat of Wilkinson coming back in time to take part in the Rugby World Cup. If this was to happen, Northern Rock would then be in possession of two-thirds of the original curse-substance it distributed – possibly enough to precipitate a full collapse. And if Harmison ever manages to bowl straight again, the resulting calamity for Northern Rock and its inevitable domino effect could be enough to destabilise the entire economy.
The solution is clear: Northern Rock must immediately launch a new advertising campaign, thus giving the curse a new home. I think some posters featuring Newcastle United manager Sam Allardyce high-fiving thumpy midfielder Joey Barton would be an ideal solution. It has the potential to save the entire British economy from falling into a decade-long recession; more importantly, Allardyce and Barton are tossers and it would be very funny.
