Mississippi Goddam
Super 8 Motel, Vicksburg, MS: GREETINGS from Mississippi, where the state flag still features the stars and bars in the top lefthand corner, and where state employees got Monday off in honour of Confederate Memorial Day. This month sees the start of commemorations for the 150th anniversary of the US Civil War, and my guess [...]
There is a house in New Orleans
THERE definitely is a house in New Orleans. Lots of them, actually. I can state this as a fact as I am there right now, and can see them from my hotel window. But of course, after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, lots of the houses in New Orleans were destroyed. On one level, this [...]
The return of the letter bomb
FOOTBALL isn’t a matter of life and death, according to an aphorism attributed to legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly. It’s much more important than that. Obviously there are those who would deny the first half of that contention. Three figures associated with Celtic – a Scottish football club with an Irish-Catholic support base – have [...]
Desecrating war memorials: but is it art?
PERFORMANCE artist Anna Sin’kova is facing five years in a Ukrainian slammer, after frying eggs and hot dogs over a high period Stalinist kitsch eternal flame-style monument in Kiev that commemorates the Soviet Union’s world war two dead. The charge is desecrating a grave. But Ms Sin’kova insists that if she was desecrating anything, she [...]
The evil anarchist plot against Kate and Wills
PEOPLE react to royal weddings in different ways, I guess. Personally I am taking advantage of the chance to get 17 days off work for seven days annual leave, and will underline my lack of patriotic fervour by grabbing a holiday in the Deep South and Midwest. If all goes according to plan, I could [...]
Clubs can’t stop offensive football chants
I HAD never before today bothered to ponder the religious affiliations of PSV Eindhoven supporters. But I gather that, if anything, the Dutch football club has a solidly protestant tradition. So why fans of Ranger thought it apt to launch into sectarian songs at both legs of the recent Europa Cup tie between the two [...]
Cameron, Clegg: both wrong on immigration
THE Smethwick by-election was 47 years ago now. Not only would any Conservative candidate who campaigned on an overtly racist slogan rightly face instant expulsion, but there are even black and Asian Tory MPs. Younger readers will not believe how improbable that once would have seemed. In short, there is no reason to imagine that [...]
Fear and loathing in Britain’s rightwing press
I’M NOT quite sure how it is possible for a Leninist to move further to the left, but David Cameron has somehow achieved this rare distinction. Well, he has according to Daily Telegraph commentator Simon Heffer, anyway. Just over two years ago, Heffer accused the then leader of the opposition of seeking to ‘sovietise capitalism out [...]
Wearing a niqab is not like being a Goth
WHAT’S the difference between donning a burqa and doing your best to look like the bass player in the Sisters of Mercy, Brendan O’Neill asks on his Daily Telegraph blog. Why should those who adhere to religiously-inspired Islamic dress codes be regarded any differently from hoodie wearers or Essex girls in oversized sunglasses? After all, [...]
Sheffield families vs the super rich: who flies more often?
MILLIONAIRE Tory Oliver Letwin has come out against building new airports because he doesn’t want ‘more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays’. However, I suspect that he has missed the primary sources of additional demand for aviation services. One of the many interesting findings of the 2011 Wealth Report, produced by property consultant [...]
