… but it ended up there.
This posting included the fact that I am out and about this evening, so here, today, that’s your lot.
Category: Media and journalism
The Boxing Day posting
And here, as promised yesterday, are the other dozen of the Christmassy (Google reckons it’s double ss at the end there rather than the single s I used to name the photos) photos that I was gathering together yesterday. They, like the previous lot, are shown in chronological order, the first one being from 2015 to now, the most recent from earlier this month:
I used half a dozen of these two dozen photos to concoct a Merry Christmas photo-posting at Samizdata, in the small hours of this morning, what with there having been nothing there yesterday, until I did that. And then faked the timing. Just like I often do here.
Which means that, for the last week, I have not only done something for here, every day, but have done something there, every day. More on the thinking behind this sudden burst of Samzdating here, some time soon, maybe, I promise nothing.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
I’ve kept it going at Samizdata – so far – just
So now, it’s five Samizdata postings by me in the last five days. And the last two (this one and, posted moments ago, this one) were done the following morning. Hurrah for backdating.
And hurrah for me backdating this one also.
The way I see it, the day ends when I go to bed.
I note that the Radio Times, one of my favourite publications, follows the same rule.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
BMdotcom financial quote of the day
In this:
Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Facebook have a combined market capitalization of $3.7 trillion, equal to Germany’s gross domestic product last year.
Quoted at Instpundit by Stephen Green, who says that this is an “incredible figure”. It certainly is very big, if that’s what “incredible” means, when you are describing a very big number.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Photoers ten years ago today
Yes, photoers photoed by me exactly ten years ago to the day, in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey, Westminster Bridge, Parliament, etc.:
Cameras you don’t see much any more. Even a free London newspaper you don’t see at all, any more.
Even the guy just smoking while photoing now looks a bit noughties.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Poetry is not dead
Indeed:
Here.
She also wrote that NYT letter about white privilege, concerning which she Tweets:
Do not deny my lived experience.
Absolutely not.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Charlie Waite climbs up a ladder
Thank you Mike Fagan, whom I already follow.
Waite is a very Real Photographer indeed.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Kane celebrates
Last night, England scraped into the last eight of the World Cup, beating Colombia in a penalty shoot-out.
Here’s a photo of England captain Harry Kane, celebrating the way people do these days:
The work of the PA’s Owen Humphreys, the last of this collection.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
Ruthless boohoo man
Earlier this evening I was in the City, checking out the latest Big Things, but this posting isn’t about that.
I care just enough about England doing well in the World Cup to have to try not to care, as opposed to truly not caring. Countries like Tunisia are getting better at soccer, and countries like England are getting worse, so today’s game, Tunisia v England, was a banana skin almost guaranteed to embarrass England. I chose early this evening for my City walkabout because the weather forecast was good, but also because if I was photoing in the City, I could forget about this sure-to-be excruciating game.
Fat chance. For starters, I was constantly walking past pubs full of people crying out in unison and in frustration, at England’s evidently imperfect performance. Also, I had my mobile phone with me, and it was able to tell me what the shouting was all about. I tried not to mind when Tunisia equalised with a penalty. I tried not even to know. But I did, because I did.
Also, in one of those urban coincidences, I encountered two further soccer reminders, both involving Dele Alli, a Spurs player who also plays in this England side. These two photos were taken by me within a minute of one another, the first outside Liverpool Street tube, and the second down on the tube platform:
On the left, an Evening Standard headline, all about how ruthless England must be, against Tunisia. Sadly, they ruthlessly missed almost all of the many goal chances they created. Had that other Spurs player, Kane, not scored at the beginning, and then again right at the end in extra time, England would have been humiliated.
And on the right, an advertising campaign which Dele Alli was surely asking for trouble by agreeing to. He is fronting for clothing brand boohoo MAN. This is a photocaption waiting to happen. When England fail to win the World Cup, and they will, quite soon, fail to win the World Cup, Dele Alli will be photoed, a lot, looking unhappy. And the unhappiest photo of all will have the words “boohoo man” under it, in many media outlets. This will greatly benefit boohoo, by getting its name talked about, so I suppose, come to think of it, that the prospect of such coverage has already greatly benefited Del Alli. But I consider this very undignified, even if Dele Alli is already boohooing all the way to the bank.
Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog
The Devil’s Dice is The Times crime fiction book of the month
Yes. From yesterday’s Times, in the Review section:
Here is what Roz is making of this.
Sadly, that wonderfully admiring review is behind a pay wall. But: remarkable. I don’t know how much difference a thing like this makes to sales, but it surely can’t hurt. All those favourable Amazon reviews also help a lot, as Roz, unsurprisingly, confirms.
Here is a piece I did for Samizdata, more about crime fiction generally, but provoked by – and giving a plug to – The Devils Dice.
Why all this fuss from me about The Devil’s Dice is because Roz is my niece and because The Devil’s Dice is very good. See also this earlier posting here. I have not posted an Amazon review, because If I didn’t say I’m her uncle that would be dishonest, and if I did, then it would be dismissed as hopelessly biased, as it would be.
Roz’s cat is less impressed.