When Gerrard equalised my brain almost burst
Gratuitous partisan weekend football linkage. Sorry, Hammers.

99 Tonnes of Guns
The Bosnia-to-Iraq arms export business

Ukraine’s ‘Orange’ future was bright; now it’s uncertain.

“A very large percentage of people,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “really believe that the ills from which they suffer would be cured if a certain political party were in power.” At the time Russell was writing, what is now Ukraine was ruled over by a murderous madman for whom political parties were an unwelcome distraction; so much so, in fact, that he got rid of all of them that weren’t his. Read More

Mali: everyone’s favourite destination
Next stop on the new Dash for Africa.

David Cameron’s speech at the Business in the Community Forum has caused a bit of a stir. The tradecraft seems to be pretty obvious. Vague mutterings about Tesco and inappropriate knickers for girls connects young smoothiechops with the concerns of middle class women in marginal seats. He chats their chat. He gripes their gripe. And he looked so dashing communing with the polar bears. So, then: just another factoid down the idea pipe. Maybe, but maybe something else is going on as well. Read More

Cut ‘n’ Paste like a knife. Hazel Blears and others fill in the blanks.

Is it a joke? The BBC on the EU, cakes and jokes.

Google Trends is rather an impressive new piece of software. In the style of late-90s favourites like Search Voyeur, it allows you to see what other people are hunting for. But instead of merely providing a list and allowing you to marvel at others’ illiteracy and perversion (these days, a function that Sitemeter is admirably capable of providing instead), it allows you to track the historical popularity of different words – and hence concepts.

For example, the concept of EUrabia, which gained popularity last year, is the serious belief, expressed by people who aren’t obviously insane, that Europe is soon going to become an Islamic or possibly Islamist (you can’t really expect these types to understand the difference) state. Fortunately for all concerned, it seems like the world has lost interest in this concept: searches for ‘EUrabia’ peaked in late 2004, tailed off throughout 2005, and have been negligible for a good six months. Read More

It looks like the dust has finally settled after the elections. People are jockeying for position, accusations of disloyalty are flying around, but nobody’s disputing what the numbers say. The Prime Minister is still there, for now. He’s been announcing to anyone who will listen that he tells his allies what to do and not the other way round – so no change there. But at least he’s resigned. Read More

Adventures in copywriting
Would you like some brandwank with your overpriced coffee, sir?