Facebook is stale: log on, and then forget everything about why you're there, what there is to see, unless something jumps out at you. Then get bored of voyeurism and everyone captured and objectified in photos. LiveJournal: so much more effort and so much more soul. Several entries on my friends page, broken up with Sinfest, made me smile warmly. ( Read more... )

If the American system was anything like ours, they wouldn't have to wait over two months for a new head of state. An elected Prime Minister would be in power the next day. Of course, we have to wait for the last head of state to die or abdicate before a new king or queen can ascend the throne ( Read more... )

Does anyone know any good Italian poets to read whilst travelling that country? We leave on the thirty-first.

I've been messing around on facebook for a couple of days, and just hanging around, getting up late. I haven't restarted my blog-writing yet, nor have I really got on with my jobsearch for the summer. But I'll begin one of those today.

Yesterday I finished my second year with an exam, answering questions on the changing Italian political system and the character of the 20th century dictatorships of Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal (only one of those should be considered fascist, don'tcha know?). Since no one else i know had finished yesterday I played Enter The Matrix and ( Read more... )

I'm researching communist parties in southern Europe, and as a consequence reading books and article written between the late 1970s and early '90s. Back then, politics was easy: there was the affluent bastions of democracy in western Europe and North America; the menacing Communist east; and the poor South, riddled with dictators and wars ( Read more... )

This is a meme. I don't often do them. And I've done this one before, without it being a meme...

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I wrote a blog on the subject of that last entry: How white is white?

The BNP has elected its first "non-white" candidate, The Guardian informs me. Ha! Look at the picture on the main page - see just how "non-white" he looks! Oh, this amuses me... I imagine it's his name that has really caused the commotion. If he was called "John Smith" and happened to be Greek-Armenian (which, I'd say, is - culturally, at least - ( Read more... )

The problem with reviewers is that they've read too many books, seen too many films ( Read more... )