With all this talk of the NSA and its activities, espionage has stormed back onto the front pages. Perfect time to publish a spy novel set in China, the USA and Germany, one should think, and cometh the hour, cometh the man in the form of Olen Steinhauer. That surname suggests another Nordic star but [...]
How those Yahoos! destroyed Flickr!
In one of the best articles of its kind for many a long day, Mat Honan of Gizmodo exposes corporate stupidity on a staggering scale in a piece titled “How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet“. Money quote: “There’s a difference between a missed opportunity and a complete fuck-up. When Yahoo failed to capitalize [...]
Heading for the border, running for the bank exits
“Greek depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from local banks Monday, the country’s president said, as he warned that the situation facing Greece’s lenders was very difficult.” The Wall Street Journal This is a classic Catch-22 situation as Greek depositors will increasingly want to avoid their valuable euros being turned into worthless drachmas, but a [...]
Surreal Europe: bottoms-up from the tops-down
There are times, and these are indeed such times, when Europe appears to be the set of a surreal soap opera directed by the ghost of Luis Buñuel. In the latest episode, some of the original supporters of the utterly reckless common currency experiment are now proposing a rescue plan. Topping the bill among the [...]
Pure Mo
“We Asians like being Asians, Siamese being Siamese, Malays being Malays, Viets being Viets. But a warning. Scratch us, there’s a snarling xenophobe behind the smile.” So speaks Snooky, the hero/heroine of Pure, the latest novel by Timothy Mo. By the way, Snooky is a well-endowed Bangkok lady boy who joins a group of bloodthirsty [...]
So near, and yet so far
Last night, Borussia Dortmund thrashed Bayern Munich 5-2 in the German cup final in Berlin. Next Saturday night in Munich, the Champions League trophy will be up for grabs and, hoping for a less humiliating result, the thrashee of Berlin will host Chelsea FC in their home stadium, the Allianz Arena. Meanwhile, the “Grail” is [...]
Le Swing Cajun avec Hadley Castille
That colossus of Cajun fiddle playing, Hadley Castille of Opelousas, Louisiana, wrote Le Swing Cajun and he performs it in Lafayette in style with his grand-daughter Sarah Jayde Williams and the members of the band L’Angelus.
Send to KindleThose huge French Whales: Kerviel, Tourre and Bruno Iksil
According to Société Générale, one of its traders, Jérôme Kerviel, engaged in unauthorized transactions in 2007 totaling as much as €49.9 billion, a figure higher than the bank’s total market capitalization. On 5 October 2010, a French court sentenced Kerviel to five years of prison, with two years suspended, full restitution of the $6.7 billion [...]
The living tradition
In our time of virtual reality, always-on connectivity and Google Glasses, folk music functions as a kind of acoustic way-back machine. But it’s not a stick-in-the-mud tradition. In Britain, The Unthanks prove that Northumberland folk is elastic enough to merge the mainstream with 200-year-old songs and create something that sounds ultra-modern. Mumford & Sons and [...]
Gonzo and Franz and Don
The online bookseller Good Books donates all its retails profits to Oxfam projects. Here, the late Hunter S. Thompson meets Franz Kafka in a proposed Good Books ad that’s all about change. The creatives are based in New Zealand and they call their agency String Theory. Don Draper would have been pleased with this clip, which is a kind of post-modern extension of The Wheel.
Send to KindleGeorge Orwell: “Politics and the English Language”
If Rainy Day has a manifesto, it is the great essay “Politics and the English Language“, which George Orwell wrote in 1946. The English language and politics are at the heart of this blog and while we cannot hope to match Orwell in any way, he is our guide, mentor and patron saint. To celebrate [...]
Happy Birthday! 10 this year
The Rainy Day blog is 10 years old this year. What began on 1 May 2002 was inspired by the outrage that followed the 9/11 terror attacks on the US, much of which found expression in blogging. The format was still young back then and becoming a blogger was, if not quite subversive, adventurous and [...]
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