[christopher beale] 6 year old's book launch tomorrow

This and Last Seasons' Excursions by Christopher Beale

Do you remember the recent post about six year old Christopher Beale’s new book and how he is in the Guiness Book of Records now?

His book launch is tomorrow, Saturday, November 25th, at 14:30, at the Borders, Oxford Street. If you are in London and can possibly spare a few minutes and maybe snap up a copy – I’d greatly appreciate it. I’m going to see how I can buy one too from over here. [Not being on the grid 'n all, I can’t use the net.]

[nagging] how can it ever achieve the desired result

Picture which some ladies find offensive and which I think is fundamentally flawed - girls are a lot more subtle than that.

Men nag about sex. Yes they do and it drives women mad.

Now, having done my bit on behalf of the ladies, we need to look at the other side of the coin. A short time ago, there was a most unpleasant scene next door and it’s rare for this particular couple. He was shouting at the top of his voice and from what I could make out, was indicating that she was dragging him to an early grave etc. She could not be heard. I often hear this sort of thing from neighbours above, below, left and right.

What does it indicate – that men are nervous creatures? Or that they’ve reached the end of their tether? The carefully placed female word can carry a lot of power when it wants but I do wonder what they are trying to achieve? I asked some girls why they harp on about things and they said, ‘So that it will finally sink in.’ By which generally accepted, efficacious psychological theory does this method work? I would have thought you’d get what you want by the opposite – building up his ego.

Sam Brett ran a post on this issue sometime back and I did as well.

[why we blog] perhaps we’re getting closer

Following on from this post, I really do feel we’re getting somewhere here. I have 5 questions to ask you to put this thing into focus [at the end of the link below] but first – comments by two top bloggers:

Tiberius Gracchus wrote, in my comments section:

1] Ultimately you blog for two reasons: firstly so that you can put down your thoughts on a page … we all have unformed political beliefs and blogging gives them a form. The second thing is the comments and feedback- I try to respond to all my comments precisely because I know I don't know that much about the world - blogging is a way of getting into a conversation with people who have other kinds of knowledge, other specialisms and can give me their knowledge and resources in order to solve problems and issues.

2] I'd rather have fifteen readers who came back every day and were interested in what I said and commented, than have a hundred who couldn't care less what I said and just flicked over it. The stats for me are just ego really but the interest derives from people commenting and responding and thinking and responding on their own blogs and reading stuff which challenges me and researching my own ideas and writing things down.

Mr. Eugenides then wrote, in my comments section:

1] But, put another way, it would be rather curious if Guido came in at no.35 but some mug like us slotted in at 7 - gratifying, but not perhaps a true reflection of the "top 100" of the blogosphere.

2] As Gracchi says it's not about the stats, though of course more is better than less and it's nice to think people are coming specifically to read what you have to say; DK said on Doughty St the other day that he blogs entirely for himself, and whether this is true or not, clearly it is important (given that we do this for nothing) that we are excited and interested in what we're doing.

3] I could probably double my stats overnight by putting "Britney Spears Sex Tape" in every post title, but what would be the point?

4] I was listening to Stephen King on Desert Island Discs this morning (now there's a sentence I never thought I would type!) and he mentioned that his wife had given him early encouragement by saying that "good fiction will always find an audience". I think the same is true, broadly speaking, of blogs.

I would add, as I'm sure these two gentlemen would agree, that one must work hard at one’s blog. Same in blogging as in all aspects of life.

Update: Paul Linford has also weighed into this debate now with a controversial idea.

Now for those questions …

[economics and health] government incentives to look after yourself

Black Quill has come out with this today:

The only way to make people healthier is by giving them a financial incentive to stay fit and at the moment there isn’t one. Car insurance gives you a no-claims bonus. Why can’t health insurance? Why do the fit have to supplement the healthcare of those who will not take care of themselves?

Considering the amount of money people pay towards healthcare, they should get some form of discount for not abusing it like a box of after-eight mints. The same is true of sports clubs. Membership should entitle you to a tax discount of some sort and clocking up the recommended number of exercise hours each month should entitle you to more.

I like it but I’m not an economist. Will you economists out there tell me if this would work?

[ranking blogs] 10 new criteria for assessing a great weblog

As many know, I run a Blogfocus on Tuesdays and Saturdays so, like you, I get to read many blogs and of course have come to some conclusions about them.

To that end, I’ve strung together 10 criteria of a great weblog which looks at Iain Dales’s ten to start with but then diverges. If you apply these criteria to the blogosphere, then a slightly different top 100 emerges. To start with, the 4 types of blogs I have in mind are:

1] Single purpose blogs, such as in economics, where the writer is well known and has worked hard to get where he’s got – publishing books, using RSS feeds using the latest schemes and technology and establishing his authority, stamping his mark as it were. Becoming a sort of Bloomsberg where people go for information and analysis and the more prosaic the writing and cutting the comment, the better.

2] MSM writers whose blog is an outlet in the blogosphere because one must be where the people are and certain things characterize them. In short, they can write, especially one or two from the Times. Others, like Neil Clark, can’t. Whatever one says about the MSM, these people have improved their writing over the years, forever at the mercy of sub-editors until they’ve honed their style and trimmed all wobbliness away.

3] Pollies who recognize the political need to blog and do so with varying results, e.g. Polly. Such as these provide a valuable public service in giving other bloggers a prime target to aim at. Some can write, most think they can write and one or two, such as Councillor Gavin Ayling, win people over through their essential goodness.

4] The great unwashed, including yours truly, who flock to the blogosphere and rise or fall simply by the quality of their writing and this is the most depressing area of all. Naïve babes in the art of promoting themselves, here is the purest writing of all, great in principle but one thing which stands out about the majority is that a] they can’t write b] they can’t sustain the flashes of brilliance they do have c] work gets in the way.

However, the ones who do rise above the mire, so to speak, have certain common characteristics and these I’ve tried to work into the 10 criteria.

Here ‘tis.

[revenge] spiralling escalation of madness

In the first suicide bombing claimed by Hamas in nearly two years, a grandmother blew herself up Thursday near Israeli soldiers operating inside Gaza, near the town of Beit Lahiya. "She and I went to the mosque," [the eldest daughter] told reporters. "We were looking for martyrdom."

This is simply a spiralling escalation of demonic madness which produces no lasting result. Romans 17-21 I thought put it well:

Recompense to no man evil for evil ... If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men ... avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Yeah, great, you say, with rockets raining down on our heads and our children in fear. True and yet, where is the final solution in revenge? From Northern Ireland to Janjaweed, where is an end on’t? But if you think the advice in Romans through, it is quite a powerful strategy, if applied uniformly and consistently.

The objection is that Israel has been trying to do this but the Arabs continue to rain rockets on them without pause and without any international outcry. Where is 'live peaceably with all men' here? No one is denying that this is true and yet it will never end by military means without huge cost to the society. They tried it some weeks back and it didn't work.

There's no namby-pamby do-gooding in the Romans excerpt - it clearly states 'heap coals of fire on his head'. It's a different strategy, which perhaps betrays my Fabian past.

[litvinenko] death a sadness

He’s died and I’m very sorry about that, [I assure you there is feeling behind the cold words], but this earlier post must still stand, I’m afraid. UK Daily Pundit also had something to say on the issue.

[spain] for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction

Did this one grab you the same way it did me or do I just have an unsound mind?

Three people have been badly hurt in a luxury Spanish hotel when two tourists in a bed crashed through the floor onto a man renovating the room below. A 32-year-old woman suffered various injuries, including serious damage to her arm, while her 38-year-old male companion fractured a vertebrae, emergency services said. There was no further news on the builder's injuries or on what exactly caused the accident in the posh Parador de Toledo hotel in the central Spanish city of Toledo.

No further news on what exactly caused the accident? N-n-n-no.

[meme tag] ten things this blogger would never do

Late mistake update Nov 25th. Bad mistake. I was tagged first by Paul Linford. Have to be careful in this game.

Lady Ellee says she’s been tagged: Dizzy and Norfolk blogger [asked me] to list 10 things I would never do, as if life isn’t busy enough. It’s now my turn to pass on this MEME to cityunslicker, Sicily Scene, Geoff, Maalie, Guthrum, Bel, Neo Jacobins, PC Bloggs, Jeremy, Nourishing Obscurity and Heather Yaxley - hope I haven’t broken any rules by adding an extra one.

OK, so my turn for the nonsense and I’m tagging 10 bloggers. The rationale behind this selection of 10: Entirely random fifteen selected; then they had to be e-mailable [which is why I had to skip over Daily Pundit] and possibly have the time [which is why I dropped Serf off]. So, I ended up with: Blognor R, Chris D, Cllr. G.A., Deogolwulf, Gracchi, L'Ombre, Notsaussure, Tin Drummer, David F, Englishman.

But I believe that I’m also required to write 10 things I’d never do, so here they are:

1] Eat oysters, offal or any other slimy thing;
2] Socialize;
3] Vegetate in a rut;
4] Judge a person until I’d heard his whole story;
5] Keep pets;
6] Go the same way the crowd is going;
7] Give up sailing;
8] Bite the hand that feeds me;
9] Have another girlfriend younger than 30;
10] Enjoy the dentist.

Update: Damn - I was also tagged by Notsaussure - what's that called now? Team tagged? Double tagged? Threesome? The mind boggles. And aren't we s'posed to e-mail the person?

[thanksgiving] dangerous macy’s balloons and high winds this year

It was 1997 when the Cat in the Hat balloon crashed into a lamppost, injuring four people and leaving one of them in a coma, and last year, when an M & M balloon sent the head of a street lamp crashing onto a woman in a wheelchair and onto her 11-year-old sister.

This year new preparations were put into place. Seven pole-mounted anemometers are transmitting minute-by-minute wind measurements to handheld computers. Police and emergency management officials are relaying the data to balloon navigators. Aerodynamics engineers and a liaison from the National Weather Service will advise the incident commander, a three-star police chief.

In the worst case, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg warned yesterday, the hapless helium-filled creatures could be pulled onto side streets and summarily deflated. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said, “We’re very well prepared to guard against any eventuality, as far as the balloons are concerned.”

However, guidelines adopted in 1998 prohibit the giant balloons from being flown if sustained winds exceed 23 miles per hour or if gusts exceed 34 m.p.h. Michael E. Wyllie, the meteorologist in charge of the weather service’s forecasting office in Upton, N.Y., projected sustained winds of 20 to 25 m.p.h. and gusts of 30 to 35 m.p.h. this morning. So the balloons shouldn’t be flown.

But they’re going to be flown, so stay tuned for this one.