[blogfocus saturday] bastille day is not mentioned

1] Tuscan Tony is in a similar position to Praguetory, Sicily Scene and to a certain extent … me. There are some amazing places to visit:

Yesterday was a shining example of why I'm here - beaten back en route from a visit to my favourite restaurant (Il Botteghino in Matraia, near Lucca) by their clever and cunning strategy of not announcing their new rest day of Wednesdays, we ended up in a beautiful little mediaeval hilltop hamlet near us, sitting under an umbrella at a trattoria in the square.

2] Referring to the cypriot and Nigerian drug dealers who were caught, The Lone Voice adds:

These two girls could face years in a Ghanaian jail, a nation that has no prisoner exchange with the UK. Whining on their part aside they did the crime, and if guilty they will have to do the time. Something that prisoners here in the UK don't do as we as a nation let them all out early.

3] JaneJill is up in arms about the fashionable Irish:

I have just been reading someone else’s blog and they made an offhand remark which has upset me greatly ; this person said, and I quote, ‘the Irish do not have any sense of style’ well ,that’s me annihilated (after a fashion….) I need to respond to this….. I should tell this person I have had an innate sense of dress ever since I was about three and a half and had to wear my older sister’s cast-offs; as I was taller and plumper this was never going to be a good look. I have been trying to make amends (to myself for the indignity) ever since.

4] Grendel Grendel gives us our daily dose of Alistair:

He also said Mr Blair had talked him out of resigning after Dr Kelly died, saying it would be a "disaster" for Mr Campbell. Probably not as much a disaster as it was for Dr. Kelly and his family. Mind you, I’m sure Ms Booth would have autographed a copy of your resignation letter to be auctioned off to raise money for ‘the party’.

5] William Gruff sails close to the wind in his take on the term "ban":

It seems that neology is currently à la mode or, if not, is enjoying a discreet vogue, rather like one of the more respectable fetishes. Inspired, via Tim Worstall, by Harry Haddock's splendid neologism 'bansturbation' (Nation of Shopkeepers), PJC Journal has devised a number of definitions for words taking 'ban' as their root that are not only appropriate but amusing, so much so that a couple came to Gruff's mind.

6] It's tragic that I haven't visited the inimitable Prodicus for so long. Take this paragraph, for example:

Now look, Gordon. We may get grumpy with the Americans from time to time over some ad hoc issue but you are quite mistaken if you think it's an abiding visceral dislike, as it would be with the French, for example. We may roar at some of their governors from time to time, but we do not dislike the Americans as a species. We quite like them, actually and, if push came to shove, we would rather be with them on the liberty-and-free-markets side of the see-saw than with Frau Kanzlerin Merkel and Monsieur le President Sarkozy, both of whom (in truth) reject our peculiar national spirit - with which you are not acquainted even though you may protest the contrary.

7] Celia Green reflects on a familiar theme:

Women on the whole are unsympathetic to drive and ambition, especially in other women, and from the age of 14, if not earlier, I have always had at least one woman — and usually two — networking energetically against me. A friend was saying recently how much this must have increased the opposition against me. ‘Well’, I said, ‘I thought the way was open.

8] I make no apology for running Chris Dillow in this supposed gallery of new blogs because he's just good:

Congratulations to the Metropolitan Police. Sure, they waste time and money. But at least they account for that waste properly … So, the Met knows about opportunity costs. In this respect, it's more advanced than most companies. You'll not read about opportunity costs in the average company's accounts. Few firms say explicitly: "we made £x million on this project, but that's a loss of £y million compared to putting the money in the All-share." Even fewer regard a potentially profitable venture that they failed to pursue as a cost of funds.

And so on. I hope to do another Focus on Wednesday, all being well.