[looking back] pelham grenville wodehouse, 1881 - 1975

P.G. Wodehouse needs little introduction. Those who already know will be familiar with most of this. Those who don’t are in for a treat. "I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy, without the music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn.... " - Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

[in brief] thought for the day

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit - no use being a damned fool about things.

[world trade] they’re talking but they’re not saying anything

So now Brazil’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, says the whole world order is under threat if stalled discussions on reducing trade barriers cannot be revived. The whole point of Doha was for the emerging economies to benefit but this was either unbelievable naïvety or cynical rhetoric. If Britain can’t get France to bend on CAP and France can’t get Britain to relinquish subsidies and if Europe can’t get the US to reduce tarrifs, which they can't, then where does that leave the emerging nations? Nowhere of course. There is no WTO, except in name.

[travel] chinese mysteries unearthed

Better you go to the page rather than I lift the piece. Graham Simmons writes: Some of the world's most intriguing sites have still somehow managed to escape the Lonely Planet circuit. An example is Sanxingdui, a mind-boggling museum of bronze artefacts unearthed in China's Sichuan province between 1986 and 2001. Their origin is as yet a total mystery. Even more mysterious is why Sanxingdui, just an hour by road from Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan) is not more widely known. A nice piece.

[wales] more uses for sheep than meet the eye

Say what you like about the Welsh but don't say they're not original. Creative Paper Wales has won an award for making cards and gifts from sheep droppings. The company collects Snowdonia sheep droppings, sterilises them and recovers the undigested fibres. It has won a $49,000 Millennium Award for its Sheep Poo Paper products. Would you like to receive a Sheep Poo card from your beloved? Also, it's good to see that the Milennium cash has been so wisely disbursed.

[syria and iran] strange bedfellows indeed

I’ve just been wading through pages and pages of Syrian related articles, trying to get a line on what it’s about. Why is Syria a pariah in the Arab world? Why is the US strangely ambivalent on the country, compared to, say, Iran? The closest I can get is Rick Francona, a former U.S. military attaché in Damascus and a Middle East analyst for NBC News, who says: “Bashar’s not the leader his father was. He’s a technocrat. He never consolidated his power; he’s trying to please too many people and he’s deluding himself.” Here is an analysis cobbled together from various sources.