[who said that] higham's half dozen

Which of the six below is in this photo? American friends can click on the photo. Don't you Brits dare.

This series began weeks ago but the problem turned out to be Thursdays. So I'll try it on Mondays now. The idea is to match the quote and the quoter. The rule is that the quote has to be from the last fortnight and not so minor that the average person wouldn't have read it.

So, here are today's half dozen:

1] "Now, keep in mind, this is the same guy that said we'd be greeted as liberators. When [he] says it's a good thing, you know that you've probably got some big problems."

2] "She's … weathered many, many storms. ... If it wasn't for her, I most certainly wouldn't be here."

3] "I think he'd probably have a nervous breakdown. He's quite sensitive. He kept repeating himself like a parrot -- nothing happened, we weren't in the toilet."

4] "If we show weakness in front of the enemy the expectations will increase but if we stand against them, because of this resistance they will retreat."

5] "I have no intention to run. I can't imagine in any circumstance to run for office again."

6] "There's a real problem of people on average incomes feeling there's a sort of super rich class right at the top. We've lost a sense of moral corporate responsibility here."

Candidates:

a] Former Qantas flight attendant Lisa Robertson
b] Peter Hain
c] Al Gore
d] Barack Obama
e] Dame Helen Mirren
f] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Answers here.

[state and private] good old fashioned stoush

In an astounding outburst, in case anyone else like me missed it, the econo-blogger supreme, Chris Dillow, whom I still count as a friend, posted this some days back:

Thirdly, it's not chippiness we feel towards public school kids, but contempt. I, and I hope Clive, are quite happy with the way our lives have turned out. We don't envy Etonians. Quite the opposite. It's pitiful that such people have had so much money spent on their education and yet have (with a few exceptions) turned into no-marks. Some, I've heard, are so imbecilic that they couldn't even get into Oxford.

To that, the following responses were made, among others:

"Wow - you've got it bad. That was pathetic." Posted by: Praguetory and "Wow, Praguetory, is there any reasonable and discursive blog anywhere that you will not sully with a nasty insult?" Posted by: Katherine

Then Devil's Kitchen weighed in:

The reason that I respect Chris is that he writes about what he knows, i.e. money and general economic theory, but in this case, I am afraid, he not only displays a woeful ignorance of public schools and their ethos but also a massive chip on his shoulder. In fact, the only thing that I can hope for is that he is writing with his tongue firmly in his cheek.

The fact is that when there are seven boys competing for each place, as there were when I attended Eton, one tends to find that the entry exams are quite tricky (and the more people there are going for a place, the higher the required mark). So, whilst I have known Etonians who are hardly worldly-wise, few of them are actually "imbecilic".

Chris, I don't blog about my school as I'm trying to maintain this nourishing obscurity thing but I don't see why I should apologize that my parents scrimped and saved to get me in and that I had quite an adequate education. I certainly don't feel imbecilic but that's for you to judge.

UPDATE: Chris Dillow has replied and it's a pity the content of e-mails can't be posted. It was a good reply.

[qantas buy out] what's the role of government

Now here's a test of how conservative you are.

Americans are set to buy out Qantas, Australia's national carrier and the second longest running national airline, after KLM. There's a hue and cry over this, downunder, as you'd imagine.

In a television interview, Mr Howard said the state could not dictate who bought and sold shares in private companies:

"We cannot have governments deciding which shares can be sold and which can't and, in the end, that is what some people are advocating," he said. "Once you go down that path, then I think you begin to alter in a quite major way that nature of the economy that we operate in."

So, what do you think, in principle? Actually, I suspect Howard's letting it be sold because of that hostess in the toilet, who's now possibly pregnant. Can't have a national carrier allowing that type of behaviour, can you?

[ferry disaster] yet again

You wouldn't credit it.

You read about the Indonesian ferry fire last Thursday and yesterday, fishermen and navy officers recovered the bodies of 22 people killed in the fire. Journalists and cameramen were everywhere.

Then, a few hours after the last body was recovered, the ship sank with 16 people still on board. A cameraman was killed, while another and two police officers were missing. Four people were seriously injured.

"It happened so quickly," Lt.-Col. Hendra Pakan told The Associated Press. "The ship almost completely disappeared into the sea."

[blogfocus] it's ... er ... up

Admittedly I didn't e-mail anyone and admittedly it's become swamped in a flurry of other posts, but the latest Blogfocus IS up and can be found here.

Also, you may have missed these two:

1] Mr. Eugenides on St Andrew;
2] Tom Paine on Criminal Justice .

[fields of glory] croke park and murrayfield

Paul O'Connell

Yes, this may well be so - they had to wait 80 something years for the rematch, didn't they but I'm a little hazy on some of the other games. Could any of my 32 Scottish friends tell me what happened at Murrayfield? Promise I won't ask 17 times. I suppose Italy were shamed, were they?