January 2004

A terrible disaster has occurred in Marble Bar, WA, Australia’s hottest town. This place is a tiny outback settlement that nestles, or rather hunkers down trying to find some shade in the Pilbara mountains of northwestern Aussie, the oldest part of the Earth’s crust. The Bar was originally a gold-rush town (there’s still a small…

The Americans have now had 2 helicopters shot down this year – this time it was a Blackhawk, with nine men killed. (The one before that was a highly manoeuvrable OH-58 Kiowa reconnaissance heli, a worrying development.) The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting angle on the shooting-down here. “General E. J. Sinclair, commander of…

It’s not been a good year for homonyms, as mentioned in the previous post. The great aviation security scare of 2004 has so far seen a succession of serious homo-bashing episodes – greatly helped by the Transportation Security Administration only including surnames on their warnings, as revealed by Nicolas Sarkozy. Now there’s a man I…

Well, after a prolonged Christmas break blogging recommences today. Michael Howard, the exciting new Conservative leader or tiresome hasbeen depending on view, has greeted the New Year by spamming the entire party membership (and some poor unfortunate homonyms) with a “declaration of personal principles” patterned quite obviously on those on the Rockefeller Centre. link to…