Up here in sunny Northland the locals don't seem to be aware that the end of the world is nigh and the Rapture is at hand. Don't they watch the telly? Of course it could be because the Rapture Index (aka the Dow Jones Industrial Average of end-of-time activity) isn't actually anywhere near all-time, make that end-of-time, highs.

Sigh.

Anyways, from Mark an explanation why the Irish can't say no. I thought that was only when it came to drinking. He also sends this on the dangers of too much weather.

Chris goes, like, so gross, with disgusting foods including ancient Arabia's "mellified man". Yum-o! He also sends a relic of early, post-revolution Cuba, via Stumble Upon, "when spirits were higher and cultural enrichment was a more pragmatic than idealistic goal", the remains of lost art schools.

Via Arts & Letters Only four Shakers are left in the world, all living in southern Maine, and unless the church can attract new converts, it’s heading for oblivion. Following on from Mark's recent story about economists who "make economics less economical", the Economist reckons we cannot live without big, ambitious economic models but neither can we entirely trust them.

Viking Penguin is about to publish the unedited version of Jack Kerouac’s hugely influential novel On The Road.

Chris isn't suggesting we knew it at the time, but some of us NZBCers were talking about prosopagnosia in the pub on Friday, over lunch. In fact he thinks he has it. I have it too, but consider it a blessing.

From me, and speaking of drinking, here's a man who took his responsibilities really seriously (more here).

That's it. Go away.

Over at Leaf Salon, in between the traditional whingeing about how the wrong books won yet again at the Montanas, is a nice tribute to Kevin Ireland (“another of our greatest living writers, and a very styley geezer to boot”), who got a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to NZ literature.

TVNZ pays its own tribute with a three-day Ireland special: he’s on the excellent Kiwi Kitchen tonight at 8, showing Richard Till how to cook a casserole; on The Book Show on Saturday at 5.30pm talking about writing; and on Sunday at 10.40pm he’s on Artsville as a painter.

Just wait and another will come along.

It's just a matter of time before a passenger train service (faster, cheaper) between Auckland and Wellington is reinstated, as oil gets even peakier and we remember how wonderful a quick, undetoured rail trip can be.

A few years ago the DG and I came back from Wellington, hangovers the size of aircraft hangars, a bare few hours of sleep under our eyelids. We were tannoyed as we steamed into every tinpot town with useless arrival information, which ended with the unfelt, unheard "Thanks for travelling with ..."

The sun streamed relentlessly into the windows, as our nausea rose with the latitude. We arrived, ill, knackered, grateful, into the old train station, Britomart just a louvred dream. I loved that trip.

Another piece of sterling reporting from America's best newspaper, The New York Times, brings us a sneak preview of the Bush administration's latest military tribunal plan - courtesy of more leaked documents, of course.

It's an improvement over the original tribunals for sure but looks unlikely to fully satisfy Congress or Pentagon lawyers. As the Supreme Court found an article of the Geneva Conventions does apply to US detainees, there's a bit of retrospective arse covering as well:

Administration lawyers have warned that the provision could lead to war crimes charges against American troops who use overly harsh interrogation tactics. The draft bill attempts to remove that concern by saying that a law signed last year by Mr. Bush on the treatment of detainees would “fully satisfy” the article’s requirement for humane treatment.

They are right to be concerned. Well done NY Times.

In the wee small hours at the "Evil Star" the old spirit of the media came out to play. Great stuff: crime reporters, sub editors, beer (lots of), News vs Fairfax, pistols at dawn.

Don't discipline him, promote him!

Here's the man himself reporting on Australia's gun law failure. More and more.

Woody Allen has designs on our muse. Scarlett says working with him is like being at school camp. Woody says she has it all. In his latest film he pretends to be her father. Hmmm.

We're loving these economists who make economics less economical.

Just this week there's "undercover economist" Tim Harford on Slate talking about the hopelessness of repressing "irrepressible markets" such as those around healthy tuck-shops and big-game tickets. He came out here and the Listener spoke to him about the why globalisation is good for almost everybody.

Then there's the Freakonomics guys Dubner and Levitt (book's in all good bookshops), in the NY Times, most recently discussing how to create a market for organ transplants.

And in the New Yorker, James Surowiecki, who we nearly persuaded to do Five Minutes With ... before he piked at the last beg, looks at how much factors like chance and context play even in multibillion-dollar markets such as aerospace.

I doubt I know a great deal more about economics now than before, but if the subject is indeed more of an art than a science, I can see a few of the brushstrokes now.

Watch Extras Tuesday, 21:30 on Prime. Do. It doesn't have the defibrillator-level embarrassment of Ricky Gervais' previous The Office, but you will laugh very much more. (The Christmas Specials, he apostatises, are really all you need to know about Wernham Hogg.)

Each week a different "star" effectively stops Andy (Gervais) from speaking a coveted line and so moving beyond being a background artist. His mate Maggie is loveable klutz supreme. Samuel L Jackson, as befitting most people with a middle initial and a whole world of po-facery, doesn't quite get the joke, but Ben Stiller oddly (am I the only one who loathed Zoolander?) does. Kate Winslet is quite perfect. Patrick Stewart is even better.

(At the same time on C4 is Aussie show The Ronnie Johns Half Hour, which has some very good bits and well warrants cranking up the old VCR. DG)

(And, of course, Denny Crane is a lure on 3. Damn.)

Having reacquainted myself with Sydney, or rather the insides of the Gaslight, the Aussie Youth, the Slipp Inn, the Darlo, Pier 26 and the Clock, among other pubs, it's a relief to be home. Even more of a relief that the Girlie hasn't managed to wreck the place.

My bloggies have been busy too. Mark's set up this film festival reviews post on our culture channel that we'll all be contributing to. Feel free to leave your own thoughts on films you've seen in the comments section.

Mark also sends this on beautiful Palm Island, one of those tropical Aussie islands you don't want to go to:

Palm Island (pop 3,000) is home to one of the country's largest Aboriginal communities and, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the most dangerous place on earth outside a combat zone.

He likes this on UK PR Max Clifford who openly admits the profession is about lies and deceit. On that note I came across a good PR poem recently:

Engine, Engine No. 9
Gets you to your job just fine.
Can't get off the PR track.
Ever dream you'd be a flack?

Hollywood, perhaps in desperation for a good yarn - any good yarn, is going nuts over amateur films on YouTube. And. lastly, there's this on the Supernanny phenomenon.

Chris laments the death of Mickey Spillane, the crime writer who gave us novels more noir than anything ever achieved on film. He also sends Richard Cooper’s interview with Charles Webb, who wrote The Graduate (surely one of the “50 best film adaptations of all time”, but inexplicably not). Cooper, NZBC’s friend over at Thoughtcat, managed a scoop when he scored an exclusive interview with Webb. It seems to Chris, however, that some of Webb's misfortunes, rather than being fault of the unscrupulous and greedy, have been largely self-inflicted.

As for “those poor bastards in Lebanon,” says Cooper, “don’t get me started”. The best take he’s seen on it all week is this cartoon by Martin Rowson.

There's some interesting comment over at NZBC’s favourite New Zealand literary site Leaf Salon, reminding us that poetry is a game in which it’s impossible to earn a living. And there's no point entering poetry competitions, either, because this guy always seems to win them.

Via Arts and Letters, an article that asks whether John F Kennedy's famous “I'm A Doughnut” speech in Berlin was a mistake in more ways than one (check out JFK's phonetically spelled index card to remind him how to say Berliner).

From me, just a bit of needle. Wouldn't it be ironic if George Bush's legacy was to raise Clinton to the status of a presidential great? Compare this with this. And finally if you haven't already read David Farrar's post on the "misdemeanours" of Taito Philip Field well, you should.

Ka kite ano.

As the mercury slumped to 9.6 degrees C in my lounge yesterday morning, metaphorically speaking, I spared a kind thought for the poor Brits basting in their disorientatingly familiar summer heat.

As the Observer reports, hot and dry summers by 2050 will happen every three years on average. Bad news for the country's traditional insects and plants, which are literally running for their lives, the slower tulips and daffodils falling under the bulbs of the faster. Good news for winemakers and, uh, shark-cage operators.

Climate change will affect how we eat, drink, work, holiday and build our homes and offices. 'We're going to have to get used to 30 to 40 days a year with temperatures above 25C,' said Ian Curtis, leader of the Oxfordshire Climate Exchange Project. 'It's going to be weird."

So weird. Siestas have been mooted, even as Spain's cities are dumping them as the concept of manana becomes so, like, yesterday. London's tube temperature hit 47, says the SMH, making some people fan themselves with their sudoku books and wish they were in cooler places, like the Sahara.

On the BBC this week, I heard a woman complaining that you used to be able to put up with the summer when it was just a few weeks, but "now it seems to go on forever".

The horror.

If global warming is all it's cracked up to be, of course, the Gulf Stream may just yet call it a day, and plunge Blighty into the climate it should have: Scandinavia's. Imagine the autumn clothes sales on Oxford St then.

I'm just back from Aussie and many there are rightly concerned about the thousands of Australian Lebanese stranded after the outbreak of hostilities in Lebanon. Frankly, I don't know what to say about Lebanon except that it's heartbreaking to see a country that appeared to be climbing out of chaos and civil war fall right back in again. And anyway, Robert Fisk can say it better (full article in today's NZ Herald).

The news from Iraq is also extremely bleak. Reuters reports some in the new unity government have already given up and plans are afoot to divide the country, and to divide Baghdad along the Tigris. That could be another nightmare scenario - especially for the Kurds.

Turkey is already warning it may cross the border to deal with the PKK, a move that could be justified pretty much on the same grounds as Israel's response to Hizbollah's attacks. Turkey has always said it will not tolerate a Kurdish state across its border, so a division of Iraq can only spell more bloodshed and chaos.

Iraq is now, for all intents and purposes, a failed state. If you're a terrorist, that news is all good. Just like the news from Lebanon and Afghanistan and Somalia.

Beatles, "The End"
Followed on Abbey Road by the last track, "Her Majesty". So, not the end at all. "The Penultimate" would have been more accurate.

Beatles, "Long Long Long"
Only a few minutes. Short short short.

Paul Simon, "An American Tune"
Based on a Bach chorale. Which makes it a German tune.

Rolling Stones, "I Got the Blues"
You’re a millionaire, and for the last five decades have shagged anyone you wanted.

REM, "Everybody Hurts"
Everybody? Brad Pitt? George Clooney? Bill Gates?

Rod Stewart, "Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?"
No.

Radiohead, "I Might Be Wrong"
You really don’t mean that, do you.

Any other nominees?

A most irregular column

The letter-of-the-month award goes to Anthony Wynne of Nottingham for his contribution in the Independent to the debate in England on whether the veil is an insult to women:

"If Muslims truly believe that no man can look at a woman without obsessing about sex, let their men wear blindfolds and be led around the streets by their children."

Our heroes are dying. Should we care? No. An occasional column.

The Director-General has tripped across the ditch for a “speaking engagement”. Or so he claims. He left the day my mate ML was arrested, so my guess is the trip is just a cover for talks with Tone about becoming his substitute fundraiser — the DG has the spiel and a bulging book of rich chicks’ phone numbers (pity he never calls them back). He left NZ with an admonition to “write something funny for Lollies this week — you know, like I do. I’m paying you to be Director of Light Entertainment, after all”.

Right. Over to young Mark, then, who located this timely retrospective of bad opening lines from the annual Bulwer-Lytton Prize. Timely, because NZBC reader Chelsea writes to remind us that this year’s winners have just been announced; although I must say I prefer runner-up Stuart Vasepuru of Edinburgh’s entry over the winner’s:

“I know what you’re thinking, punk,” hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, “you’re thinking, ‘Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?’ — and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel loquacious?’ — well do you, punk?”

NZBC reader Chris Keall finds Piers Morgan (author of The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade) “alive and well and apparently working on some kind of street installation art festival thing in Melbourne”.

Stephen is tickled by a gently paced blog about life in the slow lane, called “The Slowskys”, where they only learned of the demise of Barry White in May 2006 (Bazza, in fact, checked out of this Fat Farm in July 2003). The Slowskys are ahead of their time in at least one respect: finding solo albums “made by members of successful bands [that] could honestly be said to be as good as or better than the best work of the bands themselves”. We’re not clapping too loudly in congratulation, so as not to risk waking either of them up.

By the time I was 11, Syd Barrett had already left Pink Floyd, released both his solo albums and given his last interview. But I’ve always had a soft spot for The Fragile One, so was pleased when Stephen located these tributes, which weren’t written by rock hacks but by fans.

I can offer you a discussion about the origin of the term “flash mob” (via Boing Boing), in which the “discovery” of a supposedly antique postcard from late-19th Century Tasmania reminds us of the folly of taking Ye Olde Internet at face-value. And in the first of two further cautionary tales, Timothy Garton Ash is looking for shortcuts that will lead him to “the wisdom of crowds”… in blog comments. Then we have the sad story of a man foolish enough to take an Onion story seriously: a piece that was clearly a mash-up of the liberal notion of “pro-choice” and the inflammatory one of “pro-abortion” caused a blogger named Pete to get his knickers all in a twist, and the whole sorry business to be reported by salon.com.

And, in a tumultuous finale, conservationists warn of a crisis in biodiversity after recording dramatic countrywide declines in moths — they reckon it’ll affect British birdlife; Arts & Letters Daily points to Wired’s Rupert Murdoch feature, examining the MySpace acquisition and wondering how come he’s gone all technological; a discussion on the relative merits of US and NZ literary appreciation at Leaf Salon begins entertainingly and spirals into comments smeared with Marmite and baked beans; and thur’s trrrrubbel on’t presses.

Nos da i chi gyd!

Is Pirates 2 a patch on the first? Or is it just parroting? We kinda like it.

I’ve been thinking about this post, the way you might if someone with whom you were once acquainted found himself in the news: “Very quiet man, kept himself to himself.” Lord Levy would probably have preferred to have kept himself to himself, but Michael Levy (or “ML” as he then was known), wasn’t the quiet and retiring type even when I worked for him, years before he became Baron Levy of Mill Hill; long before the Jerusalem Post dubbed him “the notional leader of British Jewry”; before he started raising cash for prime ministers. From humble beginnings, Levy became a powerful music impresario, a millionaire who got rich on the backs of Alvin Stardust, Matchbox and Bad Manners. Before the people who run companies were called CEOs, he ran Britain’s most successful independent record label. At a time when singles actually meant something, Magnet Records owned 8 percent of the UK singles market. He was reviled, feared and envied by music business competitors, musicians and managers, but until recently he’s been best known for doing a lot of good work for charidee. “There are people in boats in the middle of the sea/Crying and dying like Jews/Do you like tennis?”, Levy’s discovery Chris Rea once sang in a song called Tennis. But if at the time someone had suggested that, as a result of becoming the PM’s tennis partner, “ML” would one day be involved in diplomatic talks with Yasser Arafat as “Middle East Peace Process Envoy”, and that his name would trigger more Google News Alerts than many pop stars’, you’d have thought they were taking the piss. More…

Update 13 July: Levy arrested in honours inquiry
Update 16 July: Call to Sack Levy as envoy
My arrest was sensationalist nonsense, says Levy
Update 18 July: A level-headed guide to the Levy affair
Update 17 August: Levy’s reputation “diminished” by slo-mo road-crossing footage
Update 21 September: Police question Lord Levy again

I think this campaign is likely to recruit more guys than girls. In fact, where do I sign up?

I'm not sure whether Jin is happy to be heading back to Auckland zoo, but given the little bugger made it to Motutapu Island, a wildlife sanctuary, it's probably for the better. And, quite an accomplishment, she even made it onto gossip email Popbitch without any of her dirty little otter sex secrets being revealed. Well, we at the NZBC aren't so polite:

Anyone who has seen otters having sex knows that they have a lot more fun doing it than humans do. Otter love tends to be a bit violent, with the male otter biting the female on the nose and holding her underwater for extended periods of time. This alternates with bounding, playful chases through the kelp as the female otter tries to get away. But she doesn't try very hard, and it's never very long before the male catches her again ... the female's nose takes a real beating. This leads to permanent scars by which individual otters can be identified.

Ahhh, that takes me back! There's nothing like a good roll in the kelp ...

Anyway, what have we got? Chris kicks it off with yet another books survey: this time of men’s and women’s favourites, underscoring the difference in literary tastes between the sexes.

It’s 90 years since the Great War’s Battle of the Somme but it’s an imperial German war flag that’s been fluttering over an English field. And here’s a lighter post, over at NZBC friend SunnyO’s, about Shakira’s execrable My Chips Won't Fry (isn’t that what it’s called?).

BoingBoing’s Mark Frauenfelder waxes graphical over the pencil of kings while comments come back to haunt this Chicago-Tribune blog post that just cuts-and-pastes a Reuters wire story on Wikipedia's "problems" reporting Ken Lay’s death. Chris reckons those in dying industries should be careful about writing obituaries for the new media.

Mark has Stephen Fry on the importance of understanding history:

British culture, besieged on all sides by guilt: guilt at empire, guilt at English domination of the United Kingdom, guilt at slavery, at industrial wage-slavery, at Boer Wars, Afghan Wars, mutinies, massacres and maladministrations. History, then, as one long, grovelling apology or act of self-abasement and self-laceration.

And at eternal World Cup failure perhaps?

Also this on John Malkovich who is not thick but has a great fear of seeming too serious, or seeming to care. Finally from Mark fat is not phat.

Stephen chimes in with Steyn on Ken Lay and Paul Krugman. From me, just this wrap on the meltdown at Aussie Channel 9 since Kerry Packer's demise. It features "Eddie Everywhere" (Eddie "millionaire" MacGuire), a shit sandwich and a bit of boning.

As the World Cup champions say, ciao.

The New York Times is continuing its Pulitzer-prize winning work reporting on national security issues, sniffing around some programmes that may not have been reported to Congress as required.

Following its NSA eavesdropping and financial transaction monitoring stories, the Times now reports representative Peter Hoekstra, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was pretty livid about activities that haven't been reported to Congress. In a letter to the President in May he complained:

I have learned of some alleged intelligence community activities about which our committee has not been briefed. If these allegations are true, they may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of the law, and, just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies.

The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution.

It appears some congressional briefings have only been given after the Times started asking questions about specific programmes. Not a good look at all. That could well be the real reason the administration is upped its criticism of the Times in recent months.

Jill Tarter provided the inspiration for Carl Sagan’s book Cosmos which was made into the film Contact, starring Jodie Foster. The director of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, set up by NASA but now privately run, she is in Auckland to deliver a lecture at AUT on Friday. She talks to Andrea Malcolm. More

Andrea Malcolm works for AUT.

Just a couple of interesting items around on climate change and related issues today, on the back of local developments. First from the SMH we have a setback for sequestration (you know, pumping CO2 underground). And a wake-up report saying Australia and the US are missing out on business opportunities due to their lack of action.

Meanwhile, as high fuel prices bite, Toyota is steamrolling US carmakers with its fuel efficient and hybrid cars. Ford, falling off the pace, will set up a hybrid development centre in Europe at its Volvo division.

It’s Will’s Week, and whether or not you’re a fan of the British writer and apparently inadvertent grumpy old man Will Self, you’ll find the 72 minutes and 34 seconds spent listening to the latest in Penguin Books’ excellent series of podcasts (numbers 18 to 21) both entertaining and compelling. Coinciding with the publication of Self’s latest novel The Book of Dave, the first two feature Self reading extracts — complete with deconstructed “mockney” homage to Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker (Self wrote the introduction to Bloomsbury’s Twentieth Anniversary Edition) — and the latter two a Q&A session with an audience at London’s Bloomsbury Theatre. Warning: despite the Guardian’s snippy digested read, by the time you’ve finished listening, you’ll want the book.

Update: The lovely people at Unity Books on High Street tell me The Book of Dave won’t be available in New Zealand until the beginning of August. Groan.

I was at the bar of the Brian Boru pub in Thames last week when the phone went off:

"Yup ... yup ... yup ... yup ... okay ... okay ... yup." the barman hung up, looked very serious, and announced to the half dozen or so people at the bar:

"That was the Junction. Betty's got her tits out and she's heading this way."

A quiet Wednesday in Thames. Betty never arrived so I don't know the end of the story. Somehow I doubt Betty looked like our muse.

Anyway we have some goodies fer ya. First up Mark with this on director Richard Linklater (Slackers, Dazed and Confused, School of Rock) has adapted Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly for the screen. The book's characters finds simplistic dichotomies such as good and evil hard to untangle. Funny that.

He also likes Maureen Dowd's take on American exceptionalism, reality TV's efforts to locate the ultimate Maria von Trapp for a new production of The Sound of Music and Jeremy Clarkson's (Top Gear) funny encounters with US officialdom:

And, unfortunately, these people at the bottom of the food chain have no intellect at all. Reasoning with them is like reasoning with a tree. I think this is because people in the sticks have stopped marrying their cousins and are now mating with vegetables.

Also from Mark, more on Jack Marx and Russell Crowe and Brits learn how to tell Aussies and Kiwis apart.

From Chris: death and destruction has caused the AK47 assault rifle's "inventor" (although the credit for that dubious achievement is, in itself, hotly debated) Mikhail Kalashnikov to join the chorus of voices calling for tougher restrictions on its use.

Not that anybody cares (however, like most, Chris cares an ångström unit more about Britney Spears than he does about the Paris Hilton), but compare and contrast this with this. Also sprach the Nerd: via Arts & Letters, Woody “Superman” Allen on the soon-to-be-all-the-rage-among-angsty-philosophy-students Friedrich Nietzsche diet.

Finally, from Stephen, Steyn on sex and why photographer Alfred Stieglitz never gave Georgia O'Keefe a Brazilian.

Auf wiedersehen muchachos.

The back labels of a wine bottle is where the winemaker really cuts loose with fruity flavours, food matching tips, perhaps even a dash of local history. But what does it all mean? NZBC's occasional wine writer Phil Parker breaks the back label code. More