PETRONA: Redundant, risible and sublime

03 June 2009

Redundant, risible and sublime

"Have you ever wondered what celebrities do when they use the web?" asks Google. No, actually, I haven't. Never mind, Google ploughs on, you can now tour the homepages of your favourite celebrities, using iGoogle. Eight celebrities are mentioned; I have heard of four of them, only one of whom I know to have done anything useful (Al Gore). I can't bear to write more, but please do visit the Google blog if you want to know more about it.

As more ministers topple -- Top five political backstabbings. Funny, but is that all they could think of? Or should I write, Et tu, Brute?

Sean French writes that "DVDs are good for movies but utterly fantastic for opera". Bernard Haitink's Glyndebourne version of The Marriage of Figaro will cost you £175 to see live (the only price on offer) or £14 to buy the DVD. Advantages and one disadvantage of the recorded medium are duly noted.

3 Jun 2009 19:04:19 | Culture, Current Affairs

1 Comment

Maxine - I couldn't agree more, why should I possibly be interested in what 'celebrities dow when they use the web'? It's interesting that the first three names listed to catch my attention are Dave Matthews, Rachael Ray and Katie Couric - and I haven't a clue who any of them are. (This assumes it's not Dave Matthews the carpenter who does woodwork in our village.)

This is one more example of the way that US organizations haven't yet realized what the global reach of the web really means. Domestic celebrities don't translate. I don't suppose they know or care who Jamie Oliver or Jordan are, (come to think of it, neither do I,) but they assume we know their famous-for-being-famous people.

I bet they'd get much more world recognition for (say) Stephen Hawking.

Posted by: Brian Clegg | 04 June 2009 at 09:13

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Scientific terminology Via Dara Sosulski, highlighting a sentence from a scientific paper she was reading, “The ping-pong cycle acts independently of Piwi and Armitage but requires the function of Aubergine, the RNA helicases Spindle-E and Vasa, and the Tudor-domain protein Krimper.” I, Editor, on the other hand, muses on the origins of the term "missing link", blacklisted from all reputable scientific discourse. All ancient suggestions welcome at the I, Editor post. rENNISance woman asks: please define "other". Ye gods! Words fail me. (But do read the comments to her post.)

Ice Cold, by Andrea Maria Schenkel My review of Ice Cold by Andrea Maria Schenkel went up at Euro Crime on Sunday. From my review: "This grim tale is told amid lives of extreme poverty and ignorance, with the political propaganda applied to the population by the government always in the background. The atmosphere of working class Munich is well-conveyed, reminding me of L'Assommoir and Nana in Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, which explored poverty and squalor in Paris 50 years before the events of ICE COLD." The author previously wrote The Murder Farm, reviewed for Euro Crime by me here, and by Amanda Gilles here. Both books have won awards, are short, and are very grim reading. Too bleak and cold for my taste, I think, but clearly they are very well respected. Which makes me think I may be missing something in my assessment of them. I think my issue with them is that the stories are told in a very clinical fashion, without embellishment. The style of providing the story as several "witness statements" increases this sense of alienation in the reader, as one cannot get involved in any of the characters (although one can feel pity for the victims). Essentially, these books leave...