Daily catch-up: America, Bowie and a glimpse behind the Iron Curtain
A non-drip teapot (pot pourri) of curios collected from around what Gordon Brown once called the websphere
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Your support makes all the difference.Usually I give you Sir William Davenant's pictures of old London, but this is "a glimpse behind the Iron Curtain": Prague in 1956 by René Burri.
• As Dylan Sharpe said, the opening of Robert Colvile's article for Politico on Donald Trump is very good:
Of all the things that baffle the British about America, the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump has to be right up there with breakfast pizza and everyone always shooting each other.
• I scored 0 out of 25 in David Bowie's top 25 albums (via Steve Silberman), but a reasonable 15 out of 100 of Bowie's top 100 books, matching the score of Ed Vaizey, Minister of Culture. The record so far is held by Shaun Whiteside, who has read 35.
• One of the best things in The Independent is Guy Keleny's Errors & Omissions columns on Saturdays. Here is last Saturday's. And here is the back catalogue.
• This is very good. Lessons in rock ‘n’ roll history from Trash Can Radio via Flip Chart Rick. The world needs more Sixties Garage.
• Quotation of the Year. How right Robert Wright turned out to be. Tweeting as @RKWinvisibleman on 14 September, two days after Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader, he said: "Nearly everything that happens now will illustrate why New Labour acted as it did." I could set that as an essay question for the students on "The Blair Years" course at King's College, London.
• And finally, thanks to Andy Hutchcraft for this:
"The man who invented the Acrobat Reader is now homeless. He is of no fixed Adobe."
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