Rafael Behr

Words that don't exist but should (XV)

If many arcane things constitute arcana, why can't a collection of mundane things be mundana?

Official: ladybirds are the new squirrels

Ladybirds: cute, right? Wrong. They are pests. And a threat to our national sovereignty too.

I have a ladybird infestation at home. I didn't think that ladybirds infested. I thought they were rare, delicate things, like butteflies. Christ, they named a series of children's books after them. That's how innocent they were. You don't get 'cockroach classics' about Peter and Jane, do you?

But a quick Google search reveals that I don't have the charming good-luck-to-touch indigenous British ladybirds swarming over my window sills. I have the pernicious Harlequin Ladybird. Over sexed, over-sized and over here.

It's red squirrels/grey squirrels all over again.

Internet makes old thing new, better

It's Garfield minus Garfield.

Words that don't exist but should (XIV in a very occasional series)

Hevel verb trans - to groom, arrange in order, make presentable; the opposite of which is to dishevel, or make dishevelled.

Quick! A mashup!

Why fight, when you can dance?

Time to hear the Deep Message.

(Credit: DJ Moule)

Me, gluttony, punishment

Hmm. I have written a piece in the Observer about this business. (Can't link to my column yet, as not live.)

I have used it to illustrate a point I've been itching to make for ages: that the idea of 'online community', especially as seized upon by politicians in search of legitimacy and new audiences, is a myth. There is nothing intrinsically democratic about networks. The web is not civil society. It is something else. Not sure what.

A bit tenuous really. The peg, I mean. I think the point is interesting. Anyway, I'm gonna get murdered on CiF.

But you guys - all 8 of you - know I loves the blogging.

Show me the way to the tar and feathers.

Morituri te salutant. And other cliches.

Update: Comments on this post are now closed. If you have come here from CiF and want to get your caps lock on about nepotism or media arrogance or bad writing (or anything else for that matter) please do it elsewhere. Regular readers - usual anodyne fluffy blog service resuming shortly.

Overheard in the lift at work

Twentysomething woman: What have you got planned for tomorrow?
Twentysomething man: I'm gonna go on the piss all day.
Twentysomething woman: Nice! I like going on the piss all day.

So if anyone's free tomorrow and looking for something to do, there'll be a bloke in London on the piss all day. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you joined him. More the merrier.

Iggle Piggle, Upsy Daisy, get a room!

Honestly. There are children present!