2007 — 12 Mar: sniff that Monday morning air of freedom!
What a beautiful day...
Guardian journalists have been taken to task by a letter writer for associating stories about 60-year-olds with Vera Lynn (who she?). "People who are 60 this year were 21 in 1968 (Yes, I can see that) and that means they rioted in Paris and London; took part in sit-ins; offered cannabis to Bill Clinton at Oxford (but he never inhaled); and attended the first Isle of Wight festival (No, not certain of any of that)."
Better to stick to Madeleine Bunting's long and thoughtful examination of last night's "The Trap", or (perhaps) re-read the amazing job ad ("Where marketing communications meets major customer-centric change") from HM Revenue and Customs for a £80,500 + benefits job in London explaining Tax Credits. I shall leave unexamined the proposition that the major "customers" of Tax Credits are very likely not the online users of the preferred communications channel.
Rites
Back in 1994 a chap named Bert Keizer wrote a wise and (to me) eye-opening set of notes on life and death in a book called "Dancing with Mr D".
(Much more enjoyable than the title I bought — "Death: the final stage of growth" — but didn't bother to retain on my shelves, from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.) Anyway, I see Keizer's popped up again, with an interesting piece in threepennyreview about rites of departure. But I don't think I'll be commissioning the brightly coloured coffin on a two-wheeled cart towed behind a bicycle...
You'd think, with the number of people who have died1 during our time on this planet, we'd have evolved better coping strategies."Denuclearization" — oh happy day that I should live long enough to hear such a word! (NPR from Beijing, in case you were wondering.)