Nick Jordan

NewsBiscuit: Refugees from Congo Civil War ‘more angry about Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’. Nothing I’ve seen or heard puts the current furore over Ross and Brand into perspective better than this. The prank was stupid and they should have known better but there are more important things happening in the world. Besides, the sheer quantity of coverage of this has become deeply irritating, at least to me. Can we forget this and go and solve some real problems now? It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of them.

I know it’s not uncommon for other people to share one’s name but I thought it might be fun to list a few that I’ve been aware of for a while, both real and fictional.

• A US Republican Senator (Kansas)
• An English guy living in Canada who also rides motorbikes
• An artist from Manchester, UK
• A surgeon in the BBC dramas Casualty and Holby City
• A French comic-book secret agent (how cool is that?)

I know there are others, but these are my favourites. Does anyone interesting share your name?

Tales from beyond the grave

Beneath our feet, stories of the past lie waiting to be told.

Over the last 30 years, the Museum of London has excavated, examined and archived 17,000 skeletons. Now, 26 of them are to go on display at the Wellcome Trust in London.

They each have a story to tell about life in the capital hundreds of years ago.

Truly fascinating stuff. I think I’ll have to go and see them.

If a man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.
Japanese Proverb

I came across the above proverb and it made me wonder about other tea-related sayings. A quick search turned up Tea Quotes and Sayings. Tea is a wonderful thing, and it seems that lots of other people agree with me.

Upstairs, downstairs. As Britain’s rich see their wealth grow are we risking a dislocation in society that would surprise our Tudor forefathers?

A nice little article that contrasts the way the super-rich live now with the way that their Tudor counterparts did, especially in their interactions with the less fortunate people who supported them, with some nice references to the re-enactments at Kentwell Hall, which really are worth visiting.

I’ve just been introduced to We The Robots via Metafilter, and have spent a happy time reading the archives and chuckling to myself. It’s clever, witty, tragic and just plain damned funny. This is one I shall be reading regularly.

Fight for your writes. A nice little article by Zoe Margolis. While it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever write anything here that anyone else would want to reproduce, I’m fully aware that the copyright for my blog posts rests with me and, if the circumstances arose, I’d be more than willing to enforce it. Having said that, I’d be very pleased and flattered if anyone ever wanted to use my stuff, so my permission, if sought, would almost certainly be given without much hesitation, as it has with a photo of mine on Flickr, for example.

I’ve just had my attention drawn to Match It For Pratchett, a website that has been set up in order to raise at least £500,000 for research into Alzheimer’s, the disease that Terry Pratchett was recently diagnosed with a form of. Mr. Pratchett himself has recently given half a million quid for this and, whether you’re a fan or not, I think it’s a very worthwhile cause and I urge you to make a donation of whatever amount you can afford.

I’ve heard about a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but how about a sheep in poodle’s clothing?

Novice tells of Bronze Age find. How cool is that? Talk about beginner’s luck!