Tuesday 26 July 2016

i'm still standing

I find myself with half an hour and about a dozen open links that have been open for a month. I wonder what they are?

Oh, this guy. I mean band. I've periodically enjoyed the lunatic Quantum Jump Lone Ranger song, which doesn't seem like it's hugging the racing line, PC-wise (Mitchell and Webb, Edinburgh, 2000 or 2001). I enjoyed reading about Rupert Hine, who went on to become a sort of super producer. He looks massively like he should have been bowling fast for England in teams which lost to the West Indies in two days.

Maximum Fun: I suppose I bookmarked this to remind me of my own brilliant observation that 95% of the podcast phenomenon is Americans realising-without-realising how much better the world is if you've got Radio 4 in it.

Maybe I've done James Hilton before. He wrote Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr Chips. You might think the second is famouser, but only if you don't know anything about the former. Leaving aside the fact that it was one of the first small-format paperbacks and sold about a billion copies, the main thing was that it introduced the term Shangri-La - in the book it's a mythical, impossible to find Tibetan monastery of eternal life. FDR was a huge fan and he called the new Presidential retreat Shangri-La. Later it got renamed Camp David.

Also, when America long-range bombed Japan in quick revenge for Pearl Harbour, and he was asked, 'How could the bombers reach that far? Where did they take off?' he replied, 'Shangri-La'. The US Navy soon named an aircraft carrier Shangri-La in tribute.

'Robert, who is your favourite living artist?'
'Do you mean visual artist?'
'Yes.'
'Well, I am not the world's greatest art expert. But if I had to give a name, it would be Nina Katchadourian.'

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