Some smart guy has published a list of “Lockdown Reading” (as an alternative to watching yet another content-thin TV documentary series or gloomy Scandi-cop drama on Prime or Netflix).
I myself am currently two-thirds of the way through the John Masters Loss Of Eden trilogy (still one of the finest Great War novel series ever published). For you Kindlers, they are here — the chronological order being Now God Be Thanked, Heart of War, and By The Green Of The Spring. Forget trying to get them in paper- or hardback. It took me about five years to collect my hardback copies, combing military second-hand bookstores over three states.
Here’s another list of war books, for those interested:
Achingly sad, wonderfully funny, sometimes within the space of a couple sentences. As soon as finances improve, I’ll be adding to my collections of each series. Start with either Goshawk Squadron (WWI) or Piece of Cake (WWII), depending on your favorite war.
Mick Jagger has called out Paul McCartney for claiming The Beatles were bigger than The Rolling Stones. The singer, 76, hit out at the Hey Jude hitmaker, 77, for suggesting The Rolling Stones copied whatever The Beatles did during their time as music rivals.
‘The big difference, though, is that The Rolling Stones is a big concert band in other decades and other areas when The Beatles never even did an arena tour. They broke up before the touring business started for real… They [The Beatles] did that [Shea] stadium gig [in 1965]. But the Stones went on. We started stadium gigs in the 1970s and are still doing them now. That’s the real big difference between these two bands.’
Of course, ol’ Mick is showing signs of senility — or at best, selective memory. As Paul pointed out:
‘I love the Stones but The Beatles were better. Their stuff is rooted in the blues. Whereas we had a lot more influences.’
Paul’s being kind. The Beatles created influences while the Stones just kept on playing their garage-band versions of blues. And when the Stones didn’t do that, they copied the Beatles, as Paul noted:
Suggesting the Paint It Black hitmakers began to copy the Beatles, Paul added: ‘We started to notice that whatever we did the Stones sort of did it shortly thereafter.
‘We went to America and had huge success, then the Stones went to America. We did Sergeant Pepper and the Stones did a psychedelic album. There was a lot of that.’
As for Mick’s comment:
‘One band is unbelievably luckily still playing in stadiums and then the other band doesn’t exist.’
Jagger’s confusing longevity with talent, which is like saying that Leonard Bernstein was a better composer than Mozart because he lived longer.
The Beatles broke up because they had three unbelievably-talented creative musicians who wanted to go their own way; the Stones only ever had Keef as their creative source, so they were never going to break up: since Let It Bleed, their music has always been about making money, not about the music. And Keef, as he’s always admitted, is and always has been a blues musician. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison played pretty much every kind of music — and created their own forms as well. The Stones have never done that, ever.
Stick to prancing around the stage in skintight yoga outfits, Mick. Nobody does it better.
Over at Knuckledraggin’, Kenny posted this interesting gif:
…and it got me thinking.
I’ve never bought into the whole jewellery thing. It’s not just my long-time hatred of the loathsome De Beers diamond cartel and their criminal business practices (although that certainly plays a part), but there’s a part of me which just applies commonsense and cynicism to the whole ethos of “precious” metals and stones.
The “metals” part I can sort of understand because they at least have useful properties for some applications, and ditto diamonds when used industrially (cutting, grinding and what have you).
But as decoration? What a load of old bollocks. Wearing diamonds as decoration, in necklaces, pendants, bracelets and (ugh) engagement rings is really just a way to say, “I’m rich and can afford to spend money on these useless baubles as a way to show off my wealth”.
In the old days, jewellery was used by royalty to show their social superiority over their subjects. Nowadays, when some illiterate oaf who is able to string a series of mumbled rhymes into a “song” can load up his neck, chest and teeth(!) with gold and diamonds — well, that kinda devalues the whole thing, doesn’t it? Except that’s precisely the point of expensive jewellery.
I don’t care much for most modern terminology / slang, but I love the word “bling” because it describes perfectly the inherent emptiness and worthlessness [sic] of slapping shiny rocks onto everything in sight.
Don’t even get me started on those tasteless morons who load up their (already-expensive) wristwatches with jewels, driving the price into the stratosphere for absolutely zero added utility*. Here’s one example:
And when I said “stratosphere”, I wasn’t kidding. I don’t know the cost of the above — Graff is remarkably (and understandably) coy about publishing prices for their watches — but one of their other timepieces (which is too ugly for me to picture here) went on sale for $55 million. Small wonder that these and their ilk are the preferred watches of drug kingpins, Arab oil sheikhs and Russian oligarchs — breeds not known for their exquisite taste — because that is the target market of all jewellery: people with newly-acquired wealth who have to show it off.
In a way, though, I’m glad that these parvenus pricks buy into this nonsense, because it enables us to label them, correctly, as “suckers”.
So when somebody looks at a diamond pendant and sniffs, “Glass”, I’m the guy who replies, “Who cares? It looks just as pretty.”
And if it gets lost or stolen, you can simply shrug and buy another one, more or less with the loose change in your pocket, while the owner of the identical-looking “genuine” diamond item has to open negotiations with the insurance company.
Next week: art.
*Longtime Readers, by the way, know that I love expensive watches — my “lottery” watch is a Vacheron Constantin Royal 1907 (retail: ~$50,000) — but that’s (much) less than the sales tax one would pay for Graff’s foul “Hallucination”.
I have often snarled at the .dotmil, who never seem to miss an opportunity to create weapons systems that are so laden with bells and whistles that they add all sorts of other problems, e.g. COST not to mention MORE THINGS TO BREAK.
It’s not just the military, of course. Try this wonderful screw-up from a different government department (emphasis added):
There’s a massive shortage of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) test kits in the U.S., as cases continue to skyrocket in places like Seattle and New York City. This is largely due to the failure of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to distribute the tests in a timely fashion.
But it didn’t have to be this way. Back in January and February—when cases of the deadly disease began aggressively circulating outside of China—diagnostics already existed in places like Wuhan, where the pandemic began. Those tests followed World Health Organization (WHO) test guidelines, which the U.S. decided to eschew. Instead, the CDC created its own in-depth diagnostics that could identify not only COVID-19, but a host of SARS-like coronaviruses.
“No, not just a test kit to address the immediate issue; let’s make one that’s more complicated but can test for every single virus in the world, plus others that don’t even exist yet!”
And as any fule kno, when you try to make something to do one thing, but expand the mission for it to do lots of things…
Then, disaster struck: When the CDC sent tests to labs during the first week of February, those labs discovered that while the kits did detect COVID-19, they also produced false positives when checking for other viruses. As the CDC went back to the drawing board to develop yet more tests, precious time ticked away.
Government: fucking it up six ways to Sunday, each and every time.
(pics courtesy of