Can you tell from reading this piece that it was researched and written in under 25 minutes?

"The definition of a head in the sand political ideologue is someone who thinks one side is ‘right’ in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict." – ‘Cockney’ in the Biased BBC comments (of all places).

I’d go further. "The definition of a batshit crazy halfwit who deserves to be brutally eviscerated for the good of humanity is someone who thinks one side is ‘right’ in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict", perhaps.

The IOC has published its final assessment of the five Olympic bids. The summary: the London and Paris bids are both great; the Madrid and New York bids are acceptable; and Moscow would be a fiasco.

Much as I love being cynical about London, I’m rather impressed by the bid committee’s achievement over the last 12 months in moving from ‘unimaginable’ to ‘comparable to the Froggie bid’. See, we *can* do infrastructure projects after all (simultaneously, it sounds like the Dome is going to become the worthwhile and interesting venue it should have been in the first place).

So London, Paris, Madrid and New York are all in contention, with a mild bias towards London and Paris on the grounds of competence.

Paris is the odds-on favourite. I had planned some kind of Eurovision-comparison post at this point, pointing out that everyone hates the French, the British and the Americans (generally either in order 1-2-3 or 3-2-1), and therefore Madrid would probably actually win. Paris would do worst, since everyone *really* hates the French.

However, according to this ACNielsen survey, Paris is by far the most popular Olympic choice among the people of the world. Weird shit. Maybe they’re following the Samizdata line that holding the Olympics is an excellent punishment for someone you don’t like…

John Kerry’s newly-released full military records show that the Swift Boat Liars are liars (Bugmenot may be needed). The full records entirely back up Mr Kerry’s story from the campaign, while lending absolutely no credence to John O’Neill’s bullshit.

It’s just a shame that Mr Kerry was too much of an honourable man being slurred by scum, and not enough of a low-down and dirty political operator, to get these released during the campaign… Oh well. On the plus side, the Dem ’08 candidate is sure to be as low-down and dirty as a freak can be.

Pearsall of Pearsall’s Books has tagged me with a new meme, so here are some Things about me and books.

1) Total number of books I’ve owned:

~300, including the ones in boxes. Still own pretty much all of them, except the ones which have been nicked.

2) The last book I bought:

I was going to say What the Media Do to Our Politics by John Lloyd. It’s well-written, well-argued, well-researched, and I still disagree with almost every aspect the book – in some ways, an ideal read.

Then I remembered that I bought The Rise Of The Indian Rope Trick as a light read when I went on holiday. Whimsically diverting, but not exactly edifying, not that it’s supposed to be. And it’s written by a Professor of Magic Studies, which is rather an excellent job title.

3) The last book I read:

This is slightly hard to answer, since I normally read several books at once. The last book I started was White Mughals by William Dalrymple. I started it on the Tube this morning, so haven’t yet got very far… The last book I finished was How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer. Probably not a book I’d normally have chosen to read, since it consists of beautifully written, well-characterised and twisted coming-of-age stories about Jewish-American girls, but a friend lent me it and I’m glad that she did. And I’m also in the middle of rereading First Love, Last Rites, which makes much more sense now than when I was 15.

4) Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):

The Rachel Papers. I know, I know; I suspect it’s mostly nostalgic value, and there’s a chance I’d find it almost as lame as Martin Amis’s recent work if I reread it now. But at the time, it was the most evocative book In The World Ever.

The Long Dark Tea-time Of The Soul by Douglas Adams. Douglas again probably partly wins out of nostalgia – but this is a book that was still brilliant on adult rereading. It’s far more imaginative and original than the H2G2 series – instead of (brilliantly) satirising English life using scifi clichés, it goes beyond parody to create something very, very strange indeed.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Do I need to say anything here? A comic novel about the horrors of love and totalitarianism, which manages to be one of the funniest, most upbeat, bleakest and most downbeat books ever written. And which actually has some explicit and non-lame sex scenes, which is unusual in anything written by a man (or a woman, come to think of it. Writing about sex is as difficult and pointless as fucking about poetry).

Christ, narrowing this down is hard. Err, how’s about The Picture Of Dorian Gray? Wilde is the pioneer and master of the whole ‘applying the plot of classical tragedy while also being entirely flippant the Terrible Moral Sins that his characters commit’ thing, which is something I like stylistically. Light comedies about suffering and death. Auschwitz The Musical. Yeah.

And A Treatise of Human Nature. Bollocks to metaphysics. Be sceptical. Humean behaviour is by far the most civilised incarnation of human behaviour. Also, go vote for him in Radio 4’s Greatest Philosophers poll. Vote for anyone else, and I’ll break your legs.

5) Tag five people and have them fill this out on their blogs:

Damn, this is getting harder as the UK blogworld expands. Err, Dsquared, Sarah, Gert, Harry Hutton & Sean Thomas.

Side note – Zoe Williams had a piece in the Guardian on Saturday about the category error of trying to Google for one’s keys. More than once while putting this post together, I’ve fired up Google with the aim of Googling my bookshelf…

Update: I’ve been re-tagged by the Pedant General. Thanks, Pedant.

Introducing a new SBBS feature: the Loon-Off – like the regular mentalist-spotting, but with an Added Interactive Element (PRESS RED BUTTON NOW).

Today, we have two easy and cheap sources of utter mentalitry: the Samizdata comments vs grouphug.us. Who’s the least sane?

Samizdatista: "I understand the Jews walked voluntarily into the gas chambers. I will not and never have used a cell phone because it enables tracking of the owner / user…"

Grouphugger: "One time i stuck my penis in a tub of my mom’s crisco in order to get off. I creamed in it and made it look undisturbed like before I had my way with it. I never told anyone and my family probably ate it many times in a batch of cookies."

Vote in comments.

This was so going to be my claim to fame. Oh well, at least I now don’t have to do it…

States’ rights? We don’t need no steenkin’ states’ rights.

Bunch of cunts.

Blessed are the poor in generosity: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that judge: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the aggressive: for they shall acquire the earth.

Blessed are they which do lust in self-righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the unmerciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the impure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the warmakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which persecute for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

(from here via here)

An email correspondent writes: "This morning in the tube, I witness a big fat american tourist woman not being able to hold her enormous bulk upright against the train’s motion. First she nearly fell and people held her. Then, the next time the train jerked, she really fell, like a bowling pin and fell right to the ground. There she lay rolling around on her fat ### unable to get up again. People tried to help her up but she was too heavy. Eventually she shuffled accross the floor in a pose like when a rock guitarist slides to the floor on his knees, only less dynamically, and managed to drag herself up on a hand hold. She then dusted herself off and made some feeble noises like "Phooo! golly! Whoosh! Hey, OK now. Fine now. Phew!" while everyone looked on with a mixture of bemusement and pity. It was dreadful. It should have been funny but somehow it wasn’t."