'****ed' are the meek

Any idea of freedom must include the freedom to be poor.

- Rana Dasgupta

Priorities

"I write for two reasons: partly to make money and partly to win the respect of people whom I respect."

- EM Forster, interviewed by the BBC on his 80th birthday

At the (international) school gate

"As a writer you are considered one up from the dole."

- Robert Twigger

[NB He meant 'as a successful writer', obviously.]

Least surprising headline 2009

Random, but kind of connected, thoughts

1. NewsCorp lost $3.4bn last year. Mainly thanks to giving away free online content.
2. The Amnesiac Review lost somewhere in the same region.
3. Thom Yorke says, "If you forget about the money issue for just a minute – if it's possible to do that, because it's people's livelihoods we're talking about – and you look at [the digitalisation of music] in terms of the most amazing broadcasting network ever built, then it's completely different."
4. Someone I know who may or may not be intimately connected to the music industry says, "I’m gonna hunt him down and slap him. Such a righteous prick. SO easy to say when you’re eight albums down the line on someone else’s promotional money. Ignorant prick."
5. There's a sect of fetishists called Feeders. Look it up for yourselves.

The perfect mensch

[Thanks to Jewdas]

Thought for the day

"I'm of two minds - whether to skilfully weave my personal history into the warp and woof of a subtle plot structure that evolves through the play and counterplay of mimetic imagery to reveal my narrative point of view as an integral part of this literary work, or whether to just dump my life story into your lap out of sheer lack of writing ability."

- P.J. O'Rourke, Unpaid Bills

Also

1. David Cameron seems to have gotten hold of a copy of my manuscript.

2. There's such a thing as the 'London 2012 Countdown Coin'. Available from the Royal Mint for just £5.

3. Really.

Google ads

This just appeared on the Amnesiac Review/blogger dashboard...

Sofa Rash Compensation
Helping Sofa Rash & Burn sufferers
100% Compensation - No Win No Fee
ClaimsDirect.co.uk/SofaRash

What key word triggered THAT?!

Good Prospects

Getting it on with Dambisa Moyo, in the African economics stylee.

JD Wetherspoon's - 1

Right. That does it. I'm leaving the country at the end of the summer.

If I had a Rand for every time I heard this...

Only those whose motive is not moneymaking should be allowed to write.

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Hm.

Remuneration UPDATE

Cyrano: When I have made a line that sings itself
So that I love the sound of it--I pay
Myself a hundred times.

- Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac [trans. Brian Hooker]

(Thanks to Mrs. Dee Dee Cusack)

As soon as I get $20

I'm going to invest it wisely.

The world of work

and why we avoid it:

Minimum wage to rise by 7p an hour

Bank statement

NatWest are a bunch of *u***.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson

These humdingers, from Wednesday's Newsnight:

"While there's stimulus on the front side, there's haemorrhaging on the back side."

"It's going to take some time to bring light into a dark economy."

Financial statement

You've gotta spend money to make money, people say.

But just try asking them for a loan.

May you live in Financial Times

All the spoof news that's printed to fit.

(Perhaps it'll cheer up all those privately-educated Maoist revolutionaries out throwing things at the RBS building.)

More City stories

Paul's assessment of the whole G20 whiney vegan business:

"Personally I think it’s a load of hype about something that will lead to nothing… although I secretly would quite like to see a repeat of the May Day Liffe trading floor riots (when the story goes that 15/16 of the great unwashed tried to storm the trading floor and “take some people down” not realising that the Liffe floor housed rather a large number of East End wide boys with somewhat dodgy criminal connections and serious fighting experience, fuelled by adrenalin and a vast amount of drugs.

As the “rioters” ascended the escalator to gain access to the trading floor, fuelled with tofu and lentils - and probably a handful of pamphlets - they were met by what has been described to me as “big f*cking dave” who wasted no time in knocking each one out in turn and placing them back on the down escalator.

Cue a small pileup of “rioters” at the bottom of the escalator who didn’t even manage to step a single foot onto the actual floor)*.

--
* This story was originally told to me by “Gambit” – a one armed broker from the Liffe trading floor who was apparently there at the time (the nickname was given to him by his fellow brokers… nice people that they are)."