fashion beach

Several decades ago I made the memorable journey across what was then the Soviet Union by the Trans-Siberian Express.  At breakfast time the Brits and Australians aboard would bring out their little pots of Marmite and Vegemite and argue the respective merits of these two concoctions.

Then I just heard a couple of days ago that some people in Singapore eat Marmite congee.  How the British Empire lingers...

Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention urged voters to give President Barack Obama another 4 years in office.  Clinton compared Obama's position with his own presidential term, arguing that Obama inherited a worse mess than he did and therefore needed more time to correct it.

According to last night's TVB News, the Republican response was to claim that Clinton owed his successful management of the economy to his ability to cooperate with the Republicans.  Since the current Republican leadership has largely refused to cooperate meaningfully with Obama on anything at all, this is tantamount to admitting their own responsibility for Obama's economic failures.  But I suspect they are too stupid to realise the irony of their own argument.

Of course, stupidity is not a one-sided prerogative.  The Democratic leadership, ignoring vocal opposition from the floor of the Convention, forced through an addition to the party platform declaring both that "Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel" and that "Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations" - otherwise known as wanting to have your cake and eat it, and definitely unhelpful to Middle East peace efforts, not to mention contrary to international law which recognises the pre-1967 borders under which East Jerusalem is not part of Israel.

How could I have published yesterday's post and not seized the opportunity to make fun of the other indispensable word in the teenage vocabulary (not just by Americans, though they tend to be the worst offenders)?  I, like, totally apologise for this awesome omission.

Overheard in Delft, the Netherlands, recently - an American visitor looking at an old church tower with a pronounced tilt to one side: "It's, like, totally leaning!".

Apparently "totally" is American for about 2 metres from the vertical.  Or like it, anyway.

Incidentally the artist Vermeer is buried in the church, which is totally still standing.