His father was an intimidating tycoon, still primarily remembered for his legal action against Private Eye, though revered in some City circles as n extraordinary businessman with the flair of a successful gambler and an uncanny acumen that saw him build his empire from one company selling suntan lotion into a global grocery empire.
acumen (n) 1: a tapering point 2: shrewdness shown by keen insight [syn: insightfulness] – source: The Observer Magazine 13/04/03, p. 14–15
April’s Springsteen colloquium moved me in many ways: the memories the songs have soundtracked, chiaroscuri of place and time, the urges to haul out underplayed or overlooked albums and batter through them all again (Lucky Town in particular, with ”Better Day”), reinvigorated, reminded, receptive again and hopeful.
chiaroscuro (n) : 1 the arrangement of light and dark parts in a work of art, such as a drawing or painting, whether in monochrome or in color 2: the art or practice of so arranging the light and dark parts as to produce a harmonious effect. Cf. clair-obscur – source: Uncut May 2003, p. 7
Not that Norton is taciturn. Far from it. He is, if anything, rather loquacious, as though this hologram has been programmed to protect itself from intrusion with a sound barrier of precision-turned, Ivy League-accented eloquence, using words such as ”synergy”, ”autonomy” and ”impracticable” while giving away little more than a frain aroma of the Pilgrim Fathers.
loquacious (adj) : full of trivial conversation; ”kept from her housework by gabby neighbors” [syn: chatty, gabby, garrulous, talkative, talky] – source: The Guardian Weekend 12.4.2003, p. 26
Doesn’t that devalue them both? It’s like the budget isn’t important enough to be concentrated on and while we’re at it, no one’s going to look at these boring images of Iraqis looting some godforsaken city so better provide them with an alternative.
And isn’t the idea of journalism to work as a filter and provide a commentary to what’s happening? The way I see it, reporters are paid to sift through the tide on incoming (mis)information and try to make some sense out of it? Geez.
Also couldn’t help noticing that the words ”social justice” featured quite often in the Chancellor’s speech. I’m a relative newcomer to British politics (going for the understatement of the week here), so I’m assuming that is a New Labour buzzword. I’d be interested in knowing what it’s supposed to mean (I believe his words were supporting enterprise and social justice
).
The Chancellor was talking about improving the incomes of people in low pay jobs. He said that the modern way of doing it was to provide tax credits instead of rising the minimum wage. Now I’m a bit simple, admitted, but doesn’t that mean that the financial burden falls on the state instead of the employers? Mr Brown had calculated that the new tax credits would almost double the income of single-parent working families. If it’s already nearly impossible to get by on minimum wage, shouldn’t the government be pushing for higher wages instead of throwing in their own money? I’d rather have the credit go to the employers instead of the workers, because if there’s an economical downturn, the credits might go away and then the poor bastards are back on shit pay, which mightn’t happen if they’d raise the wages now.
But what do I know?
The man is a decent enough guitarist, but his singing is a different matter altogether. First of all, it’s not in tune. Second of all, he’s still singing. Third, it’s fucking 4 AM. Why can’t the poor bastard just go to bed? Thanks to his perseverance, I must have heard Ticket to Ride more times than ever before in my life. Come to think of it, my years have been remarkably devoid of budding nocturnal instrumentalists.
(A Completely Unrelated Yet Somewhat Amusing) Footnote: I still can’t for the life of me understand why the heating has to be turned off in the middle of the night. One unpleasant side effect of this is that it’s rendered nighttime visits to the loo unenjoyable. Nothing takes the fun out of bodily functions like sitting on damp, cold toilet porcelain and freezing your ass off. It’s not that I’m asking for too much, is it now? Just a cozy nice little place where I can relax and take a dump whenever I like.
In the immediate aftermath of his death there was a bit too much hagiography and there was bound to be a backswing.
hagiography (n) : a biography that idealizes or idolizes the person – source: Word 2/2003, p. 18
After the kiddie hanging (Jesus, who hasn’t wanted to dangle their masked children out of a hotel room at one point or another?), the court cases and all the other not always apocryphal tales of a ghastly life with surely only darkness at its heart, Jackson’s reputation is beyond tattered.
apocryphal (adj) : not canonical. Hence: Of doubtful authority; equivocal; mythic; fictitious; spurious; false – source: Word 2/2003, p. 97
No police check; neither of my referees had been contacted, and I was setting off to work in a hospital. […] There could hardly be a more lackadaisical way of being dumped into it to turn a quick buck for an agency.
lackadaisical (adj) : lacking spirit or liveliness; lethargic; listless; languid – source: Hard Work, p. 36
In 1983, he was the subject of a New York Times investigation into an allegation that he recommended that the Army buy weapons from an Israeli company from whose owners he had, two years earlier, accepted a fifty-thousand-dollar fee. […] He had not recused himself in the matter, he explained, because the fee was for work he had done before he took the Defense Department job.
recuse (v) : to withdraw oneself from serving as a judge or other decision-maker in order to avoid a real or apparent conflict of interest; – often used with the reflexive; as, the judge recused himself due to a financial interest in the matter – source: New Yorker 17.3.2003, p. 78