I was just emailed the following invitation:

An Evening with Gilly Mundy

Come and celebrate the life of campaigner and activist Gilly Mundy,

who died on 17 March 2007 aged only 36.

I wonder if they’re planning to summon him from beyond the grave…

Mainly for rachelfmb: Crooked Timber have far too much fun with a planned film biography of Marx:

OPENING CREDITS

SOUNDTRACK: Jim Morrison sings “The Internationale”. Fade into overhead shot of Karl lying flat on his back on his desk.

MARX: (V/O) Bloomsbury. Shit. Two weeks and I was still in the British Museum Reading Room. Every time I looked around, the political philosophy shelves moved in a little closer. Everyone gets what he wants. I wanted an overarching critique of the modern politico-economic system. And for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service.

…

ENGELS: (puts down dog-eared copy of “Elements of the Philosophy of Right”) It is clear to me that Herr Hegel has gone insane.

MARX: Yes, sir. Obviously insane.

ENGELS: And he is still out there, still discussing the nature of existence. We want you to go to Germany, and terminate his tenure.

PROUDHON: Terminate with extreme prejudice.

Here is a nicely tongue-in-cheek economics paper, claiming that people drive better bargains listening to Brian Johnson than to Bon Scott. What’s impressive is that they manage to keep up their oh-so-serious tone all the way through…

Our results suggest that having participants listen to songs by AC/DC in which Brian Johnson served as vocalist results in participants realizing more efficient (*) outcomes.

…

Our analysis has direct implications for policy and organizational design: when policymakers or employers are engaging in negotiations (or setting up environments in which other parties will negotiate) and are interested in playing the music of AC/DC, they should choose from the band’s Brian Johnson era discography.

(*) Efficient=mean and self-interested, it seems

In Sharm el-Sheikh, Ban Ki-moon and a gaggle of presidents finally [launched](http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EGUA-72URTH?OpenDocument) the International Compact for Iraq today, supposedy gathering billions of dollars in aid for Iraq. [1]

They’re probably eviscerating their webmaster right about…..now.

[1] They claim $30bn, but most of that is debt relief (i.e. it is only worth a fraction of the face value)

Number of Iraqis living on less than $1 per day:

14.4 million

(54% of the population)

Amount spent on Iraq war/occupation:

$14,000 per Iraqi

[sources: Cost is $378 billion spent by the US over 26.7 million Iraqis, income is from a UN report published last week. The UK has also spent something like £4.4 billion, but the government doesn’t admit exactly how much]

I’ve finally got round to updating my contact details post. It now has skype (danohuiginn), German mobile number and address, and even a PGP key for the paranoid and the geeky among you. Plus far too many IM accounts of various forms, of course.

Although it’s friends-locked, I’m mostly happy for the information there to be given out to anybody who isn’t obviously a spammer or a mass-murderer.

Alan Moore has written a great essay on the history of pornography. This snippet on Victorian dramas is particularly charming:

Pornographic playlets could be purchased, ranging from two-person dramas through to full ensemble pieces if the neighbours were agreeable. These publications came with sheet-music, so that if one of the participants were musically inclined then he or she could sit at the piano and provide a vigorous accompaniment to whatever activity was taking place upon the hearth-rug or the horsehair sofa. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous but I was told that by Malcolm McLaren and if you can’t trust Malcolm McLaren then whom can you trust?