John Mortell’s blog

While this is in the ‘humour’ section – it could just be in the ‘what guy hasn’t been there’ section …. While I’m not sure that being an ‘intellectual whore’ is always a bad thing, even so this deserves a look..

Why intellectual whores

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Got the new Kristin Hersh album yesterday (at least I think it’s new – its so hard to find her stuff that I’m not sure). ‘Learn to sing like a star’ is the name of this album, but given that the only other album I have of her is her live it was interesting to listen to a ‘proper’ album. I haven’t really decided what I think of it yet though, but so far there doesn’t seem to be any stand-out tracks but another listen or two will probably give me a better feel for the album anyway.

In other news I’m going to try study for the day. Ah week and a half until my first exam. I’m doomed I tells ya…

Thankfully I don’t think this is actually from the Calvin and Hobbes strip but rather a well done ‘clone’…

Or in my case not getting done at all… Just under two weeks to go until my first exam and I’ve spent the day hauling blocks. And in two hours I have to go to work. And tomorrow I’m working again and then losing the evening in town because I have to get my new prescription of contact lenses. Bloody hell.

I love this ‘show’ -

Ok,this is a slightly old argument/idea but it’s expressed really well in this article form Naomi Wolf.

The first one is dire – but the video is hilarious.. I may have posted ‘jump in my car’ before.. But I can’t remember so here it is again.

Here are a few of the BBC articles. This is a bit odd for me as I’ve been reading a lot about the man lately as one of my history topics this year was ‘Russian and Soviet history’ – the essay I plan to do for the exam is on Khrushchev and Gorbachev.

I would question the way that a lot of the articles seem to give him greater credit that Gorbachev for ‘democratising’ Russia – from what I’ve read, Gorbachev had a much greater part to play than they acknowledge. Meanwhile Yeltsin’s ‘aid’ to the other nationalities in the USSR was more out of a desire to strengthen Russia in its own territory than any other feeling – and his destruction in Chechnya proves that he wasn’t that interested in ‘self-determination’. Anyway, I’m sure his death will lead to some interesting articles and books coming out in the near future..

From the BBC:

‘the coronal temperature is up to 300 times hotter than the Sun’s visible surface, or photosphere. And no one can explain why’

‘Solar explosions called micro-flares can release energy equivalent to millions of hydrogen bombs’.

From the BBC: ‘Baldwin and his ex-wife Kim Basinger have been embroiled in a long-running legal tussle over Ireland‘. You’d think that the person writing this would have re-read that sentence…