. . . from the opening shimmering, evocative western and Arab strings followed by an extraordinary tympani high on the ramparts by a slip of a girl knocking seven mighty shades out of a colossal tambour. I was hooked from that moment on.
Tag Archives: John J Kelly
Yuri Gagarin table lamp blasts into Thus Magazine Quality Hall of Fame
April 12, 2011 – 5:13 pm
50 years to the day after orbiting the earth for 89 minutes in a tiny capsule jettisoned from the mighty Vostok 2 rocket, Hero of the Soviet Union Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin was awarded another gong. A plastic table lamp constructed in his honour has been inducted into ThusMagazine’s Quality Hall of Fame. The event, widely leaked on [...]
Names not numbers, Thus Spake Portmerion
March 15, 2011 – 2:33 am
….actually, not true. For once, I listened without fidgeting and kicking the seatback of the person in front. Except during the breaks, over breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner, in the bar, walking on the beach, on the bus, where I talked too much – I blame the coffee – listened and enjoyed the company of a [...]
Sex and Terror in the Robot Shop
January 8, 2011 – 6:38 pm
If my previous post gave the impression that any fool with an unhealthy knowledge of vintage robots and space toys, brightly coloured tin, Mexican death symbolism, a penchant for loud, obscure, smoking rhythm and blues, religious kitsch and clockwork automata could become a retail czar, then I apologise. Robot shopkeeping is no sinecure. I recall [...]
A year among the robots
January 3, 2011 – 11:48 am
Like my life, Thus broadcasts have been patchy and intermittent over the past year. One reason is that I felt I could add little to the depressing and inevitable commentary on the new UK government that I hadn’t already said long before they slunk into office. While the BBC Victor Meldrews, Guardianistas and other Hounyhyms [...]
Afghan elections declared free but not fair by EU fudgepackers
August 23, 2009 – 11:54 am
While resisting the temptation to say ‘we told you so’ (Thus passim) – it is glaringly evident that, as predicted, the Afghan elections were neither free nor fair. Except that by an extraordinary contortion of logic and semantics, the EU monitors have declared that they were ‘generally fair but not free.’ Well, thanks for putting [...]
Ballot papers for the Afghan Rocky Horror Show Election on sale in bulk
August 18, 2009 – 2:23 pm
This morning, with two days to go, the BBC uncovered evidence of massive Afghan election fraud. Why are we not surprised? Leaving aside the fact that Thus reported this ‘possibility’ back in April, and again yesterday (see previous post) there have been several telltale signs that the promoters of Democracy Inc. are prepared to turn [...]
How the Tories wordgrabbed Progessive and sent Mandy Mental
August 12, 2009 – 2:16 pm
Yesterday, unlike ‘Lord’ Mandelson, I saw George Osborne deliver his case for the Tories as the party of ‘Progressive Politics” at centre-left Demos think tank HQ. The hounhymns were confounded. Phil Collins – no, not the former drummer of progressive rock group Genesis but the former speechwriter for failed prog rock singer, Tony (Ugly Rumours) [...]
Afghanistan's 'democratic' election – a Karzai shoe-in aided by Western media indifference?
July 16, 2009 – 10:52 am
In the interests of transparency, I have made no secret of my support for Dr. Ashraf Ghani’s Presidential candidacy (Thus passim). I don’t know much about the other candidates (and should do) but it appears crazy to endorse the Karzai regime, which has presided over a culture of warlord cronyism and corruption which has increased [...]