Martin Meenagh blog

Two Songs for Valentine's Day The first, for reasons of my own, is a song which reminds me very much of the first time I landed in Baltimore, and the second of nightshifts in a Corby warehouse just after I finished my undergraduate exams at Oxford. I was living with my grandfather and earning money on Sainsbury's one-hand-distant agency shilling. In those days, the feeling when I got home just before sunrise and took those steel capped boots off was unbelievably sensual. Mad, that. The video of the second, by the way, is capable of being bizarrely poignant--a song dedicated to a dead army comrade through a demonstration of ice skating set to music of a different sort of love. Petrenko really deserves credit for doing it. Words fail me, but he does dance well. I love being human. I hope that you are in love, wherever you are. Blogging will be light again, this week, as I am off out to a very fine but homely French place tomorrow and working my socks off for the rest of the week...

Astounding News I am shocked--shocked--that wikileaks cables are suggesting that Saudi Arabia has overstated its oil supplies and may be in or near peak oil . That sort of mixture of hearsay and delusion belongs on the more obscure fringes of the blogosphere. I would give all the references to myself, but as Voltaire said, to be a bore is to explain everything in detail. That's my story and I am sticking to it. At least the Sudans, Iraq, North Africa and central asia, as well as Siberia and Alaska are about to increase their production in some last desperate drive. That's what I hear, anyway. It must have been news like this that gave Mr Mubarak the 'stroke' everyone is talking about, but at least it has for now kept him off his exploding aeroplane. Here is a selection of other people in similar states of choqueitude

Two Pictures from Space Aren't those Sputnik things great? I mean, here are two nebular mysteries, onto which those projecting the future have drawn star signs and from which they have pronounced all sorts of predictions. They're so strange. We have nothing like them on planet West, except in Serbia, Luton and Whitehall and places like that. Tahrir Square in Egypt, and Azadi Square in Iran, looked to me like two different locations in more than the geographical sense on February 11 2010. It's amazing how many people from all sides of the political spectrum will tell you that these images in fact show multiply similar things, although whether you believe that Iran leads to Egypt or Egypt leads to Iran seems to depend on where in the US your mind lives. At the moment.

Plenty Tough People Sitting here at night, on pinot noir and flu pills after a long day, I found myself watching the news conference which State Premier Anna Bligh and Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave in Australia during Queensland's latest tribulation. I was struck by the steel efficiency of it all, and the calm voice of a great strong people. I get very sentimental about Australia, for no good reason at all. Anyway, I am not going to inflict my usual Sydney Olympics 'Advance Australia Fair' version. Here is a different one, by a classically trained pianist who ended up in a pop group. Condi Rice, I suppose, could have too, but well, you take a wrong turn here and there in life, and there is no going back. Anyway, decent tough working people with hearts of gold. That's my Australian prejudice tonight, and here is the requisite aspirational film, which I found genuinely moving. It is odd what these pills will do....

Cuba, Egypt, and Men with Beards The United States Media, who are in a sort of push-me pull-you relationship with that country's establishment (others might compare it to those strange friendships found in prisons or amongst Spartans) have been agitating for the world power to 'do something' about the revolt in Egypt for some time now. Sage heads have nodded, and last night, a reasonably large force of Marines seems to have been despatched, complemented by the carrier group led by the Enterprise . The President has said serious things about full and fair elections, and the intelligence chief has been touted as the inescapable man just as the Egyptian Army have moved to secure pipelines and quietly arrest agitators. This is a far cry from 1989, of course. I look at what is happening, or rather, that is all I can do, unlike some of my former students, who are in the thick of things, and I think 'I hope that this does not turn into another Cuba'. Cuba as a cipher for ...

To Lost Commentators I've had an email or two about my absence--I'm just working very hard--but also, about the criticism policy on this blog and in my head. Let me make it clear (best Richard Nixon voice); people whom I like can say exactly what they like, and I really don't mind criticism. I have an Irish mother and love her dearly, and a Korean girlfriend, whom I love, and I am scared of both of them appropriately. These facts more or less demonstrate that if I was precious I'd be six feet under. Secondly, if you do have a go, I'll have a go back but I love you all really and will do so with a smile--God loves opinions, after all, since he made so many of them! Thirdly, if I really didn't like you, you wouldn't be on here. I am not a liberal person. Normal service resumes shortly.