The Dish

[Clive]

A High Tory grapples with Robert Kagan’s neoconservative history of America’s role in the world. It goes without saying that Geoffrey Wheatcroft has doubts about the thesis of Dangerous Nation. But he still enjoys the asides:

One more throwaway nugget is the fact that from the 1860s to the 1880s, Chile had a larger navy than the United States; in his next volume Kagan will perhaps remind us that in 1939, the Belgian Army was larger than the American Army.

If you fancy an account of British conservatism, triumphs, scandals, gossip and all, Wheatcroft’s The Strange Death of Tory England makes a ripping yarn. We’ll see if David Cameron can bring the corpse back to life. There are certainly signs of a pulse at the moment. No wonder Britain’s leading blue blog is in a cheerful frame of mind.

[Alex]

I fear that the Christopher Caldwell op-ed on Darfur Clive cited earlier is depressingly accurate. Maybe the killing in Darfur doesn’t amount to genocide as the term is generally understood. I don’t know. I’m far from an expert on the matter. But I do know that there is something morally repugnant about declaring genocide and then doing almost nothing to stop it.

It may be that there is little that the US can usefully do in Sudan, but in that case it would be better to say nothing than to stand on the sidelines arguing that something must be done so long as we’re not expected to actually do any of it ourselves.

You can always count on the Bush administration for fine words but if we’ve learnt anything these past six years it’s to look at what they do, not just what they say.

We’ve been here before of course. Perhaps the most disgusting passage in Bill Clinton’s shabby memoirs is the moment he declares his failure to act on Rwanda "became one of the greatest regrets of my presidency" – a statement that might carry more weight had he devoted more than a handful of paragraphs to the subject in the course of his 1,000 page apologia.

Will bush’s ghostwriter also have to wash his hands in this manner?

[Alex]

Clive is probably too modest to mention this, but as far as I can tell he has near-impeccable taste in music. I had never heard of the remarkable Paolo Conte until the other day. If you know his work you’re fortunate; if you don’t then you have a great discovery ahead of you.

It’s droll, deceptively simple, charming Italian jazz of the sort you might imagine your favourite uncle might perform just for you when you’re a kid and he’s feasted and drunk well…

Switch the phone off, pour yourself a glass of (good) bourbon, light a fine cigar and chill. For a few blissful moments you’ll think you’re at a Roman jazz club and all’s right with the world.  It’s super-groovy stuff and the way life ought to be lived.

[Alex]

Greetings, people. And a big thank you to Andrew for entrusting part of his blog to me for the next couple of weeks. Brave of him. Still, it should be fun and I’m looking forward to seeing what Clive and Danny will be writing.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we find ourselves pondering the history and future of the transatlantic relationship, plus America’s problematic public diplomacy efforts. Most Britons I know consider this a problem – a sense that is compounded by the lack of importance this administration seems to attach to the issue. What do you think? What can be done to improve matters?

I’ll also be considering the future of the United Kingdom itself (portentous drum roll please!) as the prospect and appeal of Scottish independence and hence the break-up of Britain seems strangely and suddenly possible.

Now, in a shameless rip-off of Danny’s list of things he likes about America, let me give you Today’s Top Ten Things I Love About This Crazy, Mixed-Up, Marvellous Country:

Breakfast at a diner in small town America

College football (Go Blue!)

Proper old-time country music (bluegrass too)

Nightime champagne with a pretty girl on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Motels off the interstate

Bagels

Raymond Chandler

Central Park

The West and its exhilerating sense of freedom, possibility and romance

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – that still rocks, folks

[Daniel]

Ok. So I said I would be introducing you to some great things on the British blogging scene. Tom Whitwell’s Music Thing is constantly inventive. And to prove it, here’s the YouTube video he posted of a man playing guitar with his feet. Unlike the Michel Gondray Rubik Cube film, I think this guy is for real.

Some of Music Thing’s comment makers point out that people are just walking by while this amazing feat/feet is taking place. Good point. Though to blame it on "Bush’s America" goes a bit far.

[Daniel]

Time’s

[Clive]

One of my minor addictions is the five-of-the-best culture lists that run in the Wall Street Journal every weekend. The latest offers Joe Keenan’s take on the sharpest literary satires about Hollywood. Budd Schulberg’s What Makes Sammy Run? takes pride of place, with Michael Tolkin’s The Player close behind. I wonder how long it will be before Tinseltown’s excesses become so bizarre that they make any fiction look puny? I mean, can you really satirise someone as unreal as Tom Cruise?

[Clive]

Talking of super-egos, this clip of the temperamental Roberto Alagna walking out of La Scala’s production of Aida has just come my way. (It’s almost as funny, in its way, as some of Andrew’s all-time bad pop videos.) As you may know, a replacement had to make an abrupt entrance from the wings after the star was upset at being booed. What’s Italian for "Who’s that strange guy in the beard? Is he a stalker?"   

Alagna’s sense of proportion was obviously still out to lunch when he spoke to the press:

The audience is intimidating. It reminds me of the fear of expressing oneself freely that existed in the Communist bloc.

[Daniel]

Over the next few days, alongside all the other stuff, I hope to introduce you to some of the best things on the British blogging and journalism scene. But if I’m going to do that it seems only fair if I start with 10 things I love about America:

1. Loaded potato skins

2. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights

3. Walt Disney

4. The fact that almost everyone you meet in America is incredibly polite

5. The fact that almost everyone you meet in New York isn’t

6. The West Wing

7. Martin Luther King

8. The steaks at Morton’s

9. The Manhattan Institute

10. The fact that you send your children across the world to risk their lives for liberty and spend billions of your dollars on it, even though the people whose liberty you are saving, including my fellow Europeans, don’t say thank you properly

[Clive]

"The American effort to impose liberalisation and democratisation not only failed, but actually assisted the coming to power of new regimes in which ordinary people enjoy fewer freedoms and less personal security than under the previous autocracy."  Sobering words about Mesopotamia? No, it’s the late Jeane Kirkpatrick’s view of the Carter administration. Niall Ferguson assesses the neocon legacy of the other Iron Lady.