Today’s Guardian blog piece called “Israel and Russia: the best of football friends” is a neat lesson in how to avoid legal action, while at the same time suggesting a “conspiracy theory” about how some of Roman Abramovich’s money, through the (Russian) Football Academy Foundation, is tied up in Israeli football.
It hints at something whiffy [...]

The Guardian’s “In praise of…” Leader comments are occasionally a little off-beam. But today’s eulogising of Britney Spears for making a surprisingly-not-that-bad record is surely taking the piss.
The new album, as today’s Film & Music section points out, is often brilliant. And what is most brilliant is its musical risk-taking. This is pop, all right, [...]

Interesting take in the Independent on the reasons for Roger Alton’s resignation as editor of the Observer. According to the Indy, Alton was the victim of a “power struggle” with sister paper the Guardian, partly as a result of his paper’s support of the Iraq war, in contrast with the position of the Guardian.
The Indy [...]

Presenter Nicky Campbell got into a spot of bother this morning on The Big Questions, a religious/”issues” programme I found myself watching on BBC1.
The author Joanne Harris was on there as a guest and Campbell was talking to her about a religious experience she supposedly once had. He reminded her of the time she fell [...]

I fear Gordon Brown may be even worse than Tony Blair. His penchant for spin and adherence to short-term gain at the expense of long term vision has become depressingly obvious in the last few weeks, especially the last fortnight.
The problem is especially marked given that Brown initially tried to paint himself as a man [...]

Here is an extract from the Guardian’s January review of the Klaxons’ album Myths of the Near Future, which won the Mercury Prize last night. Nothing like having your finger on the pulse, eh?
…The album is a mess of clumsy beats that never settle into a groove, lurching shout-along chants more suited to the football [...]

Is it fair to say that coverage of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the South East has been overblown as a result of the so-called “silly season”? According to Peter Wilby in the Guardian yesterday, the excitable tone of coverage, especially in the Daily Mail - which, a fortnight ago described a [...]

It’s become pretty obvious today that the media has been guilty of failing to appreciate the scale of the recent floods in Hull. It’s emerged that 30,000 people had to leave their homes as a result of the flooding - far more than anywhere in South Yorkshire, where Sky and News 24 have been camped [...]

There’s a very funny article in the Guardian today by the excellent Charlie Brooker, who dons his emerging “grouch for all seasons” persona (rather than his former “foul-mouthed TV reviewer” persona) and buggers off to Glastonbury.
Having listed camping, mud and “loud noises” as three things he hates, he is forced to admit that by the [...]

The Guardian’s bloggers have posted 13 times from the Glastonbury festival so far today, and 11 times yesterday. Perhaps a little excessive, considering the most obvious audience for this stuff is drowning in mud and cow shit on a farm in Somerset… and presumably hasn’t packed the MacBook.
The majority of comment seems to be from [...]