Good for you, Tony. Blair’s told Jacques Chirac what we all know: That the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a hypocritical, selfish disgrace. According to the Guardian, last friday,

Mr Blair had bluntly told Mr Chirac that the oft-stated French concern for Africa would sound hollow if it blocked further CAP reform, keeping EU markets closed to developing countries and preventing an effective new round of World Trade Organisation talks at Doha.

Mr Blair passionately expressed his view that the west had a responsibility to open the developed markets of Europe, which would require major reform of the CAP and an end to production subsidies.

And Chirac gets offended: “You have been very rude, and I have never been spoken to like this before,” he said, according to the Guardian. Not the wittiest of comebacks.

[Wed, Oct 30 2002 – 09:42] Matthew (www) (email) by the way, if anyone wants to complain about british foreign policy, they can now direct concerns to little jonny sinclair, who’s just been made private secretary to jack straw. he’s overseeing europe, north africa and, ahem, IRAQ. do the right thing, juan, we know you really want to.

[Wed, Oct 30 2002 – 10:34] Stefan (email) Couldn’t Jack Straw just use a word processor when pronouncing on Europe, etc…?

[Wed, Oct 30 2002 – 15:24] Charles Kenny (www) (email) Do you get something if you add the most verbiage to Stefan’s comments section in a month (beyond stiff fingers and feelings of dirty guilt)? Is there a ‘most valued blogger’ award? One wonders if it is enough knowing that your thoughts might be read by a random collection of the more time-laden of Stefan’s friends. Perhaps we should try to increase the readership of the site. A prize for the most read comment, perhaps? May I suggest:

hot free gamble yahoo teen google naked tickets sex microsoft apple amazon cnn disney porn

[Wed, Oct 30 2002 – 16:31] Matthew (www) (email) how about the Pro-Crastination award for the most posts and the Amateur-Crastination award for the runner-up?

[Wed, Oct 30 2002 – 16:39] Felix (www) (email) Charles — I googled your entry, and got the 1999 technology archives for Red Herring magazine.

Matthew — Do posts on one’s own website count?

Stefan — are we really only a couple of days away from memefirst.com making this whole conversation moot?

Everyone — does anyone know who Richard is, who very nicely has left a comment on my blog, unlike most of those present here?

[Wed, Oct 30 2002 – 19:53] Matthew (email) hey, stefan, we’ve taken a vote and all decided you should rejigger your website so we can all post things to talk about on the main site rather than be relegated to these little pop-up windows. because frankly, the most interesting stuff happens here, under the covers as it were, and not on your massive piece of literary real estate. go on, be a democrat. give us all a turn.

[Thu, Oct 31 2002 – 02:21] Stefan (email) Great. now it sounds lIke it was your idea. memefirst.com will be up and running as soon as I figure out how the hell to install Slashcode, which is the machinery behind slashdot.com. Go play with it, you will see how cool it is. But it will be a few days yet, as I am moving into my new apartment tonight and inevitably hosting the first of several housewarming srinks/dinners.

[Thu, Oct 31 2002 – 02:27] Stefan (email) Your contributions get read about 200 times a day, Charles, which amounts to 200 people minus your repeat visits.

[Thu, Oct 31 2002 – 09:08] Charles Kenny (www) (email) So, about 50 times a day by people other than me, then. Not enough. Congratulations on move, though, and I look forward to the new pictures of what may or may not be the view from your new front window, or somebody else’s old one. Have a great dinner.

[Thu, Oct 31 2002 – 11:06] eurof (email) I think that other 50 may be me, as I hide from an unfriendly market, away from a harsh world gone mad. So that’s good, at least we aren’t embarrassing ourselves in front of a wider audience. You should be happy, Stefan, that no-one else read what you wrote on morrissey. I hope you enjoy your srinks.

How do you cook srinks, by the way? Are they more canape or entree? Are they like crayfish?

[Fri, Nov 01 2002 – 07:33] kartika (email) Well actually Eurof some one else did read the Morrissey “thing” but have rationalised it by saying that the author was suffering from a momentary lapse of reason…

[Fri, Nov 01 2002 – 09:47] Matthew (www) (email) i thought that was pink floyd

[Fri, Nov 01 2002 – 15:44] Charles Kenny (www) (email) Srink is a good word. ‘You need a good srink’ is a suitably ambiguous statement to make in many social occasions, and one way or the other, applies to almost everyone.

[Fri, Nov 01 2002 – 15:46] Charles Kenny (www) (email) On or at rather than in, maybe. In many social settings was what I was grasping for. So hard it is.

[Fri, Nov 01 2002 – 15:57] Charles Kenny (www) (email) 200 people a day, though. That’s quite a lot. If that was to happen between now and the day I’m likely to die (some time in 2043, according to website below), that means this post would be read three million times. So if I post 2,000 blog replies, that’s the equivalent of being read by everyone on the planet. My life suddenly has purpose.

http://www.northwesternmutual.com/corporate/newsmedia/longevitygame.html

[Fri, Nov 01 2002 – 15:58] Charles Kenny (www) (email) and three million more, right here…

[Fri, Nov 01 2002 – 15:59] Charles Kenny (www) (email) just in the last three posts, the population of Belgium. Doesn’t seem so insignificant any more…

[Fri, Nov 01 2002 – 16:54] ben (email) Are you saying that the population of Belgium ever seemed insignificant?!