Just a Gwai Lo - fun within prescribed limits

Adam Greenfield on anti-Ikea bigotry: “I must hear some version of this spiel once a month, generally from some self-consciously leftie male between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two desperate to prove his authenticity, present his down-with-the-people, fuck-the-Man bona fides. This despite the fact that Ikea was explicitly founded on the premise of providing well-designed furniture to the masses at affordable prices - a premise that the company still largely delivers on.”

He goes on to argue that your mediocrity is your own damn fault.

Ben Hammersley, a little tangentially, comments on where he lives: “From here to the cafe I'm about to have a beer in, I'll walk past carpenters and metal workers and joiners and painters and all manner of special trades, unmoved and mostly unchanged since the renaissance. It's actually quite hard to find a street that doesn't have some exquisite piece of teak for sale, and more likely than not that if you look up through second floor windows you will see a frescoed ceiling. Michaelangelo, Donatello, and all the other turtles lived, worked, got pissed, and chased girls (or boys in Michaelangelo's case) in these streets.”