sticks and stones

Newsflash: my external hard drive has stopped connecting to my computer for no obvious reason.

Newsflash 2: the place I wanted to be in to start a walk at the end of August is unreachable by public transport forcing me to change my plans in some way yet to be determined.

Newsflash 3: my advice on Osprey luggage and Contigo travel mugs still holds. I may have mentioned also that Dunlop Volleys are the most comfortable basic plimsolls money can buy, but they are not for people who need stabilising shoes. I am working towards advice on walking trousers, but I don't want to hurry it. What else do you need help with?

Newsflash 4: I had an idea for a television programme based on a title which is a pun. I'm not the first person in that boat. In fact, the boat is sinking, it's so full. No bad thing.

In American sports news: Donald Sterling is being forced to sell the Clippers because he was caught being racist on tape. Strong action indeed from the NBA. On the other hand, he has already been prosecuted for racist actions with respect to his work. You are legally allowed to be a dick, you are not legally allowed to discriminate in the workplace. The excellent Mike Pesca, who you've never heard of, writes: I would argue that refusing to rent to black and Hispanic families is a far worse societal ill than decrying the presence of Magic Johnson on the Instagram account of your goomah. The NBA apparently didn’t think so, having never raised any kind of public ruckus about Sterling’s shameful, well-established behavior. It’s telling that Clippers coach Doc Rivers claims he “didn’t know a lot about” Sterling’s racism before he accepted his current position.

However, it's a publicity-driven league so it's the publicity snafu not the crime that got him in trouble. For clarity, in case you don't follow the NBA, Sterling is a terrible, terrible dick.

Also, there is going to be a movie about Chinese guys playing American football badly. It was an aspirational sports choice based on movie watching and they self-consciously or not wrote their own season into the shape of a sports movie. The whole thing is well recursive.

In American non-sports news, the This American Life about tarring and feathering is completely gripping.