“I’m staggered,” said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec. “The figures are just on a completely different plane compared to market expectations. They contradict other anecdotal evidence suggesting retail sales activity is softening. There are bound to be questions about whether they reflect a true picture of activity and they will raise speculation of rate hikes.” 

Brian Hilliard at Société Générale said: “It is amazing. I cannot believe this is a reflection of the underlying trend. A stunning number. We suspect weather as the explanation.”

Like tiny scooters and the renaissance, this trend began in Italy. Despite Seven Nation Army not being particularly well-known (some called it simply the “po po po po po pooo pooo song”) it became the anthem of the Italians’ world cup win in 2006. A version - with fans singing the chorus - even got to No 1 in the country and Jack White was moved to comment on the matter. “Nothing is more beautiful in music than when people embrace a melody and allow it to enter the pantheon of folk music,” he said, though this process may have passed fans of the Azzurri by.

It has since been adopted by Liverpool fans for their player Javier Mascherano (sing his name to the beat and you’ve pretty much got it) and this year it’s an anthem for everybody.

A single switch in a Pepco substation failed yesterday morning, cutting power to the heart of the nation’s capital, including the White House and downtown offices. The outage shut down Metro stations, threw rush-hour traffic into a state of bedlam and highlighted how vulnerable the city can be.

Christopher Hitchens recalls bohemia’s eclipses in London, Paris, and San Francisco, and worries that New York’s West Village may soon become another victim of the skyscraper’s shadow. The loss would be immeasurable.

[T]ry picturing American culture without the contribution of this unique square mile. Inter alia, you would have to subtract Bob Dylan and the Cafe Wha?, Norman Mailer and The Village Voice, Isadora Duncan, John Reed and Edna St. Vincent Millay, the Beats, the gay movement and Christopher Street and the Stonewall Inn, Lauren Bacall as “Miss Greenwich Village of 1942,” Eugene O’Neill, Dylan Thomas at the White Horse Tavern, Dawn Powell and Djuna Barnes. In his book which has the wonderful title Republic of Dreams, Ross Wetzsteon managed to evoke what he admitted was sometimes “a cult of carefree irresponsibility, but in the service of transcendental ideas.” That could be Bohemia defined.

The loss of a cultural beacon like the West Village will make the future a bit dimmer

because on the day when everywhere looks like everywhere else we shall all be very much impoverished, and not only that but—more impoverishingly still—we will be unable to express or even understand or depict what we have lost.

photo credit: scratch n sniff

The Judean date is chronicled in the Bible, Quran and ancient literature for its diverse powers — from an aphrodisiac to a contraceptive — and as a cure for a wide range of diseases including cancer, malaria and toothache.

For Christians, the palm is a symbol of peace associated with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The ancient Hebrews called the date palm the “tree of life” because of the protein in its fruit and the shade given by its long leafy branches. The Arabs said there were as many uses for the date palm as there were days in the year.
Greek architects modeled their Ionic columns on the tree’s tall, thin trunk and curling, bushy top. The Romans called it Phoenix dactylifera — “the date-bearing phoenix” — because it never died and appeared to be reborn in the desert where all other plant life perished.

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