For the benefit of Mr Kite…

by Chris Bertram on July 8, 2003

The bringing of a new blog before the public is a practice now so common as scarce to need an apology. Nevertheless, such lists, assemblages, diaries, complaints, lamentations, polemics and records of triumph and disaster are now so common and so diverse that new entrants into the field must perforce struggle to be noticed. Notwithstanding such difficulties, we believe that our new enterprise – combining as it does the skills, talents and intelligences of personages of experience and distinction – will assuredly meet with the approval of readers of judgment and taste. Crooked Timber is a cabal of philosophers, politicians manque, would-be journalists, sociologues, financial gurus, dilletantes and flaneurs who have assembled to bring you the benefit of their practical and theoretical wisdom on matters historical, literary, political, philosophical, economic, sociological, cultural, sporting, artistic, cinematic, musical, operatic, comedic, tragic, poetic, televisual &c &c, all from perspectives somewhere between Guy Debord, Henry George and Dr Stephen Maturin. We hope you’ll enjoy the show.

{ 14 comments }

1

Theodopoulos Pherecydes 07.08.03 at 2:39 pm

It would be nice if I could read it…the posts bleed into the border.

2

Nicholas Packwood 07.08.03 at 2:46 pm

Best of luck with your flâneurie.

3

David Weman 07.08.03 at 6:05 pm

I expect this to be a daily read. Best of Luck.

4

aphrael 07.08.03 at 6:13 pm

Congratulations on the new blog; I expect it to quickly become one of the best on the web. I will read it as often as I am able.

However, I have one small complaint: there’s a problem with your template such that under IE 6.0.2800.1106, the blogroll on the right overlaps the text box and makes the last word or two of each line difficult to read. Similarly the calendar is overlapping the left of the text area. A screenshot of what i’m seeing (in case the description is insufficiently lucid) is at http://www.discontent.com/~aphrael/img/crooked_timber.jpg. (The text is nigh illegible in the screenshot because I used lossy compression; it actually displays fine other than the overlap).

5

Ross 07.08.03 at 7:46 pm

Congratulations and best of luck on your new joint adventure.

Where’s the hogshead of real fire?

6

RR Ryan 07.08.03 at 8:35 pm

This is a definite addition to my daily reading list. Best of luck and have fun.

7

Ikram Saeed 07.08.03 at 8:49 pm

Looking forward to reading this. Great name.

And to begin the griping immediately — the main text column is kind of narrow, and the font used is huge (but not superbly readable). IS the design a work-in-progress, or faitly fixed?

8

msw 07.08.03 at 10:47 pm

I’d like to confirm the above sentiments:

1. Love your other blogs and plan to visit often.
2. The layout has issues. I have to reduce my font size significantly on Mozilla 1.4 to prevent spillover from the sidebars.

msw

9

Kieran Healy 07.08.03 at 11:04 pm

Moz 1.4 under Win 2000 works fine for me. So does IE6 on Win 2000. This is so at all resolutions from 800×600 to 1280×864.

Safari (Mac), IE5 (Mac) and Konqueror (Linux) have had no problems. The most problematic browser seems to be IE5/windows.

I would really be depressed to hear that IE6 rendered differently under different versions of Windows. I don’t know why I can’t reproduce the problem with IE6 and Mozilla 1.4 on my Win2000 machine. Are your default font sizes set high or something? This is quite frustrating.

10

aphrael 07.08.03 at 11:45 pm

Kieran – I’m using IE 6.0.2800.1106 on windows 2000 Pro. I have a huge desktop space and consequently small type in windows, so i’d set my font size to ‘largest’; if i drop it down to ‘medium’ it looks closer to what it looks like under Opera.

11

Julia Grey 07.09.03 at 1:25 am

I want to hear from Maturin or his reasonable facsimile. I have a crush on that man.

I hear Stephen Rea is going to play him in the movie. Jack Aubrey is going to be played by Russell Crowe.

Rea is okay, but Crowe is NOT who I had in mind for Aubrey.

12

Julia Grey 07.09.03 at 1:28 am

Oh…I forgot to say, sincere best wishes for a long and happy run to a few very interesting gents.

13

Gary Farber 07.09.03 at 2:44 am

Good show! I have immediately blogrolled you (which is, I assure you, damn rare. Damn rare!

:-)

I look forward to much pleasure in reading of this site, as well as deriving useful information.

14

Paul 07.09.03 at 4:43 am

Good luck with your Fourierism!

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