LINKS

* The Guardian gives the British Arts Council some space to respond to the Dedalus controversy. What it boils down to is, essentially, "a lot of people other than Dedalus are happy with the choices made" and this:

She's keen to stress that "most of the funded literature sector has got a good deal out of this", quoting a 10.5% rise for literature funding over the next three years - 2% above predictions of inflation.

* The new issue of the NYRB has a lengthy article on blogs. They're mostly concerned with political blogs here.

* Wikipedia is criticized for depicting Muhammad

* Richard Nast is posting pages from the novel Woman's World, which, if I am not mistaken, is entirely constructed from sentence fragments cut out from women's magazines. Makes writing a novel without the letter e look pedestrian.

* The Millions runs down some movies that portray the author's creative process

* Matthew Cheney tells us why Diary of a Bad Year is "immediately impressive simply because it isn't incoherent"

* Based on Matt's argument, I'd say that a book I've just finished, Manuel Puig's Heartbreak Tango (or Painted Blossoms, if you prefer), is impressive for similar reasons

* Alex Ross reports on Radiohead going orchestral

* And finally, why Bush likes global warming