On the list of great unfinished works - Edwin Drood, Dead Souls, The New Shadow, Big Numbers - I'm sure we would all include "dsquared's review of Freakonomics." (Personally, I'd like James C. Scott to write his book on "people who move around," though I think much of it ended up The Art of Not Being Governed.)
In the meantime, there's a pleasing list of that book's failings here.
I did finish it! It is in five bits but it is complete! I'll paste them into an email if you like.
The basic and ironic thing about Freakonomics is that it's a textbook example of diminishing returns. There was absolutely no reason for the sequel to be written and nothing like enough material to fill it, but it was a brand that the publishers knew would sell.
Posted by: dsquared | December 15, 2011 at 09:33 AM
You did? I thought it stopped at four? Frabjous day!
wanderingpalmer at gmail.com
Posted by: JamesP | December 15, 2011 at 09:35 AM
I am now thinking of beginning a new project of procrastination with respect to Graeber's "Debt: The First 5000 Years", which shares at least one characteristic with Freakonomics in that it also is seemingly unable to stop going on about prostitutes.
Posted by: dsquared | December 15, 2011 at 09:39 AM
I think the great never-to-be-completed Dsquared piece is the "Decent Racism" essay for the now defunct Aaro Watch.
Posted by: Chris Brooke | December 15, 2011 at 10:01 AM
Freakonmics is close to the top of my list of 'most-infuriating-and-ultimately-silly' books of the last 20 years if only because of its' determination to ignore every single discipline in the world except a certain sort of (very narrowly defined) economics. So even where it does explain any given problem convincingly - and that's far from all the time - it's like watching the proverbial dog walk on hind legs.
Posted by: CMcM | December 15, 2011 at 10:20 AM
I note that someone with access to Dsquared's blog post-pityparty has exported it to wordpress.com, or at least exported everything up to December 2006.
Posted by: Alex | December 15, 2011 at 10:34 AM
I think that was me, in 2006, when I was pissed off with "New Blogger" and its inability to reproduce the classic elegance and simplicity of my web design.
I am really liking the "VIP Room" approach to blogging, by the way, I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Posted by: dsquared | December 15, 2011 at 10:41 AM
Are new posts actually going up?
Posted by: Chris Brooke | December 15, 2011 at 10:52 AM
Yes. I thought I was going to operate it like the Groucho Club, ie that only a handpicked and selected membership of the doyens of the community would be allowed in. Instead I am operating it like more or less every other "members' club" in London, which is to say that if someone sends me an email they're in. The narrowcasting model is the way forward for blogging - although I do regret that I'm not going to meet any more interesting people via the blog, diminishing returns had already set in there with a vengeance - but the countervailing benefit of not having to worry about what stuff would look like if taken out of context and linked to by someone who doesn't like you is very big. It is also seriously shrinking my google footprint, already, which is good news to both me and those Canadian overpriced-clothes designers.
Posted by: dsquared | December 15, 2011 at 11:19 AM
which is to say that if someone sends me an email they're in.
Goodness, I shall send you an email in that case. I thought you'd transferred your electronic affections to G+.
Posted by: chris y | December 15, 2011 at 12:16 PM
I'm very disappointed you missed 'The Good Soldier Svejk' from your list of great unfinished works!
Posted by: Igor Belanov | December 15, 2011 at 12:19 PM
Goodness, I shall send you an email in that case. I thought you'd transferred your electronic affections to G+.
As shall I. I thought the same thing too since whenever I tried to go to the URL for the Digest it redirected me to some sign in page for google and I wondered if I needed an account in addition to knowing the secret handshake to access it.
Posted by: Barry Freed | December 15, 2011 at 01:20 PM
Actually that's an empty threat by me, as I don't know dsquared's email. Help?
Posted by: chris y | December 15, 2011 at 01:35 PM
if someone sends me an email they're in
Don't tell us that!
(...thought you liked me...)
Posted by: Phil | December 15, 2011 at 01:50 PM
I used to have it but I lost it. I miss DD but he does not miss me.
*Solo pityparty herewith, better than the others*
Posted by: belle le triste | December 15, 2011 at 05:01 PM
for god's sake you types, it's on the front page of Crooked Timber, or always used to be. first name dot surname at gmail dot com.
Posted by: dsquared | December 15, 2011 at 05:19 PM
Ooh, it's just like that bit outside the gates of Moria.
Posted by: chris williams | December 15, 2011 at 09:03 PM
Chris Brooke:'I think the great never-to-be-completed Dsquared piece is the "Decent Racism" essay for the now defunct Aaro Watch.'
I've been looking forward (for at least the past three years) to Dsquared's oft-promised 'intellectual biography of John Birt'. It will be so nice to read something on Birt that eschews even the merest hint of vituperation.
Posted by: Dan Hardie | December 21, 2011 at 03:36 PM
The trouble with that one is that as well as being much less interesting than I thought it was going to be when I started writing it, it's also at least potentially libellous.
Posted by: dsquared | December 21, 2011 at 03:40 PM
English libel law does recognise the defence of 'vulgar abuse'.
Posted by: Dan Hardie | December 21, 2011 at 03:49 PM