Blah Blah Flowers

Kodak, no matter how hard you'll try you'll fool no-one into thinking that the best thing about digital cameras isn't that you can delete photos or download them on to a computer but that you can print them on to paper. Come on, you're fooling nobody. Oh alright, President Bush, fine. Kodak! Admit your redundancy! Take pride in it! Oh, and your P45s.

Hidden Art. Full of beautiful things. But sadly beautiful things often out of my price range.

Don't Bomb Us - A blog by Al Jazeera Staffers

The Mischievious Boys.

This is one of the greatest things I've seen all year, though not quite as good as

[Thanks to Patrick for the link]

Beginning to wonder whether comments just don't work with the new version of Blogger or whether it's a problem at Haloscan's end. Let's wait and see...

Yes I know... It's a mess. That'll teach me to try changing things... Bear with me...

I don't know how long they've had it, but Loopz, the official Orbital website, has downloadable videos and audio files, for those of us who still want to pretend it's 1995...

Don't Click It. Yes, yes, yes, very clever. But possibly not for people inexperienced with using mice or who have various problems with their hands...

I don't know why but the London Symphony Orchestra have done an orchestral version of the Super Mario Brothers game theme which is all over the net like a rash.

Murphy's Computer Law Number One: Anything that a computer can do wrong really frikking fast will take you hours to sort out yourself.

Murphy's Computer Law Number Two: After many hours of work and being closer to the completion of the task than its start is when your colleague will choose to share with you a way to do the task in a quarter of the time.

The bastard.

She (on phone): "When do you close?"
Me: "8:00 pm".
She: "So that means I can come in at 8:00 pm and get books out?"
Me (puzzled): "No, because that's when we close."
She: "When do you close?"
Me: "8:00 pm."
She: "So I can come in at 8:00 pm and get books out then!"
Me (patiently): "Noooooo, because we close at 8:00 pm."

Mark E Smith reads the football results.

Can we have him do the new Jackanory please?

"The various tribes of Britons possessed valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness, they laid them down, or turned them against each other with wild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued." - Gibbon.

David Irving was arrested in Austria a week and a half ago on a long standing warrant issued over his continuing denying of the Holocaust. Several years ago he sued Penguin books and author Deborah Lipstadt over their labelling of him as a holocaust denier only to lose the case.

Deborah Lipstadt has a blog.

I close with something Anthony Julius said to me at one point during the lengthy preparations for this trial when I was tired and frustrated by the disruption to my life this legal battle had caused. After listening to me rail against Irving, Anthony said: “Think of fighting David Irving as you would the shit you step in on the street. It has no relevance unless you fail to clean it off your feet prior to reentering you home or office.” My feet are clean, i.e. my fight with him is over. What Austria decides to do is its business.

A third of people believe a woman is partially or completely responsible for being raped if she has behaved flirtatiously, a survey suggests.

Argh! Stabby stabby STABBY!

Mind you, I suppose that looking at the actual research answers, the more positive spin is that around two-thirds of people surveyed aren't total fuckwits.

Just watched the first episode of Rome. Interesting, though like most other shows these days I've forgotten half the cast list (hey, I can tell you who is doing what in these things but I blank completely on most of the names). Still, I noticed that this show has less qualms about showing you the naughty bits of most of the cast (some lovely slow full-frontal shots of any actresses under thirty-five for example) but seem intent on keeping violence mostly off-screen or between scenes. No one has written to the Radio Times to complain yet though. It's a veritable I, Claudius for the noughties. Can we get Brian Blessed and John Rhys-Davies in there too?

Chris Evans, after a few years in obscurity after Channel 4 dropped his show TFI Friday, has developed an entirely new show for ITV. It's name? OFI Sunday. Wow, how imaginative. The last ride of the one-trick pony?

I'd started and discarded a post on this pile of absolute crap from MP Kitty Ussher (and a post about how the Guardian was actually a right-wing paper that masquerades as a left-wing one) at the start of the week, mainly due to the top and tailing of

I very much hope that we will never have another terrorist atrocity in Britain. But if we do, and if it happens because the police have not had sufficient time to accumulate enough evidence to charge the perpetrators, then the Tories, the Lib Dems and our own rebels will have blood on their hands.

But luckily Europhobia has put it better than I ever could.

Last week the Government were telling us to listen to the professionals in the police who were telling us to support Government policy. This week the Government is telling us to ignore the opinions of the professional, ex-head of MI5 telling people ID Cards won't help us any.

traitor

You may wish to pass this idea on.

Dear Doctor, as a bisexual does this mean I'd only need half the course of treatment?

Amused, but click on the small 'no to 313' and you get the blog of some poor Christian kid who seems to believe he needs this treatment to cure him of his 'deviant' behaviour.

UPDATE: Hoax.

Stuff! Stuff! Here stuff!

Greetings from idiot America.

The rise of Idiot America is essentially a war on expertise. It's not so much antimodernism or the distrust of intellectual elites... [b]oth of those things are part of it. However, the rise of Idiot America today represents — for profit mainly, but also, and more cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power —the breakdown of a consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people whom we should trust the least are the people who best know what they're talking about.

Plenty of relevence to the UK too, where some of the biggest celebrities are those who know the least.

Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design" and warned them Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck.

OK, ignoring the whole 'God is angry with some Americans so causes an earthquake in India' thing, because I'm sure Robertson believes the world belongs to America it just hasn't woken up and realised it yet, but one of ID 'advocates' arguments is that ID isn't necessarily religious. Obviously Robertson hasn't been reading his memos.

Intelligent evolution.

Science!

So Jack Straw is in the news, saying "Yeah, sorry about the Terrorism thing, I don't know what we were smoking, yeah, Tony hasn't been sleeping well recently... That man calls us a poo-poo head!" Yes, in order to distract from Blair's attempts to push more draconian laws past the bleeding-heart liberals known as MPs and the ensuing row about whether the police went too far in trying to influence the vote, Jack Straw is trying to say "Look! Over there!" about a former ambassador's memoirs about the time when the U.S. and the U.K. were trying to get the world to support the invasion of Iraq.

This is a sign of how bad things are in Government right now, they'd rather we talk about the illegal invasion of Iraq again rather than the loss of Tony Blair's authority and credibility, and his possible politicising of the police.

So, did police lobby MPs of their own volition, or were they encouraged with a nod and a wink from Number 10. Newsnight last night suggested it came from the head of the Chief Police Officers (ACPO) writing to his members suggesting they do it. Whether Number 10 suggested he did it or whether he came up with the idea himself was not followed up.

I saw this at work yesterday. I carefully checked the case but it doesn't seem that when you open it to take the CD out a gas cannister sprays you with a chemical to make you sterile, as I might have hoped. So, when you buy this you get all the hits, Axel F, Don't You Want Me, Theme From Dallas... For those fortunate enough not have heard the Crazy Frog, the deaf mainly, the way it works is that you get a bad electro-version of whatever tune it is, then over the top you get someone on helium making motorbike noises, it's basically kareoke for people who can't be arsed to read the words. Still, the only thing worse than Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits is Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits [New Version] where they add a few more defiled tunes and give you a screensaver too.

Away from the cuting edge in new music, digital telly gives you a choice of viewing on Thursday nights, you can either watch The Daily Show on More4 at 8:30 pm, or you can wait until 10:30 and watch The Late Edition with Marcus Brigstocke on BBC4, basically the same program and the same format, just with a British accent. If you've watched both this week then you will have also seen the same joke, on the riots in France both showed 'French TV news coverage', ie: black and white, moody, jazz music in the background, a French voice solemnly intoning about lost love and regret. Maybe next week The Late Edition can do 'Back in Black' or 'The Week in God', I like those bits.

It's starting to come out that the police lobbied to MPs to increase their powers. It's worrying enough that businesses do this, but the police? Although the story has not become clear, what we've heard so far sounds like the police need to be seriously restricted in how much they can get involved in politics, for an organisation tasked with and so concerned with fighting terrorists, how much money have the police spent unsuccesfully trying to encourage politicians to increase their powers?

One might suggest that the main political parties have got so concerned with appearing tough on crime that the police feel it's now down to how tightly they can squeeze them for cash.

You'd think that after his defeat yesterday Blair would want to lay low, lick his wounds, prepare a new strategy for his anti-terrorism measures. Blair to MPs: "You're all fuckers!" Well, that's the gist of it. I don't quite understand why Bliar now seems to be obsessing over this ninety days issue. But if Bliar now believes his MPs were wrong on this issue, how can he, in all good conscience, continue to lead them? At the very least he should step down as leader and Prime Minister, at the most he should also call a General Election. If you live in an area with a Labour MP, especially one who voted against the Government, perhaps you could ask them to push Bliar to do the right thing. If he believes the public support this, why not a referendum on the crime laws?

The propaganda department for the Government on this has been busy, with the Sun hissing at the news that MPs may possibly have some interest in human rights, as unlikely as that sounds.

On Tuesday they had given us this,

only today it turns out the person in the photo is not best pleased as it was without his permission and he blames the Government more than the terrorists for what happened to him.

"This is using my image to push through draconian and utterly unnecessary terrorism legislation. Its incredibly ironic that the Sun's rhetoric is as the voice of the people yet they don't actually ask the people involved, the victims, what they think. If you want to use my image, the words coming out of my mouth would be, 'Not in my name, Tony'. I haven't read anything or seen anything in the past few months to convince me these laws are necessary."

So all that remains is why is it that Bliar is so concerned about that 90 day period, what does 90 days do that 28 days doesn't. Is he suffering from some sort of mental "Stockholm syndrome", where he's managed to convince himself that 90 day detention saves the country but everything else helps the terrorists?

Newsnight last night was terribly excited about Tony Blair not getting the vote on detaining terorrist suspects for ninety days last night. Every time something doesn't go Bliar's way they seem ready to ask whether this signals the end for his leadership. Mathew Parris of The Times is ready to say Bliar will be gone in a year, obviously, we can all hope that but one defeat does not signal the immediate end of the Government, Major crawled on for many, many years when the Eurosceptics in the Conservative party started voting against him.

And the Bill yesterday was passed, Bliar was simply doing what he's done before, blowing up a key part of the legislation, in this case, ninety days for detention of suspects, but he's got everything else, the Mother of Parliaments has gone along with Bliar plans to make the UK one of the most restrictive democracies on the planet, so there are no winners here.

And talking of Blairs, what was Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, doing, giving interviews backing the Government plans? His willingness to allow himself to become politicised is a bad sign, he's not supposed to work for the Government. Logically he should now resign, he wanted the power to hold suspects for ninety days, Parliament hasn't given it to him, therefore he can't do the job. However, I think we'll find he'll discover he can do his job quite well thank you very much. It's amazing what happens when you try.

Back at Newsnight, it was unfair of Jeremy Paxman to ask everyone who voted against the Government last night what they'd feel like if there was a terrorist attack today, especially when ninety days detention is completely irrelevent to fanatacists who want to kill themselves and others. They were unlikely to be thinking that if ninety days detention got passed they'd have to call their martyrdom plans off. It's a question better aimed at everyone who voted for the Government last night, everyone who was prepared to back plans that further alienate and radicalise sections of the Muslim community.

Doctor Toast's Amazing World of Toast. It's single-mindedness is somewhat disturbing. The toast recipes look enticing though.

If you want to see an impressive example of loaded questioning, why not check out this page from our beloved overlords. I presume there just wasn't enough space for the question 'do you believe the Government should give themselves and the police (who are all lovely people) increased powers to fight terrorism, or are you an evil pinko who would quite happily have the scum use your house as their base of operations and/or a factory for killing children with knives and so on?'.

I broke part of one of my teeth yesterday. I did it in the morning and didn't relise until getting ready for bed last night. I thought at the time that I'd just got an extra-crunchy Skittle. So far there has been no pain. I'm hoping that this is because it's the tooth that I had a root canal done on a few years back. I'm really hoping this because I may have a wait to see my dentist to see what can be done. But I've just drunk a cup of tea with no ill effects so I may just make it through this.

Film4 are doing another free weekend. The only things I have a desire to see are Buffalo Soldiers and Infernal Affairs, but my Sky+ box is 3/4s full of stuff which I haven't got round to watching yet. I was off sick yesterday but didn't manage to clear much off. But I'd be interested to know the state of Film4's finances, they stopped financing films a few years back and I'm suprised to see them still going.

Now we've got Hallowe'e'ee'eee'en out of the way it's safe to look at The Pumpkin Gutter, including this, this and this.

And now some comedy, courtesy of David Blunkett.

I am not resigning, says Blunkett. At 19:04, Tuesday 1st of November.
Blunkett resigns from cabinet. At 11:32, Wednesday 2nd of November.

But we often forget the victims in these stories, such as Eric Joyce, Boy's Own MP and PPS to Shiteyes. He's one of those MPs that only ever seem to go on telly to defend the indefensible, a few years ago he seemed to have a sleeping bag in the corner of the Newsnight studio next to Sir Menzies Campbell as he was required to defend the Government's involvement in that. Now with Blunkett on the way out I'll be watching Newsnight tonight to see if he gets the chance for a last hurrah before disappearing back to obscurity.

But we'll wait and see what happens to Blunkett next, as Blair proved with Peter Mandelson, he doesn't believe that breaking rules should be seen as a bar to political office. We are now hopefully free of the nightmarish vision of a possible Blunkett Prime Ministership or return to the Home Office. Maybe he can pack him off to Brussels as he did with Mandy or does the country still need a new ambassador to Uzbeckistan, one who will genuinely not see any of their human rights abuses?

TransAmerica looks like it might be alright... The official website doesn't appear to work though.