A few bad jokes

A few bad jokes but not quite as bad as those in Christmas crackers...

It was Thursday and the Booblie Oobulie bird was sitting in his favourite tree when he spied a Boa Constrictor passing by. "That's a big worm" he thought "I'll have that for my tea!" He flew down and tried to attack the snake, which crushed him and swallowed him whole.

The moral of this story is ambition can be a good thing but an over estimation of your abilities can get you in trouble.

...Or maybe "He should have gone to Specsavers."

I was in a bar the other night waiting for my pal Louis when a short wrinkled guy came in wearing a Parka. As we stood at the bar waiting to be served he told me he was an Eskimo. His name was near impossible to pronounce but said "Everyone calls me Ig." Just then my friend walked in and I was able to introduce them. "Ig, Lou!" I announced.

An officious looking man walked up to a woman who was breast feeding. "Mrs Walker" he said "I know breast is best but you cannot feed your son here." "But" she protested "that woman is feeding her baby." "Yes Mrs Walker" said the man "but Johnny is 25 and you are freaking out the other passengers on the bus."

The Scandal of Unsorted the Mail

Great Britain already has one of the most expensive postal systems in the world particularly when one takes in to account income levels. Royal Mail continues to deny that fact by saying stamp prices for letters weighing up to 100g are among the lowest in Europe. The price of a first-class stamp will rise by 5p to 46p in April and a second-class stamp will cost 36p, an increase of 4p. Posting a large letter will also become more expensive, 75p ,up 9p, for first-class and 58p, up 7p, for second-class mail.

Why the hell do we even have a second class service when sending a first class letter to an address in the same town can take over a week? Personally I have been keeping track of my mail and I very rarely get mail other than on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I may get some mail on Fridays but until this week I have not had anything on Monday or Saturday since forever. So imagine my surprise when I was woken a 08:30 on Sunday morning by a Royal Mail delivery, it was a parcel that needed signing for.

So why is Royal Mail so crap? There may be a clue in the conversation I had with a postal worker the other day. This chap told me he is working overtime doing extra rounds. "Some off the guys are going out three times a day" he said "but my bag is not even half full because no-one is being given overtime on the sorting side." Apparently the sorting office is floor to celling but there is little or no sorting going on. It is not just the Christmas post that has caused this. I was told that the condition has been like that for months. For anyone familiar with the TV adaption of Terry Pratchett's book 'Going Postal' the Royal Mail is rapidly becoming the Ankh Morpork Post Office, but Royal Mail has no Moist von Lipwig to pull them out of their rapidly spiralling swan dive in service.

The latest news is Royal Mail had announced they are to commence evening deliveries to try to catch up with the backlog caused, they say, by the bad weather. So now not content at waking me up on a Sunday morning they want to disturb my evenings tucked up by the fire too. I am sure the postmen and women are looking forward to working sixteen hour shifts as well.

There is one good side to the price rises; Direct mail services are facing price rises of up to 19%. Hopefully that will cut the crap coming through our mail boxes. Why do I get half a dozen mail shots a week from Sky television when I have it already? How the heck can a local Indian Restaurant afford to send me their menu three times a week? Never mind recycling to save a tree, if we banned direct mail services we could save a whole forest every week. If the postal workers did not have to deliver this junk we might have a postal service that works and one we did not mind paying for.

Dark Knight Rises

Details are emerging of the third Batman movie by Christopher Nolan, it will be called 'The Dark Knight Rises' . In an interview with the Los Angles Times Chris says he is not ready to reveal the villain of his 2012 film, but it will not be the Riddler. He has also previously revealed it will not be Mr Freeze. You can read more here.

Personally I was looking forward to Nolan's working of the character after the brilliant playing of the Joker by the tragic Heath Ledger. Turning the Joker from the camp clown of early incarnations to something resembling Dr Hanibal Lecter on acid would I am sure have made the latest adventure of the Dark Knight even darker. I would have liked people to leave the cinema trembling and scared to walk in the shadows, which is more like what reading the graphic novels alone in the dark felt when you were thirteen.

Comedy Awards 2010 *** VOTE Ed Byrne ***

Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2010 *** VOTE Ed Byrne *** http://bit.ly/mm-comedy-god
There are so many good comedians out there who you could vote for but I am voting for Ed Byrne. Ed is out there on edge between mainstream comedy and alternative yet manages to pull it off without resorting to the gutter. Vote for him this time, he might be 'Byrned out' by next year.

Fosters lager - for when the real beer has run out.

Twitchers in a Twitter

Bird watchers are one of a number of hobbyists who have taken the Internet to their bosoms and used it to its full advantage. They are perhaps second only to radio amateurs who use spots via what is know as the DX cluster to keep each other informed of where the action is. Bird watchers use a variety of Internet alerting systems via mobile telephones and email to tell each other when a rare bird is spotted in the wild. In fact Twitter was made for what folk these need.

Not surprising then when Balderton Brook in nearby Saltney suddenly became the most popular destination in Wales as information was Tweeted, emailed and sent by text that a rare bird had been spotted. The Purple Gallinule, also known as a grey-headed swamp hen, which is a type of Moorhen from the marshlands of France and Spain and the lily beds of Asia had not been seen in Wales for at least 100 years. Chester Zoo was informed but they denied it was one of theirs as did various local collectors. The bird was around for three days and by Sunday there where fifty or so Twitchers with there scopes, binoculars, cameras and other optical equipment trained on the little bird, but it did not seem to perturbed. That lead to a rumour that although this bird was not ringed it might be an escapee from some colection or other.

A local Councillor and renowned nut case was interviewed by the local press about the bird and said “Why has it come here? Because it likes Saltney!” When are they going to get that man a straight jacket is what I want to know. Surely even a bird brain does not go to Saltney because they like it? I mean what is there to like? Except maybe a rare bird or two.

Unfortunately for the Twitchers the bird had not come as they hoped from India but had escaped from a collector. Apparently two of the birds escaped from an aviary three weeks ago. One returned but the other was missing. The owner arrived and easily recaptured his prize much to the disappointment of the onlookers. The RSPB were on hand and once he had proved to them it was his bird they let him take it away. What a pity since this is the most excitement since 1786 when the brothel burnt down and naked ladies of the night ran out in to the street causing much amusement amongst the young men of the town and red faces all around.

Predator Escapes

Don't cinemas want my custom? My son's and I were going to go and see the new movie 'Predators' on Thursday night, but when my eldest called to book tickets he was told that the only showings during the week were at 23:30 hours and that they were not in 3-D. If we wanted to see it at a sensible time and in 3-D we would have to go Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Due to my work pattern I cannot make those showings so I guess I will have to either buy the DVD or wait until it is on Sky TV.

My original post about Predators is here.

American McGee's Alice is back

Be afraid, be very afraid because eleven years after the original American McGee's Alice is coming back and it should be more twisted and scary than ever. I can't wait. Unfortunately I will have to, as it is not due out until next year.

The rumours started when Thewhiterabbit Tweeted, "Follow me and stay tuned for a major announcement from the mad world of Alice today!" Thewhiterabbit's Tweet was then retweeted on the official EA Twitter, leaving Alice fans desperate to know more.

The official website is now up with screen shots and more teasers http://www.ea.com/alice and there is even a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/alicemadnessreturns so it is all true. Now all we have to do is wait for the nightmare to begin.

The game info on the Alice website reads:

Eleven years ago a horrific fire took Alice’s family from her and left her terribly burned—and her mind terribly scarred. Afterwards she was confined to Rutledge Asylum, struggling to come to terms with her demons by slipping into her fantasy world of Wonderland. Now, after ten years, she has finally secured her release--yet she still bears the heavy psychological burden of that tragic event.

In Alice: Madness Returns, Alice is released from the asylum to a London psychiatrist’s care. As nightmarish hallucinations continue to haunt her and invade her reality, she seeks to understand her torment in order to recover herself. Her mind in tatters, she is unable to resolve the fear and neuroses prompted by her strange memories, dreams, and visions. Her relocation to London seems only to add to their number and intensity.

Perhaps she’ll do better in Wonderland. She always has. She travels there, seeking what the “real” world can’t provide: security, knowledge, and the truth about the past. But in her absence, Wonderland too has suffered. Something has gone horribly wrong, and now a great evil is descending upon what once was her beautiful refuge.

Can Alice save Wonderland—and herself—from the madness that consumes them both?

Follow the White Rabbit!

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said:
"Feed your head. Feed your head. Feed your head"

White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane

Rage Against The Mayo

Mayonnaise (often abbreviated to mayo) is a stable emulsion of oil, egg yolk and either vinegar or lemon juice, with many options for embellishment with other herbs and spices. The stuff you buy in the shops also contains tons of salt, preservatives and sugar. Mayonnaise has frequently been the source of mass food poisonings due to the use of raw egg yolks full of salmonella bacteria. If not properly refrigerated even bacteria free fresh mayo goes bad extremely quickly. We are told that most people should avoid eating more than one or two eggs a week and that while the white is good for you the yolk is an evil cholesterol bomb. So can someone please explain to me why every ready made sandwich maker in Britain has stopped using butter or margarine and started to spread their bread with the potentially lethal concoction that is mayonnaise? I absolutely hate mayo and even if I did like it I would think twice about eating it at all outside of my own home where I know how it has been kept. Just what is wrong with a decent bit of butter? Just to rub it in these ready made sandwich makers sometimes supply "Mayo Free" versions, but these consist of dry bread, which is usually stale on both sides. I know I should try not to eat from service station refractories, but needs must. Sorry to moan but I have had enough of the dodgy pasties, sausage rolls and pies too.

Lodewicus Theodoru Oosthuizen

Lodewicus Theodoru Oosthuizen what a name! What a worthy champion. Well done Louis, well done South Africa. That was a nice 92nd Birthday present for Nelson Mandela and a great touch from Louis to mention it in his winners speech. Somehow the final round of the Open seemed a bit of a foregone conclusion and maybe a bit of an anti-climax, but it never really is. Every shot counts and it was brilliant to watch a man that seemed to have nerves of steel enjoying his final round like he was just out for a knock about with his mates. That was certainly some of the neatest driving I can remember watching. Everyone wanted to see him get loads more birdies and the field to give him something think about but they failed and he played the percentages, and did what was necessary. The mark of a true champion.

I was disappointed that Paul Casey could not rise to the challenge. Maybe he too was playing the percentages and waiting for Louis to make mistakes, but the mistakes never materialised. I hope we see Paul win a Major soon, he has the talent and a Major win could just be the confidence booster he needs to become an unstoppable force in golf.

If Rory McIlroy doesn't win a Major in the next five years I will be most disappointed. Rory has talent by the bag full and seems destined for big things. After his amazing 63 in the first round he came in with a torrid 80 in the second but that did not stop him putting in two more excellent rounds in the difficult Scottish weather. If the weather on Friday had been better I think we might have seen this young man taking the Claret Jug.

South Korean amateur star Jin Jeong was for me the highlight of the championship. It was just a pity that we did not see more coverage of his progress on TV. Jin is the British Amateur Champion after his win at Muirfield last month. I would really like to see him match this weekends performance with a similar one at the Masters next year, before he turns professional.

Some new golfing stars worth watching, but it is always such a pity watching your old golfing heroes playing like amateurs. The weather made things difficult for everyone but somehow you expect the older guys to be able to cope better with the conditions than the young ones, but a lot of them never even made the cut. Maybe they have lost the hunger for the fight or maybe they are just no longer good enough but it doesn't matter we still love 'em.

My thanks to everyone involved for providing a wonderful weekends entertainment. One tip to the BBC though; Cut the build up and show the golf. Golfers out at 6:30 and coverage started at 9:00 yet it was after 10:30 before we saw any live golf.

British Gas Advice Fail

British Gas managing director Phil Bentley says: 'Religious buildings are particularly well suited to solar power as they tend to have large south-facing roofs which receive direct sunlight for the main part of the day.'The energy giant has calculated that churches, mosques, synagogues and other religious centres could make savings of up to £5m a year on their electricity bills by using power generated from their own solar panels, and cut CO2 emissions by around 42,000 tonnes.

FAIL - Sorry but the idea is almost a complete none starter because most of Britain's religious buildings are listed by National Heritage and it would be illegal to make the modifications required to install such systems. When they will not let you install secondary double glazing in such buildings then they are not going to give permission to installing solar panels that would effect the buildings look completely. Bear in mind a great many of these buildings where constructed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One of the biggest problems in this country is we have powerful figures like Mr Bentley who cannot think a problem through, but most of them are politicians.

British Gas urges churches to go solar - Which? News

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/

Predators - Cult classic or cheap rip off?

When I saw they were making a new Predator movie I was filled with mixed emotions. The first Predator with Arnie playing Arnie was as near a masterpiece as comic book sci-fi had ever been before. It maybe does not hold a candle to some of what we have seen since but I loved it all the same. The second movie Predator 2 was enjoyable but predictable and the acting was that of a television pilot, but still good enough for me want to own it on DVD.

Alien vs Predator was the movie I was hoping for but was so short if you blinked you missed it. It was quality but it left me feeling cheated, just like I had just had a nice juicy steak but there were no vegetables, pepper sauce, fries or onion rings. I hoped AVP Requiem would be the chocolate gateaux and cream that I missed in the first movie, but it was a damp squid and not even worth £3.oo for the DVD from the bargain bin. The only reason to own it was for completeness.

Up until AVP Requiem I thought that the Alien movies were far superior and a couple of them are still up there in my top 100 movies. Even the worst of them was better than Predator II. I however feel that the Predator potential for engaging sequels had been missed. If the quality of the second movie had matched the first then this new movie might not have been so long coming.

It is therefore that I await Predators with a mixture of excitement and impending disappointment. Having been bitten by AVP Requiem at the checkout I will not be queuing at the cinema or buying it when it comes out on DVD unless I have it on good personal authority for my sons that it is up to scratch or I have seen it on TV and think it is worth adding to my collection.

The reports are good so far. Adrien Brody plays a darker version of the Arnie type character with a good few more brain cells. Lots of stupid mistakes that we have seen in similar action movies are avoided such as people running out of ammunition when there are weapons and ammo lying there from fallen comrades and the commandos act like soliders rather than frightened school girls. Laurence Fishburne should be okay and the producer Robert Rodriguez studied at the feet of Quentin Tarantino. The director Nimród Antal, who's name sounds like an anagram, is someone I don't know and I have never seen any of his movies. Lets hope he is not the weak link.

There are always going to be lots of people who don't get this movie and it was never going to be very cerebral but I am hoping for a fast and furious romp that I can sit back and enjoy without engaging the brain to much. I expect a chill out and an adrenalin rush and not a "why did I bother watching that crap?" moment. Cult classic or cheap rip off? We will have to watch it to see.

Top Gear Returns

Loved the new episode of Top Gear last night (27/6/2010), but the thing with the Reliant Robin made me laugh my socks off and scared the hell out of me at the same time. As former a motorcyclist a lot of my mates had the damned things and I had lifts in them from time to time. I always felt quite scared going around a corner in a Robin, but if I realised then how easy they were to roll I would never have got in one. The problem is that they sort wallow in to a corner like a boat and as Jeremy Clarkson proved if you did not have a passenger to use as a counter weight a right hand turn could prove disastrous. Of course he was deliberately turning it over but even the Reliant enthusiasts admitted you could turn them over without trying.

The most scary thing I ever saw with a Reliant Robin was on the M6 Weaver Viaduct near Runcorn. I was coming back from a caravan rally on a very windy Sunday afternoon, it had been a long and difficult tow due to extremely high winds. I had experienced more than a few moments on the journey and had seen two caravans that had lost it on the route. I was travelling south west in the inside lane and the wind was coming from the north. The Robin was travelling up the hill in the inside lane going in the opposite direction. As the Robin reached the apex of the bridge a strong gust lifted it completely off the ground, spun it 360 degrees and deposited it in the outside lane almost alongside me. By the time the driver had regained control he was facing the on coming traffic. He was luck not to have been in the path of anything else at the time. As he disappeared in my mirrors he was turning around the right way. I often wondered if that guy ever drove that thing again after he got it home.

Read a review of the first show of the new series in the Telegraph

The Edge plays with Muse at Glastonbury - Wow!

The Edge plays with Muse at Glastonbury - Wow! http://bit.ly/bGVKov

Last night after an extremely busy couple of weeks and a manic weekend we slumped on the sofa and settled down to watch Angels and Demons which is Dan Brown's follow up to The Da Vinci Code starring Forest Gump himself Tom Hanks. Once you suspend the belief that Tom is no where near how Dan Browns hero is described (or you imagine) in the books this film is much closer to the book than The Da Vinci Code ever was. Unfortunately this results in a film that is so much like the previous one it is like Deja Vu all over again, which is a pity as I think this one would be better if you haven't seen the first one or indeed read the book. It also lacked a bit of breathless dashing around that would have been necessary if the storey had taken place in the time frame it did. All that said it was an enjoyable hour and three quarters.

By the time the film was over I was ready for bed but just needed one last drink, which took the form of a large ice cold Sangria. While I drank my cool beverage I flicked over channels on the TV and found the Muse at Glastonbury. This was Muse at their live best and wild horses would not have dragged me away from the idiot box while they played. Saying they were awesome was not only a cliché but a serious understatement. Muse are the Mega Group of their generation and on a par with the best bands of all time; Led Zeppelin, The Who, Queen, Pink Floyd and audio subthe rest. They are definitely in a league above the bands of their generation.

If I have one criticism of Muse it is that Matthew Bellamy's wonderful lyrics are almost indecipherable most of the time when they are televised live. This did not effect my enjoyment as, like the crowd at Glastonbury, I knew every word off by heart, but Helen was straining to understand. This partially because of Matthew's unusual singing style and the affects added to his vocals, but also due to the limits of television recording systems and the bandwidth of the audio sub-carrier. However Helen made a comment I agreed with that Muse are almost an instrumental band and the lyrics are effectively just another instrument in the mix.

I was blown away and then they brought the Edge on stage and did U2's 'Streets with no name' which would have been the icing on the cake, had they not finished with my favourite Muse track 'Knights of Cydonia'. 'Knights of Cydonia' was the third single to be released from the album 'Black Holes and Revelations'. It was well worth staying up for and although I was yearning to be there I was probably better where I was sat in front of the TV with a perfect view and not surrounded by sweaty bodies miles from the stage. However for those who were there it was probably worth the price of the ticket just for Muse alone. Such a pity U2 could not make it after they were forced to pull out when Bono suffered a back injury. I wonder if the Gorillaz, who took U2's spot have ever played to such a disappointed and unreceptive audience, most of which got bored and drifted away halfway through their set?

Word on the street is this has been the best Glastonbury in its forty years. Something to do with the weather? Unfortunately two people died of heart attacks, which suggests either the festival was too exciting for them or the heat was too much or the drugs were too cheap or all three. Still if you have to go it might as well be while you are having a great time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jun/27/muse-glastonbury-2010-review

BBC iPlayer - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00sz067/Glastonbury_2010_Muse/
Available until: 1:59am Sunday 4th July 2010

2011 Range Rover Revealed

I cannot allow myself to get too excited because I will not be buying one but the new Range Rover which is due out in September has been revealed and it is quite tasty. More Diana Rigg than Angela Jolie, more down to earth style than Tomb Raider flash. It has that cool superiority that is Land Rover and a new underlying sophistication that just adds to that go anywhere confidence.



Read more at AutoExpress , Car Magazine , Car Keys and Land Rover Owner International

Land Rover Discovery Towcar of the Year 2010

The Land Rover Discovery has been named as 'Towcar of the Year 2010' and was described by a panel of judges from The Camping and Caravanning Club, Practical Caravan and What Car? magazines as "the best car in this year's tests by some margin", The Discovery also won the category for vehicles weighing more than 1900kg.

As a life time Land Rover Fan and a Discovery owner I am pleased to hear it, but it comes as no surprise. It is a bit like those best Dad in the World mugs that some of us might get this week-end, nice to receive but there was not much competition was there.

Caravans are an emotive subject but as an ex-caravan owner I have some sympathy with those that enjoy the rally scene, less with those who bring them out once or twice a year and none what so ever with those that clutter up good sites by leaving their vans there 365 days a year. However I am as frustrated as anybody by the damned things on the road. Like snails towing their homes behind them they leave a trail of frayed nerves in their wake. The problem is usually a poor choice of towcar, a vehicle that is not heavy enough to provide a stable towing platform and not powerful enough to keep a steady speed. When you do get someone who has the right vehicle and can properly anticipate conditions they are generally in some sort of convoy led at the front by a seventy five year old chap in a green trilby called George in a 1964 Morris Oxford towing a 1956 Argosy Twelve that he bought when he left the army. Everyone calls him the Colonel even though he probably never rose past the rank of private, but he digs a "damn fine latrine" even if he does say so himself.

Far from driving 4x4s off the road, as the government seem to have been trying to do recently, they should be making sure that if you tow a caravan you do it with a Land Rover or something similarly suitable. It just such a pity that the ineptitude of the British car industry as seen all our great marks either disappear or fall in to foreign hands. It is shocking to think that the best Land Rovers ever are being produced now that the company is in the hands of Indian owners, why could the British Owners have done this?

Patrick Stewart Knighted

Congratulations to one of my personal favorite British actors Patrick Stewart who was knighted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace recently. Most well known for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek the next Generation he endeared himself to me by doing a magically job of playing Professor X in the X-Men films. As a long time Star Trek and X-Men fan it could so easily have been different, another actor could have ruined both roles but Sir Patrick did a marvelous job. Patrick Stewart is a fully trained Shakespearean actor which has set him up well for his TV and film rolls. As a lover of Shakespeare I have also watched him in various plays and even when he is hamming it up he can pull it off with a certain panache where others would seem unconvincing and fake. I think it is this ability that made him so good as Captain of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701D). One of the best things I think he has done is to bring 'Trekkies' in to the audience for his Shakespearean performances who would never have normally gone to watch such a thing. An appriciation of fine art, poetry and theatre is sadly lacking in this TV soap generation. Well done Sir Patrick!

'Impossible motion' trick

Everything is not as it seems...

'Impossible motion' trick wins Illusion Contest - physics-math - 11 May 2010 - New Scientist

Ronnie James Dio dies at 67

RIP Ronnie James Dio.

The reaper may take them but the music goes on forever. Long live rock and roll.

Flash Forward & Hereos Axed.

Just in... NBC has killed off Hereos and ABC has killed off Flash Forward. Looks like I will be almost completely giving up watching TV for the foreseeable future. Looks like a diet of reruns of Top Gear on Dave until someone decides to make something I want to watch like a new Star Trek series or something in the style of Blade Runner.

UK Election - Meet the new boss

So Gollum's uglier brother has finally left the house with London's most photographed front door and scampered back North of the Border to lick his wounds. To see him give his cringe inducing speech on the doorstep of number ten was painful in the extreme and although I feel a little sorry for him it is only because I know how awful moving house can be. During his speech Mrs B looked like she had consumed vast quantities of Valium. She stood there with a vacant look that was made all the more scary by her eyes that darted every which way, like a rabbit caught in the glare of headlights. Bye bye Gordon it was nice to see how your party stood by you after you screwed up the election for them.

The worrying thing for Labour party supporters is who takes over as leader. Say what you want about Tony Blair he dragged Labour in to the modern world, but the so called 'New Labour' has been set back years by Gordon Brown's mishandling of the economy and iffy leadership qualities. The vampires and werewolves are coming out of the shadows ready to exert their own type of evil master at the helm. The problem is that whoever they decide is up to the job must be a strong charismatic person, which discounts most current MPs and just leaves some of the most untrustworthy self-serving bar-stewards in politics. Whoever they choose I think we will see a change that makes Labour either more new and middle of the road or drags them back to their Socialist roots. Their supporters need to think very carefully if they want their party re-elected again. With hindsight it is so easy to see the mistakes all the parties have made with their choice of leaders over the years.

Unlike most people I speak to I am quite positive that the alliance between the Tories and the Lib/Dems can work, only time of course will tell. Let me explain... although I have not had access or even done an Internet search for what is in the document that David Cameron and Nick Clegg signed I believe it contains the gems of what could be a brave new world for British politics. I have like most people seen snippets in the newspapers and I listened to extracts from it during a radio interview with Clegg and it all seemed to make sense. What surprised me even more was that Nick Clegg sounded like he sincerely believed what he was saying and I cannot remember hearing that level sincerity from a politician ever. It appeared that the two had taken all the best bits from their policies and rejigged them to become better than the sum of their parts. In the past I thought that the Lib/Dems ideas for electoral reform were totally unworkable, while at the same time I felt that the attitude of most Tories (and Labourites) that reform was unnecessary was blinkered. From what I heard the two leaders have come up with a cunning plan. They now just have to sell it to their respective parties and the public. I believe it goes a massive way to restoring the faith of the British public in Parliament and politicians.

At what one of the newspapers called 'The Great No.10 Love-In' David Cameron and Nick Clegg stood side by side to answer questions from the press. Laughs were a penny a dozen as the new Prime Minister was reminded he called his new Deputy Prime Minister a "Political Joke" during the election. Strange how such bitter rivals have become such bosom, bosom friends in such a short time. A week is a long time in politics and one has to wonder how long this can last. There are without doubt hard times and hard decisions ahead, but if these two can find enough common ground and see their way to doing what is the best for the country while putting aside their differences there is hope. If what I suspect is in that document from the snippets I heard we might just see changes for the better but they will rock the established order of things like Motorhead at a church fete. Bring it on, I say, life is too short for regrets.

The bitter pill will be increased taxes and however hard that is to swallow the blame can only be placed firmly on the departing PM and his cabinet who acted like so many of their public and went mad with the credit card leaving us billions in debt. What supporters of all parties need to realise that these taxes were coming in some form or another whoever was in power. I would hope there will be at least a honeymoon period where the press stop twisting and misquoting everything and let this strange pact prove it can work.

There is an ancient Chinese curse that says "May you have an interesting life"; well whatever happens it will be interesting, even if the Right Honourable Member for Dudding on Thames does sleep through the whole debate. I am sure Mr Brown will have an interesting life with his £184,000 pension and a whole rack of book deals as a reward for ruining the economy. It should be fun though as everyone digs out those old speeches and finds all those things that the politicians said that they would never support but are now proposing, they will hate YouTube shortly.

UK Soccer Fixtures Copyrighted

It appears that the fixture lists of UK Soccer matches are now considered copyright material after a court case. Judge Christopher Floyd said in summing up "The process of preparing fixture lists involves very significant labour and skill in satisfying the multitude of often competing requirements of those involved, (it is) not mere sweat of the brow, by which I mean the application of rigid criteria to the processing of data. The quality of the solution depends in part on the skill of those involved." So the judge has ruled that the information is intellectual property and that anyone who wants to publish it will have to pay for the privilege.

Now my interest in football is non-existent but this seems totally ludicrous. If I was running the newspapers I would simply say okay if you want us to publish your fixture list then you will pay us for advertising. I suspect that the newspapers will simply pay for the sake of their readership and the only victims of this stupid idea will be the fan sites who upon publishing when and where their team is playing will face either a bill or a fine.

The details of the case can be read here.
Thanks to J-Walk Blog who spotted this item at Law.Com Legal Blog Watch

This whole intellectual property thing is just getting out of hand. Picture the scene "Hey Bob! Where is the match next week?" "Sorry Jacko if I tell you that then the league will charge me a tenner."

UK Election - What a mess!

The election in the UK has made Britain look like a third world banana republic. Not content with the leaders of the parties showing their ignorance and un-preparedness on television, showing serious lacks of judgement, social skills, leaving their microphones on, and concentrating on the smearing of the other candidates rather than the key issues, but there seem to have been the sort of dirty underhand tricks that we have read about in places were democracy is considered a dirty word.

In what seems like the desperate attempts of a desperate man to cling to power there have been allegations of thousands of fraudulent postal votes in key marginal seats that is being investigated by the police. No one has dared to accuse anyone just yet but that is just the British way. That sort of thing does not go on here, or does it? I am just waiting for the cover up that will probably show it was all to do with Asian betting rings or maybe they will try and pin it on Nick Griffin and his fascist BNP.

Probably more significant is the massive of numbers of people who were stopped from voting because they found themselves locked out of polling stations. There were problems in parts of London, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle and Surrey where as the polls closed many people who had been queuing for three hours were unable to cast their vote.

Not only were voters denied their right to cast a vote by the inability of staff to cope with the high percentage that turned out, but several polling stations ran out of ballot papers and there is simply no excuse for this.

Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other social networking sites were a hotbed of discontent from those denied their democratic right. Videos and photographs of the reaction of crowds of angry people outside polling stations showed how close we came to the sort of thing we have been seeing in Greece. The British stiff upper lip was quivering.

In Hackney, in east London, angry would-be voters staged a sit-in and police were called to a polling station in Lewisham, south London, where about 300 people had still to vote by 10 pm. In Sheffield Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg apologised to voters that had waited for three hours.

While British politicians may be content to wait a few weeks for the dust to die down and let everyone forget it the Electoral Commission has said it will hold an inquiry, a terrible slight on a country that considers itself the bastion of democracy.

Gordon Brown is said to “Be concerned” and David Cameron is reported as saying "An early task for a new government is to get to the bottom of what has happened and make sure that it never happens again,".

Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC suggested on the ITV News that people who were unable to vote might like to sue. The European Convention says that by law people have a right to a vote. When asked how much a denied voter might be likely to get he said "They will get at least 750 pounds (1,100 U.S. dollars)”. The vultures are circling the carcass already. If legal challenges are made then we could see candidates having to fight by-elections in those areas where there were problems.

The desperate man is still holding desperately on to power and refusing to concede defeat. The man who was never elected to the office of Prime minister but inherited it from his predecessor is sticking to his guns by saying he has the right to form a government even when the other side won. It may well be his constitutional right to do so, because it is not a majority, but it is clearly morally wrong. What is it that these politicians do not understand? They confess to playing by the rules but bend those rules to line their own pockets and maintain their power whatever the cost to the people that elected them.

What we wanted in Britain was what we got, a hung parliament, but not in the way we wanted it. There is scaffolding up around Westminster we should use it; it would bring a new meaning to the swingometer. I think it is time for Gordon Brown to do the honourable thing and fall on his sword. How many people would pay to see that?

I do not think it matters what your political persuasion is Britain needs a strong and stable government lead by a charismatic and honest man and Brown ticks none of the boxes. If Labour wants to will over the UK voters they need to get rid of Brown and start to come good on their broken promises. The Tories have someone at the helm who is much easier on the eye but who needs to be kept better informed. You need to be decisive and firm when you are questioned by the public and often during debate he came across as out of touch, not that the opposition were any better. If the Tories had come up with some real policies instead of just promising change the whole outcome might have been better for them. The Liberal Democrats came out well in public debate but a lot of their policies are ill-conceived, not because they are bad ideas but because people in Britain despise change. It was the reason the Conservatives campaign backfired; all they spoke about was change, change, change. We do not want change, we want stability and constant change for change sake never did anyone any good.

The change issue is also the one that stops people voting for the fringe parties too; that and the fact that only the deluded seriously believes they are not wasting their vote. In most cases a vote for one of the smaller parties is a protest vote, something the Liberal Democrats have relied upon for years. These protest votes are divisive and are one reason that maybe we should change how we do politics so that we narrow down the choices somehow. I am not sure that proportional representation would be the right way to do it either. We would end up with an unstable government every time and even the lunatic fringe would have a platform from which to disrupt the running of the country.

The worst thing about this mess is that the whole thing is going to drag on. Government should be like a small child, seen and but not heard very often. Instead it is a screaming brat that demands more attention than it deserves. Every now and the UK press exposes their wrong doing and for a while they sit on the naughty stair, what is needed is for someone to give them a good spanking and send them to bed without their tea from time to time. Although talking of politicians they might enjoy the spanking bit and I would be worried what they were getting up to in the bedroom.

In a perfect world it would not matter that there was no clear winner to this election because all parties would be working together for the good of the people that elected them instead of bitching and fighting with each other, but it is not a perfect world.

I often think that maybe we might be better off with a dictatorship than a democracy as without all the hot air it would be so much easier to get things done. So when can I take over? Actually that would not be a good idea because the heads on stakes outside the houses of parliament might drive the tourists away.

I Voted

I voted and can now sleep safe in the knowledge that I did my civic duty and used the vote that thousands died in two world wars to preserve. God save the Queen and God help our enemies.

ITV-HD-Comes-to-Sky & Virgin

Sky and Virgin users get ITV in High-Definition. Oh yippee! now you can get up close and personal with Coronation Street and other boring, brain dead offerings. I have to wonder about HD tv and the people buying it, have they got HD eyes? I certainly haven't any more.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/home-cinema/news/2010/03/12/ITV-HD-Comes-to-Sky---Virgin/p1

Gone shopping: Look, I'll take any computer - Times Online

Someone else who feels the same as I do about the morons at PC World.

Gone shopping: Look, I'll take any computer - Times Online

The future of television

It has long been a contention of mine that the future of television is that there is no future in television. While I am sure the television companies will still be in the business of making programs as we know them the present system of broadcasting will sooner or later become obsolete. What I have seen in the last couple days does not in any way change my mind.

I was an early subscriber to Sky television mainly due to the small amount of broadcast TV I watched and the large amount of videos I was renting. Working shifts went some way to making the decision to move to Sky as I could not follow series based shows and I had zero interest in variety entertainment or game shows. Sky offered me movies and documentaries 24/7, which meant the box in the corner was of use to me although I still had to record a lot of the films I wanted to see to VHS tape to watch on my days off. My children loved it with cartoons all day there was always one or more of them watching something or other. Eventually I even subscribed to the sports channels when Sky was showing the Ryder Cup and I occasionally watch golf or motor sports, but have no interest in an other sport what so ever.

Things moved on and I obtained a top of the range satellite receiver with built in surround sound. I was therefore seriously annoyed when Sky moved from analogue to digital and I had to use the standard box and route the sound through my stereo system, which had previously been in another room and use the auxiliary connections used to connect another piece of equipment. Eventually I replaced the ageing and ailing VHS recorder with a DVD recorder, which worked well for a while but was fiddly to set up. After about 18 months I fell upon a DVD/hard drive combo at a silly price and started to make good use of that and I was able for the first time able to follow series with some form of reliability.

It was unfortunate that my TV set decided to detonate at around the time flat screens started to appear. Flat screens were still very expensive and so I replaced it with the largest CRT I could find. It is still not very old and probably has at least another ten years of service left in it. So when we made the decision to go for Sky Plus at the end of 2008 we did not go down the high resolution route. Sky Plus has been a revolution in my TV watching. The ease at which I can record series being the biggest advantage. The disadvantages are firstly I am wasting more time than ever watching TV and secondly the hard drive in the Sky Plus is no where near big enough for the requirements of a family of seven. It has though been a step change in the right direction and I for the first time think I am getting value for money for my subscription.

Sky player has been available on line for some time but I only just upgraded to a PC capable of using it. I must say I was sceptical as to how it would work. My Internet connection is poor at best and YouTube videos always seemed choppy before but my Window 7 machine seems to handle them much better. Even so I was amazed when I watched some Sky content in full screen high resolution without any choppiness at all. BBC iPlayer shows occasional choppiness but is almost always watchable and I have occasionally used it to catch up on something were I missed the first episode or something. The quality does not seem to live up to that of Sky Player however. The latest edition to the watching TV on line is See-Saw which has content from BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5. See-Saw has a slight advantage over the previous two I mentioned as the content is not just there for a week and then gone. One series I noticed has 39 episodes you can watch. There are of course other video on demand set ups on the net some of which are legitimate and others illegal. Hulla for example is not available in the UK (unless you sneak in via a US proxy) and is presently jumping through legal hoops to get Hulu UK up and running.

The future of television as I see it is video on demand. I suspect the first thing we will see is a set top box with built in Wi-Fi and eventually every TV will come with some form PC built in. This will in time change both the way we watch TV and the way we surf the net. I have felt that this was the way forward since I bought my first Commodore 64 computer and in some ways it surprises me that industry has take so long to catch on. The technology needed to create the infrastructure has perhaps been a stumbling block, but that is no longer the case. I am pleased to see that others have for sometime at least been thinking along similar lines. Project Canvas looks like it could be the first stumbling step towards turning off the broadcast transmitters and delivering us just the content we want. Project Canvas is a proposed partnership between the BBC, ITV, C4, Five, BT and Talk Talk to build an open internet-connected TV platform. Initially content will be streamed to a set top box (similar to that used by digital Freeview viewers) via the Internet. More information on Project Canvas can be found here.

The biggest stumbling block to success is the UK's Internet infrastructure, which probably would not cope under the stress of millions of people downloading program content 24 hours a day. Even if they laid fibre optic cables to every home the Internet service providers servers would be under the sort of pressure that is only seen now during a DOS (denial of service) attack. The truth of the matter is that take up of such services will be slow and both terrestrial and satellite broadcasting will be with us for some time. What does remain to be seen is if Project Canvas gets off the ground how soon Sky and others get on board? Some people will suggest that Virgin is doing video on demand already and in areas with cable that is true, but even with Virgin the vast majority of content is 'broadcast' and in the future the only area I can see that true broadcast has a place is that of news.

I sincerely look forward to the day when I can turn on the TV and not see garbage like games shows or soaps even for a second as I change channels, just menus of what I might care to watch. No more tuning in to the third episode of a show and thinking that it seems interesting but does not quite make sense, and hoping they repeat it sometime. Just thinking about it, maybe some people like to be confused as to what their entertainment is all about or why did anyone watch Lost?

Australians Anonymous

How ludicrous is it that Australia should be introducing net filters? The country the brought us Ned Kelly and Crocodile Dundee has decided that its citizens are not capable of making their own minds up on moral issues such as whether it is right to watch old episodes of Neighbours on YouTube or if they should copy a dodgy copy of a Rolf Harris album on to their MP3 player or not. I would not be surprised if the UK government wanted to play Aunty in this way but those big tough beer swilling Aussies, no way! Just because they have a state named Victoria does not mean they need to act like Victorians.

The Australian government says the filters are being put in place to stop pornographic and criminal sites. They have promised an internet filter that would block a list of banned websites, including those containing child abuse material. As anyone who has been involved with web filters knows all they do is generate false positives and slow networks to a crawl. Google and Yahoo have joined Australian organisations calling for a "rethink" of the country's controversial internet filter plans. The Australian Library and Information Association's (ALIA) Executive Director Sue Hutley said that the current filter proposals would create a "false sense of security" for Australian web users. Dealing with sites such as YouTube would cause additional load on the filtering infrastructure cause massive performance bottlenecks.

On 10 and 11 February an activist group called Anonymous attacked several official Australian government websites in protest, taking them offline for short periods of time and there is evidence that the attacks will continue and grow more frequent. The method they are using is known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). A man claiming to be a representative of the group said that around 500 people were involved in the attack. Support for the action appears to be growing from comments on social networking site such as Facebook and comments on Twitter.

Follow the White Rabbit

I have always loved Lewis Carroll's books and poems, but felt Disney's treatment of Alice in Wonderland, while being suitably wonderful at the time did not completely catch the surreal madness and magic that the books conjured up in my imagination. Hopefully Tim Burton's version due out on 5th March in the UK will go some way to capturing that feeling, although to be honest it looks more than a little scary to me. Many people these days suspect Mr Carroll was smoking something illegal when he wrote the books and from what I have seen of the trailer I have to ask if Tim Burton was also partaking of the same substance. Without firm evidence I will refrain from judging and just say that I think this is the film I have been waiting for someone to make since I played American McGee's Alice, a third person PC video game released in 2000.

Rumours abound that cinemas in the UK may boycott the film entirely due to Disney wanting to release the DVD version only twelve weeks after it is shown at the cinema Around 85% of Dutch cinemas have already refused to show it in the Netherlands. I sincerely hope that does not happen here as part of the experience, of what is already being called Tim Burton's Masterpiece, is that it is in 3D. Hopefully if it lives up to the hype it will be one of those films where after seeing it on the big screen you need to buy the DVD just to have a piece of it and maybe that is why Disney wants to get it in the shops so quickly.

Feed your head and get ready to follow the White Rabbit.