strungoutwire

oops

2010-11-20T09:57:00.002Z

So I lost my laptop, which is probably not the wisest thing I have ever done. Alas this has curtailed my attempts to keep this blog updated with it's usual torrent of nonsense as I've found blogging by carrier pigeon to be an absolute chore.

Anyway here's a video to tide you over until either a) buy a new laptop or b) get my one back from the EVIL THIEVING TAXI BASTARD

salivating

2010-11-09T22:18:00.000Z

little something something

2010-11-08T19:51:00.003Z

Daft Punk - "Tron Legacy (End Titles)"

This is so completely awesome.

late nights

2010-11-08T13:54:00.000Z

wannabe player

2010-10-26T09:17:00.001+01:00

i feel this is important to remember

2010-10-21T09:01:00.000+01:00

cutsmageddon

2010-10-20T16:33:00.002+01:00

So our fearless and much-loved Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne (above, in his student drinking outfit) has finally released the details of the Comprehensive Spending Review, so named as it is mostly aimed at anyone who went to comprehensive school.

The actual details of what is being cut were a little thin in his Commons statement, it was mostly the percentage of departmental budgets that is being cut away. But from little that we know it has been a bad day for anybody who is:

Poor
Employed by the government
Employed by someone other than the government
Well-off
Disabled
Basically anyone not the son of a Baronet

Young Gideon informed us that these cuts in public spending are essential to preserving the stability and growth of the British economy, and he should know all about world economics as he got a 2:1 in History at University and later worked at the Ministry for Agriculture.

In truth, if your employed in a stable job this isn't the worst outcome. You will have the do a bit of belt-tightening - both figuratively and literally (have you seen how much the cost of your shopping is going to go up?). For the rest of us we now have to dig deep, because we're going to be sleeping in ditches.

and that's that then isn't it?

2010-10-18T21:13:00.002+01:00

The question "What if the Old Firm joined the English league?" is one that is asked a lot in the Scottish media. Ask fans of the Old Firm and the general consensus is that they'd sit mid-table in the Premier League for a few seasons but their impassioned fanbase and high earning potential would catapult them in to being major players soon enough.

Former Celtic manager Gordon Strachan decided rather than wait for the inevitable collapse of Scottish football he would put this hypothesis to the test. So when, just under a year ago, he was appointed Middlesborough manager he set about scooping off whatever Rangers, Celtic or other-teams-in-the-Scottish-Premier players were available.

Now the results of the experiment are in and the general consensus is that it was not a good idea. So much of a "not good idea" that Strachan has resigned without compensation and Boro sit in their lowest league position for 20 years.

Now obviously it's a gross exaggeration to say Strachan had all the best players the SPL had produced, but he's certainly got a hell of a lot of them. Take Kris Boyd, to[ scorer of all time in the SPL who has 3 goals in 10 appearances for Middlesborough. Alright for an attacking midfielder but not great for a prolific striker. Or Scott McDonald, formerly of Celtic where he averaged 0.59 goals per game. In the second-tier of the English competition he has managed 0.23.

It's not exactly controversial to say that the English league is stronger than the Scottish, a disparity usually blamed on the money available to the respective top divisions. But Strachan's failed experiment really brings home how far they've grown apart. Exceptional players in the SPL are not just mediocre, but bad in the The Championship. Strachan too - as a manager he won three consecutive Scottish Premier titles between 2006 and 2008, in the Championship he achieved nothing and only won 28% of his matches in charge.

These sort of statistics lay bare the massive failings of the Scottish Football Association in helping the Scottish game. Instead of generating more revenue and investing in the future, as the SPL promised when it broke away from the SFA (with the SFA's consent), it has become a protectionist racket ensuring Celtic or Rangers win everything and everybody else hungrily feasts of the scraps the Old Firm give them. The spineless attitude of the SFA has not created a fairer league system, but has created a situation where Celtic and Rangers feast on the other clubs - devouring their best talents and running them out of contention for any trophies - whilst the rest of the clubs have to meekly give in to the demands of the big two, lest they go bankrupt without them.

So well done for Gordon Strachan. Perhaps he was not just a clueless manager with a squad of overpriced mediocre players. Perhaps instead he was a visionary, trying to show the Scottish game how far it has fallen. For that, he should be applauded.

looks... tasty

2010-10-14T08:09:00.001+01:00

down the mine

2010-10-13T20:09:00.002+01:00

Most of the World is currently glued to their TV watching the Chilean mine rescue. This is frankly a beautiful moment. It is like a horrible schmaltzy movie, only it's real and without some kind of forced tragedy and totally real.

Usually when the world unites around an event it is in shock or sadness - 9/11, the Boxing Day Earthquake, the Haiti earthquake. Here however is an international symbol of human endurance, of people genuinely caring for one another. It's been enough to just about wash away my cynicism - at least for a bit.

Good on the miners, and good for anybody who feels immensely proud of them.

But on a quick note, there are reports that they were all given iPods by Steve Job himself, but they weren't allowed to have them in the mine in case they used the distraction to separate themselves from the group. What a nice gesture from the, apparently, meanest man in tech. But then ago, what model did they get? A Touch? Brilliant. A Classic? Alright. The new Nano? How heartless can you be?

very very excited

2010-10-12T22:41:00.001+01:00

tonight scottish football dies... live on sky sports

2010-10-12T18:31:00.004+01:00

Craig Levein comes out of the dressing room to be interviewed by the BBC. His team, the Scottish National team, the oldest international football team in the World, have just been beaten by the Czech Republic. Not just beaten, but humiliated. The scoreline was, at the first glance, a respectable 1-0 loss. But it was the manner of the loss that was humiliating. The Scottish team of 1872 lined up and in an attacking 3-0-7 formation. The Scottish team of 2010 lined up and played a pathetic 4-6-0 formation. Levein had decided the best tactic was to play with precisely 0 strikers. It was more than that, the Scotland manager had decided it was imperative that Scotland not attack at all.

In his BBC interview which followed he admitted disappointment with the result, but admitted his team were playing for a 0-0 draw. He carefully but forcefully defended his tactics. He is also showed he clearly has no idea what he's doing. The best Scottish managers of the past have been carefully pragmatic. In recent years Walter Smith showed how to get results with careful, controlled defending and counter-attacking play. Levein probably thinks he is continuing this tradition. Unfortunately he has forgotten about the "counter-attacking" part. Levein doesn't seem to realise that a key method of defending your goal is to, on occasion, have possession of the ball. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if the opposition don't have the ball, they can't score. And it also doesn't require an advanced PhD in Football Tactics to say that when you have the ball, trying to attack the opposition goal is a good idea.

Alas for Levein he's stubborn enough to not learn this lesson in one game. Even more unfortunately for Levein the greatest international football team in the world are in town tonight. It's not hyperbole to say that the current Spain team are one of the best teams ever to have existed - especially when you consider the core of the team also play for Barcelona, one of the greatest club teams ever to have played. Levein has hinted that he has a gameplan to deal with the tricky Spaniards - with their funny ideas like "possession" and "attack" and "goals". Knowing him this plan probably involves sticking ten men of the goal line and having a keeper try to punt the ball away. Which in actual fact would suit Spain down to a T. The only games Spain have struggled in have been games where the opposition defends high and tries to hit them on the break. Levein will have seen this and probably decided the "hitting them on the break" is an unnecessary distraction from all that defending they will have to do.

Obviously Levein isn't entirely to blame. The SFA have been continually idiotic and spineless in dealing with the rotten domestic game. All clubs have seriously underinvested in younger players - the Old Firm because, screw it, they'll buy up everyone else's; everyone else because, screw it, the Old Firm will just buy them up anyway. This of course leads to tonight's laughable situation where 40-year old Davie Weir is going to have to mark David Villa, probably the best pure striker in the World today. Their has been talk of the Spaniards being "intimidated" by the Scottish home support. A laughable claim considering almost all of them will have played in front of 80,000 hostile Madrileños or 90,000 agressive Catalans. I think they're used to it by now. Similarly kicking them up in the air won't help, since Real Madrid and Barcelona players get this treatment anyway.

But ultimately Levein is proving himself to be far out of his depth, even with the modest ambitions the SFA have. He claims to have been hired to ensure Scotland qualify for the Euro 2012 championship. He has not explained how not even trying to win away from home will help this cause.

UPDATE (Post-game): Well, that wasn't actually too bad. But surely coming so very close to taking the European and World champions to the sword adds further fuel to the debate in what the bloody hell Levein was thinking in the Czech Republic. I mean if you can spirit up an almost winning performance against Spain, why would you need to defend at all costs against a Czech team who are not up to snuff?

all the tens

2010-10-10T10:10:00.000+01:00

10:10 10/10/10

HOW CRAZY IS THAT FOLKS?

fuck yeah

2010-10-04T18:55:00.004+01:00

Ever thought your holiday snaps could do with a little more... action. I mean they look great and all, but couldn't they do with more carnage? Well you're in luck thanks the The Michael Bayifer, a ridiculously useful tool that will turn any picture you like in to a scene from Michael Bay's acclaimed arthouse films.

As you can see above I have taken a picture of UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most important archaeological sites of all time, Herculaneum, and turned it from a dusty old ruin to a FUCKING KICK ASS adventure, with explosions and vehicles and Shia Labeouf. This is of course much preferable.

them scousers again

2010-10-03T22:25:00.002+01:00

Just how bad is it to be a Liverpool supporter right now? Terrible. Awful. The worst it's ever been. You know how you can tell? Their abject loss to Blackpool has been mostly greeted with resigned shrug. That a team of the stature of Liverpool could be beaten by a bunch of journeymen playing in the Premier League for the first time without it being a major surprise is a sign of the state of affairs. Expectations are now so low that a draw with a minor Russian team in Europe's second-tier competition is considered a good result.

The outsiders and non-Liverpool fans it has been sort of amusing watching the collapse of this massive club. But like when you realise your drunken friend actually has a serious drinking problem it stops being funny and becomes a bit pitiful.

Thankfully the fan already have their built-in-bogeyman, the hated owners who have saddled the club with huge amounts of debt without investing in the squad, or the promised new stadium. Whilst this is certainly an issue, it diverts the blame away from a group of players who are seriously under-performing.

One of Liverpool's greatest problems for years has been their over-reliance on Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres to carry the team. This of course is not shocking news, but the reason it has started to go wrong is the badly reduced quality of players fitting in around these two. When Xabi Alonso, an excellent playmaker with a dead-eye passing ability, was sitting behind Gerrard in the central midfield you had some forward momentum in the team, the end result being their 2nd place finish in the 2008-2009 season.

When Alonso left he was replaced in the midfield mostly by Javier Mascherano. Now for all his qualities Mascherano is not a creative player. Very good at breaking up opposition attacks, but not then pushing the ball forwards. Normally this would be where your wide players would come in to play, but put simply Liverpool don't have any decent wingers. The end result is that Gerrard has to drop deeper to get the ball, making it harder for him to then link-up with the attack.

Signing Joe Cole on a free transfer this summer could have solved the wide player problem. Alas this has been hamstrung by his desire to play in a more central role - i.e. the same place Gerrard plays. A good manager would sort this by drilling his team repeatedly so he positions they should be in become second nature. Roy Hodgson has failed to do this, leading to the midfield meandering around the pitch pointlessly. Towards the end of games, and sometimes even when Liverpool go a goal down, the players just seem to stop caring. The work rate declines, silly mistakes creep in. Even Fernando Torres, Liverpool's talisman, sometimes looks like he'd rather be anywhere else in the World.

This is all coupled with what seems to be a very slow breakdown by Roy Hodgson. The calm, friendly Fulham manager has been replaced by the screaming, depressed, beaten-down Liverpool manager.

So is this a terminal decline for the most decorated team in English football? Maybe, Manchester City's millions probably have forced them out of the Big Four and Tottenham seem to have taken their place as "former glory who want to get it back". But who knows? Perhaps Liverpool will get their billionaire buyer and 60,000-seat stadium. Until then we will just have to put up with this sad sack of a team pretending like they still care.

pink meat

2010-10-03T15:01:00.001+01:00

There there is mechanically recovered chicken. Now go read how it's made. And then you'll vow never to eat chicken nuggets again. Until you get a bit pissed and eat them, obviously.

western culture has officially reached its zenith

2010-10-02T11:14:00.000+01:00

good news everybody

2010-10-02T10:33:00.001+01:00

Pull out your Steve Jobs iShit device & get the game of the fucking century - "KP's Home Run Fiesta!"
http://bit.ly/aXM0IX

less than a minute ago via Tweetie for MacKenny Powers
KFUCKINGP

food and things

2010-10-02T10:01:00.003+01:00

Snails, which have to be eaten with a stupid bloody contraption, taste like burnt mushrooms and you always have the thought in the back of your mind "oh, yuck, I'm eating snails".

Nandos, the food of moderately-priced kings. If you go often enough you can get a free whole chicken, like I did here.

Spaghetti carbonara is a foodstuff sent from the gods. Praise be to them for it.

Cafe Cossachok is a Russian restaurant in Glasgow. Before I went I assumed Russian food would be potatoes, boiled cabbage and pickled radish. The pickled radish is there, but instead of Soviet-era bread-line-fare you get some of the best food I've ever had.

Most "Mexican" food slopped out in this country is terrible. Purely meat rolled in tortillas and covered in cheese. Bibi's Cantina is an exception to this, in that it serves food they would actually eat in Mexico. Especially this, which is the mole.

Just across the road from Bibi's Cantina is Velvet Elvis, a cramped, noisy restaurant serving delicious classic foods, like the steak frites. No messing around. Massive steak. Big pile of frites. Garlic and parsley butter. Get on with it.

Not all food is good food. Consider the case of the chicken parmo. It is essentially a chicken fillet covered in breadcrumbs, deepfried then topped with Bechamel sauce and cheese. It is completely foul and any sane person who invented it would chop off their hands to prevent it ever happening again. Curiously it was created in Teesside, which I guess is just another reason to dislike the North East.

my brother teaches you how to prepare a pineapple

2010-10-01T23:52:00.000+01:00

not a happy thing

2010-09-22T17:11:00.002+01:00

Take a look at all your lovely consumer electronics. They make you feel good, don't they?

But what if you knew they were made by desperately unhappy people being forced to work for a total cunt. The kind of company where they have to erect "anti-suicide nets" and force workers to contractually agree not to kills themselves.

Your iPhone's not such a happy thing now.

sit down, man

2010-09-20T16:40:00.002+01:00

If, like me, you're a little slow then you may have missed the fucking awesome new Das Racist mixtape that you can download here. Wait, is it really a mixtape if it only has Das Racist songs on it? Isn't that just an album? I'm confused. Anyway, it's really good.

adorable

2010-09-20T16:30:00.003+01:00

I'm not convinced of the necessity of all these retro-style cameras. I mean they mostly have the same specs as a standard point-and-shoot, but you pay well over the odds for it.

That said the Fujifilm FinePix X100 is absolutely adorable. Honestly, look at it's pretty little face and try not to fall in love. Seriously, compare it to Olympus' hideous retro offerings and it makes you want to buy it immediately.

tuff enuff

2010-09-20T16:22:00.000+01:00

Oh, and From The Cradle to the Rave is the techno album of the year.

hipster hitler

2010-09-11T09:38:00.003+01:00

The entire essence of hipsterism is distilled in to one webcomic; in that it is:

Slightly offensive but not as much as it thinks it is
About hipsters
Not very funny

See more at hipsterhitler.com, or don't.

woosh

2010-09-11T09:26:00.003+01:00

So I was going to write something very funny* about how I was intending on celebrating International Burn A Koran Day, because it would have been tremendously amusing and topical and all that. Alas for fans of topical ironic humour written by a hungover twentysomething the horrible racist hillbilly preacher whose idea it was called the whole thing off. If there's one thing I can't stand it's redneck bigots who can't stand by the disgusting, ignorant convictions.

Of course this will probably change. The guy comes across as profoundly thick so who knows, by the end of today he could have immolated a mountain of sacred texts. This entire media circus is brain-achingly dumb.

*honest

driving

2010-09-09T08:32:00.000+01:00

practically everything I ate in Italy except breakfast and some other things I didn't take photos of

2010-09-08T20:00:00.003+01:00

flashy but useless

2010-09-08T19:18:00.002+01:00

We all like Google. Honestly no major technology company generates as little fiery hatred as the plucky little search engine (if one can be plucky when valued north of $50billion). I mean Microsoft have a veritable army of people ready and willing to scream about their dominance, their often dodgy products and occasionally faulty hardware. Facebook just needs to roll out a minor design change and millions of idiots flock to protest that they want it back the old way BECAUSE I HATE CHANGE DAMMIT. And many people think Apple, and their cult like followers, are just... creepy.

Not so much anger is directed at Google though. In fact Google has just settled in to becoming part of our everyday lives. Google is how you find things on the internet. It's very good at this. No problems. In fact very little is said of the slightly shadier side of the Google Empire: the willingness to censor results in China; the slightly cavalier attitude towards user privacy; the complete mess of the Google Buzz launch; the crappy phone they failed to sell much of. But realistically this doesn't bother many of us. Certainly not me, since I used Google to find those links and am currently typing in my snazzy Google Chrome browser. Google Google Google.

Of course Google's reputation is built upon its ability to give you information as soon as possible. And today Google unveiled Google Instant which speeds the whole process right up... apparently. To be honest Google Instant is flashy but pretty much useless.

In fact it is the culmination of one of the worst trends in website design: the website assuming it knows what you want. Facebook does it hideously badly, Wikipedia is slightly better but still horrible and hides the fact that it needs a half decent search function. And now the daddy of internet search is going to be shouting suggested news stories, phrases and videos in my face without me finishing. It's like having one of those friends who continually interrupts and tries to finish your sentences.

To be perfectly clear: I am an adult, with a good level of education. I am fully capable of typing a bunch of words and hitting enter. I am perfectly fine with this.

The Google Instant introduction page proudly states that this "enhancement" can save you 2-5 seconds per search! Well thank fuck for that, I'm often 30 seconds late to important meetings after conducting six Google searches in preparation. Now that can be a thing of the past.

Honestly this development will only be of benefit to tedious lifehackers who make themselves more productive by wasting their lives measuring how fast they do things, whilst the rest of us stick with the shitty slow method because we're bored and lazy and probably overweight and that's fine because at least we don't worry about saving two seconds when trying to order from Domino's online.

And you want to know the worst thing about Google Instant? Search for porn, go on. You get nothing. Not so keen to be helpful now is it?

summer song

2010-08-21T10:30:00.000+01:00

a bastard child

2010-08-17T18:41:00.003+01:00

How do you make Justin Bieber sound... well, not totally awful? Easy, slow down his latest single "U Smile" 800%. You end up with a result that could easily be something from the canon of M83, Animal Collective or St. Etienne. Suck on that hipster scum.

Listen for yourself.

team of the year

2010-08-14T13:10:00.001+01:00

This is my fantasy football team for this year. I don't think it's very good. Oh well.

wear nicer things

2010-08-14T12:12:00.001+01:00

Here's an interesting Q&A with the costume director of Inception. Read it, because if you read this website you probably dress like crap.

what does the day look like?

2010-08-01T19:07:00.002+01:00

a museum of curiosities

2010-07-27T15:41:00.002+01:00

good stuff

2010-07-27T15:29:00.001+01:00

the lesson is

2010-07-27T15:02:00.002+01:00

We've had a day or so to take in the Wikileaks leak of almost 92,000 US reports from Afghanistan. A leak of this magnitude has never been seen before and the contents of the files has opened up big diplomatic rifts between the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have even been compared to the Pentagon Papers, a confidential report that ultimately collapsed any remaining US public support for the war in Vietnam.

But are they that important? On the one hand they are detailed reports from the frontline of a confusing war. And the picture they paint is not a good one. Rather than stabilising the country NATO forces seem to be letting it slide in to disaster. This was shown excellently in the Guardian's tracker of the improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan from 2004 until 2009. It also lays bare in harrowing detail the civilian cost of the war in Afghanistan, due to a combination of accident, negligence and maliciousness.

But on the other they don't give us enough detail on the grand scale of the war. These are documents only classified as "secret", dealing with operational incidents. There's no great reveal of anything of a more strategic level. And to any followers of the war these reveals won't be anything of a surprise. It has long been suspected, and occasionally reported, that the Pakistani intelligence services are aiding the taliban, now we merely know that the US military believes so too. It has also been known for some time that the Afghan army and police force are corrupt, dangerously incompetent and full of Taliban infiltrators. The difference now is that we have it confirmed in black and white by those on the ground.

What comes through most is how badly the war is going. It's often said that Afghanistan is not a conventional war, but it now barely seems a comprehensible war. NATO cannot "win" the war as there are no defined parameters for victory. Even the idea of leaving a moderately stable government behind seems hopelessly optimistic. "Why are we there?" has moved from being a rhetorical anti-war statement to becoming a question that is in dire need of answering.

tesla

2010-07-11T10:17:00.001+01:00

an education

2010-07-11T09:02:00.006+01:00

So, what have we learnt from the World Cup?

Jorge Larrionda should never referee another international football game. Not that I'm saying this as a bitter England fan, oh no. Certainly not. Look, all referees make mistakes. They give an incorrect offside decision or miss a blatant foul. But to deny a perfectly legitimate goal in the World Cup finals because you're too unfit to keep up with play. That's completely unacceptable. This isn't the first time Jorge has made a dodgy decision. The man in clearly incompetent and it would be staggering if FIFA were allow him to referee at the highest level.

England are shit. There is now way of skirting around this issue. England played badly, scored three, conceded five and were basically a mess from beginning to ignominious end. What's most striking is rather than vilifying the aforementioned incompetent referee the tabloid media has instead rounded on the players for being terrible. This could be the watershed moment for England's bizarre national delusion of being one of the major footballing powers. Perhaps for World Cup 2014 we can approach it with a realistic aim of quarter-finals rather than the usual attitude of "ENGLAND R GUNNA WIN COS WE R BEST IN THE WORLD BULLDOG SPIRIT CHURCHILL TEN GERMAN BOMBERS INGERLAND INGERLAND INGERLAND INGERLAND"

Spain are boring. Wow, aren't Spain excellent, the way they hold possession and slowly gradually work the ball in to the opposition box. Best team in the World, right? No. Spain are boring. They suck the joy out of football. They hog the ball, and then pass it around for seemingly hours doing nothing. And then Torres misses a sitter.

Vuvuzelas are amazing. I said they would ruin the World Cup. I was wrong. They have given the matches a superb otherworldly atmosphere. And on a personal note my own vuvuzela has annoyed the heck out of my flatmates - so much so Jess has physically assaulted my twice over it. And honestly you can't get better than that.

The North Korean team will look different next time we see them. This could be because the Glorious Team of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea only qualify once every 50 years or so. Or it could be the punishment dished out to the team for daring to lose the first ever live broadcast of an international football match. And losing it spectacularly. Poor bastards. I hope Christiano Ronaldo is happy, he's go blood on his hands.

Americans like football. Seriously, look at the ratings for the USA's games. They are up in 19-20 million people level. Admittedly not exactly Super Bowl or NBA finals level, but much higher than the cheerleader of the "soccer sucks" movement, Glenn Beck, who can only pull in 1.5 million. And these are matches not in primetime, not on the major networks. For Brazil 2014 the matches will be during American primetime. We could be looking at soccerball overtaking ice hockey in the US within a decade.

disco time

2010-07-10T08:26:00.000+01:00

let's get down and rock out, yo!

2010-07-09T15:58:00.002+01:00

Here are a copule of Spotify playlists I made over the past couple of months that are fun to listen to. Top tip: they sound better without adverts so throw down for Spotify Premium you bloody cheapskate

Things To Bring Joy - a long-ish collection of genuinely happy songs.
Toast With Jam - a wispy Sunday morning affair ideal with toast and jam.
Stay Fruity - A good method of surviving a train journey when sat next to a thick Brummie.

boom boom boom

2010-07-09T15:55:00.002+01:00

sad... really

2010-07-07T22:21:00.000+01:00

Glasgow 1980 (1971) from TheGMan1974 on Vimeo.

ohhhhh, wouldn't you like to know

2010-07-07T10:20:00.003+01:00

One of my favourite features in tabloid newspapers is the daily "blind items". If you're unaware these are the small shorts that say something along the lines of "Guess which movies star is secretly a racist paedophile" and you can immediately jump to conclusions in your mind about who it is. Sometimes a really good blind item will have some obscure clues buried within it to help you decipher who it is.

It's great fun having a guess. Especially when you're relatively clueless about celebrity culture. I have no idea if there even are any other "troubled" pop singers aside from Britney Spears, so anything suggesting "pop singer" and "trouble" I immediately assign to her. So basically in my own mind she's addicted to all drugs known to man, has had about a million illicit sexual encounters and is routinely a reprehensible human being. Of course this can't be true, it's merely a by-product of my own ignorance. Which is then in turn used to justify my own ignorance. "Why would I care about celebrities? Look how awful Britney Spears is." Poor Britney, if it were not for my astonishingly ill-informed opinions about her I might know what a Kardashian is.

Anyway if you want to avoid the guessing game and get some answers go check out THIS BLOG, although be warned since it's American you may have a hard time knowing who some of these awful - and some not-so-awful - people are. But then, doesn't knowing the answer of a blind item take away half the fun?

hey everybody

2010-07-06T23:07:00.003+01:00

Hello, would you like to buy a charming instrumental album by Dananananakroyd guitarist David Roy for the low, low price of £4? You would? Then check out this snazzy webpage here.

back here again

2010-07-06T23:00:00.003+01:00

So, I lost my job. Oh well, temporary jobs don't last forever do they? The trouble is of course that almost all jobs are temporary these days. No company wants to risk having actual employees, certainly not with the economy the way it is and the fact you can ship their jobs out to to the third world. Economics my friend, it helps the world go round in shitty, shitty ways.

So if you know of any jobs going that would suit a mid-twenties idiot with hypochondria, a bicycle and a fine crafted art in music snobbery do let me know.

and that was inevitable

2010-06-27T20:53:00.002+01:00

So England went out of the World Cup. Any England fan who actually follows football - rather than drink piss-warm Carling and shout slogans - can't be particularly surprised. A lot will, and should, be made of Frank Lampard's goal that everyone in the world except those who mattered noticed. But this won't disguise the fact that for all England's dominance in possession, the Germans were majestic on the counter-attack.

The major problem is working out where England go from here. The issue which is sure to dominate headlines is Fabio Cappello's coaching. Realistically this is a non-issue. It was the players inability to deal with counter-attacks that dumped England out of the World Cup, not Cappello's tactics. And baldly if you look at the history, Cappello is a winner, the England team aren't. Cappello's major problem is that English players can't play in any other way than they do. There is no Plan B, simply because the Premier League doesn't allow you to.

The other problem is the development of the squad. This is almost certainly the last World Cup for the likes of Gerrard, Lampard and Terry. But who is stepping up to replace them? Rooney, Milner and Walcott are all excellent young English players but there's no further great hopes. There is not a golden generation currently playing in the Premiership, simply because many clubs prefer to find their future talents out with the country. Even Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA's head of development, has said that the 2014 World Cup might be a blowout for England. The English under-17 team are winning plaudits as the FA's you development strategy begins to work, but this leaves a possible 8 year gap between this crop of players moving on, and the next generation coming through.

And really this generation need to move on. The core of the team were exciting youngsters under Sven Goran-Erikkson. Now they're older - or "experienced" to listen to the pundits - without necessarily being better players. In fact the Lampard-Gerrard-Terry-Ferdinand axis were probably at their peaks at the 2006 World Cup, another one England failed to win. For the next qualifying campaign it might be wise if England didn't rely on these old war horses quite so much so as to allow a smoother transition to England's slightly diminished future.

The future isn't all bleak for the richest team in town. Joe Hart is the best English keeper in 20 years. Michael Dawson is no spring chicken but is young enough to sit at the heart of an English defence. Ryan Shawcross, Micah Richards, Jack Rodwell and Dan Gosling are all decent players. But alas they are clearly not as good as those they would be replacing. If the English team is to ever win the World Cup again it will require large investment from the Premier League clubs in to young English players, but few of them seem interested in doing this. Why would they when Manchester United or Arsenal can swoop in on all the talents from Africa or South America?

what do we do?

2010-06-11T17:58:00.000+01:00

Le Coupe De Monde

2010-06-11T17:33:00.002+01:00

Well it would be very nice, very nice indeed, if I could contribute anything of interest and worth to the coverage of the World Cup. But I can't. Simply because the press have worked themselves up in to a tizzy and are covering the tournament from every conceivable angle you care about, and a great deal more that you don't. Oh well.

So, like... those horns are a bit annoying, aren't they? Or something.

coverage

2010-05-14T17:46:00.003+01:00

The election season is now over with the last of David Cameron's government choices announced. We, as a democracy, got the result nobody really wanted. Instead we're left with a cobbled together collection of weirdos we didn't want anywhere near the nuclear button.

The disillusionment with politics was so obvious in the results. David Cameron should have really walked in to 10 Downing Street with a huge majority, on the back of mass newspaper endorsements, an exceedingly slick online campaign and a deeply unpopular incumbent government. Instead he won the most seats in a relatively unconvincing manner. His new partner-in-governance Nick Clegg managed to turn a massive upswing in profile and popular support in to a loss of five seats. In fact Gordon Brown seems to be the only one to come out with any credit by not losing as badly as people thought he would. Celebrations all round then chaps.

Of course there is one organisation that had a terrible election. Sky News managed to damage their credibility massively all the while looking a bit foolish.

Sky News has never done 'subtle' particularly well. For their election coverage they didn't even try. The Sky News ticker went in to overdrive telling us in BIG BOLD LETTERS that some minor MP had got a parking ticket, or that David Cameron might be making a speech in an hour. Or that somebody somewhere is doing something vaguely election related and it is TERRIBLY IMPORTANT.

This was perhaps best summed up by their leg of the Leader's Debates. The BBC and ITV debates seemed somewhat understated, sober affairs. Sky News on the other hand put the three party leaders on a set I've heard described as "like something from a BNP rally" and "a backdrop of smashed bottles". Outside the Arnolfini in Bristol somebody had decided that it was very tasteful to project SKY NEWS HD in 10-foot high letters on the outside of the building.

But more than that the debate raised the hackles of the British left with moderator Adam Boulton giving Liberal Democrat a hard time about his expenses. This led to over 700 complaints to media regulator Ofcom. To many it confirmed that Sky, as part of the Rupert Murdoch-owned News International, were biased towards the Conservatives.

Whoever at News International decided the budgets for various departments for election coverage must have thought it was a fantastic idea to have the various News International properties pool resources. Things like polls are expensive after all. What they obviously forgot is that partnering up the supposedly impartial Sky News with the openly - somewhat psychotically - partisan Sun was not going to do their news channel any credit.

It didn't stop there. After the election Sky News anchor Kay Burley conducted an interview with the leader of political reform campaigners 38 Degrees. David Babbs and his group had marched on Parliament to demand fairer representation. Burley felt it was appropriate to tell him his actions "will make no difference whatsoever" and then helpfully suggesting he go home and watch Sky News. This led to a later incident where Kay Burley was repeatedly heckled with cries of "Sack Kay Burley, Watch The BBC" which was both hilarious and a sad reflection of how Sky News' credibility had been dumped on the ground.

The sad thing is Sky News wasn't actually that bad. Their analysis was good. Their polls were, we now know, accurate. Boulton's questioning of Clegg about expenses was valid and allowed Clegg to refute them publicly. Kay Burley wasn't badgering an electoral reform campaigner out of malice, she's just not very good at being a journalist. You watch Sky News a couple of times and you get to know that. The BBC and ITN have bad journalists in their ranks as well. There was another argument that Sky News perhaps should not have broadcast the Gordon Brown "bigoted" comment. They owned the microphone it was recorded on and honestly, do you think any journalist would sit on a juicy story like that?

But the accusations of bias seemed to take their toll, and finally led to the Adam Boulton meltdown moment where he furiously jabbed his finger at Alastair Campbell shouting "don't tell me what I think".

To many this confirmed that Sky News was against Labour the whole time, secretly trying to get the Conservatives elected whilst maintaining the facade of impartiality. Unfortunately it's probably more a sign of a panicky, badly-run news organisation who are aware of what everyone thinks of them and has no idea how to change that.

latin america

2010-05-05T10:58:00.001+01:00

the invisible war

2010-04-22T17:24:00.002+01:00

We are now one week on from the anointing of Saint Nicholas of Clegg. He, by virtue of not being either Gordon Brown or David Cameron, handily won the opening Leader's debate.

One week on, and with the Liberal Democrats now riding high in the polls, the Conservative-supporting press have unleashed a nasty smear campaign. This would have surely damaged his chances in the election were it not for the smears themselves being a bit half-hearted and a bit... crap. Being relatively young and unknown means he's not yet managed to pick up a proper scandal to hide. So he rides high in to tonight's second debate, whilst Labour and the Conservatives will be hoping to turn the screws on this jumpy upstart.

Unfortunately tonight will probably be the least seen of the debates, being that is tucked away on some obscure backwater TV station I don't think anyone has ever heard of (Sky News?). But secondly this debate is to focus on foreign policy, something that the rest of the election campaign has bypassed. You can bet the following things will happen. Gordon Brown will praise his own international leadership in the face of the recent economic crisis. Brown and David Cameron will berate former MEP Nick Clegg for his Europhile tendencies. And then Cameron will take a pasting for his own party's decision to sit in the European Parliament with an allegedly homophobic Polish political party.

What almost certainly not be given the time it deserves is the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Oh sure, everyone will rightly praise the dedication and bravery of the British servicemen. There will be certainly some bickering over whether troops have enough helicopters and body armour. But will it be enough debate?

Think about the past two weeks of the election campaign. How often has discussion focused on the fact that British troops are actively involved in combat operations. Britain is fighting a war, but the coverage of it has almost been invisible.

This may have been a deliberate ploy. Channel 4 journalist Alex Thomson Tweeted at the beginning of the month that the Ministry of Defence was not allowing journalists to embed with troops during the election campaign. This sounds alarmingly like censorship.

But it could simply be because there is very little difference between the main parties in their policies towards Afghanistan. None of the main parties support continuing British presence until the country is stable, even if they disagree on how quickly this can be achieved. Even the arguments about equipment always seem ridiculous. It seems obvious after an IED destroys an Land Rover that more heavily-armoured vehicles are needed. But military procurement is carried out years, sometimes decades, in advance. Who is to know what equipment your army will need in the years ahead?

The other major problem for coverage of Afghanistan is that it's such a difficult war to get a handle on. There's no real clear "us and them", no concrete idea of who the enemy is. And because of the danger involved in journalists being in Afghanistan we never get to see much of the life of ordinary Afghanis caught in the middle. The push is for "stabilisation" of Afghanistan, but what does this require? A liberal democracy? Or merely a country not about to descend in to absolute chaos?

The debate tonight will not give the war of Afghanistan the scrutiny it deserves because nobody is talking about it. We don't have enough basis to form a good opinion because everyone ignores it. Instead we have to just pick the course we like best out of those offered to us and hope that it all works out well.

geek blog

2010-04-19T17:49:00.002+01:00

If, like me, you are a geek then you fall in to one of two camps. Either you are an Engadget person, or you are a Gizmodo person. Some people are both, but they have too much time on their hands. Others may use CNET or TechCrunch as their primary source for gadget news, but let's call them weirdos and forget about them. So broadly speaking you get your gear-fix from one of the two big boys.

Now both sites have been in a state of low-level conflict since forever ago. They were started by the same guy, Peter Rojas. After making Gizmodo profitable for Gawker media he apparently sought a share in the website, and on being denied jumped ship to the AOL-owned Weblogs Inc. Since then there has been rivalry and competition between the sites.

So yesterday Engadget put up a post entitled iPhone 4G: proof. It consisted of a few blurry shots of a supposed iPhone 4-generation model, currently the holy grail of gadget blogs. Anything Apple related drives up hits, and something as headline as the iPhone will increase traffic no end. Round one to Engadget.

So today, not to be outdone, Gizmodo said "that might be a new iPhone. Whatever. By the way, we totally have one in our hands. Want to see?". Ouch! This is the equivalent of an almighty geek-blog smackdown. Game-set-match Gizmodo.

Apparently somebody entrusted with a new iPhone prototype took it out to a bar, and on leaving the bar - in who knows what state - was no longer in possession of one of the most coveted pieces of technology going. Somehow it ended up in the hands of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen about a week ago. The rest is now "OMG hits fucking galore" history.

Despite the slightly suspect story it does seem legit. The design of the phone seems to follow Apple's recent moves away from big white blocks to a more industrial and metallic design. In fact if you read the Gizmodo post there is little reason for doubting its veracity. The features Gizmodo could pick up - it was remotely disabled by Apple before they go their hands on it - seem to show a couple of interesting things.

Firstly a front facing camera is included. This is something the geek patrol have been demanding for ages, but quite frankly holds no interest for me. I have no interest in making two-way video calls. The camera on the back though has a larger lens and a flash, which is exciting if you've ever tried to use the iPhone camera in anything other than bright sunlight. Other features are pretty much standard. A micro-SIM slow instead of a SIM slot. More processing power. The screen resolution has been maybe been bumped from 320x480 to 460x980, which is a blessing considering how horrid video can look on a 3GS screen.

The design, which I imagine isn't final, both fascinates and horrifies me. It does look blocky with it's smooth back and sharp edges. But the design somehow works. It's not gobsmackingly gorgeous - probably because we're used to iPhone design dogma by now - but it is pretty and eminently desirable.

So basically we can gather two things. Firstly, Steve Jobs will have spent today going absolutely apeshit. Secondly the new iPhone will again be the top dog in the smart phone market. It is basically "your move" time for Palm, Blackberry and even Google. Without a good look at the hardware and software running in conjunction we won't know whether it has streaked ahead of the competition, or merely regained its lead by a nose.

first leader's debate

2010-04-15T22:16:00.002+01:00

Tonight history was made. This was the first time the laders of the major political parties stood together on the same stage and answered questions we, the public, wanted answered.

Only, of course, it wasn't like that. In fact the crippling nature of the debate suffocated anything approaching interest.

Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg all stood under the hot studio lights. They all answered the hard questions put before them. They all said why their party should be in power. But none of this happened at the same time. This wasn't a 'debate'. It was a succession of soundbites and policy speeches given in an arbitrary order.

There was no debate. Even when a party leader tried to attack another the opponent would just end up giving bland and uninteresting responses indirectly attacking the other candidates. There was no blood lust amongst the leaders, no desire to strike. It seemed like only Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader, was aware they were being filmed. Gordon Brown and David Cameron talked meandering nonsense directly to the carefully selected audience. At least Clegg talked nonsense directly down the camera lens.

There could be a case to be made over picking Alastair "Police, Camera, Action" Stewart to chair the debate. He's not exactly what you'd call a-list in terms of political reporting, but he did make a go of getting answers. One of the few highlights of the debate was hearing him shout "NICK CLEGG" when he thought the Lib Dems might be due a turn.

Alas what was billed as the biggest night in UK politics ever turned out to be a damp squib. It wasn't a debate, it was a Westminster love-in. You would be hard pressed to find major differences between any of the parties. Even the killer-blows made you feel like you should get a fact-check going.

So, there are two more debates to go. If they all operate under the same rules they will be just as terrible and uninformative. If, after their first go-round, the leaders of the major parties decide that attacking each other on obvious fallacies is a good idea then we might be in for some fun. If they stick rigidly to the pattern developed tonight then we might have to accept that these sort of debates have no place in British politics. Because with voter apathy at an all time high, do we want to scare every potential voter away?

gooooood

2010-04-15T17:59:00.002+01:00

In case you live under a rock, and that rock is in a cave, and that cave is on the moon, of Neptune, you can listen to the new LCD Soundsystem album HERE.

And y'know, it's alright. Not bad...

Oh screw it, it's positively incredible. Did you expect me to say anything else?

choices

2010-04-11T12:15:00.002+01:00

So the election has been called and the major political parties are furiously trying to convince voters to pay even the slightest bit of attention to it. Voter apathy is as an all-time high. This has been blamed on various reasons - dissatisfaction with the parties' policies, disillusionment with change after the Labour failures, lack of clear differences between any of the leaders (they even all have the same haircut) - but the obvious answer is one they don't consider. Namely that politics is boring.

Now don't think me some sort of troglodyte for saying that. I'm as fascinated by the movement of power and the most hardened BBC correspondent. But this doesn't hide the fact that in politics things tend to happen slowly and not very often. Even the 'scandals' the Westminster press pack work themselves in to a tizzy over aren't paid the slightest bit of attention out of politico circles. You might have a discussion about how bad it is that some Labour MPs are essentially on the take from the public purse, but you don't care because that's what you thought they were doing anyway. Especially Geoff Hoon, who's always looked like a shifty bastard.

Of course the election is the only important bit of this all. Can the people be galvanised to actually decide and cast a vote. I have heard someone suggest that nobody should vote "to show them what we think of them". I personally feel that voting against a bad MP is probably showing them how you feel in a significantly more effective manner.

The old complaint will rear it's head that none of the parties represent how you feel. Well unlucky there bucko. Perhaps you should start your own party and cobble together your own manifesto, but you didn't did you? Because you're lazy. You wouldn't walk in to a restaurant, decide you didn't like anything on the menu and just demand the chef cobble together your favourite ingredients would you? Make a damn choice. Pick something that's important to you and then vote for the party that has the closest ideals to your own.

Like the Lib Dems tax policy the most? Vote for them! Want a state-controlled centralised banking institution? Vote for the Communists! Want to kick black people out the country? Lucky for you there are a whole bunch of alarmingly racist parties to pick from!

It's not that difficult. Complaints that there is no real choice are just a lack of imagination. And anyway, your vote is worthless, so who cares?

work moan

2010-04-07T18:01:00.003+01:00

If you work regular hours, Monday to Friday, then you'll be very familiar with the concept of "hump day". Or basically the theory that after Wednesday you're closer to the end of the week than the start and it all gets easier from here on in.

Of course, this is complete nonsense. The idea that you should be thankful that you've wasted over half a working week doing your boring, monotonous job is stupid. And it somehow implies that Thursday and Friday are easy fun filled days. The "hump day" myth is closely related to the bizarre "Friday feeling" fallacy. Are Friday's better than all the other days? No, they're torturous. Come 4 pm on Friday I would rather tear my own hair out than sit in front of the damn computer any more.

I believe these myths are perpetuated by cruel, uncaring corporate overlords in an effort to make us believe days are worth looking forward to. They're not. In fact, I don't even know why anyone would bother doing silly, mind-numbing work at all.

Oh yeah. Money. I need that.

budget blogging

2010-03-25T21:47:00.002Z

Alastair Darling delivered his (probably) final budget as Chancellor yesterday. You might have noticed this in the blanket, wall-to-wall coverage it was given. This is despite the fact the vast majority of the budget plans will not be enacted because the Labour party won't be in office in two months.

The most curious thing about the press coverage isn't that they've given far too much information on a useless dead-rubber budget. No. It is that they've decided to ask you to find out whether you'd be worse off or better off from the budget. Go to any news website and they'll have a fancy-pants "budget calculator" to tell you this.

Well here's the thing, after this budget you will be worse off. There is no avoiding this. You might be a non-driving, non-smoking, non-drinking son-of-a-gun, but you will be worse off. Why? Well did you not notice the massive financial collapse of the past few years?

So, yeah, you're going to be worse off. And your local hospital might suffer. And you might lose your free childcare. But don't pretend this is a surprise to you. Suck it up. You're never going to be a billionaire, you're never going to have the private yacht with it's own submarine. We all have to make sacrifices. Do't be a matyr to some ridiculous cause, such as "my privately schooled kids have a right to cous cous" or "there should be a policeman in front of my house all the time because I live in a slightly rough neighbourhood".

Batten down the hatches.

don't die now

2010-03-23T21:49:00.003Z

Congratulations to America in joining the rest of the first world, most of the second world and a bit of the third world in deciding that maybe allowing your own citizens to die of preventable and treatable illness is a bad thing.

Good on you America. One day you may have a healthcare system that isn't a complete farce - and this is your first step.

get low

2010-03-20T10:39:00.002Z

What is it about American sporting events and their need for hours of superfluous crap to be put around them. You can't kick off a gridiron game without first there being a rendition of the national anthem by a marching band, some cheerleaders come out, fireworks go off, the players burst through a paper wall and then some airforce jets fly over. Here in the UK the teams run out, shake hands and then PLAY! Much simpler.

Anyway the video above shows an college football game in Atlanta, and two gloriously ridiculous fighter pilots who were doing the fly-over. They for some reason set their altimeters to sea-level rather than ground level, resulting in them flying close enough to touch over a stadium full of people. They've been suspended which is obviously unfair, because if you have to waste taxpayers' money flying over every single fucking sporting event in the country, you might as well scare the shit out of them at the same time.

don't let life drag you down

2010-03-14T14:58:00.001Z

let it go

2010-03-13T21:56:00.002Z

Being a filthy non-believing atheist I'm not exactly the fan of the Pope. There's something about proclaiming yourself the divine messenger of God on Earth and being totally infallible that strikes me as a bit off. There are also the many problems thrown up in the Catholic system which the Pope must bear ultimate responsibility. And his habit of offending other faiths with wildly behind-the-times speeches. The fact that his views on many things are completely different from mine also counts against him. And he's missing that doddering-old-grandfather appeal of John Paul II. And he looks a bit like John Travolta in Battlefield Earth.

Anyway, I'm not exactly on board with Team Pope. But the current attempt by certain sections in the media to try to link him with rehousing a paedophile priest in the eighties seems like overblown and unfair.

The Vatican's own defence of the matter is pretty robust and really doesn't need adding to. The trouble mostly comes down to the idea that this reflect a personal failing of the former Cardinal Ratzinger, rather than a basic and fundamental problem with the way the Catholic church is set up. All human beings on the planet, in fact all mammals, will have sexual urges. And no matter how fervently you believe in a magical sky monster they aren't going to go away. The problem is time and time again is that much of the church hierarchy believe that if you just move the problem around, it goes away. As if a paedophile is only attracted to a single child and take away that, all their urges go as well.

The trouble is that the Catholic church is now so tainted by this idea that all priests are sex predators. The revelations of systematic coverups in the likes of the US and Ireland are disturbing not just to outside observers, but to many inside the Church as well. Most priests are decent honourable people* who may well be alarmed that they are now considered with suspicion.

The main point is that people shouldn't say "the Pope let a paedophile off with it and should be pilloried in the stocks for it", they should instead say "the Pope presides over one of the most powerful institutions in the world which has serious and fundamental issues with the way they treat paedophiles in their midst, and he should actively be introducing reform to ensure nothing like this ever happens again". He is, after all, a mortal man with a fruity hat.

* I feel compelled to say many will hold views I feel belong back in the dark ages, but at least this isn't done out of any sort of malice but rather a sincere belief in something I find ridiculous. And everyone is entitled to their beliefs.

in non-apologies

2010-02-13T21:57:00.003Z

Despite the Winter Olympics being a bad punchline to a non-joke you will have to hand it to the organisers who have already decided that the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvilii was entirely his fault. I mean, who else would have the chutzpah to let somebody perish at your event and declare that it aint nothing to do with you. All you did was let the guy with little experience hurtle down your track at over 100kmh leading to him flying off said track in to a steel pole and then allowing him to die of internal injuries. Where does your responsibility for the safety and well-being of competing athletes come in to this at all?

ice dance

2010-02-13T09:13:00.003Z

The moment you have been waiting for has arrived. After four torturous years we finally have another Winter Olympics to watch. YEAH!

Of course if you really have that reaction you share it with precisely nobody. The Winter Olympics aren't so much a poor cousin of their summer counterparts as a homeless, destitute cousin forced to prostitute itself out to agressive and sadistic fat men simply to get through the day. Whereas the Summer Olympiads are international celebrations of sporting excellence watched by billions worldwide, the Winter Olympiads are a damp squib nobody can muster any enthusiasm for.

Of course the organisers of the Winter Olympics don't have much to work with. The Summer Olympics has a wide variety of exciting, visually interesting events filled with drama. The Winter Olympics has 1 event: sliding on ice.

Of course there are variations. Sometimes the ice is flat, other times it comes in the form of a hill. Sometimes you have to be the fastest slider, sometimes the prettiest. And... yeah that's about it.

This is of course phenomenally stupid. On every other occasion in your life you will try to avoid sliding on ice. Whilst walking it can end painfully. Whilst driving it can end fatally. But for two weeks every four years it can earn you a medal at Sir Slippybottom's Joke Olympics. That isn't even considering the danger of competing. If Usain Bolt were to fall off the edge of the running track it is highly unlikely he would be hurt, but the luge event has already claimed the life of one competitor.

The Summer Olympics showcases human endurance, focus, physical prowess, strength, agility and determination. The Winter Olympics can off nothing more than man's battle with friction. It is boring. It is pointless. It is a massive joke.

and so disasters

2010-01-30T18:52:00.002Z

I was in work yesterday when Tony Blair made his appearance in front of the Iraq Inquiry so watching him attempt to justify the horrible mess the war became wasn't a pleasure of mine. Nonetheless being a complete news junkie I followed reports and read the analysis after the fact. But today when I said I had no desire to watch back his testimony a friend of mine was surprised.

One of the major reasons for not wanting to is that I simply don't want to watch 6 hours of legal testimony. Why o you think everybody tries to get out of jury duty? It's unbelievably boring. And despite this six hours seems like far too short a time to question a man who lead the international championing for war, pushed it on the British people and has since tried to justify it again and again. The vast scope of the Iraq Inquiry has met the limited resources at their disposal. For a clear and total picture the Inquiry would have to be able to recall witnesses, to question them for days and possibly weeks, to really get down in to who was making the decisions, why they made them and why the went wrong. You don't get the intricate detail, instead just broad brushstrokes. It doesn't help that Sir John Chilcot, chair of the Iraq Inquiry, isn't a strong enough personality to challenge testimony and far too often has let witnesses ignore questions or go off on tangents.

But the major problem now is that the Iraq War is almost a historical curiosity. The chaos in the country has slipped further and further down the news bulletin's running order. Once furious anti-war protesters now shake their heads at the silliness of the war, rather than raging against it. It's almost been wiped from our collective consciousness. Which is alarming as when it's brought back in to light again, by events such as Blair's testimony, you get very angry. How dare they peddle out the "weapons of mass-destruction" to emotionally manipulate us in to being scared? How dare they continue to justify their rash foolishness? And mostly how dare I forget the hundred of thousands of dead and maimed Iraqis, British, Americans... everyone? How dare I forget about it, what was done to "protect" me by bringing total disaster to others? It makes me rage about the chaos and futility of it all.

To be honest I hope Blair sleeps well at night, remembering his positives, such as the minimum wage, the increase in NHS funds and the increased rights for homosexuals. If I had the Iraq War as my legacy I would hope it was forgotten as well.

a conversation about the iPad between 2 Apple geeks

2010-01-27T19:50:00.004Z

Thom

Sup

18:45Alastair

nuttin' just ate a chinese

18:45Thom

I'm geeking out over the iPad

18:45Alastair

oh i haven't looked yet

that's a shit name though

18:45Thom

Totally

Since it's known universally as the "Apple Tablet", what's wrong with "Apple Tablet"

18:46Alastair

isn't it just an iphone that won't fit in your pocket

well it has to be something

18:46Thom

Dunno, it's been an underwhelming presentation so far

If it has something cool like a webcam and 3G connectivity then BADASS!

If not... hmmmm

18:47Alastair

yeah, i thought it'd be like a kindle or sumthin

not just a flat laptop

18:47Thom

It's fairly kindle like, but less shitty

18:48Alastair

like a nook?

18:48Thom

Well, full colour and you can watch movies and shit

18:48Alastair

so a bit like a souped up eeebook

18:48Thom

But then the iPhone wasn't crazy good as first, it's the apps that make it own

18:48Alastair

hmmm i guess

it was pretty funkin awesome

18:49Thom

Price though is the big thing

18:49Alastair

? how much?

do we know?

18:49Thom

If the iPad is sub-£500 then game on. If it's like £700, then fuck it

Not announced price yet

18:49Alastair

it should have lossless sound capabilities

so you can use it as a homehub

18:50Thom

Well I found out that iPhone can actually play flacs

18:50Alastair

it should also come with timecapsule in the box

really?

18:50Thom

But the size of the file would RAEP your storage

18:50Alastair

but the jack is hardly superawesome

18:51Thom

Most of the time it's down to your phones

18:51Alastair

well yeah hence it should really come with an external hard drive

18:51Thom

Or at least expansion SD slots

18:51Alastair

apple arnt against that sort of thing

exactly

it needs to be like a massive remote

music... on

18:52Thom

But then SD drive would make it bigger and heavier

18:52Alastair

movies beamed to your tv

hence wireless external

18:52Thom

I do that with my Mac anyways

18:52Alastair

exactly

the whole thin seems a liittle.... bullsthit

also how do you use it

flat on your lap?

propped up?

i'm against it

i like laptops

18:53Thom

I guess kind of cradling it in your lap

Like slouchers

18:53Alastair

hmmmm

just doesn't seem workable

18:54Thom

Ohhh, iBooks just announced

18:54Alastair

hmmmm

18:54Thom

Basically ereader capability

18:54Alastair

whats the dimensions?

18:54Thom

Which I'm not sold on

9.3 inch screen, not widescreen

18:55Alastair

i like paper

18:55Thom

I mostly like living in a room overflowing with books

Get's the ladies in the mood

18:55Alastair

yeah me too

o_0

thats smaller that i expected

18:56Thom

The pictures seems to show ALOT of empty space round the edge

18:56Alastair

i can't find any actual photos

18:57Thom

live.gizmodo.com

A live blog with live photos

18:57Alastair

ah!

18:57Thom

It does look very sexy... but mostly like a big ass iPhone

18:57Alastair

yeah, thats ugly as sin

the border and shape are horrible

it looks too.... squat

i like the buttons at the bottom

18:58Thom

I know, I hoped it would be wider/taller

18:59Alastair

yeah i thought it would be in the same proportions as the iphone

19:00Alastair

it looks like the iphone would hire it as its security

19:00Thom

Cool, the iPad publishing format is easily piratable

Fat iPhone

19:01Alastair

yeah

oes it have a disc drive?

19:01Thom

No mention yet, but I doubt it

Those things are heavy

19:02Alastair

heah, but maybe you can use the airs wireless one

19:02Thom

That's Bluetooth right? It's bound to have Bluetooth

19:03Alastair

ah but is it the iphones bullshit bluetooth?

19:03Thom

Meh, all Bluetooth is pretty shite

I remember when it was TEH COOLEST THING EVAR

19:04Alastair

yeah the iphones is hugely restrited though

yeah....

19:04Thom

In fact the only thing I remember was a video of a midget giving a blowjob to ET

19:05Alastair

oh yeah.... urg

and 'move bitch'

19:05Thom

Well, that was pretty much de riguer

19:06Alastair

yeah.... i'll need that when i get one

19:06Thom

They're now showing off iWork. Who the fuck uses iWork?

19:06Alastair

fannys

19:06Thom

Price motheruckers!

It all comes down to price

19:07Alastair

i still can't figure out how you're supposed to use it without hunching

i recon it'll be about $850, £750

19:08Thom

That's way too high for it. Spend an extra £50 and you can get a MacBook

It's got to be around the £500 mark or it's dead in the water

19:08Alastair

yeah but thats my bet

is it going to be on a network or something? remember a new iphone with no network is like £350, no way this tin is only going to be £500

19:10Thom

No mention of networks yet, or even if it's got a SIM slot

19:11Alastair

yeah i reckon with networks (probably verizon/vodabone i have a hunch) it'll be about £400

without? too much to think about

19:12Thom

Dunno really. I have my iPhone, do I really want to fork out an extra £35 a month to use the iPAd

19:12Alastair

good point from the gizmodo guys no sign of a webcam

i think this may be the new apple tv

19:13Thom

It needs the front facing webcam, it really needs it

19:13Alastair

i think it doesn't

19:13Thom

C'mon, Skype with that would be great

19:13Alastair

oh yeah

if you could be arsed holding it up

have they shown the back yet?

19:14Thom

Nope

Some models with 3G, some without

If I have my laptop in the flat (with Wifi) and my iPhone outside (with 3G)... do I need this?

19:15Alastair

no-one does

19:16Thom

Are they making it VERY niche?

19:17Alastair

well you couldn't use it without a desk

they all come unlocked....

19:18Thom

Well, a pay-as-you-go sim with unlimited internet might be worthwhile

You can get one for like £10 a month

19:18Alastair

ah but does the unlimited plan work with a pay as you go?

or is that us only?

19:19Thom

US only they mention

19:19Alastair

uses a special sort of sim

19:19Thom

The US get screwed on mobile internet rates though

$499!

There might be a god!

19:20Alastair

holy shit

but.... still. why?

why bother?

19:20Thom

Er...

19:20Alastair

why not get an iphone

i fucking love apple

but really what is the point of this?

19:21Thom

Same apps, same problems, slightly higher cost...

19:22Alastair

is it trying to replace the iphone or the imac?

19:22Thom

http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/appletablet/appletabletb543.jpg

19:22Alastair

cause its pointless with both of those in circulation

i fucking knew it

so for the actual one

19:23Thom

The only place I can think to use it is somebody else flat when I haven't brought my laptop

19:24Alastair

if you get it without the full HDD or 3G its neutered

19:24Thom

I keep thinking "do I want it?"

19:25Alastair

me too

i don't

19:25Thom

I do

19:25Alastair

i really don't

why though?

19:25Thom

But then I don't know what situation I would use it

19:25Alastair

i want it because its apple

19:25Thom

Maybe that's it

Maybe I'm being a fanboy

19:25Alastair

but i don't want it because its pretty useless whit what i already own

19:25Thom

Exactly

19:26Alastair

i think you might be

19:26Thom

If you want the internet at home, get a laptop

If out and about get an iPhone

When would I use the iPad?

19:26Alastair

if you can list 10 things that you would use it for that you can't already do, get one

19:26Thom

I probably couldn't list 1

19:26Alastair

who doesn't already have the internet at home?

me either!

19:27Thom

Looking like a smug arsehole isn't one of them

19:27Alastair

apple was amazing when they put a webcam in the top of the screen now they have removed it

you can get a dock that turns it into a laptop!

i am honestly baffled by this thing

19:28Thom

If I used it around my house, wouldn't it just turn my laptop in to a desktop?

19:29Thom

No camera on the back

19:30Alastair

yep even

http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/appletablet/appletabletb575.jpg

19:30Thom

But then, the 1st gen iPod was kind of crap. The 1st gen iPhone was pretty crap...

19:30Alastair

that looks really uncomfterble

not really

19:31Thom

It was. No 3G, no app store

19:31Alastair

yeah but it had an amazing touch screen

19:31Thom

No does the iPad...

19:31Alastair

and looked like the bollocka

yeah but its not new

it hasn't done ANYTHING NEW

19:32Thom

The iPad sits between the MacBook and iPhone - a gap I hadn't necessarily known had existed

19:32Alastair

the ipod and iphone were both existing products that were hugley forward thinking

a smart phone that was massivley easy to use

19:33Thom

I use a MacBook at home and my iPhone at work, where does the iPad fit? When I'm driving?

19:33Alastair

an mp3 player that looked and worked perfectly

i think its only going to be bought by massive posuers

19:34Thom

I might well be a massive poser

I dunno but when I got my iPhone I thought it was cool, but it quickly became massively useful

I mean, beyond as much use as a mobile phone should be

19:35Alastair

exactly it can do more than you evr hought possible

it will do everything that the tablet can do

or your laptop will

i am massivley underwhelmed

19:36Thom

But maybe the tablet has something in it that will prove its usefulness

19:37Alastair

i really want an iphone but not this

maybe

but it still looks really difficult to hold

19:38Thom

I'm not going to be queueing outside the Apple store to get one... but maybe (and this is possibly hope talking) it has a certain charm

19:38Alastair

it sounds like hope

i'll go play with one but i really can't think of a reason to own one

19:39Thom

Maybe the reason is to just fuck off people who don't have one

Is that a good business model?

19:40Alastair

lol but really

you go into starbucks and see some bastard failing to use his masive £500 iphone will you be jealous

19:41Thom

I will be angry

19:42Alastair

why?

19:42Thom

No idea. Marketing and hype have saturate my brain

19:42Alastair

hehehe

i think when they come in you will only be allowed into the apple store in my company, otherwise you'll buy it

19:44Thom

Really, I don't see the need for it. But then I didn't see the need for the iPhone until I got one

19:44Alastair

i did

you needed a cool phone

you do not need a a a... thing

it really has no place in the market

19:46Thom

Well it sits in the market for people who don't have home internet and don't have a smartphone...

Which is... the elderly (?)

19:46Alastair

and the poor

19:46Thom

But it's a bit expensive for the poor

19:46Alastair

who won't be able to afford it

and the elderly

and post grad types who need it and don't know why

19:47Thom

I think I'm in that catergory

19:47Alastair

i know

thats why i included it

19:47Thom

I'm a massive douche

19:47Alastair

you'll buy one and it'll sit unused

leave buckie alone

2010-01-18T19:25:00.005Z

An investigation by the BBC has revealed the true danger of the evil Buckfast tonic wine. Between 2006 and 2009 Buckfast was mentioned in over 5,000 crime reports in the Strathclyde region. Good lord! How shocking.

The shock is not the utter amount of chaos Buckfast is portrayed as causing, rather it's the BBC's terrible analysis of these statistics.

Let's start at the beginning. The BBC news story says:

the drink was mentioned in 5,638 crime reports in Strathclyde from 2006-2009, equating to three a day on average.
One in 10 of those offences were violent and the bottle was used as a weapon 114 times in that period.

Well the three-reports-a-day and one-in-ten-being-violent this works out as a violent incident involving Buckfast once every three or four days. And considering the large amount of violence that occurs in Glasgow on a day-to-day basis anyway this is almost totally negligible. It is also only slightly more often than a murder in Glasgow, one of which occurs roughly every 5 days. The second factoid tells us that in the three years the statistics are taken from a Buckfast bottle was used as a weapon less than 40 times a year. And according to previous BBC report there were 40 murders using knives in 2007. Murders, not just stabbings or assaults. Clearly the issue of knife crime is much more of a pressing issue than Buckfast-bottle crime - although of course there will be some overlap between the two.

The BBC also talk about the old urban legend that the amount of caffeine in Buckfast is what causes drinkers to go crazy. This is despite there being no scientific evidence for this. If this were the case then vodka-Red Bull mixes would bring about the same reaction surely?

Laying the blame for violent crime at the door of Buckfast is stupid and short-sighted. Buckfast may be involved in over 5000 crime reports, but how many involve beer, or whiskey, or wine, or sloe gin. How does this correspond to their respective share of the drinks market? Come to think of it, how many crime reports involve alcohol, and how what percentage is this of all crime? Just loudly stating "over 5,000 crime reports" is meaningless as you haven't given it any context.

And why is Buckfast to blame? I know plenty of people who like to drink it at parties, and none of them have managed to get in a fight or crack people's skulls open with the bottle. Most of them just end up passing out. The problem surely isn't that Buckfast makes people violent, more that violent people drink Buckfast. Stop them doing that and you'd probably see a rise in violence associated with some other drink.

Honestly, this is such pointless alarmist crap. Scotland collectively has a drinking problem. This is what needs to be sorted out. Not dangerously pointing fingers at some trumped-up bad guy, or demanding legislation to stop people from exercising their rights of consumer choice.

disaster porn

2010-01-15T23:30:00.002Z

If you remember back to Boxing Day in 2004 you may have come out of a wine and turkey induced haze to hear about an earthquake in the Indian Ocean.

The next day you may have read in the news that up to 4000 people could have died. Serious right?

Perhaps the next day you may have torn yourself away from the XBox to hear of 8000 people dead.

That day after possibly up to 20000 souls lost their lives....

As it stands it is reckoned over 230000 people died that day, from the Earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. This ranks it at the fifth deadliest natural disaster on record.

Right now in Haiti it is beginning to look grim. The same pattern of a death count doubling itself is continuing. Obviously it won't reach the levels of the Boxing Day earthquake, but why should we view a deathtoll as some sort of competitive number?

The only way many people see this kind of destruction is through the medium of film. And don't get me wrong, this "disaster porn" can be very entertaining. But when Roland Emmerich decides that a tidal wave shall engulf New York, or the entire European continent shall fall in to the sea, we get no sense of the true destruction it would cause.

When the aliens in Independence Day destroy the world's major cities, you barely notice. Millions of people killed, but we better move on because we need to defeat these bastards. In the Day After Tomorrow they deaths' of millions of people is merely the backdrop to the reuniting of a father and son.

But when a true natural disaster comes around, this sort of crassness and flippancy that films treat human life with feels wrong. In Haiti right now body bags fill town squares. Not faceless nothings, but people. People with lives, with histories, with families, with emotions, hopes, fears and dreams.

No matter what emotions Hollywood wishes to convey or wish to instill in us, nothing can ever match the emotions people will feel about a real disaster. The use of major catastrophe is a cheap trick which ends its course very soon. Events like the Boxing Day earthquake and now Haiti live with you for a long time.

webswinger in trouble

2010-01-12T18:04:00.002Z

So the big news for all geeky types today was the departure of Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire from Spider-man 4. Terrible news, as together they managed to craft two-and-a-half classic superhero films.

Of course it comes down to creative control, with Sam Raimi wanting to do it his way (John Malkovich as The Vulture) and some nobody from Sony Pictures wanting it another (probably more bollocks about Venom and in 3D and other such shit).

To be fair, when superhero franchises reach their fourth outing it is always an unmitigated disaster. Think Batman & Robin Go Ice Skating and Superman IV: The Quest For Cost-cutting. In fact Spider-man even fits in to this as the third is usually a letdown as well. Perhaps in the interests of sanity the Spider-man films should be left alone, rather than rebooted in to a new super cartoony direction immediately. But this is unlikely to happen.

Oh well nerd-kind. Mourn the passing of the Raimi/Maguire era and pray to whatever deity you choose to prevent the McG/Efron era.