Worry

I’ve been lucky in life, not having very many worries. Some people go through life wracked by worry as some are natural worriers and some are naturally unlucky. The expression that you make your own luck can not be applied to all people as there are some less fortunates who are prone to poor luck. I wonder if they worry? Or maybe they are fatalistic or perhaps cynical enough to realise that their poor run of luck is life’s way of having a laugh at them, and that they in turn can derive some kind of black humour from it. I would hope that they would be able to laugh at their continuous runs of misfortune.

So one goes through life without worries, then some really serious worries come along and you realise how meaningless and trivial your everyday concerns are. I find that just as themes and film have plot runs so too does life. Films may well be predetermined in a way that life is not, but there are plots that run through both, and in life these plots are opened up, I find, in a series of revelations and slow dawnings. Not unlike a film then, except luckily life lasts longer then films. An example of this is ageing. I’m 32 and I had a mini-revelation last night that I’m nearly mid-way through my life. This revelation came as a response to my thoughts on mortality. Life, as with everything has its peaks and troughs, and you can be going along quite smoothly then all of a sudden a spanner of particular evilness is thrown in the works, and what is most alarming is that this spanner seemingly appears from nowhere, although on reflection there are always little insidious sign of the approaching nightmare. I have two uncles on my father’s side of the family, and one of them is days away from death. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer about a month ago after suffering kidney failure and was given 8 weeks to live. It turns out that he hasn’t been well fro some time. You see, he was quite distant from the family having cut himself off about ten years ago. There’s no need to go into details as families are funny things, and though I don’t feel devastated I feel some guilt at having not gone and visited. His hospital is in Sherbourne which is about an 8 hour return trip from London. I was going to go and visit him with my brother when he comes over from China but it seems he won’t live that long.

That’s a weird thing, that someone won’t live that long. That this time in two months he’ll be gone forever. He’s had his troubles in life and I know now that not only is he philosophical about the turn of events, but that he is now apologising to those that he has hurt during his life. But though he cut himself off from the family, the family have been to see him, and are still with him now. It is just terribly sad and my father, who stood by him and supported him is terribly upset by it all, more so than even he thought he would be.

I’d got my head around this element of mortality. That a swift sudden death is a better way to go than a lingering painful decline from cancer. I’d made my peace with this concept, and so it was that I emailed my brother yesterday with the sad news that this uncle was now on a push-button administered morphine drip and that this is the final stage of palliative care.

Then came the second piece of devastating news and the stimulus to the very long collection of words. One of my cousins rang last night and told my father that his second brother had collapsed at the weekend and was now semi-conscious in hospital with a ‘growth’ around his pitiuary gland. This gland is at the top of the spinal column where it connects with the brain and is about the size of a pea. What this growth is, we don’t know but anything happening in the body that causes a collapse is not a good thing. The test results are due back today.

And so I come back to worry again. I find that it comes in waves. Here I am sitting at my desk at work, not having done any work at all as I can’t seem to concentrate at all. You may wonder how it is that I am still able to write, but it is like having an entirely one-sided conversation. Still, it is making me feel marginally better by distracting me. This worry comes in waves. One minute I’m completely ok and working on something or doing whatever it is that I normally do and the next is like that dreadful feeling of butterflies before an exam or almost like the waves of panic that I get in the underground sometimes. I then have to sit back and look elsewhere as I can not concentrate. Twice this morning I’ve felt like making my excuses and going home for the day. This morning I was asked to swap desks for the day and I felt close to tears at this. And I have it now. I feel something rising at the back of my throat and I find myself staring into space. I’m not looking at anything and I’m trying not to think of anything. I know what this feeling is. It is dread. It is akin to that fear of some of the teachers at school, or of bullies. It’s the fear of the unknown.

I’m going to go for a long walk at lunch and see how I feel after that. I’m expecting a phone call from my father about the news. The longer that I don’t get that call the more I’m drawn into the conflict of ‘no news is good news’ versus ‘there’s been no news, this is bad news’. And somewhere in the middle is the quiet voice of moderation but it is losing its battle right now.

I thought that writing would make me feel better – it usually does – but its made no difference.

Work out your carbon footprint!

The government have just set up a flash-happy website with an almost cuddly carbon calculator to help you increase your ever burgeoning guilt over destroying the environment with every breath. Pedantically speaking it should be the C02 Footprint as we don't actually have a problem with too much graphite or soot.

I was pleasantly surprised that my footprint is small at some tonnes (or whatever) and that my annual travel in a plane completely outweighed all the benefits of recycling et al. There aren't any outright hints on what a carbon footprint is, and how it matters and indeed if it really matters at all.

I like tests though and this is a wonderful inclusive pc test where nobody is right and nobody is wrong, and it has pretty colours and never once shows you the consequence of producing too much carbon (dioxide).

The Best Website in the World

Holy Moly is, with Facebook, how I get through the working day keeping hold of my sanity. They do a mailout on Friday afternoons without the pictures.

A Really good album

I bought this at the same time as that Calvin Harris pap. Its a great album. Calvin could learn something about how to make music by listening to this. The Guardian said that it was the Chemical Brothers' best album since Surrender. Surrender was a good album and I'm only on the second listening of this one but its really enjoyable.

A pretty moderate album...

I bought this the other day from Virgin thus earning myself a stamp (see below). He didn't create disco. What he did do was take a catchy hook and repeat it for 4 minutes without introducing any new sounds. Its a bit like the really moderate tracks on Daft Punk's first album which start off really well then never go anywhere and turn out a bit dull. I bought this off the back of seeing him (on tv) at Glastonbury, and on reflection his 'Acceptable in the 80s' song wasn't particularly inspirational but I thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt.
Its not a particularly good album.

R.I.P. Fopp

I’m genuinely saddened by the closure of Fopp as it was my favourite music shop. I work near the Tottenham Court Road ‘Flagship’ shop and every day there is a little gaggle of people furtively trying the doors or just gazing forlornly into the darkened ‘pantheon of the £5 punt’. Where will I buy my £1 books? Where will I go to spend £20 on five or six completely random CDs? Is there no justice in the world? HMV I would gladly see closed. Not only is it the B&Q of music retail right down to the warehouse setting it is also too expensive. Worst of all they have no loyalty scheme. Fopp induced loyalty because of not only the price, but also the range, the marvellous décor, the music, the whole ambience. They had no loyalty scheme apart from having a great shop. HMV have no loyalty scheme and have a shite shop and deserve to go buy bust. Problem is that if HMV do go bust they’ll drag Waterstones down with them.

Virgin have a loyalty card where for every tenner you spend you get a little stamp, and for every ten stamps ‘earned’ you get a tenner off your next purchase. Economically it makes no sense as invariably things are priced 50p below the tenner threshold and you end up spending more just to get an extra stamp. But I keep going back for more.

And for the last word from Fopp:

'It is with great regret that we announce the closure of Fopp.

Our store chain is profitable, well regarded and loved by our loyal customers and staff. However we have failed to gain the necessary support from major stakeholders, suppliers and their credit insurers to generate sufficient working capital to run our expanding business.

We would like to thank staff and customers for their support over the past 25 years.'

I Feel a Campaign Coming On

I feel a campaign coming on, a campaign to tell the world about the truth about Global Warming. The truth is that ‘we don’t know’. We have our suspicions but nothing is certain. I think I may well scream if I read another report stating ‘likely consequences’, ‘possible temperatures’ and all the other vague adverbs around. In amongst all the crap that comes into my work inbox a really good one dropped by the other day with this link, which I should stress is a draft:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4007935

I don’t expect anyone to read all this, it being a policy paper. The interesting part (the bits I have read) is Part 1, the introduction to Global Warming. It gives a good overview of what its all about. I’m attempting to write a critique of part of it as someone has requested I do. The bottom of page 18 is really annoying me. There’s an inference that the author suggests should be ignored which I think is rather important.

I’ve just been scrolling through this document and it really is rather interesting. So the introduction has a sentence that makes me irate, but later on Page 22 there’s a rather frank statement regarding the rise in sea levels. Observing that sea levels have “risen by between 10 and 25 cm over the last century” the author asks, “How much of this anticipated climate change can be averted by reducing greenhouse gas emissions? The short answer is ‘some, but not much’”. Even if we achieved the targets set by the non-ratified Kyoto Protocol it would, “reduce future global warming by at most 0.2C.”.

I had never realised that Kyoto was talking in fractions when we’re thinking of whole numbers. 2C warmer is the 22^nd Century scenario. And that’s if we reach the Kyoto target by 2010. The other thing I learned is that warm oceans take up more space than cold oceans of the same mass. Not something I ever thought about, but we’re predicted to have lots more warm water in the future.

So the name of my new party is, “We’re Too Late – Even the Government Says So”.

Time to start building an Ark.

On a lighter note

This is cited as the Worst Music Video ever, but I think that its the best. Introduced by the Jazz Club presenter from the Fast Show its a classic slice of Finnish pop from the 1970s or 80s. The lead male looks not unlike He-Man with a medallion before his 'I am the Poweeer' moment. I think he was called Adam when he wasn't his alter-ego. The lead girl is a bit Kylie before she met Michael Hutchinson and learnt new ways of enjoying the world. The dance troupe are something else altogether.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPnGPIMUnus

I’m bored with Climate Change

Before I start I’ll say, if you haven’t already noticed, I'm a cynic and a pessimist. I’m a cynic because I live in London and the place breeds cynicism. I’m a pessimist because it means that I’m never disappointed. I’m not really a pessimist but I’m more pessimistic than I am an optimist.

Being bored with Climate Change is a very off message comment. I almost feel ashamed saying (writing) it. Its old news now except it’s the kind of news that just won’t go away. Come to think of it it is recorded in the newspapers but as it isn’t even new news how can it be described as news? Still, that isn’t my gripe with it. Here are my Climate Change gripes:

1) Seen it, heard it, experiencing it

Haven’t got the t-shirt but when I buy a hemp one I’ll let you know.

2) Its too late

What’s too late? We’re too late. The scientists are too late.

3) Human Nature can’t be changed

We all know that wars are bad and yet we carry on having them. Through history one of Man’s many defining achievements has been his affinity with war. Its something that we do a great deal of, its something we do well, its something that some of us enjoy a great deal, and we as a collective whole make a great deal of money out of it. Somewhat perversely it also provides the catalyst for our greatest inventions and entertainment. To fight amongst ourselves seems to be human nature.

So for this fight against Climate Change we’re expected to draw together as some kind of homogenous non-competitive happy family and say ‘no’ to C02, to curtail our industrial growth (I’m looking at you China and India) and say ‘yes’, the planet’s health is more important than modernity and all that defines modernity? As part of this mass pissing on bonfires we’re also expected to change radically how we carry out our daily lives, turning our backs on our entire history – no more ‘me, me, me’ and instead ‘oooh, save the planet’.

And we’re expected to do this preferably in the next 8 years (UK government) and at most by 2020. I need to check these target dates, and those of the beached whale that is Kyoto.

We’re also meant to do this in an environment which is changing rapidly around us, where fuel prices are going through the roof, and fresh water is becoming a scarcity whilst there’s going to be a big problem with the saltier stuff.

4) We’ll war before we tackle the environment

Frankly I reckon there will be a war before that happens. The good news is that we’re well practiced at war. The bad news is that it isn’t really the answer this time. It’ll help decide who controls the natural resources that are most important (I’m looking at you freshwater), but in the big picture we’ll still all be screwed. Just for the record, I reckon that the war will start somewhere in central Asia and will involve the stans, Iran, India and Pakistan. It’ll be to do with limited water resources as there are only two major supplies in the area (Himalayan meltwater and the Caspian Sea and the rivers that flow from it), and a whole swathe of countries depend on them. And if climate change is going to continue the way it is predicted then these resources are going to be radically reduced.

5) Climate Change is a 21^st Century Millenium Bug

i.e. its all a load of crap. Climate Change (CC) is all a bit of a cult. Dare to say that CC is a myth and that nobody really knows and you’ll be slated as some God-fearing intelligent design believing Texan oil megalomaniac, which is absurd. There is so much supposition in all these dire warnings of what ‘might’ happen in the future if we don’t mend our ways. Articles are full of ‘may’ and ‘could’ but nobody ever says ‘we don’t know for sure’ as that would cast doubt on their findings. And might it not be the case that all these pronouncements of the imminent green holocaust are only coming about because nobody has ever bothered to investigate this part of science before?

Denouncing Climate Change is a Thought Crime.

6) Solar Flares

Blame it on the Sun. The sun is getting hotter, and all the other planets are getting hotter, so it stands to reason that that is why we have global warming. I have absolutely no evidence of this as I have done no research on it but it sounds like a good argument to me. Of course I’ll do some research and probably find out that Exxon sponsored it and then I’ll be torn between the inter-galactic answer and the no less partisan Friends of the Earth conclusion.

7) The need to fear

Its good to be scared: we thrive on it, except we’re a bit short of things to be fearful of. We’ve had in the last century: War, Nazis, War, Communism, lots of wars, Terrorism, Globalisation (how quaint), Millenium Bug, Terrorism, Environment.

[Aside: notice how the anti-capitalist anti-globalisation movements collapsed when we realised that a) we liked the internet and b) cheap stuff comes from China]

We now need to be scared of the environment. How else are the mega-corporative military industrial complexes going to foist new exciting green ways of driving cars. Look, it runs on bio-fuels. No more being nasty to the environment. Hope the factory it came from was green and powered by sustainable sources. Robots do need a lot of electricity.

8) The Earth has a blowing hot and cold cycle

It gets hot and then it gets cold. When it gets hot things dry up, and when it gets cold it gets icy. Not much we can do about it. Maybe this should be slotted in the inter-galactic category.

9) Carbon Footprints

Not something that Father Christmas leaves on the carpet but the big new phrase. I’m terribly worried about my carbon footprint but I allay this fear by fastidiously recycling my newspapers and taking public transport. The irony is not lost on me that my recycling is carted off in a great big diesel powered truck and put on another great big diesel truck and taken to the coast where its put on a great big heavy fuel powered ship and carted off to China to be turned into loo roll in a great big factory powered by a great big coal burning power station and is then put on another great big heavy oil fuelled ship and chugged all the way back to my loo roll holder via more diesel powered trucks before being wiped on my bum, flushed down the loo, processed in a nuclear powered filtration place before being chucked in the sea.

And I only take public transport as I don’t have a chauffeur driven Mercedes to cart me to work and if I could afford a Mercedes I would probably instead have a Hummer just so I could sneer at all the other less fortunates stuck in the bus all thinking what an oil-guzzling bastard I am whilst conveniently forgetting the energy expended in making sure their bums were kept clean and their consciences clear.

Conclusion

We’re screwed. Its too late, we’ve missed the boat, and even if we hadn’t missed the boat (which by all accounts we’ll be needing) we would still miss it. There is no way in hell that we are going to achieve the targets we have set for ourselves. This doomsday scenario that the eggheads keep on telling us is incoming will happen, and will happen when they say it will. I just don’t have faith in the human race changing its ways before it is too late. This opinion doesn’t even take into account the opinions of most of the big industrial nations. China is starting to think seriously about its polluted water-ways and lack of drinking water but play this off against the new coal power station it builds every week and the resultant industrial revolution it is undergoing. India too has a rapidly expanding economy. That’s just two countries that are expected to stop right now and think of a green way to do it. I mean come on, its just NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Oh, and if does all turn out to be as threatening as a circus clown (subliminally frightening but overtly harmless) by then we’ll all be tootling about in electric hover mobiles with wind vanes on our heads and at least we’ll be greener, and no harm can really come from that…

Chuck Norris: Before the Beard

Giant Car Bumper Cock

Too much text

There's too much text here, so here's a picture. I googled 'silly picture'.

Coffee without sugar tastes of coffee

Bit of a revelation this: Coffee tastes really good without sugar. Amazing! The best instant that I've found is M&S Fairtrade Cafe Gold which really truly smells like coffee and tastes like coffee. I know I'm getting old now. I like mustard, I like coffee and I don't like sugar (as much as I used to).

Star Wars geekery

There's a Star Wars exhibition opening in London tomorrow for 6 months and I can feel myself being drawn inexorably towards it. I just know it will be full of Phantom Menace crap and stupid merchandise that I will just have to buy. I think a Yoda mug will do. I'm sure George Lucas will try and sell me the new version of Star Wars where they're all in drag except Chewie who's had a Brazilian. Same plot and special effects though.
Peep Show on tonight. Quality.

Rumsfeld Poetry

Why I don't like poetry:

It rhymes, it has iambic pentameter, its written in a stupid way without sentences which makes it harder to read - the only way to read Milton's Paradise Lost is to read it like a normal book without all the verses.

When poetry is recited the reader sounds all maudlin like their cat has just been run over and they're trying not to cry.

I can never remember poems.

They just... irritate me.... But still, here's some stuff from Donald Rumsfeld which works better when written in verse. This I can handle because I know who he is. Poets I can't handle because I don't know who they are. Neither do they. That's why they write poems:

(Lifted straight from Guardian Online)

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

A Confession

Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

The Situation

Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.

Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

Clarity

I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.

And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.

Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

Glass Box

You know, it's the old glass box at the
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But

Some of you are probably too young to remember those
Those glass boxes,
But

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

Firefox add-ons

One of the best things about Mozilla Firefox are the customisation aspects. There are some real beauties in amongst the crap. These are all for Firefox 2.0 – go to Help>Check for Updates to get the latest version.

Then go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ to find these:

Fasterfox: Noticeably speeds up page load times
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1269

Google Preview: This is excellent. It inserts a preview picture (thumbnail) of any given page next to the text description in google.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1269

Customize Google: This removes the adverts from Google and as the name suggests gives you far more options for how Google works than google does.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/743

PDF Download: Throws up a box when you click on a pdf icon asking if you want to save or not. Very useful at work.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/636

Webworld

Twitter

Web 2.0 cheerleaders are seeing www.twitter.com as one of the big new things. I signed up to it to see what it was all about and I’ve got to say that it really is completely pointless and not only that but not even interesting or fun. I suppose that it is like some kind of location specific real-time social networking site. You sign in, choose your picture then there’s an email box with a question, “What are you doing right now”. My last post was “Cancelling this pointless program”, then my message appeared with a “posted 5 seconds ago” next to it in a long list of other twitterers’ ramblings on what they are doing. I heard about it through http://digitalurban.blogspot.com/ which is a 3D modelling site associated with London University. They heard about Twitter as there is some way of joining Twitter up with Google Maps and then being able to see the location where people were trittering from. This was the initial attraction but I couldn’t get that to work. You can probably see how quickly the novelty wore off.

Joost

I reckon Joost is going to be the “Next Big Thing” so unless you subscribe to HolyMoly or read the Guardian geek pages on Thursdays you might not have heard about it. Holy Moly summed it up best. It is Sky Digital on your PC for free. Yes, it is online TV with no fees. Unlike YouTube I see that Viacom have just signed on to supply material. The guys behind Joost are the guys who created Kazaa (the peer to peer software) and who then went on to write Skype which they then sold to ebay for a crazy amount which is how they must have financed Joost.
I can’t say that I’ve actually used Joost a great deal due to time constraints but it has a great interface, is really user friendly and seems to have some good channels too.

Swingball close-ups

James Brown plays Swingball

Wow, this looks fun!

Swingball: Not much fun

I found this 1970s swingball instruction manual. See how the happy families are enjoying the thrill of swingball. What I particularly like is the picture in the bottom right corner. Two kids in school uniform playing in a cold rainy field in a caravan park which, by the look of it, is closed for the winter. And is that the Godfather of Soul James Brown at the middle bottom?

From a Bygone Age

The one and only Bobby Davro, from a time when he would go head to head with Russ Abbott!

Its the white trainers and the toothy grin that does it for me

Eighties sexpot


Surely these bears are ill advised

Note the hint of 'a bit of length' just peeking to the right of his neck. He's a pretty smooth kind of a guy.

I'm sure our celebrities are far more media-savvy now but there was a time it seems in the mid-eighties when the cheesy pose was the be all and end all of publicity. Nothing quites beats the addition of a hand-scrawled signature, and with an insincere 'With Love' homily... well, what can I say? I found these nuggets in the attic this bank holiday weekend. Father Christmas saw fit to pass them on to me quite some time ago somehow knowing that I would one day truly relish their true beauty.

(This being blogger these pictures will either appear above or below this post. There was a time when I had worked out this idiosyncracy but I can't quite be bothered to experiment today. No, they've appeared above).

Evening Standard

You know those Evening Standard boards that tell you the headlines. Perhaps they might entice you in to buy the new 'quality' ES rather than reading the free one with the same news. Anyway the print on those boards. Look how its hand-crafted by skilled craftsmen. Except its not. It might have been one day but its printed now. Look closely - all the 'a's and the 'e's are the same. So that pisses me off every time I see one. Its like, we'll pretend we're the old ES that had news and a Stop Press column on the back page and the wrong angle. But we're really the new massively loss making ES with no news about London and plenty of crap about women's fashion.
One more thing about the boards. The message on them is always negative. Often its negative and fatuous. Often it is not news either.


Then there's the freesheets. That Murdoch one is preferable to the Associated News one only because the typeface is easier. They're both shite. What really irks me every evening when I get off the tube there's some poor chap in a silver cagoul proffering me with this shitty excuse for loo roll. I don't want to be nasty to him but please leave me alone. If I wanted to read it I'd pay for it.

Rant over.

Thailand last year

I took this panorama last year thinking that one day I would find the software that could stitch it together. Turns out that Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 has something called PhotoMerge. Its pretty cool.

Cool Posters on the way to work this morning

Google

The be all and end all of internet searchery...

Its not you know. Have you noticed how so much of google is advertising? At the same time have you got this feeling that Google are slowly insidiously taking over the world? That's because they are. So they've got Google Earth – which is great – and Google Video/Youtube, and Gmail which isn't as good as Yahoo! Mail, but they're no better, they've got Flickr. They've got Blogger and Sketchup too. That Google desktop manager. I installed it on my work pc but I wouldn't put it on my home one. Its a security risk. It indexes your files to make it easier for you to find stuff, so far so what. But where does it put the index of your files? On a Google server that's where. I know its only an index but still, I wouldn't knowingly give my bank statements index to the world's biggest search engine to keep safe.

There are search engines called meta-crawlers. I don't what that means, I imagine that sand people live in them, or worse. Meta-Crawlers are dead clever. Instead of just looking on one search engine when you type something in, they look on all of them at once. There's metacrawler.com This searches Google, Yahoo!, MSNSearch and Ask. The problem is that it tends to throw up the top 10 most popular choices from each site at the same time, which means there are lots of identical results.

But there's a very old free program that I hadn't used since 2001 called Copernic Agent. Here it is. This searches 10 of the biggest search engines, except Google, then filters everything nicely for you.

As I do lots of research as part of work, I'm finding loads of stuff that just isn't on Google.

Very handy.

9/11 End of the Conspiracy

My work has been a little dull of late which means I’ve been spending more and more time perusing the internet. Of course being in a work environment means that I don’t have free reign, and so I have to stick to sites I regard as work safe – the Guardian and Wiki and so on. I also have to steer clear of video and pictures. Today there was an article regarding the every growing 9/11 Truth Movement, the BBC documentary demolishing it last Sunday night, and an internet film called Loose Change which has been viewed 4.7 million times on Google Video/Youtube.

Personally I think that the whole 9/11 conspiracy things is a load of bollocks. I accept that there are lots of weird coincidences and some proof which seems pretty convenient and that the US response at the time was frighteningly cack-handed. If you don’t know them, the main conspiracies are that:

1) The twin towers were brought down by a controlled explosion

2) WTC 7 (a 40 storey building that collapsed later in the day) was brought down by a controlled explosion

3) The Pentagon was not hit by a hijacked plane but by something else – a cruise missile.

4) United 93 was shot down.

5) 4000 Jews were told to not to go to work that day

6) and so on

I had a good look into this, and luckily being the cynic that I am I managed to extricate myself from the quagmire of supposition, misquotes and selective evidence before it completely drowned me. And why? Anyone with a brain knows that using the internet to self-diagnose a personal illness is madness. Similarly, the internet is the biggest game of Chinese Whispers ever. Yes there are reputable sites and reputable news sources, but in the same breath there are all the rantings of the insane and righteous and believers ad infinitum. To think that by using the internet of all things to glean any information for anything so un-cut and dried as 9/11… that’s how easy it is – I almost went on a rant there out of the blue on the random rantiness of the internet.

My point – it almost got lost there – my point is this:

1) Governments are completely inept at just about everything they do. We have the Civil Service and they are fucking useless. So any suggestion that Bush and Cheney and Co could organise something like that is madness.

2) There have been no whistle-blowers from a cast of thousands

Enough of my ranting, here’s the evidence:

Conspirators:

http://www.911truth.org/

http://www.loosechange911.com/

People with too much time on their hands

Against

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html

Everybody else. Not the nutjobs.

A 9/11 Conspiracy Post from The Grauniad today

... The conspiracists seem to have an alarming amount of faith in their government. Considering their record at governing the US and Iraq to all intents its been one cock-up after another. And yet these inbreds apparently organised 9/11 and kept it secret all this time. Governments in general are absolutely hopeless at just about everything they do.

As for 9/11: So What? So George Bush organised 9/11(do you realise how stupid that sounds)? Or was it the Military-industrial complex? Did it have something to do with JFK's murder, the Mafia and Roswell? Maybe Anna-Nicole Smith found out the truth and was murdered!

But come on, we all know that the BBC documentary was paid for by Halliburton and Mi5 wrote the script. It too was a conspiracy, a conspiracy to cover-up the other conspiracy to expose the cover-up of the first conspiracy, or was there a conspiracy before that?

Finally, were the Embassy Bombings and the USS Cole blown up as part of a conspiracy by the neo-cons to get Clinton out after Newt Gingrich failed? And were the Madrid and London bombings instigated by the CIA to prove that Al-Qaeda really do exist? Or they were just copycat killings right?

Theological Action Man

http://www.jesuschristsuperstore.net/

My favourite

Get your kids Godly here:

http://www.jesuschristsuperstore.net/

Church of Freak-Out

I was sent a particularly amusing link today:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/customer-reviews/0840700555/ref=cm_cr

which goes quite nicely with this tale of rags to riches:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kerry-Katona-Young-Survival-Celebrity/dp/0091913896/sr=1-1/qid=1170864808/ref=sr_1_1/203-0631913-0794330?ie=UTF8&s=books

but can never be topped by this masterpiece:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Very-Best-David-Hasselhoff/dp/B00005Q8UG/ref=pd_rhf_p_4/203-0631913-0794330

and it got me thinking about religion. Kerry Katona knows all about that. She's the new domestic Messiah when it comes to Iceland. Hasselhoff is a God and the Bible is a poor man's Jeffrey Archer book.

No, the real joy is to be found here:

http://www.scientology.org/

Its not that its teeth-grindingly skin crawlingly weird, and that its so obviously a fully freaked out church of the rich and cultish. Its when I see things like this that I start to get worried. I aim one day to reach Level "40.0 Serenity of Beingness". Once I have attained this state, Tom Cruise will no longer irritate me.

What I really want to learn is what this is and how does it work?

Snow

Zermatt looking snowy

God knows what this is.

For some reason this reminds of the head of a giant cockroach.

Ship Recycling

More of the Tricolor's final voyage

The Poster

Book and the Film

A seriously good read. As the adage goes, films based on books are never as good as the book...

Last King of Scotland

I also saw Last King of Scotland

This was pretty good. Mel Gibson should have watched it to see how to use gratuitous violence to good effect. More words and phrases to describe it:

Forrest Whitaker is absolutely brilliant

James McEvoy was such a hateful character that I wanted to see him die. This is never a good sign. I wanted Jaguar Paws in Apocalypto to suffer an excruciating death too but there were too many plot devices and coincidences for him to die.

James McEvoy was hateful because his character was at once naïve, selfish, immoral and blasé.

There was no timeline so one minute Idi was sane if eccentric, the next he was as mad as cheese.

It felt like somewhere in the middle about ten minutes ended up on the cutting room floor.

Still, its shot on lovely film stock and is exciting and different.

My score:

8/10

Apocalypto

I saw Apocalypto at the weekend. I’d write a review but instead here are some random words and phrases to describe it:

Formulaic

Boring

Tedious

Dull

Ridiculous

Implausible

Violent

Gratuitious

Here’s how Mel could have improved it:

Edited half an hour out

Not gone quite so far up his own arse

Named the characters

How about no slow-motion.

And what was just fine?

Fantastic costumes and make-up

The first 20 minutes were great – a fascinating depiction of what Mayan village life might have been like.

And how do I feel?

Like I had amnesia for 2 1/2 hours. Disappointed.

Score 3/10

ApocaCrapo

I want one of these for Christmas

Big ship, broken cars, tiny man

Ship requires massive cheesewire

Remember that car transporter that capsized in the Channel a couple of years ago and was chopped up with a giant cheesewire so that it could be carted away in bite-size chunks?

I found some pictures.

Toyota Madness

I’ve been tasked at work to buy a Toyota Landcruiser for a project in Tanzania. Amazingly enough there’s a 12 seat version. So I’ve three sites to look at, http://www.toyotatz.com/landcruiser_gx.html where it takes 20 days to buy a car. I was also told to have a look at Toyota Gibraltar who it turns it out supply 30% of all those Lancruisers you see on the news in disaster areas, famine relief and so on. I then had a look at the Japanese site, and ended up on their robot page.

Toyota have invented a scout walker:

http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/vision/emerging_tech/p_robot/details.html

Foolish Smorgasbord

Spot the shoes

I just googled Niketown and I see that just about every big city has one, but I did manage to find a picture of the one in London. See if you can spot the shoes in this picture.

Nike no shoes town

I was in the big Nike shop on Oxford Circus yesterday. Its called Niketown. Its very big – three floors, but it was remarkably difficult to find some shoes. I’m not convinced that they sell much in there. I mean there isn’t really that much to buy so they can’t feasibly sell much. Its just one of those brand placement places. You go in and ooh and aah at how big it is and you leave impressed that Nike have this big shop with glitzy stuff and you tell your friends, wow have you been to Niketown in London, then other people come and everyone has a jamboree about the size of this place. But they don’t buy anything.

Methinks I’ll end up on Neal Street buying my sneakers at Offspring. And why sneakers over trainers? Well, I’m more likely to go sneaking than training.

Very funny

http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/

Wonky Eyes's Album

The Eraser - Thom Yorke's new(ish) album

I was halfway through a tirade about Queen's Innuendo album that took 5 years to make and resulted in 12 paltry songs and then Freddie Mercury died, and somehow the long wait wasn't worth the money paid. And then I was going to say that this offering from Thom Yorke has been, oh I don't know, 2 years in the making, and its only 41 minutes long but it really is bloody good. Then Firefox crashed for the second time today and that pissed me off. God forbid the new Internet Explorer 7 should somehow be better than Firefox. It still has a long way to go.

So where was I? Thom Yorke may have a funny shaped head and some serious misery issues but his drum machine is on the Kid A settings and its all very hummable. There's a song called Black Swan where the chorus is: "Its fucked up, its fucked up", but really its not. 'I'm Going Slightly Mad' on Innuendo is fucked up. I especially admire the lyric, "I think I'm a banana tree". But I suppose Freddie was half-dead so I shouldn't be too harsh.

Grand National: A cracking album

A Jockey Slut special. That was a good music mag. Gone now, more's the pity.

Look: a 1980s Flake Ad

I'm so hip that I post videos on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEOVRhUUnCw

That said , I just don't get myspace et al. I mean the saviours of mankind the Arctic Monkeys came from Myspace but how much shit must you have to trawl through to find something half decent? Not that I've listened to the Arctic Monkeys. I've only just listened to the first Kasabian album. I bought it when it was released, listened to it once - I liked that Madchester single which I heard on xfm, thought the album was unutterably shite and got my money back from virgin. Then I heard it in Thailand and it was good (I was stoned...) and downloaded it and its all good apart from track 4 which is irritating like Led Zeppelin. Stupid whiny voice.

Grand National are good. One of the best random albums I've bought (Kicking the National Habit). Talking of which I spent £25 on random cds in Fopp the other day. Its a great shop for that. I got some good ones too. Problem is that they get loaded into my mp3 player and the next day I can't remember what they were and can never find them. Its like I never bought them in the first place...

Should get on with some work now...

Yay! I've worked it out

All I need to do is let blogger.com autofill my name and then I can get in. It all goes wrong when I type my name in. Now I know this is a beta but that really is very silly.

Major Login Difficulties

Jesus! I switched over to Blogger Beta about a month ago and haven't been able to log back in since - something to do with my Google Account login. I could login to the Google Account, but that very same email would not work on Blogger. Its because I randomly played silly buggers that it worked this time, but I can't trust it anymore. Blogger Help was about about as useful as a chocolate teapot but then its a free service so what can you expect?

I've decided to kill this blog on blogger, and take it over to a new program, a program I haven't found yet...

There's one called blogspirit which has a free 30 day trial and harps on about affordability. How about making it free like all its competitors!

blog.co.uk is blatantly a german start-up. The templates look like what the swiss would design if they were told to be interesting. I think 'dry' is the word. Uploading images was too tortuous.

I just tried to do something on Yahoo 360 which is some kind of bollocksy social network crap but it really didn't work out. They ask way too much private information and I couldn't change the things I wanted to change and basically it was a waste of 5 minutes of my life.

Right I'm going to experiment with logging back in using IE7.

If I can't get back in, consider this blog dead. You'll know if I don't get back in as there won't be anymore posts.

Bonkers Fancy Dress

My Final Day on Bottle Beach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPUkwo2hENw

My Videos from Thailand, and one from Shanghai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45ixEkmUg_s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzWFfH0pOQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpjc9VQrXPo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2pYBTdO9GQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGuzlzhwDlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_9f3bHfXrU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UprX15kbAr4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1kjSbpdAtg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS47ycG7sUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uzyGFIGO8g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX0DNvHxi6A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RFAdVSzKGs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DYtPeve4CU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU44F6Og2x0

Shanghai 2005

I just had my final roll of film developed and scanned and found this. It was a boiling hot day as I remember and the sun was just starting to break through in the late afternoon. 

The Banana Split Show

On a happier note here are the Banana Splits. God knows what that was all about.

Threads: Utter Misery

This film covered all bases: inter-continental nuclear armageddon, nuclear winter and eating raw sheep, the list goes on. Like all good docu-dramas you end up thinking, "What would I do?". Indeed at school one of the big questions was, "What would you do if the 3 minute warning started?". You had to have an answer, as after those 3 minutes if you were lucky you'd be dead, and you don't want to spend them wondering what to do next.

I do now have a fascination with Cold War bunkers, and subterranean London. There's a city down there built with our money and we know next to nothing about it. I read a dreadful book called "Domain" by James Herbert about giant rats eating survivors of a nuclear war in London. Though the book was crap, he was right about a place called the Kingsway Exchange. Obstensibly this was a telephone exchange behind Holborn but in reality was the heavily reinforced entrance to a bunker. There's a huge bunker under the MOD but from what I've heard of people that have actually been in it its not as exciting as it sounds. That either means that its not exciting or that its so mindblowingly exciting that they're not allowed to say. Its called Pindar and cost an absolute fortune.

Bleak and twisted films

I saw Children of Men last night. It was a good film, bleak and brutal and though I enjoyed it immensely I remember thinking to myself that I need never see it again. The Guardian's reviewer said he was reminded of Threads when we watched it. Threads is a docu-drama made for the BBC in the early 1980s chronicling, without pulling any punches, how unmitigatingly horrific nuclear war would be. I saw it first when I was 12 and had nightmares for 2 years. It followed the lives of 3 families living in Sheffied, then the nuclear attack itself, then the aftermath of nuclear winter and complete hellishness of it all. Now Children of Men is a pretty grim portrayal of future Britain, and not withstanding the lack of nuclear annhilation, if it all goes to shit, Britain would become a very unlovely place.

I've two other decidely unlovely dvds languishing on my shelf. One is 'Ichi the Killer', which a friend described as being completely horrific (but in a non-nuclear kind of way). Its Japanese and directed by the guy that did 'Audition', and its fully fucked up. I tried to watch it the other day and got as far as the menu screen and couldn't take any more. Total Film said of it, "Virtuoso... Teeth gnashingly violent, deleriously inventive". A bit like Wallace and Gromit with chainsaws then.

'Oldboy' is the other dvd awaiting my viewing pleasure. Its definitely Korean, and definitley fucked up and wrong on a massive number of levels. Still the Daily Telegraph descibed it as "Magnificent" and it won the Cannes Grand Prix du Jury 2004.

I saw a film called 'Hostel' a few months ago which I actively discourage people from watching. I didn't understand why it was made. It wasn't enjoyable. It wasn't literally sickening, but gratuitous violence as a description doesn't come near. Violence aside it was also a very shit film.
So don't go there.

Heathrow Airport

It defines 'Bedlam'.

Terminal 2 is the most revolting, foul, unpleasant building in Britain.

And the queues for the passport check getting back into the country for EU members are a joke.

And you've just walked about a mile to get to that bastard queue.

And the travelators are broken.

And the security is a ludicrous.

And the duty-free shops make a killing on bottled water and lighters.

And the traffic jam getting into the place is just obscene.

And the Heathrow Express is the most expensive railway in the world.

And the oh sod it, the Spanish own it now, so blame them.

Kit Kat Chunky Peanut: Right or Wrong?

It may be disgustingly sweet but there is something revoltingly good about the latest Kit Kat concoction. The peanut butter is peanut butter in the sense of the "beef" in a McDonalds burger. You wouldn't spread it on a piece of bread but you don't need to as its surrounded by chocolate. Similairly I dare you to eat the "meat" from Mcdonalds without the gherkin, mustard, ketchup or bread. I'm not even convinced that there is peanut in that peanut butter, but it is a modern marvel that they can create a substance that is sweeter than sugar. True, you can't crunch the sugar, nor does it make your mouth burn, and it actually tastes quite rank. Yet it still works.

Coup d'Etat TV

BBC heralds the (frankly alarming) breaking news on Tuesday night (20/9). The blue one and the yellow one below are what the 7 state channels showed on a loop for over 12 hours. I wasn't so good at the karaoke. Then there's me with Wednesday's edition of the Bangkok Post.

Living Under the Shadow of a Gun

I've just been in Thailand for a month's holiday and was in Bangkok for the coup, which was huge fun. Here's the email I sent on Wednesday evening on 21st September, at the end the first full day of Martial Law:

Being as I am in Bangkok, I thought that I should fill you in on what is really happening here. George Alagaya, BBC's World at One anchor finished his report today with the line that Thais are, "living under the shadow of a gun". Technically speaking this is true, but then everybody in the world lives under the shadow of a gun. It was such a gross exaggeration that I was actually stunned by it. The coup that he's reporting is a completely different one to what I've seen today. I was also told that there is "Martial Law" in Bangkok. I've no idea what that means. The BBC failed elaborate so we are all none the wiser. In fact the BBC made it seem like we are all trapped inside, shivering in fear for our lives, awaiting the evacuation order from our embassies. That tanks are cruising through the streets, that the streets themselves are full of troops, that there is a curfew, that "We're all going to die!".

Its, um, not true. As far as I know, the tanks are around government house. Martial law may be in effect but there's no discernible difference to normal Bangkok, which is a fairly abnormal city anyway. I went out for a pizza in the centre of town this evening and it was only on the way back in the taxi that I actually saw any troops. At one junction there were a couple of soldiers in camouflage with helmets and M-16s standing on a traffic island under a bridge looking bored out of their minds. Just round the corner were two army trucks parked at the side of the road full of sleeping soldiers. Opposite from my friend's apartment there is a Navy radio station which today had two guards in khaki with rifles, again looking about as bored as bored can be. I almost felt sorry for them. Oh, and I saw another one in khaki on the back of the scooter out buying his lunch. It is certainly no Tiananeman Square.

When the news broke last night that there was a coup underway it was rather alarming. I saw it first on the BBC website at about 10.30pm, and switched on the TV. All of the Thai channels, seven in all, were showing the same video, images of the King and Queen with patriotic music playing. Along the bottom of the screen was Thai text that filled with blue. I soon realised that I was watching Karaoke Coup TV with Sing-along subtitles. BBC and CNN were fairly sketchy about what was happening apart from the mention of tanks and troops entering government house. I quickly rattled off an email home saying I was ok, then soon after went to bed, as it became apparent that none of the stations knew what was happening. When I woke this morning at 7am all the international news channels had been taken off the air which was more alarming as, as loathsome as they are, they are actually quite useful when things go pear-shaped. The Thai channels were still looping the same Karaoke video; I'd never realised that I'd miss Thai TV quite so much. As it turned out, today was a public holiday and there was almost no traffic, which made getting around town really really easy, and there was far less pollution. In some ways I wish there was a coup everyday then Bangkok would be almost pleasant.

BBC and CNN came back on around lunchtime which is how I saw their frankly laughable reports. Various taxi drivers said that it was good that, "Army no bang bang", "1992 lots of bang bang", "England Number 1!", "Premier League very good" and that there had been a curfew last night at 10pm and that that poor taxi driver had only made 200B in four hours, which was "No good".

It has been a genuinely exciting day. I can now say that I've been in a capital city having a military coup and I really enjoyed it. I'm extremely glad that it has been bloodless as it would have been really bad if there had been shooting and nastiness. I'm also rather glad that I did see some troops this evening as I was starting to think that it was the lamest coup ever. I mean what kind of military coup doesn't involve soldiers? And then I saw some and felt much better. They don't even look out of place. All security guards here, and there are loads of them everywhere, and all the police are pseudo paramilitary so its good to see some proper non-corruptible no nonsense soldiers. As a friend of mine commented, he almost felt safer now than when the police were in control.

From what I can gather the coup has been completely welcome in Bangkok. It is not an army seizure of power but an army instigated removal of a completely crooked, corrupt and for the last month absent leader, Thaksin. He's been described in the Bangkok Post as Caretaker Prime Minister as the results of the General Election in April/May were annulled after the opposition refused to stand - the BBC will fill you in on the why and wherenots of who he is and why he's so despised. He's now en route to London where he's just bought a new house, and the talk of the town is whether he will come back to Thailand or not. He was rumoured to be returning tomorrow so school has been cancelled for a second day, but really its all guesswork.

Fingers crossed that tonight is peaceful, that the military rule is as short-lived as the generals say it will be, and on a personal level, that my flight isn't delayed on Friday as they were last night and today.The pictures attached (see next post) are of the state TV video loop, and me getting overexcited with today's Bangkok Post.