Month: January 2007
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ITV Play In Breach
In Ofcom’s latest Broadcast Bulletin (pdf), ITV Play is found to be in breach for the first time for one of their games. In one of their “tower games” callers were invited to identify “things you might find in a woman’s handbag.” The sample answer was “mobile phone.” Correct answers (well answers that received prizes)…
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A Kind of Addendum
A short aside from the previous piece on Apple. In the presentation, Jobs pointed out that Apple had got more than 200 patents on various parts of the iPhone. And a recent Audi A6 TV ad talks about how it has taken out more patents than NASA has ever taken out for its new car…
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Apples Are Not The Only Fruit
OK. I know every website, newspaper and blog in the world has already commented on Apple’s announcements yesterday, but I just had to get a few things off my chest. First of all, I want to know why everyone practically has orgasms about new Apple launches. I mean CES has been taking place in Las…
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Threat Level By Email
I noted the introduction of the UK’s very own threat level last year when MI5 introduced it. Almost immediately, the threat level jumped from “Severe” to “Critical”. A few days later it dropped back to “Severe” where it’s been ever since. Well now the BBC is reporting that MI5 is going to allow us to…
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Frustrations With ITunes
Please do let me know if I’m doing some obviously wrong, but I’ve got a bit of an issue with iTunes that I can’t solve without using a workaround. I have iTunes on a work computer (ahem – don’t tell our IT department) and also on a home PC. I like to listen to podcasts.…
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The Sky At Night
There’s much coverage about The Sky At Night celebrating it’s 650th edition yesterday (well, very early this morning actually) in the fiftieth year of its broadcast, and the fact that Sir Patrick Moore is annoyed that the programme went out at 1.55am without any fanfare. Well of course, even by Sky At Night standards, that’s…
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The Times Is Green Today
If you bought a copy of The Times this morning at WH Smith, then you got a free copy of The Rough Guide to Saving Energy – a 64 page booklet sponsored by Sky (sister company to The Times) who are running a Green Britain initiative this week. The booklet bears a “stamp” that reads…
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Someone Leaked 24…
You can bet that people at Fox are furious at the moment. This weekend, the first four hours of 24 were leaked and there are plenty of torrents of the episodes around. The four episodes are airing next weekend over two nights to kick off season/day 6. It seems that they came from a DVD…
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Crystal Palace v Swindon Town
We went to watch this epic third round FA Cup tie yesterday afternoon. I’d not been to Selhurst Park before. It’s obviously a ground (and a club) that’s seen better days. When we got to the visiting fans ticket booth there was a largish queue and not a lot happening. It seemed that there was…
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A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Well I noted the other day that I hadn’t read this book yet. Well now I have… obviously. I must admit, for a book that’s won prizes for comic fiction, I didn’t find it terribly funny. It takes a serious-ish subject and handles it with a very light touch. But I’m not sure I’d go…
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Tomorrow’s World Returns
Four years on – nearly to the day – and Media Guardian is reporting that Tomorrow’s World is returning. Well – sort of. The programme itself isn’t returning – just elements of it including the title sequence, and, well, the name. Effectively, the brand, then. This is better than nothing, but not really that great.…
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The Rush To Paperback
I was wandering around Borders the other day, just to see if they had any interesting books in the London branch that hadn’t been in the Norwich branch. Not that I need any more books. Anyway, they did have the hardback of Restless by William Boyd on sale at half price. Now I love William…