Month: May 2003

  • Government Screws Us Again

    The ID Card fiasco continues with the Government claiming that all the responses sent via Stand were considered to be one response. See here and here. Here is my own response to my MP. Dear Ms Joan Ryan, I’m enormously disappointed to learn that feedback that I gave in my own capacity to the Home…

  • Salam Pax

    The Guardian has an interview with Iraqi blogger, Salam Pax.

  • Tony Benn

    So Geoff and I went to see Tony Benn speak this evening at an event supporting the publication of a http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/082646596X of his. The talk – well more a discussion – was at the Conway Hall in Holborn, a real old-school political debating centre. The turn out was reasonable and a very sprightly Benn spoke…

  • Iraq: the Aftermath

    So not only do we now have Rumsfeld saying that there may not have been any weapons of mass destruction at the start of the war but, unsurprisingly, it turns out that the Iraq document that Blair presented to the Commons, was ever so slightly spun, and the security services are still rather upset that…

  • The Vice

    Finally, ITV show the next (final?) series of The Vice. I knew that it was in the can awaiting a showing, but ITV being ITV, they don’t like to air quality fare such as this. It’s nothing short of spectacular that Carlton made this in the first place. Ken Stott’s character, Pat Chappel has been…

  • The Year of the Sex Olympics

    BBC Four showed this Nigel Kneale play last Thursday, and I got around to watching my tape this morning. It followed a documentary about British TV’s use of the hidden camera – another in the very good Timeslip series. The play has incidentally just come out on DVD, and it’s especially prescient about where the…

  • Nil Points

    For the first time ever, we came bottom of Eurovision with nil points. No relegation for us however, since we bankroll the whole thing.

  • Losing Your Cookies

    Slightly annoying – my PC crashed, and as a consequence, it seems to have lost all my cookies. Now do I try to get into this Fightbox thing?

  • Losing Your Cookies

    Slightly annoying – my PC crashed, and as a consequence, it seems to have lost all my cookies. Now do I try to get into this Fightbox thing?

  • Shortest Night

    Last night I went along to a BBC Four screening of a series of short films. The enterprise is called Shortest Night, and in about three weeks, BBC Four will seemingly be showing these and many others on, what is, the shortest night of the year. Somehow, I think Swedes will be otherwise occupied on…

  • Matrix Reloaded

    So I got to go to the (UK) premiere of this last night. The tickets said that doors open at 6.30 and that everyone should be seated by 7.30. We arrived at 7.00 in torrential rain. I can honestly say that I haven’t seen quite as big a premiere as this previously in Leicester Square.…

  • The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

    I got hold of this book after hearing it’s author Greg Palast speaking on the Simon Mayo programme on Radio Five Live. I suppose he’s a slightly more literary Michael Moore. The book is written in the same freewheeling style, but there’s just a little bit more depth. Sometimes he’s a little off the mark…