Month: January 2004

  • Moore on Desertion

    Michael Moore’s worth reading on the Bush being a “deserter”. This election’s getting heated. Still, you can go to Amazon and contribute!

  • 5 Votes

    So he’s scraped through. This can still be defeated though, and I think worse is to come tomorrow. At the time of writing, opinion seems to be in one direction. 71 Labour MPs opposed the vote, somewhat fewer than those listed this morning on the front of The Independent. They had 77 committed, and 20…

  • Maes Howe

    I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. The Guardian have published an LRB essay about the Orkneys Islands, and in particular the amazing Maes Howe. A couple of years ago I got to visit the Orkneys – for just a short day – taking the foot ferry from John O’Groats to Burwick…

  • Power Cut

    At about 1.00AM this morning, my immediate neighbourhood was hit by a power cut – the first I can recall for quite some time. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was working on the computer, I’d have probably not have realised until the morning came around and I saw clocks all flashing 00:00.…

  • Atkins Diet on Horizon

    Just spent the afternoon sprawled out on my sofa watching Horizon have an examination of the Atkins Diet. Nothing is completely certain from it, but the overall results seem to indicate that the make up of the diet act as an appetite suppressor. In particular, protein may be what does the trick. Eat more protein?…

  • Do The Hustle…

    I really am looking forward to this.

  • No WMDs

    David Kay has quit his job searching for those elusive WMDs in Iraq. Seemingly it’s not just down to there being nothing out there to find, but personal reasons too. But this is vital news in a week when the Hutton Report is published. While that report is specifically looking at the death of Dr…

  • Industry and Protectionism

    Two emails in my spam-cluttered inbox this morning raised some interesting problems that I find hard to break down. First Robert X Cringley’s weekly piece for PBS. He’s talking in the main about US jobs leaving those shores and heading to places like India or other developing countries, where costs are lower. This is illustrated…

  • The Nutcracker

    Today I went to see my first ever ballet. The Nutcracker by Matthew Bourne is something of a different ballet, I’m told, with a non-conformist setting and method of producing the show. The charming people at ING Direct provided the tickets via one of their free offers, and who was I to refuse them. I…

  • The Missing

    Ron Howard’s latest film is The Missing, which the distributors seem at pains to not call a western. Well it is a western – of that there can be no doubt. We’re in 1885 Arizona, and if that’s not the west, then call me the man with no name. Cate Blanchett is the local medicine…

  • State of the Union

    On the day that Bush presents his last State of the Union address before the election, The Independent today presented a staggering indictment of his presidency to date. They did it in the form of numbers. Just read through it (while it’s still free!).

  • Zero Rated Shows

    Emily Bell’s written an interesting piece in today’s Media Guardian abgut what our new regulator, Ofcom, should or should not do about “zero rated” programmes. What I find most curious is that she almost openly admits that it’s the likes of Mediaguardian, as well as Broadcast, that feverishly examine a programme’s ratings as the most…