Month: June 2007
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Squashed Credits
And so it has come to pass… The BBC has adopted its new “squashed into the corner” credit policy with quite dire results. You can no longer hear the programme’s closing theme music, since audio from the top video preview plays over the top. You sometimes can’t read the credits because they’re too small. I…
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Virgin 1
Is everyone looking forward to mooted new TV channel “Virgin 1“? It’s said to include programmes currently on other Virgin Media channels like Bravo, Challenge, Trouble and Living. And the channel will be available on Freeview too. For Virgin Media customers there’ll be on-demand functionality. “It will be a creative tour de force and a…
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The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril
You can’t fail to want to read a book called The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril can you? And just look at that cover! This is pulp book set in a pulp era. I should explain a bit more. The novel has two protagonists, Walter Gibson who used to write The Shadow, and Lester Dent who…
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The Undercover Economist
The success of Freakonomics was almost certainly the reason that this book got the green light from the publishers. That’s not to say that it’s bad, because it’s not. Seemingly based on a column from the Financial Times, the author attempts to use economic theory to explain day to day things that we experience. For…
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Tescopoly
Ah. The new evil empire. This book probably isn’t available for £3.73 in your local branch of Tesco (and what is it about that .73 price point?), but you should seek it out in your local bookshop – assuming you still have one. We’ve all heard many of the stories about Tesco, and I’m not…
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Murder in Samarkand
This is the book that the British Government really didn’t like being published. Indeed I’ve even heard stories of people being stopped from taking it on the plane with them! Nobody stopped me at Stansted with it when I went away with it recently. Murray was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan where he was something…
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IoS
I didn’t pick up a copy, but it seems that The Independent on Sunday’s readers aren’t overjoyed at the changes that were made over the weekend…
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Alcohol Ban on Kids Football Shirts
Wow – finally football clubs are doing the decent thing, and withdrawing alcohol sponsors’ logos from their kids size football strips. Other sports including cricket clubs are doing the same thing. Well – I say “football clubs” and “cricket clubs” when I actually mean the Portman Group is doing it (they’re the people who are…
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Alan Johnston Video Released
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6710863.stm
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Neon Saturn
In this false-color image, the Cassini spacecraft captures Saturn’s glow, represented in brilliant shades of electric blue, sapphire and mint green, while the planet’s shadow casts a wide net on the rings. The colors represent different wavelengths: red is thermal heat originating within the planet; in blue, icy ring particles shimmer in sunlight scattered through…