March 2003 Archives

Apparently, from midnight tonight smoking will be banned in all bars in New York. I've always said that New York was one of my favourite places and this can only increase the likelihood that I'll live there at some point.

So many places in the world are passing laws like this, but unfortunately there seems to be nothing happening in the UK.

A lot of nonsense is talked in some quarters, when referring to us, about "The First Family of Folk" or even (God help us) "The Royal Family of Folk". People who do that, in my view, want their backsides kicking - hard. If there is one family who deserve such a title - and I must admit to the severest of collywobbles at the idea of anyone being saddled with such a miserable title - the that family is surely The Copper Family of Sussex. Shepherds Arise is salute to them and gives us a chance to pay tribute to real nobility.

Sleeve notes from Dark Light by Waterson:Carthy

The bizarre thing about reading this was that the other CD that I bought yesterday was Come Write Me Down by The Copper Family.

I really want to believe this chap's story.

NEW YORK -- Federal investigators have arrested an enigmatic Wall Street wiz on insider-trading charges -- and incredibly, he claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2256!

The front pages of most of the UK tabloids today are incandesant with rage over the two British soldiers who were apparently "executed" on Saddam's orders. This was also a key point in Tony Blair's speech at Camp David where he used it as proof of the "depravity of Saddam's regime".

Unfortunately for Blair and the tabloids, it seems that it is unlikely that this is what happened. A government spokesman has admitted that they have no evidence for this interpretation of the available data.

Of course, the lack of facts has never stopped the tabloids running a good xenophobic story.

Shame to see the PM stooping to those levels tho'.

According to the BBC British soldiers in Iraq have been learning from their US allies and have started killing each other.

Currently the British media are reporting individually on every "coalition" soldier who is injured, goes missing or is killed in Iraq.

It makes you wonder what would have happened if we'd had this level of media coverage in 1914-18 or 1939-45.

The BBC are reporting that George Bush has gone to Congress asking for more money to pay for the war in Iraq.

Of the $75bn he has asked for, only $1.7bn is for reconstruction and $500m is for humanitarian aid.

Many congratulations to Michael Moore for winning the Best Documentary Oscar with Bowling For Columbine.

It's good to know that there are some people in the US who can listen to an alternative viewpoint.

Remember boys and girls, nothing that you read in the papers, see on the television or hear on the radio about this war is true. It's all propaganda. You are only told what they want you to know.

Much as I hate to do this, I have to agree with something that Tony Blair said in yesterday's House of Commons debate on the war with Iraq. He said that if we didn't go to war now, then we (or the US or, I guess, the UN) would have absolutely no credibility the next time we threatened to to attack someone.

Now, whether or not you agree that attacking another sovereign nation because you think they might possibly attack you at some unspecified point in the future with weapons that no-one can find is a good idea or not, you have to agree with his point. Having got to this stage of willy-waving we (or, rather, the politicians) have been backed into a corner. I don't think there's any alternative to going ahead with the war.

Of course, that doesn't mean that we have to like the idea. I really wish that they hadn't put us in this situation. I really wish that Blair had asked Parliament for approval of his actions before he got involved in the events that lead us to this point instead of just asking for a rubber stamp at the last minute when it's too late to change anything.

There will be another Stop The War demo in London on Saturday. Arrangements will be very similar to the one on February 15th, but see the Stop The War Coalition's web page for more details and to keep informed about other forthcoming events.

The US and the UK have announced that they have given up on trying to get a second UN resolution on Iraq. Bush is speaking to the US tonight. Blair has called an emergency Cabinet meeting. Robin Cook has resigned as Leader of the House of Commons.

This is it people. War is imminent.

Yesterday we were at a friend's wedding. Someone organised a sweepstake on the combined length of the after-dinner speeches. It was £10 to enter so I took a chance.

I didn't get the time spot on, but I was one of two people who got closest to the actual time, so they split the prize between us. Apparently 30 people had entered so we got £150 each.

It's not often you go to a wedding and make a profit!

Yesterday was a little wierd.

I run a little project that produces simple scripts for people to use on their web pages. Things the send emails when you fill in a form, guestbooks, that kind of thing. Many webmasters that use these scritps are kind enough to include a link back to the project homepage when they use one of these scripts. As a result one of my email addresses is starting to appear in a few strange places on websites that I have no connection with. The problem is that some visitors to these sites can't differentiate between the owners of the site and someone who just write some of the tools used on the site. I get some very angry emails from people who disagree with the views on some of these sites. Most of the time they don't even tell me which site they are complaining about.

Apparently one of the websites that I'm featured on is one that is running a campaign to impeach George Bush. This is a point of view that is guaranteed to annoy a lot of Americans. Especially ones in the forces. Yesterday I got this email:

To: davorg@users.sourceforge.net From: [deleted]@[deleted].AF.MIL Subject: IMPEACHMENT Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 05:43:40 -0600

AS A SERVICE MAMBER I AM COMPLELELY SICKENED BY YOU PEOPLE. TO THINK MEN ACTUALLY DIED SO THAT YOU PEOPLE COULD SIT IN AMERICA DAILY AND INFECT IT WITH THE VERY PLAUGES OF THE MIND THAT THEY FOUGHT TO DESTROY. HOW DARE YOU!!!! QUITE FRANKLY WHAT YOU PEOPLE NEED AND DESERVE IS A GOOD COUNTRY ASS WHIPPING.

Now whether or not, I agree with the sentiments on the web site (which, of course, I do) no-one should have to put up with that sort of abuse. So I emailed a complaint to the postmaster at the site. I guess that the US military machine whirred into action pretty quickly as this morning I got the following response from the same person.

Mr Cross I would like to appologise if I strongly offended you in my letter it was meant to only be mildly offensive. I felt personally offended by the apalling memorandum calling for the impeachment of president Bush my commander in chief. I chose the strong words not meant as a threat but meant as the expressions of deep annoyance and frustration towards the ignorant left wing that I feel if ruining the world. If you feel wronged by recieving such email then prehaps you should distance yourself and email address from webpages and ideals that violate every AMERICAN FIBER that we have woven into our beings from birth. The thought of leading a charge to impeach my president because he feels a need to conquer evil and protect us makes naseau rise in the depths of my soul. I keenly niticed sir that there was no direct feedback link on the "IMPEACH BUSH" webpage however the creators of the page kindly left a link to you, therfore I suspect I willnot be the only pissed off American you get a letter from.

Which I'll accept as an apology, if a slightly ungracious one.

I still don't know which site they are talking about tho'.

According to an article in today's Guardian, the Bangles are back. And it's not a second too soon as far as I'm concerned.

I'm now going to have Going Down To Liverpool stuck in my head all day.

Yesterday I mentioned how the BBC had screwed up the transmission of Sunday's episode of 24. I didn't mention that I'd fired off a letter of complaint to various email addresses at the BBC, including the Radio Times.

Last night I got an email from the RT thanking me for my letter and telling me that it was being considered for publication.

Do I really want to be the kind of person who writes letters to the Radio Times?

I've ranted before about shops who try to sell widescreen TVs by displaying 4:3 images stretched across a 16:9 screen. This has the effect that a large percentage of the population seem to think that widescreen TV is supposed to make people look fatter.

Things may finally be changing tho'. Currently the Dixons store at Holborn Circus has a display of two TVs - one is 16:9 and the other is 4:3. They are both tuned to the same channel and it's obviously one that transmits widescreen properly as the 16:9 tv had a proper wide image and the 4:3 one was correctly cropped to the right size. You could clearly see the the wide image had more stuff on the edges. and by looking up at other TVs in the shop you could see how the others all had the 4:3 image stretched in a most unpleasant manner. It's probably because the display was for Freeview which is a digital platform and therefore transmits in widescreen most of the time. The other TVs are all running off analogue systems which never broadcast in widescreen.

Someone needs to create a web page that explains this in simple terms for the masses.

I'm watching season 2 of 24 on BBC Three (don't worry there are no spoilers here for people watching a week behind on BBC Two). They show it at 10:40pm on Sunday night, then afterwards they have a really lame program called Pure 24 where people with no lives discuss the current episode in great depth. As far as I can see no-one watches Pure 24 which is why they are resorting to more and more desperate methods to promote it.

A couple of weeks about five minutes before the end of 24, a silver block swept across the screen leaving a bar in the bottom right corner advertising the fact that Pure 24 was on next. This was bad enough, but last night they surpassed themselves. Ten minutes into the programme, during a quiet scene they played a recording of the announcer saying that Pure 24 was on next. This went on for about 30 seconds and completely destroyed any dramatic tension in the scene. I was prepared to believe that this was a mistake, but a) they made no attempt to stop it once it had started and b) there was no apology for it at the end of the program.

I can only assume that BBC Three has no respect for the intelligence of its audience.

I go online sometimes, but everyone's spelling is really bad. It's... depressing."

Tara - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I'm having one of my periodic phases when I get really wound up by the illiteracy that is so prevalent on the internet. Sometimes I find IRC incredibly painful.

Grammar tip of the week: Remember, "install" and "invite" are verbs. The equivalent nouns are "installation" and "invitation".

The Guardian covers the important issues as always.

A woman's relationship with her pubic hair is ever so complicated

All of me

A few days ago I wrote something asking how George Bush and Tony Blair could reconcile going to war against Iraq with their christian beliefs.

On Sunday, the Independent on Sunday asked similar (but more polite) questions to Tony Blair. his answers are interesting, but (to my mind) ultimately unconvincing.

Dinner last night was a trip to one of my favourite London restaurants - the Sugar Club. It's been a couple of years since I could afford to go there so it was a nice treat. The food was as good as it ever was (particularly the tandoori rabbit that I had for a starter and the passion fruit sorbet and white chocolate ice cream that I had for dessert). Only slight downer was that the clientele seem to be a bit more noisy that they used to be.

If you fancy a really good meal in central London and you don't mind paying in the region of £60/head (including drinks) then I can't recommend it highly enough.