September 2004 Archives

In today's Guardian there's an interesting piece about this week's Hartlepool byelection. I particularly liked this paragraph which nicely sums up the state of British politics.

On September 8, the byelection was called for the 30th. A tour of the offices up and down York Road that day felt like retracing a cycle of history. The Labour party looked like the Tories 15 years ago; awesomely professional, yet beginning to ossify, neurotic with power. The Tories conjured memories of Labour 20 years ago, lamed by internal rivalries and hopelessness. And the Lib Dems looked like Labour a decade ago - flying on hungry young self-belief.

The Guardian have released a number of new RSS feeds. I think that these are probably based on some work I did when I was working there at the end of last year. If that's the case, then it will be easy for them to add new feeds for any of their special report sections.

It's nice to be able to point at web sites and say "I made that".

I'm a bit slow here. This all happened a week ago.

It seems that someone at the Odeon web site has a bit of a clue after all.

There is now a version of the site which works on all browsers. You still can't book tickets tho' and you can't access most of the info available on the IE-only site.

But it's a start.

Update: Mathew Somerville points out that the site doesn't work in all browsers as it contains spaces in URLs which are technically illegal. Whilst most browsers cope with this, an ultra-compliant browser like Dillo won't.

It's thirty-seven years late, but the Beach Boys album Smile is finally released on Monday - although internal band politics mean that it's now a Brian Wilson album.

Still (very) long-awaited tho'. I'm reminded of the the excitement that surrounded the CD release of Pet Sounds in 1990. Hope this is as good.

Update: I've been listening to some of the samples on the album's web site. It sounds gorgeous.

Sims playing Sims :-)

It's obviously a musical nostalgia day.

From Simon Bisson's blog I've just learnt of this concert at Wembley Arena which features the long-awaited reunion of the Buggles along with a number of other 80s bands like ABC and the Art of Noise.

I'm a little wary of this because of the involvement of Yes. Now I like Yes. Well, I like 70s Yes. I still listen to Tales From Topographic Oceans occasionally. But the presence of Yes on the same bill as The Buggles brings back memories of the album Drama where Yes replaced Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman with Buggles Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes. It was not a massive success.

I've never got to see Yes live, so this would be tempting if there wasn't the danger that they'd be playing a lot of stuff from Drama.

Lots of blasts from the past here. Bands that I haven't heard for over twenty years - The Barracudas, The Chords, The Lambrettas - together with some slightly better known bands like Generation X and Jilted John.

Ah... nostalgia.

Via 50 Quid Bloke (who all aging musos should be reading).

Today the Evening Standard gave away a CD that contained some standard audio tracks together with some extra tracks which were controlled by a Digital Rights Management tool called "4Play" (because you can play the tracls four times before you need to buy them).

Obviously, I assumed that this was never going to work on Linux, but I thought I'd take a look at their support page just in case. As usual in this cases, it was obvious that this was a Windows-only solution. There was a page that told Mac users they were out of luck but no mention of Linux.

I sent an email to the support address asking them whether their software worked on Linux (knowing full well what they'd say) and pointing out that it would be nice if they at least acknowledged the existance of Linux users.

And I was amazed to find it seems that my email went to someone who has some sort of clue. He said that they'd add a note about Linux this afternoon. He also said that they were working with Microsoft to get the DRM working on both Mac and Linux (which sounds like they just might be talking to the wrong people!)

But anyway, they are planning to admit that Linux exists. Which is good.

Tho' it's a slightly weird world when getting a company to admit that their software doesn't work on Linux can be seen as a (minor) victory.

Bugger, I screwed up last night. It was the first episode of the new Hitchhikers series. I didn't try very hard to get home in time for the broadcast at 18:30 as I thought I could catch it on the BBC's web site.

But it appears that it won't be available there until after the repeat on Thursday at 23:00. So I won't hear it until then.

No big deal I know. I've waited over twenty years for a new series. Another couple of days won't hurt. I didn't hear the first episode of the first series either. I didn't know about it. It was only the incredible buzz about it at school the next week that made me tune in for the second episode. H2G2 is really made for radio. All other versions are inferior (tho' still very enjoyable) copies.

Instead, I spent an enjoyable couple of hours reminding myself of the game.

And while we're talking about birthdays and anniversaries, CEEFAX is 30 tomorrow.

Forgot to mention it yesterday, but it was Leonard Cohen's 70th birthday. Here are 70 things you might not know about him (unless you read last Friday's Guardian).

his last album was a bit disappointing but everyone should own copies of Songs of Leonard Cohen and I'm Your Man.

Shame his web designers are such idiots tho'.

David Aaronovitch points out the inconsistancies in the recent outbreaks of sporting patriotism.

A couple of weeks ago the Daily Mail was ranting about plans to enter a European team into the Olympics ("NOW EU BIDS TO HIJACK OLYMPIC GLORY") but yesterday everyone was quite happy to cheer on the European golfing team as it beat the American team in the Ryder Cup.

I'll just take as further proof that most sports fans have an important part of their brain missing.

My favourite entry from the Singing the Blues exhibition at the Cartoon Gallery.

If you're running Windows and you are connected to the internet and you aren't taking security precautions then your PC could easily be one of the 30,000 PCs that are hijacked every day for the purposes of spreading viruses and sending spam.

Microsoft has a page of advice on how to cut down the danger. I'd basically say that you need to do three things:

1/ Install and use a firewall.

2/ Use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer for viewing web sites.

3/ Use Thundebird instead of Outlook for reading email.

If you're not taking basic security precautions then, in my opinion, you shouldn't be allowed to connect to the internet. It's like being allowed on the road in a car without a license. Except you don't annoy quite so many people in a car.

Update: Four things (cue Spanish Inquisition sketch) - I forgot about installing (and keeping up to date) an anti-virus system.

p.s. Look, I wrote this whole entry without suggesting that people should just stop using Windows and switch to Linux instead

If you're on Windows and you're still using Internet Explorer as your browser then you really need to take a look at Firefox instead. Since the latest version was released there have been over a million downloads (that's in about four days, the developers were aiming to reach that target in ten days!)

What have you got to lose? It's a free download. And I guarantee that you won't want to go back.

Yahoo have interviewed George Lucas about the Star Wars DVD release.

The release is of the "special edition" versions from the late 90s rather than the original versions which most fans would rather see. Lucas is pretty belligerent about that.

The special edition, that's the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it's on VHS, if anybody wants it. ... I'm not going to spend the, we're talking millions of dollars here, the money and the time to refurbish that, because to me, it doesn't really exist anymore. It's like this is the movie I wanted it to be, and I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it. But I want it to be the way I want it to be.

Or, to paraphase, "fuck the fans, I'm doing what I want".

Also, he says that he won't be making any more Star Wars films. But I'm sure that when Star Wars was originally released in 1977 he told us that there would eventually be a trilogy of trilogies and that he already had stories for all nine episodes. Wonder what happened to episodes VII to IX.

I just got back from seeing Hellboy at my local Odeon. The film was pretty good, but it seems that Saturday afternoon is when all the morons go to the cinema.

There seems to be an entire generation who has no idea how to behave in the cinema. They are incapable of going ninety minutes without texting their friends on their mobiles - some of them even take and make calls. They discuss the plot with each other, spill popcorn all over the place and constantly kick the seats in front of them.

It's no wonder that the most popular films these days are just car chases and explosions linked by the flimsiest of plots. It would be impossible to follow anything more complex with all that going on.

I'll be sticking with the Clapham Picture House in the future.

I don't know quite why we've had this run of storms. You just have to accept that.

Florida Governer Jeb Bush on the recent spate of hurricanes.

They're none too bright in that family are they. Most people seem pretty sure it's due to global warming.

Karmadownload are giving away a free downloadable album with lots of unsigned bands that played The Barfly in July. Haven't listened to it yet, but it looks interesting.

So I'm back from my holiday in Egypt. More details (and photos) follow over the next few days.

After lunch we visited the Cairo Museum. The lack of sleep was finally hitting us and therefore it was, at times, a bit of a struggle to keep interested in what our guide telling us.

The first thing that really made an impression was the fact that they had a replica of the Rosetta Stone. Now I work very close to the British Museum, so I've seen the stone many times, but it really hit me how unfair it is that the real stone isn't in the Cairo Museum where it really belongs.

The other thing that really impressed me was the Tutankhamun collection. One of my earliest memories is seeing news reports when the Tutankhamun treasures visited the British Museum in 1972. I really wanted to go and see them but never did. I'd been waiting over thirty years and it was really good to see the exhibition at last.

Now I really want to go back and see the museum again when I'm not practically sleepwalking around it.

We landed at about 23:30 and by the time we had got thru immigration and collected out luggage it was after midnight before we set off on the 45 minute drive to the hotel.

I knew we were staying at Le Meridian Pyramids in Giza, but I was still surprised at just how close to the pyramids it was. From the front of the hotel we had an great view of the two larger pyramids.

Checking in took longer than expected (as, it seems, almost everything does in Egypt) and eventually it was after 2am before we got to bed. Which meant that an 8:30 start for the tour of the pyramids wasn't very popular. I know that it's sensible to go early in the morning - before it gets too hot, but couldn't it have been on a day when we'd got a decent night's sleep.

Of course, all thoughts of tiredness vanish when you get close up to the pyramids. I remember that the first time I saw Stonehenge I was slightly disappointed by it's size - there were no such problems with the pyramids. They are huge. And very old. And just deeply impressive on many levels.

We had 20 minutes wandering round the base of the Greeat Pyramid. I took a few pictures and had my first encounter with the (very common) kind of Egyptian who wants baksheesh simply for putting himself in a photo that you are trying to take. Then we got back on the bus and drove past the second pyramid (the one that always looks the biggest in photos because it's on a slightly higher plain - but actually it's the second tallest) and on to the third (and smallest). We got to go into this one. That wasn't actually all the interesting as everything has been removed. All we saw were a few impressive chambers that were reached by practically crawling through some tiny passages.

The we were off to another higher plateau where we got a good view of all three pyramids and a good deal of hassle from people selling stuff at a small bazaar before going round to the other side of the pyramids to a temple and the Sphinx.

To be honest, the pyramids were the highlight of the trip and by the time we left them, we'd been in Egypt less than twelve hours.

Here's a useful tip for travellers to Egypt. Don't use Egypt Air.

As we entered the departure gate for our flight there was an extra security check. Now that's pretty understandable given the current political situation in the area, but the problem was that the Egypt Air security guard doing the checks spoke very little English[1]. He decided that he wanted to remove my unopened set of Duracell batteries from my hand luggage. His English was good enough to explain that they would be waiting for me in Cairo, but not good enough to explain why I couldn't have them on the plane with me. And then half an hour later as we were sitting on the plane, he changed his mind and came up to me and gave them back. I've still no idea what all that was about.

We boarded the plane about half and hour late and finally took off about an hour late. At no point during that time were we given any kind of explaination or apology for the delay.

And finally, you might like to know that Egypt Air doesn't server any alcohol on its flights. That didn't bother me much, but I really think that they should make that clearer to you _before_ you get on the plane (maybe even before you book the flight!)

All in all, not exactly one of my favourite airlines.

[1] But obviously his English was better than my Arabic!

I usually put stuff about Perl in my Perl blog but this is so cool that it deserves a wider audience.

Alex explains how he programs Perl life on stage and gets his computer to turn the program into dance music in real time. I've seen him do it. It's very impressive.

More details on his web site.

Apparently the popularity of sites like Friends Reunited is being blamed for a recent rise in the divorce rate.

A lot of people have a rosy impression of the first relationship they had at school or college. If they are feeling unhappy with their partner, they begin wondering what it would have been like if they'd stayed with the old flame. Friends Reunited makes it possible to get back in contact with old classmates. It doesn't cause breakdowns, but for those who were scanning for another relationship, it's a nice way of doing it. You make contact, you meet and Bob's your uncle.

Divorce rate surges as friends are reunited

So which schooldays crush would you leave your current partner for?