March 2006 Archives

Following on from Monday's post, I thought it might be interesting to go into a bit more detail about why I won't ever use Microsoft Word (or, indeed, any word processor) unless I have to. I have three reasons - one is personal experience, one is technical and the third is largely philosophical.

Firstly, the personal experience. I consider (or, more accurately, considered) myself a Word power-user. Many years ago I used to write Word macros to automate document creation. I know what I'm doing with Word. So when I wrote my first book, six or so years ago, Word was my first choice as the tool to use. I was using Word 97 and some formatting templates that had been supplied by my publishers. I remember that I had read some stories about problems that people had experienced writing a whole book in one Word document so I followed what seemed to be considered best practice and created a separate document for each chapter. Now this is all some time ago so my memory is a bit hazy, but I distinctly remember often having to spend time reapplying formatting that got scrambled when I opened a chapter. Now that could have been the version of Word, a problem with the templates, or some other technical glitch. All I know is that it left a bad taste in my mouth and over the months that I spent writing the book I went from being a Word fan to hating it with a passion.

My second reason is more technical. Any word processor will store your document in a proprietary binary file format. If you were to open a Word document in a text editor like Notepad then you wouldn't be able make much sense of what you see. That's because all of the formatting information is stored in a manner that only a word processing program can understand. One the other hand, Unix (and therefore Linux) has a long tradition of dealing with plain text files[1]. The Unix tool set has a large number of interoperable tools which can be used to manipulate text files in various ways. For example, it's simple to use "find" and "grep" to recursively search a directory and all subdirectories to find all of the files that contain a particular phrase. Another good example is getting a word count for a set of documents. With Word you would need to open each file individually, get the word count and add the numbers manually to get a total. With Unix tools, it's a simple process to get the word count for each individual file and the total across all the files. It's probably just what I'm used to, but I find it far easier to deal with plain text files.

My final reason is, as I said above, more philosophical. I don't think that WYSIWYG tools are a good way to produce documents. Think about it. How often do you spend almost as much time fiddling with the formatting of a Word document as you do actually writing? A WYSIWYG program encourages you to see the presentation of your document as intrinsically linked to the content. We used to see web publishing the same way - the presentation of a web page (lots of <font> tags and too many nested tables) were completely intertwined with the actual content making it hard to change one without changing the other. Now, of course, we laugh at the old days as we all produce semantically meaningful markup which will be formatted using an external stylesheet. And it should be the same with documents. Write what you have to write, only pausing to add extra information to define the various parts of the document (this is the title, this is a subsection header, this is a bullet list, and so on). Once you've created the document that way, you can start to think about how it should look and apply styles appropriately. I realise that Word can be used that way (the default document styles allow you to define the various parts of your document) but I don't think that a WYSIWYG program encourages you to think about your writing that way - the presentation always gets in the way.

I'm not saying anything new or radical here. People have been producing documents this way for years (ask your neighbourhood Unix geek about LaTeX). It's just a shame that the most popular end-user tools for document creation don't encourage this mode of working.

So that's why I prefer to work in a plain text format (or something that is, at least, stored as text like POD or DocBook) and why I'll never use a word processor unless it's something that a client insists on for some reason.

[1] And yes, I realise that text is (strictly speaking) another binary format. The point is that it is a simple and well-understood format. Of course Unicode encodings complicate that somewhat.

The Doctor Who publicity machine is really firing up now. There's a preview in the new Radio Times and a surprisingly long piece in today's Guardian.

The corporation is planning a marketing blitz as it seeks to create a buzz around next month's launch of the second series of the family drama since it was successfully revived last year.

It's still "next month's launch" though. No confirmation of the (assumed) 15th April start date[1].

As someone who has (admittedly vague) memories of watching the first Jon Pertwee episode of Doctor Who in 1970 it's all a bit strange seeing the BBC putting so much effort into the marketing. With a couple of exceptions for the tenth and twentieth anniversaries in 1973 and 1983 the BBC never really did much to promote the original series. But suddenly it's the flavour of the month and the marketing is everywhere. If you haven't seen any of it yet, then it's going to be hard to ignore over the next two weeks.

[1] Apparently this is confirmed in the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine as mentioned in this usenet discussion. However a story on the BBC site today still claims "an exact start date has yet to be confirmed in April for the second series."

The story of the Home Secretary vs the Canon rumbles on. And now it's made its way into the mainstream media. Unfortunately most of it is hidden away behind the Independent's paywall, but Rachel has links to all the best bits.

Here's a good lesson to learn. If a geek is calmly trying to explain something to you, it's generally a good idea to listen. Otherwise you run the risk of making a complete fool of yourself.

Jerry Taylor is the City Manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma. Last week the company who hosts Tuttle's web site had a problem which lead to the reinstallation of Apache and for a while the main page of the web site just served the server test page. Thinking they had been hacked, Mr Taylor contacted Centos (the people who supply the free operating system that the server runs and whose name was all over the new page) demanding that they removed their software that was blocking access to his web site.

Johnny Hughes replied on behalf of Centos and calmy and politely tried to get to the bottom of the problem. Oh, I shouldn't try and explain it. Just go and read the emails that were exchanged.

This strikes a chord with me. Often when someone configures the nms formmail program badly and see our error message I'll get angry emails demanding that we stop blocking their email. It's a difficult situation to deal with. It's not the user's fault that they don't understand the situation, but when you try to explain they think you're just trying to confuse them with tech-speak and they don't listen to you.

I'm just not cut out for end-user support.

It looks like the new series of Doctor Who is getting closer, with a number of repeats looming on both BBC Three and UKTV Gold. BBC Three is showing all of The Green Death two episodes a night from Monday 3rd April. Once that has finished, they're showing last year's series starting on Thursday 6th April (again, two episodes a night). UKTV Gold is showing the whole of last year's series over the weekend of Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th of April. Finally, on Sunday 9th April, BBC Three have a three hour "Doctor Who Night".

So I reckon that's all pointing to the new series starting on Easter Saturday (15th April). I'm looking forward to it.

There's an interesting discussion over on David Heinemeier Hansson's blog about how the technical publishing industry could change in order to give better deal to technical authors. It's particularly notable for the contributions from Tim O'Reilly and Gary Cornell (the publisher at Apress).

One point that interested me was DHH's assertion that all books are written in Word. I wrote my first book in Word, but I don't remember that being forced on me by the publishers. It was a disaster and probably added more than a couple of weeks to the whole process. I vowed never to do that again.

So when I wrote my second book, I was glad that neither of my co-authors ever suggested Word. It was decided from a very early point that we'd be using POD (actually O'Reilly's slightly extended version of POD). All three of us felt much more comfortable working in a text-based format. In fact the whole process made for an interesting article.

I can't believe that technical authors are happy writing in Word. The advantages using a format that can be processed using the standard Unix toolset must be obvious to anyone with a vaguely technical background. I can only assume that some publishers insist on Word.

That said, I'm not completely wedded to the idea of using POD. Next time (and I'm certainly not guaranteeing there will be a next time) I'm thinking of using DocBook. The idea of using a standard XML format that can be transformed into many other formats is very appealing. I might even try OpenOffice Writer in DocBook mode.

But I will never again write anything longer than a memo using Word.

I hate shopping for shoes. I particularly hate the sixteen year old sales assistants that you get in most shoe shops who seem far more interested in flirting with themselves than actually serving customers. The whole process is made even more stressful by the fact that my feet are quite big[1] which tends to limit my options in most shops.

All of this meant that my heart sank when I found a hole in my trusty old pair of Dr Martens shoes. I could see an afternoon in hell in my future. I planned to go to Oxford Street yesterday afternoon.

But then I had an idea. You can buy anything over the web these days, so why not look for online shoe shops. Now, some of you may recoil in horror at this idea. How can you possibly buy items of clothing online? Surely you want to examine the shoes before buying them, or even try them on? Of course, this plan probably wouldn't work if it wasn't for the fact that I knew exaclty what I wanted - a pair of black Dr Martens shoes to replace the old pair.

And within a short time, I had found what I was looking for. I bought them from a place called Cloggs (yeah, crap name isn't it). I was so happy that I didn't have to venture into a shoe shop that I even bought a new pair of Converse All-Stars at the same time.

My order was "despatched" [sic] today. Of course they won't fit through the letterbox so there will be a trip to the sorting office at some point this week. But that's better than having to go into a shoe shop.

I love the internet.

[1] UK size 11. Not sure what that is in foreign sizes.

Last night I gave a talk to the London Perl Mongers about "What's Wrong With ORM". It was a first draft of a talk that I hope to be giving a few times this year. There's also an article in preparation (well, I say "in preparation" but I actually mean "slowly coalescing in my brain").

Anyway, the slides are online. I'd be interested in hearing any comments that you have.

This pretty much sums up the difference in opinions between sane people and the people who read papers like the Express and the Mail. Express readers would rather have more money in their pocket than having it wasted on things like education and healthcare.

Oh, and by the way. Where can you buy nuclear weapons for only 30p? Sounds a bit cheap to me.

American's increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn't extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota's department of sociology.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in "sharing their vision of American society." Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Atheists identified as America's most distrusted minority, according to new U of M study (thanks Candace)

So I should write something about V For Vendetta, if only to say how much I disagree with Peter Bradshaw's review.

The graphic novel that the film is based on is one of my favourites, so I'm probably a bit biased and you should bear that in mind when reading my comments. Having said that, I should point out that the film isn't that closely based on the comic. Oh the basic shape of the story is there, but a lot of changes have been made. Most of these are simplifications which were probably necessary to get the story down to just over two hours. The author, Alan Moore, removed his name from the project apparently on the basis of the damage that Hollywood had done to two of his previous works (From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). This is a shame as this is by far the best adaptation of one of Moore's stories and it looks very strange to see the credit "Based on the graphic novel illustrated by David Lloyd" at the end of the film.

There were four points at which I thought that Hollywood spoilt the story.

• Natalie Portman's accent. I hear she worked very hard with a dialogue coach to get her English accent right. So why did she keep moving into South African? Surely it would have been cheaper to just employ an English actress.
• Brits do not eat a breakfast called "eggy in a basket". Why would the writers even think that we do?
• Most of the underground scenes took place in The Strand station. The Strand station was absorbed into Charing Cross station decades ago. Why not keep it in Victoria like in the book.
• Right at the end of the film, Stephen Rea pronounces "lever" to rhyme with "never". That's just wrong.

Minor quibbles tho' all in all.

Oh, one more annoying change. In the book the last explosion destroys Downing St. That's because there's a tube line that runs (nearly) under Downing St. In the film the last explosion destroys the Houses of Parliament. There's no tube line that runs anywhere near there (certainly not one that passes through "The Strand").

It's interesting to see how the politics in the story resonate with the current situation. When the book was originally written we were in the middle of the Thatcher nightmare and Moore's vision of the not-too-distant future was based on that. But under New Labour the future looks even more convincing. I liked Nik's point that a fascist government is no longer seen as a good enough reason for the audience to be against the government, they have to have been responsible for a biological attack on their own country as well.

One important point that the book and the film both make is that your definition of a terrorist depends on your beliefs and what the terrorist is fighting for. We're obviously sympathetic towards V and support his campaign against Norsefire - and yet he's using exactly the same tactics as the terrorists that we're currently at "at war" with. When Moore wrote the book the terrorists of the day were the IRA and V's actions were a terrible escalation of theirs. These days, V's actions don't seem at all unlikely or unrealistic.

So anyway, I recommend that you ignore the critics and go and see the film in order to make your own mind up. At the very least, it'll give you something to think about.

England prevails.

In an interview in today's Guardian the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has come out firmly against the teaching of creationism in schools.

AR: Are you comfortable with teaching creationism?

AC: Ahh, not very. Not very. I think creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories. Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it's not a theory alongside theories. It's not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said well, how am I going to explain all this.... I know ' In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And for most of the history of Christianity, and I think this is fair enough, most of the history of the Christianity there's been an awareness that a belief that everything depends on the creative act of God, is quite compatible with a degree of uncertainty or latitude about how precisely that unfolds in creative time. You find someone like St. Augustine, absolutely clear God created everything, he takes Genesis fairly literally. But he then says well, what is it that provides the potentiality of change in the world? Well, hence, we have to think, he says, of - as when developing structures in the world, the seeds of potential in the world that drive processes of change. And some Christians responding to Darwin in the 19th Century said well, that sounds a bit like what St. Augustine said of the seeds of processes. So if creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other theories, I think there's - there's just been a jar of categories, it's not what it's about. And it - it reinforces the sense that...

AR: So it shouldn't be taught?

AC: I don't think it should, actually. No, no. And that's different from saying - different from discussing, teaching about what creation means. For that matter, it's not even the same as saying that Darwinism is - is the only thing that ought to be taught. My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it.

(AR is the Guardian's Alan Rusbridger)

There's one thing that I have haven't seen mentioned in any of the discussion of the current Labour party loans scandal.

The Labour party "borrowed" nearly £14 million from various people in order to finance last year's election campaign. That means that they spent at least £14 million on the campaign.

Am I being naive? Or does anyone else think that's an obscene amount to spend on an election campaign? Perhaps that's an area that needs some more legislation.

Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace last year as part of his drive to make more effective use of the internet. According to the Guardian, the first results of this purchase will be the use of MySpace technology on the Sun's web site to create a "MySun" network.

The plan, in its early stages, would allow readers to go to a MySun portal and create their own web pages, blogs, as well as share pictures and video clips with friends using MySpace.com software.

Personally I find MySpace and the Sun's web sites to be two of the scariest places on the web. The idea of them producing some kind of bastard offspring is, frankly, terrifying.

From the Guardian's new Comment is Free site comes a great article by Stuart Jeffries.

Here's a modest proposal. In fact, here are two modest proposals. If the Labour government has any socialist principles left, then surely it should do two fundamental things in order to make our schools truly egalitarian rather than crapshoots for worried parents. They are: abolish fee-paying schools and abolish all faith schools as the main pedagogical institutions which children of school age attend (they may attend supplementary faith schools after hours).

And you know what? He's absolutely right.

As part of our cable TV package we subscribe to the Sky Movie channels. For about £15 a month we get eight Sky film channels (it was nine but one was recently removed for some reason) and a handful of Disney channels. But we pretty much subscribed to them by default ("oh, we like films so we should really have the film channels") and we've recently been reconsidering our subscription. The thing is that we very rarely watch those channels. On a good month I might watch three films on one of those channels. And to be brutally honest a lot of the films we watch on those channels are crap. The most recent film I remember watching on a Sky channel was 13 Going On 30 (I know, I have no excuse).

We could rent five films a month from our local DVD rental shop for the same money. And the'y'd almost certainly be higher quality films. But we rarely rent DVDs as it means someone being organised enough to go into the shop in the evening and then remembering to take the films back the next morning. Not a major logicistical trial, I admit, but one that we seem to want to avoid as much as possible.

So I've been looking at these new postal DVD rental services. Things like Love Film. Amazon have a similar scheme as do Blockbuster and even Tesco. There are no doubt many now.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Do you have any experience of these schemes? Which ones work for you? What is the selection of films like? I'd be interested in hearing any comments that you have.

Update: DVD trials looks like a good place to get a summary of all of these sites.

I got a reply to the email I sent to Charles Clarke on Tuesday. Here's what he said.

He said that he immediately regretted the exchange with Rachel's dad and wrote to him that afternoon inviting both him and Rachel to a meeting. He denies receiving any prior contact from Rachel's dad which is at odds with what Rachel says on her blog.

Regarding what actually happened last Friday, he says this:

As far as the incident itself was concerned, I consider that the Canon was both hectoring and insulting in that he did not permit even a word's response to his comments about a public enquiry. I did not actually use the words suggested on the website but it is the case that he was insulting without allowing any opportunity for discussion at all.

He closes by saying

Finally I well understand that many people believe that there ought to be a public enquiry, and I respect that view though I don't agree with it. I have of course considered the matter very carefully and I can tell you that the issues involved have nothing whatsoever to do with personal embarrassment or party-political matters.

Which really isn't very satisfactory. If he has "considered the matter very carefully" then surely he should be able to give the British public a reasonable reply when they ask why there hasn't been an enquiry. Hopefully Rachel and her dad will be able to get a better answer when they finally meet him.

Perl has a concept called "DWIM" (do what I mean). Greg McCarroll has prototyped a idea that he calls "SWIM" (search what I mean) where he monitors the speed that you type words in a Google search box and automatically quotes words that seem to have been typed together.

There's a fuller explanation in his blog and you can also play with the prototype.

Now we just need someone to turn it into a Greasemonkey script.

Charles Clarke has agreed to meet with Rachel's dad. Rachel is invited too.

I wonder how many letters and emails he received on the matter?

From the BBC:

Singer Isaac Hayes is to stop providing the voice for a character in cartoon South Park because he objects to its "inappropriate ridicule" of religion.

And what has finally opened Hayes' eyes to this injustice? I mean, it's not like South Park hasn't been taking the piss out religion since 1997. Even the pilot episode had Jesus fighting with Santa over the true meaning of christmas.

Oh, wait, I see. They've finally got round to taking the piss out of Hayes' own religion[1]. It was fine when they were satirising christians, mormons, muslims and jews, but suddenly the show has become insensitive to "personal religious beliefs".

Anyone else smell hypocrisy?

[1] Well, if you can call Scientology a religion.

Chicken Yoghurt suggests writing to Charles Clarke in an attempt to get him to answer Rachel's dad's question.

Why don't you write to the Home Secretary and ask him why he refuses to hold an public inquiry into the July 7 bombings? It's a game for all the family and couldn't be simpler. First you write to the Home Secretary and ask him why he refuses to hold an public inquiry into the July 7 bombings. Then, a month later, you write to the Home Secretary and ask him why he has failed to reply to your letter you sent to ask him why he refuses to hold an public inquiry into the July 7 bombings. Then, a month later...

I have Mr Clarke's email address as clarkec@parliament.uk. I've already sent my first email. Why don't you do the same.

Rachel from North London tells an appalling story of her father's attempt to ask a simple question of Charles Clarke (who, as well as being the Home Secretary, is also his MP). Clarke took umbrage at the question and accused Rachel's father of insulting him. Please read the full story as I can't do it justice here without cutting and pasting the whole thing.

It's clear that our current government see accountability to the electorate as nothing but an annoyance that they avoid whenever possible. How can they possibly justify treating the electorate this way?

According to the Guardian

Pupils in England will be required to discuss creationist theories as part of a new GCSE biology course being introduced in September.

If you must discuss creationism in schools then it belongs in religious education classes along with all the other superstitious nonsense. It certainly doesn't belong in a science class.

Update: The same story covered by the BBC.

It's an old story apparently, but I've only just read this terrible news:

The stars at one of central London's well-known tourist attractions will go dark for good this July. Madame Tussauds waxworks, the owner of the London Planetarium, has decided to close the facility as the company shifts its focus from science education to entertainment. The planetarium (renamed the Auditorium) will soon replace its shows with programs about celebrities.

It's bad enough that it's closing. But it's a sad comment on society that they are replacing it with "programs about celebrities".

When I was young a trip to the Planetarium was a real treat. I was spellbound by their presentations. It's a shame that children won't get that opportunity in the future. We should be encouraging interest in science, not killing it off.

This has made me very depressed.

More from the Times, the Guardian and the BBC. Oh and here's Lucy Mangan's reaction.

I wanted to point out an interesting article about how Google are having trouble recruiting staff for their new London office - but the article is in the Independent and because it's a few days old you now have to pay to read it. So here's the text that I got yesterday before the paywall dropped into place.

Google, the US search engine giant, is failing to attract enough talent to work in its fledgling London office.

Google is one of the world's best-known brands, with a market value of $112bn (£64bn), and boasts a strong reputation as an employer. Perks include staff being allowed to dedicate time to personal projects, known as the Twenty Per Cent Time Project, as well as free food and drink.

However, the group has so far failed to hire enough developers for its UK office. Although Google already has sales staff in London, employing engineers in the UK is a more recent development, and it began looking to recruit employees only four months ago.

"Our growth is exceptional in the current market conditions, so in order to stay abreast of new innovations and indeed the competition, we need to continuously seek the best talent, not only in the UK but across the world," Rian Liebenberg, information systems director of Europe, said.

Mr Liebenberg believes the main problem holding back recruitment is that potential candidates fear they will eventually have to relocate to California, where Google's head office is, which he insists is not the case. He also sites[sic] ignorance about what Google does, with some people believing it only offers a search engine service.

The vast majority of news stories that I link to here are from the BBC or the Guardian. That's, of course, partly because those organisations have the same pinko deviant view of the world as I do, but the major reason is because they understand the importance of permanence on the web. I know that links I use to their stories will still work long into the future.

I'm sure that the Independent are happy that the pay-for-content business model is working for them. But it means that people discussing the news won't be linking to their versions of the stories. And that means that less people are being directed to their site. Which can't be a good idea in the long run, can it?

It's heartening to see the amount of negative coverage that religion is getting on TV recently. It's clear that there are a number of people (or, at least, a number of people in TV production) who are worried about the increasing influence that religion is having on our society. Last night Channel Four's Dispatches entered the fray with a programme entitled "The New Fundamentalists" which was about the rise of evangelical christianity in the UK.

It was a good programme, but it really covered two topics, each of which could have made its own hour long documentary. The first half was a general "aren't evangelicals nutters" section. It covered a wide range of evangelical beliefs. This included a interview with the obnoxious Stephen Green (leader of Christian Voice) about his campaign against Jerry Springer - The Opera and a look at the UK branch of Silver Ring Thing (I thought that SRT had given up on the UK - it seems I was wrong).

This was all depressing enough, but the second half was worse. It was all about the Emmanuel Schools Foundation. This is an organisation which runs three schools in the North East of England under the government's City Academies Initiative. These schools are state-owned schools, so any child living in the catchment area is expected to attend, but they are controlled by the Emmanuel Schools Foundation which is an evangelical christian organisation. This means that a lot of the lessons are given with a christian slant.

The programme interviewed two teenage boys who had been taught evolution by a teacher who told them that they should write about evolution in their exam but that he believed that Genesis gave the true story of what happened. There was also an interview with the headmaster of one of the schools who said that he believed that the bible was literally true and that the world was created in six days about six thousand year ago. People with these beliefs should not be running schools. It's bad enough if children are being told this in private religious schools, but these views have no place in state-run schools. Of course, the Prime Minister doesn't agree with this point of view.

I firmly believe that children should not be exposed to religious dogma until they are old enough to consider its claims critically and therefore that there should be no faith-based schools at all. If, however, we must have faith-based schools (and unfortunately I can't see them going away any time soon) then they should exist completely outside of the state sector. And if we have to keep the current circumstances where we do have state-owned faith based schools then there must be close controls over what is taught so that children don't come out believing that creationism is a theory on the same level as evolution.

So Tony Blair thinks that god will judge him and his decision to go to war in Iraq. Well, no, actually he won't because god doesn't exist. Back in the real world, Blair should surely be more concerned about being judged by the British people and history. Unfortunately the British people won't get another chance to give their opinion of Blair, but let's hope that the history books make it clear what a nasty piece of work he is.

Anti-war campaigners say that his comments are a joke. I wish they were, but I'm pretty sure he was deadly serious.

Religion and politics should be kept completely separate. Getting advice from invisible sky pixies is no way run a country.

More on this subject from Blairwatch, Bloggerheads and Chicken Yoghurt.

Writing in today's Guardian, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is understandably happy to hear that McDonald's are closing twenty-five of their UK branches.

Even McDonald's European boss, Denis Hennequin, is struggling to put a happy face on the situation: "The UK has been in negative territory for a couple of years now," he admitted. "The brand 15 years ago was very trendy and modern. It is now tired."

It's probably over five years since I've eaten anything from McDonald's I've never been a fan of their products. And this isn't really for either healthy eating or anti-globalisation reasons (although these are both, of course, perfectly good reasons for not eating there). In my case it simply comes down to the fact that I've never enjoyed any McDonald's products that I've eaten[1]. I really can't see the attraction. Most of their food tastes disgusting. I honestly can't understand why people find it so appealling.

[1] Ok, I admit it, except for their thick shakes.

Rachel from North London sums up what a lot of us are thinking and plugs the new Liberty Central web site.

If you're feeling a bit bored then please help us tick off the last few album covers on this photo.

Since watching Richard Dawkins' The Root of All Evil? I've noticed myself becoming less tolerant of religious beliefs. I really think that it's time for rational thinkers to stand up and be counted. I've been discussing this with a few friends, but within my circle of friends that's largely... er.. preaching to the converted. On the tube last night I was wondering what my next steps might be if I wanted to get really involved in the fight againt medievalism.

And then as I was leaving the tube station someone thrust a leaflet into my hand. It said "Catholicism for the Curious". It seems that my local catholic church is running a month of events trying to draw more people into its clutches. It starts tonight with a talk called "Is there God after Dawkins?" There's a web site too.

If I was the kind of person who believed in such things, I'd be thinking that this was all a sign and that I'm meant to go along.

Argh. They've done it again.

A truth which has the downside of keeping many true artists poor in garrets and many false ones rich in mansions was universally acknowledged yesterday.

(Pride, prejudice and happiness: readers choose favourite endings - Guardian)

Is it too much to ask that just once a journalist can write an article that mentions Pride and Prejudice and doesn't start with some supposedly clever remix of the opening line? Or is there some NUJ rule that says they have to do it?

It's really not as clever as they seem to think it is.