I mucked around with the samples throughout the book and think that Gennas Jewellery site is probably ok for layout and style. I will probably tweak it a bit – definitely try to do something with the logo section to be laid out a bit better.

I have the idea in my head of what to do with the amount of content – move from 11 top level pages down to 6 and re-write most of the content there. The catalogue I am still not 100% on.

Just started reading Building Findable Websites so that I have a better idea of what to do with the content I write for it.

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This morning I was digging through old posts, spotting errors etc when I noticed one about Blackwoods going into administration.

It appears they have licenced their vodka to Blavod

I repeat, Blackwoods vodka is now available again. This stuff is amazing. Must buy.

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I went last year and thought it was excellent so was looking forward to this year. Only one clash and one empty slot for my preferred items I voted for so a good result for me.

Right now my plans would be for:

1. HTML 5: The Language of the Cloud
2. T4 and How it Can Be Used for Code Generation in Visual Studio 2008/2010
3. Web Standards are Broken, and it’s Getting Worse OR Defensive Programming 101
4. Decide on day
5. Domain Specific Languages – What Are They and Why Should You Care?

I was wanting to dig into HTML 5 soon anyway. We use T4 for part of one project at work but I haven’t even looked at it. Web standards is obvious but I tend to code very defensively so am interested in the other option in that slot too. Any of the slots in 4 apart from Silverlight would be both of interest and something I wouldn’t normally look at. I had been interested reading Ayendes posts about Boo but know nothing about it so good chance to get an introduction into them.

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To celebrate, rather than record the usual show of about 1hour the hosts organised a 12 hour spectacular pulling together some of the brightest and most interesting people in the web industry. There were experts on coding and design, CSS and CMS, useability and social networking etc. There were also girls. OMG!!!!!

Suffice to say the mouth breathers in the shows chatroom went ballistic. These women couldn’t have been invited on because they were experts in their field, oh no. They were invited on because they were women. The fact they dared to be attractive women, intelligent women, confident women was just too much for them to bear.

IT is a bad enough field as it is for being male dominated. From university to workplaces the vast majority of people involved are male. If you want to question if this is self-perpetuating or not you only have to have seen some of the reports of comments being made by these people.

Two of the women involved in the show Sarah Parmenter and Rachel Andrew have written brilliant pieces laying into these Neanderthals which I would highly recommend reading.

Take small comfort from the thought that this morning most of those who disgraced themselves will be waking up and falling asleep alone, with only Warcraft to take their frustrations out onto.

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I had thought about throwing together a wee 3 page site or so in a variety of formats – XHTML1, 1.1, 2, HTML5 with liquid/fixed/fluid layout etc to try and clean off the rust.

Rather than just flail and read random bits I bought a decent looking book and intend to go through it working through the examples from everything from the most basic things to the most advanced.

No idea how long it will take but the experience should be worthwhile as I would then have a more realistic idea of what can be done in CSS to then re-look at Gennas site afresh.

Gennas site

When I first made Gennas site she wanted it small and with a well-defined number and variety of pages. If Wordpress or a similar CMS had been readily available at the time I would have used it. As it was I had tried to manually create a kind of category/tagging system for the jewellery in static HTML. It seemed ok with 20items, at the current 200+ it is unmanageable.

I had had to manually add each page for each new item Genna added – which when making one-off pieces the majority of time is a lot of wasted effort compared to someone who makes 30 of something and adds it to a shop once. I gradually managed to show Genna how to do some HTML editing which is really good – she learned the basics of a skill in a field totally unrelated to what she does.

Unfortunately Notepad has no spell checker so it was easy for mistakes to creep in.

The other pages were added to the top level of the site over time and now number 11, most of which have sub pages.

When it came to add a shop I threw on an off the shelf package which I haven’t even taken the time to modify. When I realised the amount of time wasted maintaining a new page I threw on a blog which has been far better.

Both of these are great as Genna can write copy like in a word processor and I can switch tabs to code for clean-up/doing anything more complicated.

Near term work

What have I been doing lately

Adding her blog to directories etc.
Set up twitter account
Set up Facebook Group page
Linked blog to Facebook and Twitter so messages are automatically sent to each service.

So what has to be done in the near future:

Reduce duplicate content
Review each page for keywords and make sure we are not doing anything stupid which for a small amount of work would give way better performance in search engines.
Reduce top level pages – I have already identified some to go.
Review catalogue (Genna and I disagree over what to do, see below).
Give site a complete once over for code-validity and useability. Re-review in all browser strains and new ones since I last did it.
Design new Wordpress template for blog.
Look at new template/add ins for shop.

Catalogue

Genna makes lots of one-off pieces. How do we best manage this. In the near past each item was given a new page inside a category (rings, bracelets etc). When pieces went to galleries each price had to be changed to Currently on display at X gallery etc.

With the addition of the shop this was easier as it would be marked as out of stock.

This posed an additional problem though. Add 20 rings, sell 18 and you have only two in stock. We solved this by paying a tiny amount for an add-in that hid out of stock items.

Brilliant, except now items that had sold no longer appeared on the site. This posed two more problems.
1. Someone buys an item and can’t then review it.
2. We spend ages building up a keyword of a type of item and then have no page to link to say none in stock, order one to be made for you.

It’s a pickle and once I have not had the time to sit down and think long and hard about. I think the best solution may be to write a blog piece about each new design then add into the shop so that it is there for historical purposes but am not 100% sure.

This is in the future though, I need to re-learn what I might have forgotten about HTML/CSS then after that work through the list, then learn enough PHP to modify her shop code.

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I can log into the Live mail account associated with it and am online doing other things.

What am I trying to do? Play Dawn of War 2 Campaign.

That, is a single player game which requires two online services to run – Steam and Games For Windows.

I will repeat – I want to play a single player version of a game and can’t as 1 of the 2 online services required to do so is bust.

This is a fundamentally flawed design from a gamers perspective. I am sure Microsoft love that they have you DRM’d up the wazzo and that you can’t re-sell the game. What they fail to remember is that gamers don’t care about the publishers perspective on these issues.

Your system is broken.

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What was strange was it had been expected to be handed to the Health committee. According to party hacks euthanasia doesn’t fall under the remit of health.

The more you know.

There is of course another side to the story according to Scotlands new online newspaper Caledonian Mercury

The practice of setting up committees where an issue doesn’t fall under the remit of an existing committee has a logic to it. The chair of these committees rotates amongst the parties.

The SNP were due to convene the next one.

The SNP were also due to produce their Independence Referendum and have it heard by such committee.

The opposition parties took a serious issue which has caused serious discussion on politics throughout the country and fucked about with it purely to score political points against the SNP.

Those who voted to do so should hang their heads in shame, but like we saw recently in Westminster very few elected representatives are capable of doing so, never mind when they have been caught doing something most people would be pretty annoyed about.

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Looking forward to seeing more images up soon.

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Daily mash as usual are pretty on the ball with the satire.

He apparently will be touring the country later in the year condemning homosexuals and anything else that pops from his arse to his mouth.

You know there was a book about some guy written a couple of thousands years ago and one of the thing this guy says in it is a pretty good quote to take on board.

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

So here’s an idea for Mr Ratzinger.

When you stop your organisation covering up the systematic molestation of thousands of children over the course of decades (that we know of) then you can stick your nose into other peoples sex life.

Until then shut the fuck up or you taking part in ritualistic cannibalism and pretending to hear voices is fair game for everyone else to rip the piss out of.

And in the meantime, sign the petition to try to stop UK taxpayers footing the bill for the head of a foreign state to tour the country spreading hateful propaganda against minorities.

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The two stand-outs for me though were the ingenuously fuelled letter about classical music with the quote the capital is positively stiff with magnificent organs.

The second is the large column with outrage that a comedian has been dumped from a festival, the comedian in question being Paul Merton, he who co-stars with Eye editor Ian Hislop on Have I Got News For You. This got as much disclosure as they look for when the Sun gives 5 star ratings to Fox films though which made me chuckle.

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Before Christmas there was a stooshy in the Courier due to Dundee holding a Winters Light Festival which included turning on the Christmas tree lights among other things as part of the Homecoming Celebration.

Rants and raves from the religious and righteous about political correctness gone mad etc etc. Missing the point that people were taking part in the event who would have no interest in turning on some lights along.

Some were proclaiming that as Christians were a majority no-one should do anything in the slightest to offend any Christians etc etc (never mind the usual Revs who write in saying gay people are hell bound sinners and so on).

I wrote in asking these Church organisations to reveal their church attendance to determine whether they really were a majority or not. Should that be established then and only then could you discuss minority/majority rights/responsibilities with knowledge of the facts.

Answer came there none.

We do have a comparison though. The Church of England has released some figures.

Their average attendance in England is 1.145 million per week. This was a figure from 2008, I could only find the population figure from 2001 (49,138,831), but this will have probably risen so this will be an over-estimate in their favour. This puts attenders at 2.33% of the population of England.

Is this the figure for Scotland or Dundee – no, is it likely to be similar – no reason why it won’t be the same ballpark. Until the figures are revealed it’s as good an estimate as any.

So the next time you hear or read some Christians ranting about how they should have special rights over everyone else or how their spokespersons should have a seat on every debate or indeed that they are a majority in society – remember that figure.

2.33%

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Apparently them phoning up people claiming to be from Google and people reporting this is grounds to send in legal threats.

In the actual thread a number of people posted their experience with the company (the post was third in Google when you searched for the company). These included people claiming to be former and current customers and former staff.

A boss then waded in claiming that their staff did no such thing. His rambling run on sentences were something to behold. Then a number of testimonials appeared from satisfied customers with a very similar writing style. He then posted again claiming people writing bad things about his company were all working for his competitors.

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The newspaper headline section was hilarious with their shocking headlines and attacks on Brown. Given the Daily Mails usual line I was shocked that Frozen Britain wasn’t Browns Frozen Britain.

I’m no fan of the pillock but the tabloid attacks can be pretty pathetic sometimes.

It never happened under Blair was a jokey comment followed by Just call me Dave will sort it out. You could just picture a Dave sermon on waste

Under the former Labour Government, Labour councils were riddled with waste. For example: grit. They whinged and whinged they didn’t have enough of it, then when he splurged more on them it dissapeared immediately. None could be found it the depot, they were just chucking it away. As soon as it was gone they demanded more. Outrageous. Millions couldn’t make it to work, schools were closed, it was more damaging than a day of strike!! Our Conservative government stopped this by not shipping grit to councils who would waste it and moving everyone into workhouses so they wouldn’t have an excuse for being late. As for kids, education is a ridiculous expense they can sweep chimneys in my manor from the age of eight.

You get the idea.

With Tory or Labour cuts coming you could see a repeat of this only getting worse. If you are a council in the South East and get a wee sprinkling of snow every other year and an inch or so every 30 years it’s a short term gain to cut spending on grit supplies. In the next 4 years that’s a low chance of needing them. Look at all that waste you have saved, inefficiency solved. Never mind that to get it when you need it as your streets are locked up means the price is gouged and days of work have been lost for thousands of people including council employees. It’s the same short term policy planning that leads to quarterly bonuses for bankers etc.

I was reminded of this watching a video on Daily Mash of David Mitchell ranting about waste. He points out it’s like taking over a bar and saying you will eliminate waste by banning spillages and being really really careful. And just as likely to work. Unfortunately I can’t find the clip.

Maybe the councillors should find out more about the delays in getting salt and grit to their doors when it’s needed. They all seem in favour of a junket at our expense, in Dundee these have included trips to the middle east and trips to strip bars. Maybe a fact finding mission to the salt mines of Siberia is in order. Of course we should only look at the short term cost so buying a return ticket is out. Once there they can make a plan for the short term by trying to then get a single to return.

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Insurgents hack US drones

Iraqi insurgents are intercepting communications from pilot-less drones as they are not encrypting it before sending it to base.

The second will be of interest to anyone who has visited the Secret Bunker in Fife. A report of a tour round a nuclear missile silo in the US. Really fascinating.

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The campaign is stupid and cynical

From a talentless prick who has made millions from selling celebrity-hood to a bunch of talentless glorified karaoke singers.

More important than sticking a middle finger up to this oxygen thief though is the possibility of Rage Against the Machine doing more gigs or releasing more stuff. Yeah disappear just before eight years of Bush, great timing guys.

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Banks had to meet the costs of doing business.

From a bank who had billions chucked at it after failing at business and then billions more in secret so that it’s share price wouldn’t plummet more. They then started discussing how many staff to make redundant.

The bare faced cheek of the man.

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Details of the artists can be found at their blog. The artists are having profiles of them and their work added – Gennas is here.

WASPS Dundee

Saturday 28th November 11am – 5pm
Sunday 29th November 12pm – 5pm

There are also raffle tickets, £1 each or 5 for £4 with the prizes being several pieces of jewellery. The proceeds are being split between the Association for Contemporary Jewellery and Maggies Centre in Dundee.

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It is an outrage that your government have sacked Professor David Nutt. Surely the purpose of advisers is to give an experts opinion not to rubber stamp policy decisions by government taken not because of scientific evidence but in line with the opinions of the readers of the vile Daily Mail.

Perhaps your government can find a drugs adviser from the scientific school of Trofim Lysenko? It is bad enough that the government ignores the evidence from scientific study into the uselessness of the “war on drugs” and the huge positive gains to be made by prescribing heroin to addicts but to now sack advisers for stating that the facts are contrary to government policy is inexcusable.

Considering McGovern spent months on the payroll vote and his likelihood of being re-elected is zilch I doubt I’ll get anything positive back from him (as per usual).

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Woo.

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Friday

On the Friday we arrived in the afternoon so we only really ate out for tea. With the hotel we were given a voucher for various Hotel owned outlets. We opted for Poppadom Express having had a great meal there the last time. The receptionist said there was no need to book a table although the voucher said you did. We popped in and were asked if we had booked, no and we explained. After a short while we got a table.

We ordered drinks and went up to the buffet for our starters. I noticed the selection was well down on last time. Our drinks arrrived, well most of them, the bottle of wine did not. When we eventually spotted a waitress we pointed it out and she got the original waiter. We said we had also ordered a bottle of wine but it hadn’t come. He started arguing that we hadn’t ordered it. Bit bizarre, whether we had already ordered it or were making a new order we were still getting a bottle which was more than a place at the buffet. I had a curry Karachi Chicken which was ok, and the hottest they had. Then I tried their Korma which was pretty crap. Was disappointed as it had been great the last time.

Saturday

Breakfast was also a bit poor, the hotel appeared to have cut the offerings and it was always cold.

Saturday lunch time was at Covent Garden Piazza and I had a Lancaster Cheese Burger which was gorgeous. Teatime we tried to order pizza. Pizza orders go to same place as the Indian. We were told they just had a few people in so were too busy and hung up. I have phoned Dominos, Pizza Hut etc when busy and they have said It will be at least an hour is that ok? but never said too busy and hung up. Pretty shit service from the same place two nights in a row. We opted to go to the hotel and I had a half decent chicken curry (their other option didn’t look that good). It was actually quite tasty.

Sunday

Sunday we were down at Spitalfields so at lunch had food in a pup called White Hart where I tried a beef burger. It was fantastic, well above the usual pub standard. Place was pleasant, staff friendly. A pair sat at the table beside us and we got chatting for a bit. Anatolia from Russia, then Belgium, now London. They were looking for info on a Kevin Spacey play. Grabbed the Nokia 770 and they were really grateful.

For tea at night we went looking at some of the Italians etc near the hotel. Eventually setting for Cagneys in a side street. I had a really nice Barbecue chicken.

Monday

At Kings Cross we had lunch at a really nice French cafe along the Strand. Gorgeous Escalope chicken. Will definitely go there again.

Gabys Hot Stuff

At Spitalfields market there was a stall with Chili sauce. I tasted it and then grabbed a jar, gorgeous stuff. Family recipe from Central America, chilli sauce made from Habaneros. It was quite amusing watching the mortals wince after tasting a bit. Would have got a bottle but I still have some from Mexico but wanted to support them anyway.

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For £149 per year she can have a site with a shop. A quick scan of their site shows that that package is £199 per year. The £149 one is aimed at people with no website at all. On the phone the Web Consultant (sales rep) also asked her what her website address was. Nice research there bub. A quick search for teh number they were calling very quickly shows that.

A quick browse round their site was quite telling. News from 2007 (we are a popular company, see this non-existant report that you would have to pay for anyway), a blog (link dead) and vacancies. The vacancies at these places is always interesting, multiple telesales positions, 1 web developer position. The web developer ad language is amateurish at best, not what you would expect from a really big web design company which has been going for years.

A search on the company finds almost no mention of them anywhere, not helped by their name being made of two common words.

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It was ok, a few laughs but nothing special. What is frustrating is it had so much potential. Anyway to start off, I had read the reviews that it was a world where everyone tells the truth. This is inaccurate. It is a world of David Brents where everyone blurts out what’s on their mind constantly with no tact nor regard for anyones feelings.

A world where everyone tells the truth is one where if asked if you like someone you say no. In this world you walk up to them and call them an asshole. A slight difference. In the course of the film Rickys character learns how to tell a lie. This is a revelation, not only does no one know what this is there is not even a name for it. He uses it for the greater good, sees how it backfires etc etc. I will try not to spoil anything you can’t guess anyway.

One part which has American critics going ape is that he invents the idea of an afterlife – the worlds first liar creates religion. Some amusing parts of this plot.

I didn’t really connect these as they aren’t in the story. It lumbers from one idea to the next, never really finishing any train of thought off. This is quite symbplic of the worlds characters as they blurt out every thought and carry on with their lives.

I found the concept of the film fascinating, in the same way Sci-Fi takes our world, twists it and explores some idea to allow an abstract view into it this film took our world and said Look what it would look like if no one lied. This philosophical idea is only ever used for cheap gags and there’s no real pay off apart from a better look at one character.

Unfortunately Gervais’s character comes off as a nice guy in a sea of assholes and by the end hasn’t grown at all, hes still the nice guy of the film.

If you liked David Brent in the Office, this is a film cast entirely of people playing him. If you didn’t you should avoid.

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What shocked me was that I couldn’t really think of anything significant I had done yet. For me. I thought about it a bit more and counted up about 20 days I had helped Genna on stalls including about 3 weeks of holidays from work. So from someone else’s perspective, they (hopefully ) view me as having done something significant this year.

It was kind of humbling to think that over the course of the year the things I have done and spent my time doing have had a positive effect for other people more than myself. I’m quite happy with that.

What have you achieved for yourself or anyone else this year?

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Firstly by claiming that other churches do it too (nice deflection)

Secondly by claiming that the majority of paedophile priests were gay.

Supremely ironic given one of the vilest homophobic attacks is to claim that gay people are paedophiles. See this article for example.

but lastly with this belter.

only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

So if you are in a room with 20 priests, one of them is a child molester, and according to the Vatican that’s no big deal.

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I added a thing to the blog which should integrate, testing it now.

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Those that know me in person know I love puns and wordplay. I can generally be found giggling at something which amuses me which I then have to explain to others who hadn’t noticed it, or in some cases had but hadn’t been amused and then are annoyed at me explaining it to them. To quote Brian Keenan in Blind Flight

The Englishman is funny,’ he says, ‘He makes me laugh. The Irishman is witty, he makes me think.’

I’ll dump a few random pieces here so that if I don’t get back to the subject I have at least written something about it.

Lisp

A lisp is a speech impediment which causes people to have trouble pronouncing the letter S. The word lisp has difficulty being pronounced without using said letter. Which cruel shit decided to name it so?

Speech impediment

Seeing the wikipedia article on lisp reminded me of number 2 on the list: speech impediment. See: lisp, how does someone with a stammer communicate they have a speech impediment with dignity? Again with the cruelty etc.

Abbreviation

An abbreviation is a shortened version of a word. Doctor may be abbreviated to Dr. You can see the clever wee bit of HTML there? That allows you to expand the text using a variety of means to see the full version of the word. The HTML tag for abbreviations is abbreviated to <abbr> due to length.

There were others I had come across and neglected to put up. Do you have a favourite ironic word or phrase? Maybe you call an ambulance when you hear some illiterate prat exclaim my arm has just literally fallen off?. Post yours in the comments.

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Anyhoo, the two amusing things prompting the title.

Firstly posh portaloos. They had hired the poshest portaloos I had ever seen. The sinks were bowls on raised daises. They had motion sensor activated taps. To dry your hands there were no paper towels – only small disposable towels to be dumped in a bin and presumably washed afterwards. You don’t see these at T in the Park.

Anyhoo we then retired to an afternoon of polo. A game I had never seen played before. I can’t imagine why I played football as a kid. All you needed was a ball between 20-odd of you. For polo the entry-level requirements are a bit less – 2 horses and one of the eight of you to have access to a flat marked out area the size of three football pitches.

It was quite fun to watch for the first half, got a bit boring towards the end, but that was due to the play rather than the game of polo itself.

The commentator was highly amusing, some of the phrases that I remember were:

Joe’s riding Sue hard from behind to stop him playing with Bob.

And he’s just stepping down to examine the horses girth…and seems happy with it

The game was Scotland vs South Africa so hearing And you can now that only the white man is allowed to do that sent a shiver down my spine a bit even though they were referring to the jersey colour.

There was a meal afterwards. Starter was excellent on the second attempt (fish was first), the sweet was an amazing cheesecake. The main was cold steak with a large blob of fat in the centre. All in all a fun day and it was all free for me so I’m not complaining at all.

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It’s ordered and now I can’t wait for September. It was suggested this was to renew the copyright by releasing it again.

In that case, I can’t wait for Hero Quest and Warhammer Quest which would be re-released in the next couple of years.

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He was really, really funny. Lot’s of nerdy material, references but also stuff non-geeks could get related to his attempt to appear on Britain’s Got Talent (but not the drivel on this show).

I did a search and eventually found his MySpace page. So he loses geek cred for having that as his only online presence, obviously. Was highly amused by a review I found.

Read what this cock has to say.

I could just imagine similar.

As a feminist, mother in law and lesbian I did not appreciate the comedy of Roy Chubby Brown.

Or the like.

Guess what, comedian is targeting his audience by saying it will be lots of geek humour, if you don’t know who Captain Kirk is you probably shouldn’t go along as you will probably be sitting there with a glazed look on your face you numpty.

Rob mentioned overhearing some people looking at his flyers and saying meh, it’s probably about capes n’ shit.

So hopefully he will still be kicking around next year and I can see him again.

Before Rob I also saw two other comedians.

The first, an Australian was ok, he had some good material but a lot was related to lols England sucks at cricket compared to Australia etc. Not only has it been done to death before but no one really gives a shit about cricket in Scotland. His other material was enjoyable though with his sperm test tale being very funny.

The second of the pair was pretty good. His stage persona was just verging on being more enjoyable than funny but his material was really good. Excellent on stage, ditching the mic and just going without.

These were free shows so at the end the comics had a whip round to pay for extravagances like food, rent and the like.

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It was quite fun, the weather was pretty poor at times (which you pay attention to when working outside!) but at its worst was not as bad as last years torrential downpours.

One of the reasons I like the fairs is that I enjoy blethering with people. To quote Kaylee from Firefly They’ve all got stories. Not just the public but the other exhibitors too. Every year there are new people and you are next to a different set of people so you get to know a bit about everyone. This year we also bought/swapped a bunch of stuff.

Gillian Kyle was opposite us and has pretty cool printed t-shirts etc with Scottish cultural logos.

Next to us was Will with his hand made Journals. These were really cool, Genna bought me a Serenity one. I will be contacting him at some point in the future to make another one too.

Gayle Robinson was just to the left. Her collagraphs were amazing. We got one and I was drooling over another really nice abtract landscape one in various shades of blue.

Sue from Look out scout! has totally awesome kiddies t-shirts with fun animal facts. Her website is really cool with lots of activities for kids. She had hers with her some days and they amused themselves giving everyone a quiz. My 5 out of 10 was not enough to win the packet of Oreos though . Her stand was really nice too with fake grass and animals etc all over the place. Sometimes you get a bit bored seeing a row of stands all day every day with the only variation being the colour of tablecloth and whether necklaces are on the right or left of the display. Really brightened up your day noticing new stuff all over.

Frans McAnaraks stall was even cooler this year. Steve from Highland Games made her buttons for clothing and they had so many requests from people they eventually caved in and started selling them too. Last year was a trial run with a small selection, this year there was a massive amount on day 1 and not so many on day 9 when we left. Her site has her selection of buttons on it but not her really funky one off coats etc. Genna now has 4 of her clothing items.

Stephen O’Neill had some really nice prints and we ended up getting 4. With the Rikki O’Neill print we got last month we can now make a wall of images of Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Genna did really well too. I’ll dig out the spreadsheets etc later (we forgot to take the details of last year) but it was definitely worth going .

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She wanted the palette changed to blues though so I made modifications. I couldn’t see any licence, but assuming it was GPL‘d I’ll put the modifications here.

I changed the following files:

Footer.php

Added text Colours modified by Alan Graham to show I had modified it.

Style.css

#left ul

border: 0px solid #00CCFF;
background-color : #00CCFF;

#left ul li.backLava

background-color:#0099FF;

#left ul li a:hover

background-color : #0099FF;

#sidebar ul

border: 0px solid #00CCFF;
background-color : #00CCFF;

#sidebar ul li.backLava

background-color:#0099FF;

#sidebar ul li a:hover

background-color : #0099FF;

#header

background-color: #00CCFF;

#footer

background-color: #00CCFF;

h3

color: #66CCFF;

h2 a:hover, h3 a:hover

color: #66CCFF;

.post

border-bottom: 1px solid #66CCFF;

#sidebar #searchform #s, #sidebar2 #searchform #s

border: 1px solid #66CCFF;

#searchform2 #s2

border: 1px solid #66CCFF;

select

border: 1px solid #66CCFF;

#commentform fieldset

border: 0px solid #66CCFF;

#commentform input

border: 1px solid #66CCFF;

#commentform textarea

border: 1px solid #66CCFF;

.commentlist

border-top: 0px solid #66CCFF;

.commentlist li, .commentlist li.alt

border-bottom: 0px solid #66CCFF;

blockquote

border: 1px dotted #66CCFF;

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color: #66CCFF;

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Beta just now, posting purely to show here pingbacks.

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I just watched the trailer.

What the hell is Burton doing with all this ridiculous CGI? It looked appalling and out of place. Never mind that most of it was completely unnecessary, bah. CGI works if it blends in to the film, if it adds details but doesn’t stand out. All the grognnards complain about the remastering of Star Wars, what made it bad wasn’t that it was restored and remastered and cleaned up but that CGI was dumped in (and that Greedo shot first, obviously). It jarred against the style of the film and also made the rest of the film look dated. The previous remastering where they mainly cleaned up the print was a welcome improvement.

I had been looking forward to it, but don’t know if I should even bother now.

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Of course it will be no surprise to know the rag source of this garbage is the Hitler supporting Daily Mail.

Of course if such a claim were true the DJ would be in luck, with a profile and a paranormal ability he can go for the Randi $1million Challenge.

Given that previous claimants with similar abilities have not been able to tell when wi-fi signals are on or not his chance of winning is low, but surely it would make his illness bearable to live off a million dollars?

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Yoink.

I had a bottle before after searching for a few years and it was gorgeous. Later spotted some in a wine shop in Edinburgh for £20. Thought sod that and now managed to score these for £16 each. Seeing as they are now in administration I will need to keep one but one was opened Saturday night and was as good as I remember. mmmm.

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Rumoured Space Hulk contents

this is obviously exciting as if it is successful it means Games Workshop might look into re-releasing Hero Quest/Advanced Hero Quest/Warhammer Quest.

Speaking of Hero Quest, found a new free gaming magazine with a short article about it here – Irregular Magazine. No new information for me but good to see other people talking about it.

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The reports have mainly went on about the war he fought in and ignored his insights into the situation.

Which is a shame, as he had wise words to say on the war

On a graveyard in France

Any one of them could have been me. Millions of men came to fight in this war and I find it incredible that I am the only one left.

He described war as the

calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings…war isn’t worth one life.

Of course this is in stark contrast to Butcher Haig who callously sent thousands to their death due to his stupidity, lack of respect for human live and inability to understand that sending people over an open field covered in mines towards a machine gun isn’t going to work.

The fact that he has a fund in his name for surviving soldiers is a travesty of irony.

It is of course one of the reasons I avoid wearing a red poppy and every year buy a pack of Peace Pledge Union white poppies to sell on behalf of the Dundee Coalition for Justice Not War.

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Films

Have watched quite a few films recently, the best being In My Fathers Den which was superb. I tried to find the book online but it was quite expensive.

Other recent watches included Sickle (appalling), We Don’t Live Here Anymore (great), Crow 4 (hahahahaha – kiss the bride mother fucker) and various others I forget.

Music

I got the new Spyamp album which was quite good and went to first gig in a while – Hazey Janes, Ian MacAuley Trio, Dropkick and Riley Briggs (guy from Aberfeldy) which was good fun.

Random Coding

Fannied about with Gennas website for a bit, installed a CMS as a test – haven’t progressed very far. Spent £5 to verify account and got £80 of Google Adwords so we are currently experimenting with a week long campaign to see how much you need to spend to get clicks etc.

On Wednesday I went to a presentation to see a coding tool being developed at Dundee University called Code Rocket. It looks quite useful for using documentation more effectively and dealing with legacy code. Expecting details of the beta test through at work so hopefully can play about with it at home too.

Nerdiness

I have been reading through the advance copy of Dungeon Crawl again to help proof read it. It’s about 2 years since I last did so I think. Should be finally released soon though if Biff can stop flip flopping about what amazing stuff to include with this game to help smack the shit out of you.

There’s also a Hero Quest forum there for retro nerdness.

I also picked up two new adventures for Faery’s Tale seeing as my niece has been hounding me to play it with her again.

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I had heard great things about both Drupal and Joomla so figured they would be top of my list. Looked at the install for Drupal, looked simple enough. Tried to install on my machine and got no end of problems.

Hey let’s create an “install.php” but not make it do a complete install, sod that we want our users to learn loads of unix commands to set it up, too hard for the authors to script.

Fuck that noise.

Wordpress and Cubecart being the two other applications I have installed both had this facility. I don’t mind editing a config file or anything but that was a step too far. When I install an application on Windows you follow the options and click appropriate sections. You don’t have to hand edit the registry. Why? Because you shouldn’t have to.

I then downloaded Joomla, waited and age for it to upload to server and then went to the directory. Redirected to installation directory where it checks my requirements. It tells me I have a problem, the help file with the handy screenshots tells me exactly what I need to do to fix it. It then checks again. It asks for FTP and MySQL usernames etc. Installs and is all set to go.

I have no idea yet if it does what I want it to do but unlike Drupal it has passed the first hurdle of making it possible for me to find that out. It could be that Wordpress would do but I think the option to easily integrate forums etc is a good bonus. I have to have her shop in it too which will be another hurdle.

Lesson: you may have the greatest web application in the world but if you make users jump through hoops in order to test it you will get nowhere. If I cared enough to look into it I would have managed to set up Drupal, I just didn’t give enough of a shit to. My time is too valuable to me to waste learning how to do stuff your install should script for me. How you expect Joe Bloggs to do so is a mystery.

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So with the menu:

• Home – static
• Menu Top – static
  • Sub Menu – loads dynamically
• Another – static

Very frustrating. It would mean doing a search/replace every time a new top level menu item is added, very annoying. I can’t see why it would be happy to load the sub items but balk at the top level items.

The reason for experimentation is Gennas site. It started with a catalogue of around 40 pages and quickly grew to about 300 static pages. She then wanted some top level menu items added – argh. I figured if I can get this done I can change every page once and then update the external sitemap page when necessary. This is only a sop until I have the time and inclination to install a more appropriate site for what she is doing with it now. Spending spare hours here and there make an overhaul slightly difficult and drag over weeks though.

Edit:

The closest I could get was:

• Root – loads dynamically
  • Home – loads dynamically
  • Menu Top – loads dynamically
    • Sub Menu – loads dynamically
  • Another -loads dynamically

This of course means you only see “Root” on the page and the submenus when you select the menu. With the added bonus that it only works with JavaScript loaded. A colleague has it working on his Asp.Net site loaded into the MasterPage but plain HTML doesn’t have that luxury.

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Bah!

Edit: Although my copy/paste of WordPress installs did bust stuff it was actually the latest version and plugins which did. All sorted after much hair being torn out – and I can’t afford to do that much more!

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protected void CheckBulletHits()
{
// Check to see of any of the players bullets have
// impacted any of the enemies.
for (int i = 0; i < iMaxBullets; i++)
{
if (bullets[i].IsActive)
for (int x = 0; x < iTotalMaxEnemies; x++)
if (Enemies[x].IsActive)
if  (Intersects(bullets[i].BoundingBox, Enemies[x].CollisionBox))
{
DestroyEnemy(x);
RemoveBullet(x);
}
}
}

Curly braces exist for a reason. (also Wordpress displays code blocks crap, had to nest them, time to look for a plugin). Edit – found.

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£658 for a computer desk.
£4360 to set up his 10 page website – surely not.
£123 for a trouser press.
£950 for a sofa bed.

As well as everything from cushions to bath screens he also claimed £2 for a knife.

His office expenses are equally bizarre with things as petty as 32p for a pair of scissors and 22p for drawing pins.

Almost every month he was putting down £400 for food (one month he tried for £500 and was knocked back), £250 for petty cash. How can you claim 32p for items in your office then £250 for petty cash, what the hell was the petty cash for?

Most amusing though was regularly paying a grand for leaflets then companies 4 grand to deliver them. Kind of shows the state of the Labour party membership in the city if they have to pay for leaflets to be delivered!

So given that the expenses cover council tax, rent/mortgage, food, household goods, phone bills etc.
The question remains: what is his salary for?

Mind you that is after the question what are the expenses for?. Well they are supposed to be essentials needed to be an MP. I don’t think cushions are essential. I don’t think a computer desk needs to cost over £600 and I am baffled as to why an MP from Dundee can claim for an overnight stay in a hotel in South Wales. Was that when he was visiting parliament or his constituency?

Jim Devine

Jim Devine is even more amusing a list of different dodgy expenses and every one of them was someone else cocking up in a completely different way. Occam’s Razor slices, it dices, it leaves it most likely he’s fibbing.

Eric Joyce squirming

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I did a review of most of the databases around and what I wanted to do with them. I spotted Firebird. Downloaded it and a GUI. A GUI with the only option to hand edit the SQL. I then downloaded two others, one of which had a trojan in it the other didn’t work. Ho hum.

Having tried to experiment I settled on Access and XML.

Before delving into the shell of code I have sitting there I figured it would be more worthwhile to make a couple of wee demo games to re-familiarise myself with the process. Downloaded Microsoft XNA and the RPG Starter Toolkit. I figure I can do a tutorial on a space shooter (the hello world of games), then a micro RPG with say one dungeon and a couple of baddies or something. I can then think of the best way to implement the wee isometric RPG. I haven’t looked at the RPG Starter kit yet so don’t know if I should also attempt something a wee bit more ambitious after the initial run.

I think Cliché Quest could be quite fun – making fun of most of the RPG tropes.

In other random code stuff, the best two snippets of code I have come across lately are as follows:
(Obfuscated but not changing what they did, and no they weren’t written by me).

void Foo()
{
    int a = 0;
    a = a + 0;
}

and

String Foo()
{
    StringBuilder theBuilder = new StringBuilder("a" + "b" + "c" + "d");
    return theBuilder.ToString();
}

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Now bear in mind none of these installers actually mentioned these as prerequisites in the installation process.

I started working on a little game about 2 years ago. I dug it out, spewed when I saw the state of the code and upgraded it to .Net 3.5. Once it was all updated in content and style I looked at it again and realised I should really split up into a data layer to properly use as a demo/project.

I realised I had removed SQL Server 2005 and the 2008 developer pack came with a trial rather than a full version. I remembered about Compact Edition which you are supposed to be able to ship with your code.

I go to install it and it fails as I don’t have Windows Installer 4.5 installed. So I go install that, and then Compact Edition.

Still can’t do anything, need the tools for it.

I go to install the tools and it barfs complaining I don’t have Powershell installed.

I find Powershell and install it.

I then proceed in the 10stage or so install, it seems happy enough.

Fill in all Database account details, carries on.

Boom – you need Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 installed.

This wasn’t pointed out earlier in the requirements section? I also thought I had it installed as it doesn’t appear in Windows Update.

I download the Service pack or should I say the installer for it. Run it and it complains as I have no space. I only have 2GB on drive C. Drive D has about 20GB free. It is also where I have Visual Studio installed. There is no option to change the download location.

What the hell is this crap.

After installing 4 things when installers barf it is still barfing and refusing to install. It shouldn’t be this hard to install a sodding database server. I tried looking for what other databases are usable in Visual Studio but had no luck yet. I was hoping to use Compact as it is usable by the database tools I am used to using in work and I wanted to experiment with Linq a bit.

In work I have the full service pack on a DVD, may have to copy that if I can’t find it online.

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On the Scottish Socialist Party site there is a monthly competition run with philosophy football.

I just won their International Brigade t-shirt.

Two wins in two months from this competition, enter it yourself!

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My RSS reader now has 64 unread posts in it down from a constant of around 800 a month ago. Basically I had been stuttering through every blog trying to catch up and failing. I decided to work my way down, getting one to zero then trying to keep it there, rinse and repeat.

I managed this on all but one blogs, which has around 40 left and another with 8. These are all pretty heavy reading articles so I am moving through these less slowly.

After that I will attempt to tackle the yahoo account inbox (currently 6000+ items, 200+ unread). To be fair I have had the account for over 10 years. Hopefully when I get it to zero I can consolidate the mail I have and what I get to decide if I keep it or move to a better mail system. Given the time it will take I might migrate to Google Wave, which looks fantastic

Anyhoo, this was a long diversion to post praising one of the blogs I keep an eye on. Max Dunbar regularly posts on a wide range of topics including book reviews. His review of Terry Pratchetts Small Gods is absolutely superb and bang on the money. First review in ages to remind me why I love a book, film etc.

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Californias Supreme Court rules that no more gay marriages can take place.

For an accurate summary of this insanity see this Center For Inquiry post.

Can anyone point to an argument against gay marriage not based on religion. I have looked and looked but can’t find one.

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And what a release!

Yes, Westboro Baptist Church pastor and members will fly to Scotland and conduct these religious education, protest, and warning pickets; to wit: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked” Gal. 6:7. Scotland once blazed with Gospel light, in the days of the likes of John Brown and other able and sanctified Puritans and men of God. It is a moral and spiritual tragedy that such a matter as the pervert Scott Rennie should even be entertained. The curse of God is on Scotland. She is beyond redemption.

God Hates Scotland – Land of the Sodomite Damned.

Are you seeing a common theme with homophobes, and I don’t just mean their repressed sexuality.

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He taught me to play Chess when I was 5 holidaying in Aviemore. It was something which really set the seeds for my interest in games, logic, maths and of course programming.

His son lives in Australia so the funeral will be delayed until he can return.

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The first has been overlooked by the national news: Woman beat for seven hours.

A woman was beaten for seven hours by her partner, the neighbours at around midnight heard cries resembling shrieks from a horror film. Neighbours were wakened by her screaming No, no. Stop..

Thankfully one of them eventually phoned the police at 7:30am. Why the fuck it took one of them 7 hours hasn’t been explained.

The other has reached the national news. Some cretins objecting to a bike race around Pitlochry spread tacks over the road on a downhill stretch. Hundreds of tires were punctured, not only on bikes but on an ambulance and police car supporting the race.

The only local quoted in the Courier against the half day road closure.

We may not leave our homes for any essential items and, much more importantly, the whole community is prevented from attending the Sunday Christian services.

I wonder if the roads would be closed and the residents ‘restrained’ if we were of other faiths or nationalities.

I was under the impression that we were attempting to fight discrimination. Perhaps not if you are white and Christian and don’t cycle.

What a maroon.

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Today she had one from Google.

Or at least a company impersonating Google.

The company was First Search Consulting. A bunch of snake-oil selling cowboys.

I won’t link to their shit website as it:

• Plays music when you load it
• Doesn’t have valid HTML
• Will help them in search engines

Amusingly, like all SEO companies, their own search results are pitiful. The only search page keywords which get them on the first page of Google are the company name.

SEO isn’t the only thing they do though, oh no.

They also do Broadband and Web Design.

On broadband, they don’t actually have that yet, but they are taking orders for a too good to be true deal. Their expertise in the area shines through when they mention they need your MAC code, which changes on a monthly basis.

Fuck knows what they mean by that.

A MAC code in relation to broadband would be a code put on your network card when manufactured which stays the same forever unless you go into the guts of the software and intentionally change it. It certainly doesn’t change frequently never mind monthly.

But their web design side.

Holy crap what an abortion.

Their portfolio has 9 examples of their work.

None of which validate.

Nine of which have table based layout.

These fucking cowboys shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near computers.

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On the Scottish Socialist Party site there is a monthly competition run with philosophy football.

I just won their Miners Strike t-shirt.

The new competition is to win an International Brigader t-shirt.
Edit – which I won too!

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Please sign the online petition in favour of Scott Rennie the gay minister who is in danger of losing his post within Queen’s Cross Church due to his sexuality.

Here is what you have to do:

1) sign up to Facebook

2) go to the petition created by Anne Gourlay and sign

3) In case anyone needs some background then this is a useful article

4) pass on this to your pals

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Unusually for a vampire movie the vampire and main character are both pre-teens. The dialogue was sparse with most of the characters feelings being expressed through their actions, the way they touched each other, glances, tapping on walls to communicate, little notes left – it is surprisingly sweet. No doubt this is part of the reason Hollywood is already remaking it – what do you mean there’s no witty sidekick or party scene!.

That was mostly the romance side of it, the vampire lore was excellent. I have been getting sick of vampire movies which have to be different by introducing new rules or breaking conventional ones. Sunlight was a killer, blood was required, a minion watched over the vampire during the day (who slept in a bath covered in layers of thick material with the windows covered), cats were not happy, those bitten were infected.

The best of all was the title piece – what happens when you are not invited in – excellent and unexpected interpretation. I had been so used to invisible barriers from watching Buffy.

Really worth the wait, I especially enjoyed it as between Genna and I being ill over the past month it’s been a while since we touched any non-English films in the unwatched pile. Neither of us fancied reading loads whilst watching. Even though the film was close to two hours long the dialogue was so sparse that it wasn’t too much of a strain to ease back into the habit.

The other amusing part of the night was that on the other side of me from Genna was another couple. The woman kept jumping and gasping at all the semi-shocking bits, including a hit in the face for Oskar. It couldn’t have been more cliché if they had stood up clapping and cheering at the end. I had never experienced that before suppose I am so desensitised to horror and horror tropes* that I had forgotten some people do this.

* Whilst watching two horrors last week I kept going now or fake when the trope or twist on the trope was away to be used. Some of them were so appalling and cliché.

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First up was Mark Thomas with As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade. This was really interesting, funny and horrifying in equal doses. Some brilliant anecdotes of groups set up to take on arms dealers.

Next was Mark Steel with What’s Going On?: The Meanderings of a Comic Mind in Confusion. I had been looking forward to this as it covers the last ten years or so. Each chapter has a mixture of the disintegration of his private life, the disintegration of any lonely last principles in the Labour Party and the disintegration of his relationship with the SWP.

Each of these is quite depressing and bitter to read and the contrast of the three leads to a real understanding if what he has been going through.

Recently I also read Jack Jones Union Man: Autobiography and have just started on IOU: The Story of the Debt a book I got in Poundland and has a first chapter praising Bono so looks to be pretty shit.

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The final episode had Neil with the best quote of the series though.

ghost stories like Harry Potter and the Bible

So random, I spluttered in giggles.

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They sent out moronic street teamers. They spammed forums etc. When they spammed UGS the users ripped the piss out of them. Now their management have noticed that the thread on UGS has a Google ranking of 2, just behind the band site. This obviously makes him a bit scared their hordes of fans will see what a bunch of fannies they are.

Their management PHases UK appear to be a bunch of cretins.

Not onlys is their website a single image, but the content of it says they provide Management and Music Solutions

Cocks of the highest order.

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At the weekend I discovered an even better burger though and in a surprising place.

Dronley Produce have had Scotch Bonnet peppers in which have been gorgeous. I took one down town to the Grill Room (nee Kennedy’s) thinking I could get it added onto a chilli burger – superb.

Dave, instead of just bunging on a burger, grabbed a fresh patty and coated in chilli powder, black pepper and a cut up Pigeon Eye Chilli. This was allowed to soak in then cooked – a true chilli burger. He then added my Scotch Bonnet and his usual chilli.

It was superb. Totally kicked the arse of Mo of all Fo for hotness with an amazing flavour.

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Some of these were good, some were great, some won’t be watched again – a good mixture then. The unwatched pile however has not had a noticeable dent.

Flight of the Conchords Season 1, having been finally acquired from Mike was watched. Very amusing. Regret watching it all in a weekend though as the dialogue could be a bit dense at times and would have really benefited from full concentration. Murray is the greatest comedy character in years. His bemusement over how many New Zealanders are mugged when he advises them to avoid crowds and stick to the back alleys is priceless.

Messengers was quite amusing, if a bit predictable. Effects were to an acceptable standard, although I think the point which grabbed my attention most was seeing William B Davis in the opening credits to be fair. His character was a bit meh

When Zachary Beaver Came to Town was quite a fun £1.99er picked up for the humour of it starring Jane Krakowski (Elaine in Ally McBeal). Amusing coming of age film which was nowhere near as good as most in the genre.

Surviving Christmas (Christina Applegate) was a pretty shit Christmas movie which I watched in April for sheer humour value. Ben Affleck plays a character who is even more of annoying whiny dick than usual. He must have really reached far inside to create him and should be commended for that if nothing else. Every character was immensely dislikeable and unbelievable. I will happily watch films but having not one single likeable character puts a huge brick wall up in front of my enjoyment of a movie.

Creep was a very enjoyable horror although the main baddie was a bit shit. Hobbling one second, beating characters who were running the next. The main character deserved to die for being stupid enough to have the Creep in the ground injured and possibly knocked out with a giant spear next to her. Rather than kill the fucker she runs for the next 30minutes(?) of the film. I’m really tiring of horrors with stupid characters and giant plot holes, at least with psychological horrors you can empathise with the victims as you are focusing on what they are going through. The director in a special feature also speaks of how you can sympathise for the Creep who captures women, keeps them in cages and then rams giant blades into their genitals. Probably says more about him than the audience I think.

I have watched quite a few films this month but can’t remember all of them unfortunately.

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What I got was, well, mince. Dire acting, pitiful jokes, ridiculous symbolism. Lesbian vampires being defeated by spurting thick white gloop all over the place with the head one killed by being stabbed by the cock sword, a sword, with a penis carved into the handle. Psychologists will find this film a gold mine into the deranged brains of the writers.

Absolutely abysmal, I had expected a Shaun of the Dead style spoof, some intelligence, not jokes which would have peaked in amusement for me at age 12. Definitely don’t intend to watch again.

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Just checked the voicemail there and had 2 for Joanne, 1 for Kevin and 1 from a plumber installing a shower in Riverview Terrace and trying to arrange an appointment.

Is my number so similar to other peoples? Do a number of other people have numbers 1 digit away from mine? Previous experience with phone lines is that you get the odd wrong number every few months. I appear to get both persistent wrong numbers and frequent ones for different people from different people.

The problem solver in me is curious. Perhaps previous numbers have had very few neighbours? If my number was 123456 perhaps the only immediate neighbours were 123457 and 223456. If now I had clashes each side that would be 12 immediate neighbours. Given the rise in mobile numbers and presumably fall in land line numbers it does seem bizarre to have more nowadays. Maybe being on Virgin means there is a smaller allocation of numbers which are re-used more frequently than BT do?

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Having met Paddy, one of the owners a while back through a friend I have been eagerly awaiting it. My pre-order was made a couple of days after they were available.

A demo is now available.Game Daily being the only host I could get to work.

A launch party is also planned for Wednesday 8th April.

Currently downloading the demo and preparing to waste a weekend. Although I mainly buy indie games, it’s the first indie game made by someone I am acquainted with.

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The latest issue has x years since monarch succession law Brown wants to change, 14 years, time Brown waited before becoming prime minister unelected.

Now whilst strictly true, it is certainly misleading. Gordon Brown was not elected as Prime Minister, the implication is that this is unusual. But neither was any other Prime Minister. Ever.

The most recent example of a situation identical to Brown is John Major. After Thatcher was ousted, he was made Prime Minister on 28 November 1990 and did not call a general election until 9 April 1992.

Unsurprisingly the Tory rags ranting about Brown being unelected did not make the same argument back then!

After a General election the monarch asks the leader of the party with the most MPs to form their government.

Should the accept, as they generally do, they go on to form a government and a cabinet.

It is therefore possible that Labour can have the most MPs elected. Their leader, who is not an MP becomes Prime Minister and then forms his Cabinet out of a load of Lords and Bishops on the Privy Council – none of whom were elected either.

So, the premise is made: this Prime Minister is not elected so that is not democratic.

The other one: no Prime Minister is elected so that is not democratic, is not made.

The conclusion: we don’t live in a democracy, but an oligarchy, is not drawn either.

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It was the only thing I saw him in (although he apparently was in an episode of Buffy too) but he was constantly superb as the campy living life to the fullest character. Even in the episodes where I disliked the characterisation it was the writing, not the acting which had been disappointing.

Not a happy bunny.

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Courier article

The overriding incident, which I found disgusting and unforgivably embarrassing, was that I was approached by the (Labour) group through Kevin (Keenan), asking if I would give up two years of my term of office to keep Mr Borthwick on board, who would subsequently get me an OBE. I am disappointed to say that Mr Borthwick made the same request to me later.

I turned both requests down, of course, expressing my disgust to both of them and reporting the incidents to the relevant officers of the council.

Which is a bit of an explosive revelation as [OBE] Appointments are made on the advice of the governments of the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth realms.

It would show just how the honours system works.

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Current software I am using include Wordpress, OpenOffice, Linux (Tablet PC), Firefox (and Phoenix before that) and numerous other bits and bobs including at work.

It is one of my goals for the year to find time to contribute towards at least one open source project. I have been unable to donate hours so today donated $2 to Google SiteMap Generator. This plug in automatically generates a site map for you as frequently as you wish. Really useful and has saved me more than $2 in the time to manually generate one using Audit My PC or similar.

What Open Source software do you use and have you contributed anything back – from cash to code to bug reports?

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He claims to have a long list of reasons for resigning but only reveals one:

I have been trying to persuade my ex-colleagues for nearly two years to recognise the fact that, in the interests of the city and fair play, Dundee City Council committee conveners should be compiled from all parties

Mr Letford said that was more than self-evident when the SNP, as the largest single party on the council with 13 members, had been excluded from any role in the administration. The situation had been made worse since the SNP increased to 14 members—almost half the 29-member council— by winning the Maryfield by-election earlier this month.

It is ludicrous to believe all the political talent required to run a city is only available in the administration and exclude half of the councillors

My pleas fell on deaf ears and, because of that and other serious differences, I felt I could no longer stay a member of the administration and the Labour group.

This afternoon was Labour’s chance to throw some mud. Jim McGovern implied that he was only interested in keeping his allowance as Lord Provost and that he no longer has principles. Clearly he missed Labour trying to form an even wider alliance of everyone but the SNP in an effort to keep their convenership allowances. That doesn’t mean his charge isn’t true, just a bit short sighted.

Kevin Keenan was next in a bizarre move claiming that Labour intend to nominate an SNP councillor,Liz Fordyce, for Depute Lord Provost. Liz Fordyce laughed off the proposal – showing it to be well thought out.

Ernie Ross was wheeled out to prattle on, his nonsense included claiming Labour are a democratic socialist party. That would be wrong on both counts Ernie you rent a quote former MP. (Ernie once tried to defend voting for war to me in the street making the ludicrous claims that because Tony Blair repeated a lie that didn’t mean he wasn’t telling the truth)

Jill Shimi who sent her kids to a private school whilst making ludicrous claims about how great the state schools in the city are was also wheeled out alongside Chic Farquhar. Shimi said nothing of importance. Farquhar makes a decent point, that the constituents voted for a Labour candidate and Letford should resign and force a by election.

Unfortunately the Labour first preference results for the ward show Letford scoring 1385 votes, Ferguson 940 and cueball Hind trailing on 479. (Hind and Fergusons results being unexpectedly reversed following an anonymous smear campaign from sources unknown saying to vote Ferguson instead of Hind). With Letfird having 49.3% of the Labour vote and being elected on Round 3 with Ferguson on Round 9 it seems like a rearrange the deckchairs strategy from Labour.

The Evening Telegraph also confirmed the dates I couldn’t find on a quick lunchtime Google search.

Labour have run the council since 1980 and have been in charge since 1946 for all but 11 years. No doubt it’s those 11 years that all the city’s problems were created…

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One of the SNP councillors resigned as councillor and prompted a by election. The SNP won this comfortably with 48.89% of the first votes.

Earlier this year a Labour councillor resigned. At the by election the SNP again won it comfortably.

This shifted the balance to 14 SNP, 9 Labour, 3 Tory, 2 Liberal Democrat and 1 Independent. Needing 15 for a majority it seemed clear that the SNP would take power with Borthwick as kingmaker, and in this case democrat.

Today there was a shock though. John Letford, the Lord Provost and most prominent member of the Labour Party in the city resigned the Labour group and now sits as an independent.

This shifts it to 14 SNP, 8 Labour, 3 Tory, 2 Liberal Democrats and 2 Independents. The two independents being Lord Provost and Depute Lord Provost can probably show what deal is being struck.

In the course of 6 years Labour have went from largest Councillor group to being 3 behind at the election, losing 2 by elections by clear margins and a defection. A defection of their most prominent, well known, longest serving councillor? and to be fair, most well liked member in the city.

It is worth noting the thoughts of the Labour Party spokesman after the by election. He is anonymous but believed to be former Information Minister in Iraq.

We are pleased that Labour increased our share of the vote in what the SNP were convinced was a very safe council seat for them.

Coupled with recent by-election wins, it shows that the momentum is moving from away from the SNP.

Of course reality, as ever, contradicts the Labour Party.

Dundee Councillors 1995 to 2009

Jim McGovern has written a piece on his site.

In it he implies that John Letford has no principles and is only out to line his own pockets. He also mocks him for a claim he made about what was at his core – Labour and the Trade Union Movement.

Quick Quiz:
If you cut the Labour Party in two what would you find?

(Comedy Option: 2 Tory parties)

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It was quite interesting. Some of the information I knew already. Some I did not. The stuff I already knew I have put into place on blogs/sites etc. The stuff I learned I plan to prioritise and work into sites in the near future. He pointed out some of the things squirrelled away in Googles Webmaster Tools. I had previously used it for adding site to directory and adding a sitemap. Some of the stuff I hadn’t noticed is very cool though.

Over the past few days I had already been working on Gennas Jewellery site so was in the right frame of mind for taking it all in. I hadn’t noticed where all her links were coming from though. Her main site is her name GennaDelaney.com. We also registered GennaDesign.com as that is the name she trades under. I just had that pointing at the same directory but that is where a huge amount of the inbound links are coming from. Being on the same server and having the same content it probably makes her look like a linkfarm. One of the top priorities is to sort that into a proper redirect. I tried last night and it failed to work properly.

I also realised something about ping servers so added a load to the blog and am away to publish the first post to loads of them. Lets see what happens.

Disclaimer: one of the things he talked about were valid mark up and his site does not have this (probably his blog theme to be fair, something I have wrestled with).

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I rarely text and when I do I try to, on a shit keyboard, use correct spelling. I understand that two differs in meaning from to and too. I don’t understand compromising a 2 or 3 character word into 1. Paying by the character are we? R is a letter, are is a word.

From the ever reliable Wikipedia

Communication is commonly defined as “the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs…”, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: “a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior … also: exchange of information”.

It is thus with disdain I read of the imminent re-branding of the SciFi channel.

SciFi is an abbreviation of Science Fiction. The new name will be SyFy, which is not. Additionally, it sounds like an abbreviation of a venereal disease. Apparantly this is what the hip kids would abbreviate Science Fiction to.

Nonsense.

SyFy barely comes up on a search and in fact doesn’t seem to appear before the last month or so.

Under what circumstances would you compress Science Fiction to SyFy? I don’t understand the International Phonetic Alphabet but would that not be a completely different pronunciation?

When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you’d text it … It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.

Let’s look at this:

Who are the techno savvy kids? Are they trying to appeal to dance music fans or something.

It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip

Eurgh!

And finally: which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.

This is marketing fuckwit for which was our aim. Maybe he wants to touch base with someone offline to collaborate on a making yourself look like a twat solution.

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If you needed a better reason to doubt that religion is the basis of morality and irreligion is the basis of amorality it is the recent case from Brazil.

A nine year old girl was systematically raped by her stepfather for a number of years. She eventually fell pregnant to twins. At nine years old.

Her doctors sensibly advised that she have a termination due to having the body of a nine year old and thus having a very high if not certain chance of death giving birth. Her mother supported the decision and the doctors carried it out.

Then along came the celibate ranks of the Catholic Church.

Shock and Horror, Hell and Damnation they spouted. Abortion is a sin don’t you know. Can’t have that sort in our church they proclaimed.

Cast them out like the imaginary demons they exorcise in Latin.

Excommunication for the child’s mother and the sinful doctors who save her life. The girl herself is fine, too young to be at fault – just like her foetus in heaven or Limbo or whatever the line is now. She can remain in the church. Her and her step-father. The multiple rapist (who also molested her mentally disabled sister).

Rape children or be a fascist dictator (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco) and you’re a-ok. Just repent your sins on your deathbed and it’s straight to heaven with you. You can also stay a member of the church.

Save the life of a nine year old rape victin – begone, out ye go and probably straight to hell when you die.

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There were of course leftovers, lots of.

Sunday night I was considering the leftovers and realised we hadn’t made enchiladas yet. We had bought a glass dish for lasagne and it would be perfect. We had reams of home made curry which was comprised of peppers, mushrooms, chilli, chicken and rice. Perfect for a filling. I through that on to reheat with some fajita seasoning and made the sauce. We opted for garlic, onion, chilli and a tin of plum tomatoes. When it was done, popped in oven with cheese on top of the sauce layer over the tortillas filled with curry. Took about 20 minutes or so. Whilst we were waiting on it baking I made some quesadillas with mild cheddar and a spicy sauce. Superb again, although very filling.

The enchiladas were pretty good. We managed to fit 5 wraps into the dish. But there was still leftovers.

(until 2 hours later when I scoffed the remaining).

It was a pretty good strategy. I think we will count enchiladas as a curry/fajita leftovers meal and plan accordingly for next weekend.

I bought some cornflour so will borrow or pick up a cheap rolling pin to attempt to make tortillas next. If it’s successful and works out cost effective I may go for a tortilla press and the proper flour online.

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Zombies

One was Zombies, a cheesy cheapo horror about zombie kids. Or ghosts or something. Pretty boring and plot holes you could drive a bus through. There are kids who were trapped underground, but are now zombies and/or ghosts. Also they are above ground now, and they are undead. They attack people and kill and eat them, but only at night, and only if you are a descendent of the people responsible for them dying, unless you are related to them or also a stranger.

That paragraph was intentionally written in as confusing manner as the plot. The acting was appalling, the dialogue was worse and the characters were as stupid as you expect from a horror, never mind a horror this bad. Also the first proper ghost/zombie attack isn’t until about a third of the way through.

An example of how bad this film is.

Towards the end, the crowd of zombie kids have assembled watching the heroes, as they have done before. Standing in silence. The cliché hick goes (paraphrasing):

There will be no stopping them, not if they are all riled up and I think they are tonight

As they stand there staring and slowly moving towards their target. Slowly moving for dramatic effect, not because they were slow zombies or anything.

I like bad horror. I like cheesy horror. I don’t like bad or cheesy horror that doesn’t acknowledge that it is bad or cheesy.

Utter garbage.

Mona Lisa Smile

After tea we watched Mona Lisa Smile, which was superb. A film set at an all girls college in the 50s has Julia Roberts as Katherine Watson, some kind of liberal subversive putting dangerous thoughts into the womens head such as You don’t have to just be a housewife.

One of my favourite quotes from Katherine Watson was:

I thought I was headed to a place that would turn out tomorrow’s leaders, not their wives!

This was the culmination of frustrating conversations such as the following

Katherine Watson: It says here that you’re pre-law. What law school are you going to go to?
Joan Brandwyn: I hadn’t really thought about that. After I graduate, I plan on getting married.
Katherine Watson: And then?
Joan Brandwyn: [confused] And then… I’ll be married.

Really good film, strong cast, well acted, great dialogue. Such a contrast to Zombies

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For some people Mark Steel went from being Double Plus Funny to Double Plus Unfunny overnight. Thankfully I don’t have anyone telling me what to think so can still have my own opinion about such matters.

Poignant and funny at the same time.

Oh for God’s sake, they’re not going to break down the embassy with balsa wood. Then he added Come on dad, let’s get to the gates.

No I think it’s safer to stay here, I advised.

COME ON, he insisted, and we shuffled through the squashed crowd to get nearer the front. Why don’t we all invade the Israeli embassy? he asked, and whoever was stood next to us answered Because the Israeli embassy is better protected than Buckingham Palace.

Well then let’s invade Buckingham Palace, he said.

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FFRF

They have a wide range of topics and guests to do with atheism, secularism, humanism, philosophy etc. Some of the guests are excellent, some not so much, but it’s such a diverse view you get it’s worth wading through the occasional bad one.

RSS feed for show.

One topic frequently covered is the rights of oppressed groups, such as LGBT, African Americans, and women (Annie Laurie Gaylor, one of the presenter is the daughter of Anne Nicol Gaylor, a pioneer for abortion rights)

Show 132 which was particularly excellent.

Topic: Prop 8 & the Religious War Against Gay Rights The show will be devoted to an expose of the religious backing of Proposition 8, to deny same-sex marriage to California residents via a Nov. 4 ballot initiative. Listen for clips of religious ads, and of religious leaders inveighing against gay marriage. FFRF Lifetime Member and Gay Atheist founder Dick Hewetson will be interviewed about Proposition 8 and the religious war against gay rights.

Show 132 is a particular highlight and well worth listening to.

A word of warning, Dan Barker, the other host, used to be a minister. Although this means he has an excellent grasp of the Bible and criticism of it, he still loves playing songs on his guitar about his belief. Some of these are excellent, some are a bit cringe worthy.

Some of the excellent tracks he plays, and has others play are Bread & Roses, Nothing Fails Like Prayer, It Ain’t Necessarily So, No Gods, No Masters

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Orphanage, 2 years old and being remade because a section of the movie liking audience are too xenophobic to cope with subtitles and foreign dialogue. Fuck, em if they wish to miss this fine film out of their own pig-headedness and ignorance that’s their problem.

They Live, yes. The question is who can replace Roddy Piper and Keith David?

He-man. He-man is being remade, fantastic! I remember this as one of the first films I saw at the cinema. It was opening night at the ABC, where Yates etc is now.

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Quesedillas

One of the great starters we had in Mexico was quesedillas. These generally had chicken, cheese and salsa in them. Cooked on a hotplate, basically a Mexican version of Cheese on toast. Having checked out cookbook and online all the recipes were talking about deep frying them! Eurgh, deep fried cheese, healthy. Looking in a charity shop I spotted 2 Mexican cookbooks, one of which had a photo which looked correct and recipe for making in frying pan. Snapped up and made as starter next time we had Mexican.

They were really nice, although first ones were a tad soggy with me being over eager with the Olive Oil. We made guacamole too, although I dislike it. Next on list in the salsa sauce, which I believe a couple of our compares know how to make.

Curry

Ok, I make curry, and quite a good one if I say so myself. We always use a bought in sauce though. A cheap Indian cookbook showed how to make a sauce from scratch. When the continental market was here, one stall had garam masala powder. Having got this we had almost everything we needed. Only cumin and turmeric missing. We also needed coriander, and we had seeds which was an ok substitute. I used a curry powder which contained cumin and gave it a bash. I think I used not enough onion and too much water. Trying it when almost done it was too thin and not sweet enough. As I was rushed we threw in some flour and half a teaspoon on sugar. I will actually check to see what we need to add to rectify these two problems but in a rush these worked. The next day I checked a local shop and picked up the missing spices and some coriander from Dronley so next time I will give it a bash with the actual ingredients.

We have the pile there and I intend to have a scan through for new recipes and ingredients before we next make our 6weekly trip to a supermarket. So far that’s three new recipes this year, proper curry from scratch. quesedillas and guacamole.

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At 83 it can’t be long now surely? One of the days where I smiled most was reading that her dementia was so bad that she thinks her racist piece of shit husband was still alive. Having to be re-told every day that the person you love most in the world is dead is the best punishment she could possibly receive. It is the only small comfort in the knowledge that she is still depriving the rest of the human race of the oxygen she continues to use.

Costello said it best

Because there’s one thing I know, I’d like to live
Long enough to savour
That’s when they finally put you in the ground
I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down

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The route map is:

Route for February 15th

It was a pretty hard slog for two main reasons, lack of fitness and the gears not working correctly on bike. I was able to switch from 2 to 1 but not up again, when I fiddled around a bit the chain came off. This meant I was stuck on the second set of gears which was fine for a gradual climb, flat and downhill but meant I was stuffed when trying to climb a steeper gradient on way back. So we had to call it off a bit earlier than intended.

Still 2 miles with over 200feet of climbing is alright for a first proper ride. The first ride we went on was round Clatto so was pretty flat only rising 60ft over a longer distance than the 200ft climb on Sunday.

Route for January 25th

I am due the first service anyway but was waiting until I had been out more than once, that’s definitely something to be seen to.

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Laughing so hard.

Trying and failing to find any way to describe the ridiculousness of this all whilst masking their identity and making it political…

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• At least 3, possibly 4 vodka reviews
• Spicy burger reviews, with pics, woo blog living up to name at last
• Milk review to be written

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At times it could be a bit of a slog at over 2 hours long, but it was well worth it in the end. It had a really unusual style. The introduction had the screen split in halves with textual detail of who was who and hints and explanation to plots at the side, this happened at sporadic points throughout the film and is how it finished with a where are they now? section, which lately has only been used in really cheesy comedies. The other bizarre style change was during some of the sex scenes when the camera rotates so that both characters are vertical, quite strange.

The movie is comprised of three main plots, a brother and stepsister make up the real anchor of the story. One arc is about the stepsister, a second about the life of the stepbrother and a third which eventually interlinks with both of them. I was quite amazed by Lisa Kudrows acting. After seeing some of the other Friends actors films I wasn’t expecting much (yes Jennifer Anniston I am looking at you, Office Space and Derailed are your only decent attempts at acting and one of those you are a really minor character). She is superb in this. Steve Coogan plays basically a really weak Alan Partridge. Basically the same what I think is important, other people can get hurt but I’ll say what I feel, having a partner means he has to scramble afterwards to clean up the mess but it wasn’t a real departure from Partridge. That’s not to say he is bad or typecast, far from it just that you could see hints of his main character there.

I looked at it with Kudrow and Coogan and thought the main genre of the movie would be the comedy aspect but it really wasn’t. There were funny parts but no laugh out loud moments that I can remember.

Well worth watching.

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1. Our mums and dads fuck us up
2. they don’t mean to
1. but they do

It’s the opening lines from the first verse of Philip Larkin – This be the verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

Well, they needed to redeem themselves and they did so. You finally saw some characters settling into a group and some good interactions between people, although it’s still nowhere near as good as series 1 and 2. There is still a hell of a long way to go to even become as good as the worst episodes of season 1 and 2 so it’s earned a reprieve for a few more episodes. Hopefully the end of the season will be amazing and the early episodes will justify themselves on a rewatch with things you miss or don’t think are important on a first watch.

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Underworld 1 and 2 in preparation for the third.
Hallam Foe
TransAmerica
Transformers (original, obviously)
Smart People

February saw Milk, which was amazing and I will write a review at a later date.

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Spotted a lone Reyka vodka reduced to £16.19.

How many bottles of that do you have?
I’ll just check, replies the salesman.

Six says he.

I glanced at Genna, seeing the look I’ll have 2 please. We were already overloaded with bags unfortunately and still had about a mile to walk.

I was so tempted though.

One was cracked open in celebration. They also stocked an Uluvka box set which was really cool. Really nice bottle, nice glasses, no idea what it tastes like so I wasn’t risking £50 on it.

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The question is, underneath the main plot of the film what does it show of the slums and poverty in which the majority of the film is set?

The first thing you notice about the slums is the grime, the cameras chosen really show off the filth everywhere. Danny Boyle chose to shoot parts of the movies in the real shantytown of Mumbai rather than sets. The kids play cricket on the only available flat area – the airport which backs on to their homes. After being spotted they are chased and beaten by the Police. After a short period seeing their basic lives the turning point is a sectarian attack by a gang of thugs angry at people having a different religion to themselves. The police are now turning a blind eye to the brutality of the sectarian mob. The children are rendered homeless and living in a garbage dump, an even worse situation than they had been in before.

From here you see a number of different routes out of the lives of the slum dwellers. There is begging in a Fagan style gang. Involvement in criminal gangs and as a teaboy in a call centre. No positive or progressive lifestyles are shown for those in poverty in the film. This narrow look at life only focuses on the main characters and not the wider society they live in and really limits the film to be a love story set against a backdrop of abject poverty rather than a film that takes a serious and detailed look at this life. This has been the basis of most of the criticism of the film, and I admit slightly disappointed me when I had watched it. To be fair though it was never marketed as exploring these issues, I had just hoped it would spend a small amount of time looking at them rather than featuring them as the fluff for the background of the love story.

Review after review have described it as a feel good movie. Certain parts of it were certainly cheerful, laugh out loud moments. The ending is as feel good as the reviews train you to expect. Other parts of the film are far from feel good. Part of the opening of the film is seeing Jamal, the main character being brutally tortured. Seeing the poverty in the shantytowns, the exploitation of a young woman was not a cheerful part of the movie. One early scene had me squirming as some reviews had mentioned child abuse being an issue in the film and I had mistakenly thought it may be sexual rather than physical, verbal and emotional. Those last three are certainly aspects of the movie although thankfully the former was not, although it was certainly implied that a girl was to be sold to a man.

The movie is certainly entertaining, deserving of its praise and all the Oscars which may fly it’s way. It is a film I would highly recommend anyone to see. It is not however one you will be laughing all the way through as the reviews imply. When I saw it on opening weekend in a packed screen the end was greeted with complete silence. Probably the most suitable way to digest the complete story you have been shown.

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Reading the Grauniad on-line I note that I am apparently in the age group 50-65. Oh well.

Yesterday was spent on the new bike, at the cinema seeing Underworld – Rise of the Lycans and then watching Being Human.

It was quite amusing seeing the vampire clan head in Being Human after Victor in Underworld earlier in the day.

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I really liked Series 1 and 2, there was a willingness to explore topics few other series would as well as quite good character arcs. With the cast moving on and a new one starting I had high hopes for the new series.

What we seemed to get was Skins to the XTREME!!!!!

We had Cook being more Tony than Tony. We had JJ playing the most annoying traits of Sid and Anwar. We had Pandora as Cassie after being dropped on her head as a child and we had Effy as Effy Max with extra smoking at every possible moment.

Hopefully this was just showing all the extreme character traits so you could identify each person easily in future episodes and this won’t be their characterisations on every single episode. On the positive side we had Effy as a pretty similar character as before, her arc will probably be the main one in the show. Katie and Emily interaction is going to be quite good if the writers show even half the skill as the previous series of showing episodes from individual characters points of view. We saw Katie being a complete bitch to her sister, but not really any insight into what her view of Emily is. Neither Freddie nor Thomas made much of an impression. I sense Naomi being the token activist with ever changing obsessions every week, much as Hollyoaks** have done with that annoying character.

I almost forgot, all the teachers were pretty bizarre too. Previously all the characters had some sort of flaw, so far everyone appears to be completely dysfunctional. Not to mention cliché person in Communications who has trouble communicating. As soon as her title was announced I groaned as it was soooo obvious given what had happened already in the episode.

It can only improve.

* Who I recently found out have finally gotten round to releasing that second album. It was quite good too. And I have just discovered they will be in Glasgow soon.
**Usually on at tea time, occasionally interesting, mostly boring.

*** Note to self, 8am = grammar broked

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* He of Father Ted, Black Books and IT Crowd fame.

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So off I trotted around town after the Palestine demo in city square. After my 7 mile adventure what I found was:

Nicholson Cycles: Ridgeback MX2 for £239.
Bike Worx: Orbea Tuareg reduced from £230 to £172.
Spokes: Giant Rock for £200.

Now price wasn’t really an issue between them, whichever was the best bike I would go for. I had heard of Ridgeback and Giant before but hadn’t heard of Orbea. When home I did a search and found out that:

• They are based in the Basque country and switched to make bikes after the Spanish Civil War
• They are a co-operative
• They operate a 1:3 wage ratio – no one can earn more than three times anyone else in the factory.

I think that’s me sold then, dunno which bike Genna will go for. Next Saturday we should be popping round the shops so she can see them too and I will have a test-drive to see if it’s what I need. For the Cycle2Work scheme I would be looking for a Hybrid, I really like the Ridgeback Hybrid but if the Orbea are any good I would have to go for that again.

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Having picked The Astronaughts Wife up for one and two thirds of a pound in Grouchos I wasn’t really expecting much. Checking imdb also shows an average rating on 4.9. It was actually surprisingly good and I would definitely watch again. The film was scary, intense and quite riveting. In places you grew annoyed as some of the characters but Charlize Theron totally pulled you in. Loads of wee subtle things (Depp feeling her temperature to see if she’s ovulating) and things I hadn’t quite worked out (the constant focus and emphasis on hands moving) mean I will watch again at some point to see what I can pick out.

If I haven’t mentioned before I always spot wee things in the background of movies and TV shows, some examples include:

• Random extras and what other films they’ve been in.
• David Boreanaz doing some amazingly silly things on Angel whilst someone else, Lorne or Wes mostly, is the focus of the camera.
• Shaun in This Is England having me in stitches slyly letting someone sniff his fingers as he passes them on his way into the living room after being out the backs with a girl.

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The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known is his autobiography from 1998 to 2002. It is also available to buy online through links on his site.

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It lists loads of prizes:

• VIP tickets to an exclusive Hellboy party
• Hellboy scarf
• Hellboy beanie
• the movie on DVD
• Cygnett MP3 player accessories pack

I got an e-mail saying I had won a prize and thought woo, hope it’s the DVD, and have been holding off buying it ever since.

Well, I got a package through the mail today, in it was:

• Hellboy scarf
• Hellboy beanie with horn stumps
• the 2 disc special edition of the movie on DVD £12.98
• earphones £14.98 on Amazon
• charging battery for iPhone/iPod £12.96?
• iPod nano silicon case ~£14
• mini rechargable speaker £20.96
• mini fm transmitter for iPod/iPhone £37.99
• larger rechargable speaker for iPhone/iPod £41.99
• speaker dock/alarm clock/radio for iPod £67.79

Holy shit!, that’s over £200 worth of iPod accessories.

The hat/scarf and DVD are mine. Genna was drooling over the rest of the kit seeing as she has an iPod and I don’t

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Generally after making tea, doing dishes and catching up on random e-mails we settle down to a movie, anything from rom-com to horror to world cinema.

So far the ones which I haven’t blocked out this year have been:

Dead Creatures

Catacombs

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

Crime and Punishment in Suburbia

Dead Creatures was quite a fun romp. This is described as similar to Trainspotting in style. A group of young women have been bitten and turned into people who crave human flesh and move from place to place drugging men in pubs, prostituting themselves or just attacking in dark alleys to find victims. Quite cheesy in places but enjoyable. The best scene is one of the girls leaving a newsagent with a copy of the Guardian when her arm starts to not function. The first sign that the zombieitis is starting to control her.

Catacombs was a horror set in France, bought on the cheap on the basis that it was by the people who produced Saw and also starred Pink. Her acting was actually alright until her final scenes in the movie at which point I was bursting out laughing at it, and at the plot spoilers etc. Meh, might watch again at some point.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane was quite good and a bargain in Grouchos 3/£5 shite bin section (where a large amount of my movie collection comes from). Some decent acting from loads of people in their second or third films. Lots of the actions were incredulous due to shitty writing rather than poor acting. Ok subversion of slasher movie tropes.

Crime and Punishment in Suburbia was watched for the second time, and I had forgotten it starred Vincent Kartheiser (Connor in Angel). He is quite good as an obsessed stalker of the hot girl in school yadda yadda. Abusive parent played remarkably well by Michael Ironside who will forever be refereed to as Richter from Total Recall no matter what he does.

Looks like we will have to hit rom-com/comedy territory to balance out film intake.

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What has not been as widely reported are the demos in Israel against the action

One account described the slogans/banners and the hoops they had to jump through to be able to protest.

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A multimillionaire politician and media tycoon responsible for the harassment and mass fingerprinting of the Roma population in Italy and trying to make himself immune to prosecution for his corrupt terms in power.

After taking a massive amount of cash for a huge spread in the Daily Record including half naked pictures it is unsurprising.

At the weekend I had better things to do, such as attend a protest against the slaughter in Gaza.

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96 years and 230+ wars (28 ongoing) after the war to end all wars.

Israel have been blockading medical supplies to Palestine for months and one of their ships rammed a vessel in international waters taking urgent medical supplies to help the injured.

Consider donating a small sum to Medical Aid for Palestine, one of the charities working to provide on the ground emergency medical aid.

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I also managed to read through a short Buffy novel Doomsday Deck. I picked it up for about a quid and it was quite enjoyable. I am always a bit weary of TV tie-in books but they are easy to pick up and carry on from, so perfect for reading on the bus early in the morning. Unlike the TV show though you already know that character A is not going to die and character B manages to escape without injury, especially ones set before the current time line in the universe. Ho-hum, it wasted some time and was a change.

I don’t know what my reading list is next year but Tayside Recyclers 10p specials have yielded me quite a varied bunch, I think for comedy’s sake I have to start the new year with Kilroy Silks autobiography from the 80s. It’s going to be baaaaaad.

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If Brown’s ridiculous use of anti-terrorism laws against Iceland have stopped this beautiful drink getting into the country it will be the straw that broke the camels back. I’ll oppose you privatising public services, march against the wars and bailouts you have bottomless pits of money for, but deny me good vodka and you’re beyond the pale sunshine.

In other news this week, a tanned celebrity going into Big Brother house has caused much mirth in lefty circles and an Iraqi with a pretty good aim has caused many cheers.

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Fantastic video starring Jack Black, Sarah Chalke and Neil Patrick Harris.

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A really interesting site, especially if like me, you are a huge nerd.

There are all sorts of maps, from fantastical ones to real ones of countries that don’t exist and micro-nations which existed for a brief glimmer.

Some strange examples include:

Stalin’s proposed homeland for Russian Jews

Europe, If the Nazis Had Won

The World in (George Orwell’s) 1984

Elleore – occupies a special place among [Danish islands]: unpeopled for most of the year, and not part of Denmark when it is – that is, if you’re partial to the semi-jocular sovereignty claims of micronations.

Cannibal Map of the World

Prepare to lose a day or two learning obscure geography.

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Attendance was probably around 200, with loads of under 18s for some reason I couldn’t understand, maybe Frightened Rabbit has a following with the teens?

We just caught the end of the first support band not used to advertised doors times being accurate…They were quite good, as were the Grace Emilys.

Frightened Rabbit came on before 10 and played for an hour with a small encore. They were as good on stage as on CD. I really like the second album that Mike forced on us going listen you’ll love this as we were met with:

Oh, you won’t find love in a
Won’t find love in a hole
It takes more than fucking someone
To keep yourself warm

Much amusement. Their songs were also filled with innuendo and cheesy silliness If we have a hormone race, I’m bound to finish first says another verse of the same song.

The voice of the singer is unique, powerful, raw and with a really detectable accent, a cross between Billy Bragg and Flying Matchstick Men or something, who knows.

Hearing Keep Warm I was worried they would be a bit preachy. Head Rolls Off makes it clear they are not

Jesus is just a Spanish boy’s name
How come one man got so much fame?
…
When it’s all gone, something carries on
And it’s not morbid at all
Just when nature’s had enough of you
When my blood stops, someone else’s will not

and ends with the most important point:

While I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to earth
Tiny changes to earth, tiny changes to earth
Tiny changes to earth

If the excellence of their music and intelligence of their lyrics are not enough to convince you to love them then the drummer being an Owen Boss Koala lookalike and Rhythm Guitarist being Jarvis Cocker in disguise should.

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Barman asked what we wanted to drink and this exchange amused me no end.

Me: What vodkas do you have?
Barman: Well, if you’re a vodka connoisseur then you can have Grey Goose or Finlandia.
Me: Well seeing as I am and Grey Goose is shite, I’ll have the Finlandia please.
Barman: I have never heard anyone say that about Grey Goose before!

He was genuinely shocked.

For the meal I had their classic burger with piri piri sauce and Emmental cheese. It was grand.

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I remember the day unfolding and posting in the thread on UGS being sceptical about the numerous claims made by the Police: he was running, was challenged, had heavy clothing to conceal a bomb etc, all of which turned out to be nonsense.

Where are the Tories bleating about the abuse of state powers and Stalinist government today? Or are Labour only stamping on civil liberties when Tories are the subject of their regime?

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Various news agencies have reported on EC President Jose Manuel Barroso talking about Britain and the Euro.

I don’t mean this will happen tomorrow, I know that the majority (of British people) are still opposed, but there is a period of consideration underway and the people which matter in Britain are currently thinking about it

Democracy EU style as usual. No doubt if there was a vote against it another follow shortly after.

I don’t really care what currency I have in my pocket whether it’s Euros, Pounds Sterling or Scottish Pounds.

In other political news the Tories are spitting in their corn flakes about the arrest of Damian Green. They have now come to the conclusion that New Labour have a wee bit of an authoritarian streak about them and that the anti-terrorism laws are being abused. This from the self righteous hypocrites who were trying to decide whether people should be locked up for 28 or 90 days without charge, support locking up children in prisons before they are sent back to regimes where they face torture and excecution and stayed silent whilst the laws were used to attack Icelandic assets in the UK.

Yes it’s a bad thing but after the litany of attacks on democracy by both Labour and the Tories they are hardly able to complain.

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I started getting this about issue 6 (now 22) and it’s really good. The movie reviews are focused on SciFi/Fantasy/Horror/World Cinema type stuff so really covers most of my main movie interests. So far I haven’t noticed any signs of the reviews being biased by ads, they’ve been quite accurate for the most part. Quite the opposite of bought by adverts actually, they did a huge exclusive preview spread drooling over 30 Days of Night and then slated it in the review the next issue.

Today’s other new release is Viz. After really going down hill for about 8 months the last 4 or 5 issues have been superb. Last issues Profanisaurus was excellent.

The other release of this week which I won’t actually get for another fortnight is Buffy Season 8: Issue 19. The concluding part of the Fray arc of the Buffy comics looks to be good and after being hit by the curse of Fray and delayed so long it better bloody be.

I had never been a big comic fan (He-Man when I was young excluded) but Buffy Season 8 really sparked my interest. I have been getting Buffy, Angel, Spike, Serenity and a few other random TV related comics randomly. I obviously picked up the Watchmen and from one of the Angel staff got Everybody’s Dead which is a really silly/cool Zombie short series. I got Conan for a while then dropped but am enjoying Solomon Kane. Other random pick-ups have been X-Files and Lost Boys, I noticed there is an Underworld series coming out so I may pick that up to see what it’s like.

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Whether we will keep using it for months is yet to be found out but it feels like when I first got the Wii. You want to play it all the time. The added bonus is that you then decide not to have that chocolate bar after lunch as it will show up on your weigh in.

An extra motivation for me is to try and get a bit fitter. I used to be really fit, then my job went from carrying heavy boxes in a stock room or running round a shop floor to sitting on my arse in front of a computer all day. At roughly the same time I injured my ankle in the infamous suitcase staircase accident. The first cut down the amount of exercise I got and the second really demotivated me to do any because my ankle hurt like hell doing most of the exercise like activities I did before. Dancing all night in a night out, jogging around, I used to walk down town and back on occasion from mums (3+miles each way).

My days of 32″ waist and 12 second 100metre runs and 5 minute miles are gone but I think accepting that has made me accept going a bit too far in the other direction. When my work moves to the new office I intend to get a bike to cycle there which should help too. There’s no way I’m cycling the route to current office considering the number of overturned lorries that happen nearby its a bloody death wish.

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If ever you need to complete the input-> process->output diagram with Daily Mail as the input this is your best bet.

My favourite has to be the EUrophobe who rants about the metric temperature measures. The other excellent parody of this section is the From the message boards section in Private Eye

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It originally started as a board about hip hop, then a well timed explosion of the Dundee music scene a number of years ago co-ordinated with the death of the Kerosene board due to Colin deciding he was too old to be a DJ meant it had a period of rapid growth and then a decline when social network sites started taking off and filled the space sites like UGS were taking advantage of.

It now seems to be diversifying a lot after being narrowly focussed on the Dundee rock scene for a while.

I can heartily recommend it for random stuff, happenings in Dundee, crap films, good films and loads of bitter late 20 and early something ranters about the state of the world.

Linking

I am trying to write a short piece about why I am linking to a particular site and what it means to me rather than adding a plethora of random links from the blog. This means I have to actually think about my association with them and if I can’t write a short paragraph about why I am linking to them then I can’t really expect any readers to be interested in them.

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Shortly before it closed there was a worrying trend of book prices rocketing. It became common to see hardbacks for more than the cost of a new paperback edition. Having the dedicated bookshop meant that all the other charity shops had lower quality books in and also started creeping their prices up.

There are a couple of charity shops on the Perth Road who regularly have decent stock in, but the ones in the town can be pretty dire. One Perth Road shop used to have a decent selection of political/academic books and is also where I got the amazing Michael Scott Rohan novels for 50p each. The last time I went in I was excited to see some newish Computing textbooks in, but they were £10-£15 each. Maybe they were bargaining on the rarity factor of having computer books that don’t boast “Office 97″ on the cover and were making the most of them, but it was certainly more than I was going to pay for some second hand books they got for free.

The Wee Red Bookshop in Glasgow and Word Power in Edinburgh have me sorted for political stuff but I wish there was somewhere locally I could get both political/academic books and novels regularly and at decent prices. Can anyone recommend anywhere or do I have to resort to eBay (10p plus £80 postage) or amazon (10p, £0 postage and your soul)?

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I hadn’t been reading books for a while so to get back into it started taking them for the bus journey to work and back. Unfortunately this was probably a poor choice for reading early on the day.

It’s a book analysing late 18th century political theory and is written in a style to match. Really dense, black hole academic dense. I quite enjoy books with loads of endnotes and footnotes.

The bibliography is almost 30 pages.

30.

pages.

That tells you how many endnotes etc. there were.

The book was enjoyable, interesting and informative. It just achieved these attributes in spite of its style. And it was a bargain too, normally £20+ I got it for £3 from the SSP’s Wee Red Bookshop.

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It was a really interesting and engrossing read.

The book is split into a number of chapters, each dealing with a type of logical fallacies. These include “The right to my opinion” and “morality fever”. It is well written and funny, dissecting statements from the great and the good, showing their flawed reasoning. As well as contrasting hypothetical positions of liberals, socialists, conservatives and libertarians.

One timely chapters deals with stock brokers. After discussing whether their high salaries are rewarded for luck or for skill, and discussing statistics of results and how some of the traders will have good runs he concludes:

Investment banks should employ former winners of Lotto tickets for them. No salary could be too high for these wizards of ticket selection.

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We recently put the finishing touches to her new online jewellery shop too.

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Tried a bottle recently and will review at some point:

• 42 Below
• Absolut
• Blavod
• Crystalnaya
• Finlandia
• Ketel One
• Luksusowa
• Reyka
• Smirnoff
• Smirnoff Blue
• Stolichnaya
• Svensk
• Wyborowa

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Russian Standard

Russian Standard has been heavily advertised in the media lately*. Tesco for a while were punting it at £25 for 2 litres which is pretty good. It has quite a nice flavour to it so I try to make sure I have a bottle in (although I don’t just now).

Volume: 1L
Alcohol: 40%
Cost: £12.50
Cheapest spotted: £12.50/litre Tesco deal.

Normally:
Cost per nip (25ml): 44p
Cost per proper nip (35ml): 62p

* Although I had bought my first bottle of it months before that campaign, trendsetter that I am etc etc.

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SKYY Vodka

SKYY has been my favourite vodka for a while now. The other half brought me back a bottle from New York and it was gorgeous. Was a bit of a nightmare to find locally though, online it was costing £22 for a 70cl!

On the recent holiday to Mexico I made sure to grab 2 litre bottles on the way back, especially at £7 each.

The odour is amazing and it is so smooth, I normally add a mixer but can happily drink this straight.

Volume: 1L
Alcohol: 40%
Cost: £7
Cheapest spotted: £15 for 70CL in Threshers, Glasgow

Normally:
Cost per nip (25ml): 53p
Cost per proper nip (35ml): 75p

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Smirnoff Black

I picked up a bottle of Smirnoff Black a while back and finally popped it open. They market it as:

Crafted in small batches, using a copper pot-still, a centuries-old distillation method, smirnoff black recaptures the rounded, lasting, uncompromising smootness once savoured by the people and the czars of old Russia.

It was ok, a bit smoother than normal Smirnoff with the same odour. Probably wouldn’t buy again as it’s expensive for what you get and there are better ones for less.

Volume: 70CL
Alcohol: 40%
Cost: £20
Cheapest spotted: £18.29

Cost per nip (25ml): 71p
Cost per proper nip (35ml): £1

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Giving him two old game reviews I wrote and will copy any future ones to that site too.

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To start that off I nicked this meme from someones blog

• 1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
• 2) Italicize those you intend to read.
• 3) Underline the books you love.
• 4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
• 5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them

Here is the list. With no underlines as it doesn’s seem to be

• 1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
• 2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
• 3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
• 4 The Harry Potter Series – JK Rowling
• 5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
• 6 The Bible
• 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
• 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
• 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
• 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
• 11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
• 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
• 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
• 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
• 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
• 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
• 17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
• 18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
• 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
• 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
• 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
• 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
• 23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
• 24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
• 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
• 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
• 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
• 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
• 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
• 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
• 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
• 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
• 34 Emma – Jane Austen
• 35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
• 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
• 37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
• 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
• 39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
• 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
• 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
• 42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
• 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
• 45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
• 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
• 47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
• 48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
• 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
• 51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
• 52 Dune – Frank Herbert
• 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
• 54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
• 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
• 56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
• 58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
• 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
• 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
• 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
• 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
• 64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
• 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
• 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
• 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
• 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
• 69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
• 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
• 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
• 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
• 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
• 74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
• 75 Ulysses – James Joyce
• 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• 77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
• 78 Germinal – Emile Zola
• 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
• 80 Possession – AS Byatt
• 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
• 82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
• 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
• 84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
• 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
• 86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
• 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
• 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
• 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
• 91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
• 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
• 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
• 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
• 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
• 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
• 97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
• 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
• 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
• 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

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His most interesting post so far was assisted by me. Whoops, forgot I was filming and moved to take a portrait shot.

He likes obscure bands. I’m sure his blog won’t suck.

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What will be here?

Random stuff, links, reviews, politics, rants, silly double meanings and food. No idea yet, a mish mash of everything.

Why the name?

Scoville units are the standard way to measure the hotness of spicy food.

Most hot food sold in the UK has Jalapeños in it. These measure around 2,500-5,000 on this scale. The sauces I use for cooking contain hotter chillies than that. In Mexico I managed to get some Serrano and Habanero peppers. These are 10-23K and 100K-580K respectively. I used to regularly eat paninis with Scotch Bonnets in them (about 100K).

I like spicy food.

Units Unite is a nice play on words and also hints at the random politics I will be posting too.

I will look at themes, plug-ins etc over the next few days so this will change a lot.

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