Vox cani

Welfare

2006-05-16T12:03:00.000+01:00

I e-mailed Welfare, entitled “This college is fucking too much!”
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The condom machines were empty!
Okay, I thought it was funny.

Drunk as a monk(ey!)

2006-05-10T12:47:00.000+01:00

I wonder what state they were in when they decided to do this research…

Je l'aime moins (not plus)

2006-05-08T19:41:00.000+01:00

Before releasing Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus with Jane Birkin, and going to number one across Europe, Serge Gainsbourg recorded the song with Brigitte Bardot, with whom he had a brief affair. The first version is more randy, as reputed. Bardot gives the impression of being more demanding sexually than Birkin. Gainsbourg sounds intimidated, and she sounds like she is greedily taking what she wants. It's a lot less romantic than the Jane Birkin version, and less good I think. On Harley Davison, also by Serge Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot sounds too much like Lolo Ferrari . She gives an impression of aggression and selfishness in her sexuality, as projected through this music. She makes Gainsbourg sound like a drunk bit-player, trying to cope with shagging a porn star, whilst Birkin makes him a lover, and is a lover herself.

The Mint

2006-05-04T23:54:00.000+01:00

I saw the title and was astonished that ITV were being so worthy as to sponsor fresh art, à la Channel 4, or something… Yes, well.

WOOHOO

2006-04-12T21:13:00.000+01:00

Finally; Action hit DVD a couple of months ago! It's only Region 1, and I don't yet own a multi-region player, so I won't be buying it just yet, but this is wonderful news.
BUY IT. BUY IT. BUY IT.
When you've bought it, maybe print out the advert for the original show, instead of the inferior cover they've put on it. No one should need telling which is the superior cover.

The drinks budget

2006-04-07T13:52:00.000+01:00

Is it true that the Chancellor can drink alcohol during Budget speech?
While delivering the Budget Speech the Chancellor, in accordance with a custom of the House which is a departure from the normal practice, is permitted to fortify himself with the liquid refreshment of his choice.

Disraeli is said to have favoured brandy and water, while Goschen preferred port. Gladstone, it is thought, consumed sherry and beaten egg from his pomatum pot, although a diarist of the time, Henry Lucy, unable to ascertain the contents of the pot, described the liquid as resembling "a preparation for the hair as it might look in sultry weather".

Other reported tipples include: Derick Heathcote Amory's concoction of milk, honey and rum and Jim Callaghan's tonic water. Stafford Cripps is said to have chosen plain water.

In more recent years, press reports mention John Major drinking mineral water, Geoffrey Howe choosing gin and tonic, Nigel Lawson switching from the whisky and soda enjoyed during his early Budgets to spritzer, and Kenneth Clarke having a taste for neat whisky.

Following Chancellor Gordon Brown's Budget statement on 2 July 1997 the Leader of the Opposition, William Hague, opened his response as follows: "On a personal level, I congratulate the Chancellor on his fortitude in delivering his speech with only the assistance of water. "

Sources: An Encyclopaedia of Parliament. Norman Wilding & Philip Laundy. 4th ed. Cassell. 1972
A Diary of Two Parliaments. Henry W Lucy. 2nd ed. Cassell. 1885
The Times, 28.11.95
Hansard Vol 297, c.318

Didn’t I say English democracy was cute?

English democracy is charming

2006-04-07T00:34:00.000+01:00

“There have been various instances in the past of persons who were not Members being counted in a Division. For instance, on 27 February 1771:

The Speaker had no sooner declared that the Noes had it (Noes 165; Yeas 155), than it was discovered that a Stranger had come in and been told as one of the Noes. He was brought up to the Table by Mr Byng and Mr Buller. Questioned by the Speaker, he said, `My name is Thomas Hunt. I live in Dartmouth Street I follow no business, but live on my fortune. I heard somebody in the Lobby say, the doors were open, and that anybody might go in. I was going up to the gallery, with other gentlemen of my acquaintance ... I came into the lobby a little before the gentlemen were coming out ... I have been used to come into this House and gallery. I have been told in divisions
before this'.

After a long debate the question was again put and the House divided. Yeas 153: Noes 164. Mr Hunt was discharged after a warning from the Speaker.

The idea of clearing the lobbies derives from this sort of incident: security is now such that an intrusion of this kind would be virtually impossible.”

English democracy is charming.

Reform the BBC

2006-03-31T16:40:00.000+01:00

I just saw an advert on a US website for Ed vs Spencer, a gameshow in which two room-mates try to beat each other at various challenges… Who can gain the most weight? Who can make the best porn? Only on BBC America…

Here’s the full schedule, from the BBC America website.

ABOUT THE SHOWCameras trail two best friends Ed and Spencer as they compete against each other in seemingly pointless challenges such as "Who can stay handcuffed the longest?", "Who do Women like the most?", or "Who can lose the most weight?"The fun of the show is not so much in the challenges, but in the competitors. Spencer is a doe-eyed innocent who steadfastly believes in hard work and persistence whilst Ed will happily lie, cheat and do whatever else it takes to win.Each week the loser has to endure not only the humiliation of defeat, but also a demeaning forfeit of the victor’s choosing. Coming across more like a demented sitcom than a reality-based show, think Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote crossed with The Odd Couple, or Sanford and Son for the Ashton Kutcher generation.Episode ListMarch 23rd - Who Can Make Himself the Sickest?March 30th- Who Can Stay Handcuffed the Longest?April 6th - Who's the Most Attractive to Women?April 13th - Who Can Survive in the Woods the Longest?April 20th - Who Can Make the Best Porn?April 27th - Who Is the Hardest?May 4th - Who Do Kids Like More?May 11th - Who Can Put On the Most Weight?May 18th - Who Can Make Himself More Famous?May 25th - Who Can Make the Most Money in Three Days

I am all for the BBC making money if it can do so to relieve pressure from the ridiculous license fee; but it is illegal in this country to operate a TV without paying an annual fee in the hundreds of pounds for the upkeep of this corporation as a public service broadcaster. Can anyone explain how they should be making this as a PSB? why a brand financed by a tax is being used for this?

Superman's boner

2006-03-24T13:39:00.000Z

Everything on this site is worth reading, but this is probably the best. My friend’s response to it was, “this is suc a boy joke” (sic).

Boxing is boxing

2006-03-19T13:24:00.000Z

Toney-Rahman was a majority draw, leaving the heavyweight picture, as Reuters say, “blurry”. Incredibly, answering “Who’s the heavyweight champion?” has managed to become a harder question, going from 4 answers to 5… Comparing this to Lennox Lewis’ masterful reign is depressing, after I watched his gorgeous draw with Evander Holyfield last night, when the world became hungry for the rematch, rather than depressed at the result. For the record, I gave the fight to Lewis, after giving Skelton-Williams to Skelton beforehand, and awestruck at the gulf in class between the two fights. That Danny Williams talks of being a world champion seems crazy after watching the two juxtaposed…

Heavyweights fight

2006-03-18T16:00:00.000Z

Nikolay Valuev probably wouldn’t be undefeated if those decision wins of his hadn’t been staged in Germany. I like the fighter, and he seems a good guy, but it remains to be proven that he’s worthy of being called a world heavyweight champion. So we’ll leave him aside, he had a defence scheduled against Calvin Brock or Owen Beck, I don’t remember which, but it’s been put back because of injury so he’s on Boxrec as defending against ? on 3rd June. It’s rather appropriate, it is probably answering the questions that is his biggest challenge.
The nice thing though, is that Valuev aside, all the legitimate champions have fights scheduled within about a month. Tonight James Toney and Hasim Rahman clash in what is generally seen as the decider for the “true” HW champ, although I’m not sure it will prove either man much better than Lamon Brewster and Chris Byrd.
Nice to see though, Brewster is scheduled against Serguei Lyakhovich on 1st April and Chris Byrd is scheduled against Wladimir Klitschko on 22nd April. I’d fancy the defending champions in both contests, and I’d then love to see Toney take on Brewster, whose fight with Luan Krasniqi is one of my favourites of recent times. Of course, as they say, boxing is boxing...

Oh dear

2006-03-07T05:49:00.000Z

South Dakota Governor Signs Abortion Ban

It’s a deliberate challenge to Roe ‘v’ Wade, with an exception for saving the mother’s life, not for safe-guarding her health, not for rape, not for incest… Those latter victims are advised to take the morning after pill, which South Dakota chemists can refuse if they disagree with it. The law will be challenged by the pro-choice/anti-life/pro-death lobby, with the pro-life/anti-choice lobby hoping it will provoke the legal fight that will remove abortion rights throughout the US. At present in SD women must wait 24 hours before an abortion, and must inform their parents, with no exception for incest.

“Currently, South Dakota does not require emergency rooms to provide EC to women who have been sexually assaulted. In addition, pharmacists may not dispense EC without a prescription even if a specific collaborative agreement with a physician were arrang

The Dismal Science

2006-02-10T12:05:00.000Z

What else would one do on Valentine’s Day than go to a talk on competition policy?

SIR DEREK MORRIS on "COMPETITION POLICY: ECONOMICS IN ACTION"

The Oxford Management Society invites you to an exclusive talk on "Competition Policy and Sector Regulation in the UK: Economics in Action" by our very own Provost Sir Derek Morris, the former chairman of the Competition Commission. Sir Morris was the Economic Director at the National Economic Development Office and Chairman of Oxford Economic Forecasting Ltd. He has published numerous articles, reviews and books, most recently the Morris Review of the Actuarial Profession. His talk will give a vivid insight into his views on competition policy and regulation.

Date: Tuesday, 14th February
Time: 8:00 PM
Venue: Oriel College, Harris Building

Entry is free, and there will be free Valentine's Drinks afterwards! We look forward to seeing you.

I wonder if the computer society has something on…. The European Societies have speed-dating, because languages are fun.

Wow

2006-02-10T11:42:00.000Z

Prairie dogs deserve a Disney film.

In honour of Qwantz

2006-02-09T17:37:00.000Z

In honour of….

People for God to save (degrees to which meant and reasons):

the queen (thrice)
the queen (man, because tourists are money)
our figurehead is not what she seems
her fascist regime
window leen
human beings
history
your mad parade

Things she is:

no human being
gracious
noble

Things it made you:

a moron
a potential h bomb
Nothing in particular

Things which there is:

no future (in england’s dreaming)
questions this raises
no future (in general)
no future (for you)
no future (for me)
Nothing in particular

Questions

How can there be sin?
None

Things not to be told:

what you want
what you need
Nothing in particular

Things we love:

our queen (whom God saves)
Nothing in particular

Things for God to do (and why):

have mercy (all crimes are paid)
Nothing in particular

Things we are:

the flowers in the dustbin
the poison in your human machine
the future
your future
Nothing in particular

Things she should do at length:

Live
Reign over us
Nothing in particular

Things to send her:

victorious
happy
glorious
Nothing in particular

Danish Cartoons

2006-02-08T21:26:00.000Z

Brief thoughts.

Freedom of expression is a precious right. I would like to hear interesting arguments against it.

Freedom of religion is a precious right, bound up with freedom of expression, and equally fundamental to any but a fascistic conception of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism. Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, etc.

All of us contravene rules of each other's religions all the time, for example by adhering to other faiths (one can't, for example, adhere to Hinduism whilst adhering to Christianity).

The rules of Islam state that one should not depict the Prophet Mohammed, pbuh.

The principles of freedom of worship and expression imply no obligation on those who aren't adherents of a religion to follow its rules, so there is no obligation on Jews to follow Muslim rules, for example. We all have a right to eat pork, to preach that Jesus was the son of God, to preach that He wasn't, etc.

There is and was a right to depict Mohammed, pbuh. If Muslims follow their religion then they won't do so, but non-Muslims don't follow that religion, by definition.

The political situation in many Arab states is one of a lack of freedom, a lot of volatility, and a lot of people wanting to foment unrest.

Both Arab governments and other organisations have often encouraged anti-Western sentiment, either sincerely, or to further their own ends (e.g. to promote nationalism favourable to their own weak position).

This sentiment and unrest tends to lead to violence, deaths, kidnappings, a lessening of prospects for femocracy and freedom, a souring in relations between the West and the Arab world, and advancement of the cause of fascist nationalism at the expense of prospects for liberty.

Depicting Mohammed, pbuh, in these cartoons was obviously going to upset people, and to give ammunition to those wishing to stir up violence and hatred, without really achieving anything.

There was a right to depict Mohammed, pbuh, in these cartoons in the first place, and to reprint them. This right should be left alone.

Depicting Mohammed, pbuh, in these cartoons was bloody stupid, deleterious to the cause of free speech, and peace, because it gave an opportunity to people to be annoyed etc. and to say that free speech was anti-Islamic, when in fact it is a freedom which allows for Islam to be spread to anyone who will believe in it when it is shared with them.

A sensible perspective is this: there is a right to publish, but publishing is stupid and pretty pointless.

The violence now is hateful and unjustified, although predictable.

Boycotting companies who had nothing to do with this is misdirected, and is less justified than refusing to do business with any Jew because of Palestine, or any Muslim because of 9/11; both of which would be stupid perspectives.

The only boycotts that would be remotely sensible are of the cartoonist, and perhaps the newspapers involved. The original newspaper has, of course, apologised, which is all they can do, so any boycott on them should have ended anyway when that happened.

Protest is justified to make feelings heard, using exactly the same freedom of speech as the cartoonist used. Violence and national boycotts are not.

None of the European governments involved has control of what their press says, and this is a very good thing.

None of the other companies in the countries involved has any control at all of what their press says.

The cartoonist was silly. The response has been sillier and illogical, but very predictable given the politics involved.

In Afghanistan alone, ten people have now died in the protests.

It's his prerogative

2006-02-06T14:26:00.000Z

Imagine! the Tories are going after the Royal Prerogative powers… If only electoral reform were next.
Now, coffee and equality.

Wagner

2006-02-02T18:00:00.000Z

I was sat listening to Wagner, only The Ride Of The Valkyries, nothing demonstrating any knowledge of him, and enjoying the big Apocalypse Now helicopter bit, and then I realised that I felt like an asshole for enjoying that music…. Damn you Hitler; damn you Vietnamese war, spoiling my musical enjoyment…

A glance inside the friendly shell of a police station

2006-02-02T15:46:00.000Z

Apparently 2,100 bikes are stolen in Oxford every year. Mine was the 15th to be recovered this year, and I’ve just been down to give a statement about the theft. I don’t often feel so white. Every person I saw working there was white, I was there looking relaxed and dressed conservatively, like I was with them. Everyone who seemed to be there without wanting to be was non-white, all dressed in sports-type clothing; I swear if everybody were evacuated for a fire, you’d still know exactly who was on which side of the law in there. I felt so bloody white.
There was a man there as well, trying to sort out with the receptionist something to do with whether his son had missed a parole appointment or something, and whether his son was going to be liable for arrest whilst it got sorted out. He was saying how he wanted to carry on dealing with it with her rather than some alternative that involved police officers, because then he would get into an argument with them and get upset, and then get arrested for “whatever you call it”. This statement seemed to imply both that it was their rules, not to do with him, and also that it was a matter of police discretion whereby police could call whatever they wanted whatever they wanted, if he annoyed them. The thing that really struck me, was that whilst saying all this, he remained polite whilst obviously het up, but was leaning forward completely over her counter, right into her face, with his athletic 6-foot frame, creating completely aggressive body language. It was just the completely wrong way to deal with anyone, sending out so many signals of confrontation, anger, and potential violence, to the person with whom he was talking. I so wanted to explain to him what he was doing, and the difference that could be made simply by giving off less intimidatory and even friendly signals. It would have been a simple matter of changing his body language by about 20° to the vertical, which would have completely changed the situation. The lady was admirably reasonable and helpful to him, but anyone who wasn’t taking such an attitude of being nice no matter what would have ended up fighting with him. Anyway, it probably would have felt rude and patronising, and it was in front of his son. I waited and then I went in and chatted jovially with this police officer dealing with my bike. He was a nice man.
My bike was found by a police officer confiscating it from a lad he knew to have a record, and then the frame number matched the database. Apparently it’s very usual for people to bring in bikes to be certified as not stolen (in order to sell them to second-hand shops) and then for them to match the database, incriminating the people.
Catching and punishing hardly covers it; people don’t necessarily know the straight and narrow in order to choose it. This is social.

Punk cock

2006-01-30T21:58:00.000Z

I'm listening to The Cockney Rejects' "Greatest Cockney Rip Off". I had to check the title; I was convinced that they were singing, "It was the greatest cock in Britain!"
It's a very cute song, featuring an inept piano solo, and ending with a shouted "Thankyou EMI!"

French people are just more stylish

2006-01-28T17:59:00.000Z

What one drinks champagne out of has often been dictated by fashion. The champagne coupe or saucer-shaped glass, while very popular, was never designed for drinking champagne. It is unstable and does not allow you to fully appreciate the benefits of the wine. There is a legend that it was modelled from the bosom of Marie-Antoinette. Hugh Johnson states that this is not entirely without foundation. "The Sèvres porcelain factory did take a cast from this august model and produced four detailed white bowels that were mounted on elaborate bases of three goat's heads to adorn the Queen's Dairy Temple at the Château de Rambouillet near Versailles. The dairy still exists; as does one of the four coupes."

These guys rock

2006-01-25T14:12:00.000Z

These guys rock.

Not that you'll enjoy reading this, but no one reads it, and it ain't there for a public to enjoy.

2005-12-12T17:49:00.000Z

This week’s Popbitch gives some publicity to the founder of the Crips’ impending death penalty, and the Governator’s chance to give him clemency. It just reminded me to say this once again to anyone who will listen: if you claim Christianity, then I presume you’re claiming to follow this “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” It’s for God to judge, not us, and that means that we don’t get to say that someone derserved what they got, and we don’t get to punish them for what they did. Deterrence is a justification that works for laws, but “Vengeance is mine, saieth the Lord.” Only God gets to punish.

IMHO

Thanks

2005-12-01T12:25:00.000Z

I should be working, but I was reading through the archive of the excellent Waiter Rant instead and came across his post from the time of the tsunami. I hadn’t donated to earthquake relief in Pakistan yet, though I had meant to do so. No one reads this, but if you are doing then go and do so.

Only in Oxford

2005-11-10T02:36:00.000Z

I met a fella in the pub last night that my friend put onto me after they’d been discussing the EU and the Euro in particular. Having spent the morning writing an essay on whether joining EMU would be a good idea for the UK, this was rather ridiculously appropriate. Anyway, the fella was Austrian with imperfect English, and a good few inside him, so we didn’t have so much a debate on that as he espoused his very interesting take on it and then we moved on rather than I try to engage him on the economics. One doesn’t meet many true European believers over here, but this lad was absolutely vehement. He wouldn’t let me call EMU a “project”, as for him it wasn’t at all take it or leave it, it was reality, it was who they were as Europe. Europe wasn’t a separate thing, it wasn’t a set of institutions, it was an identity and a belief system. It’s hard even to put into words, but discussing whether the EU was a good idea would have been some sort of equivalent of asking the Pope whether it was a decent idea for people to postulate something apart from physical reality on Earth. It was fascinating.
We moved on then to a discussion of the comparative marketing and funding of research into fusion and quantum computing, as he lamented the lack of support for his, the former, field. He got to explaining to me some of the weirder points of quantum, and its boundary and conflict with the relativistic view, choicely advising me “Perhaps it’s better if you forget about time.” as I tried to understand what it meant for their to be instantaneous communication of particles, as seems to have been demonstrated, and theoretically is pretty fundamental. Wow. This stuff is pretty out there, and I would like a lot to carry on to where I might understand it better; especially as I’ve had some interesting thoughts on both quantum and relativity.
The conversation turned more to life as well, and I went into central Oxford nightlife for the first time in a while, with my lovely drunken Austrian friend, but I was just thinking today, that was a real only in Oxford evening. Hope to see you again mate. :)

The earthquake

2005-11-08T12:14:00.000Z

IDS is on the radio saying that the lack of much giving to the earthquake appeal is because the coverage isn’t making it look like people like us are suffering, and that it has occurring now rather than when we’re all at home with our families for the tsunami. So much everyone else has said, though I’ve not heard the Christmas point before.
It seems to me though that there’s a reason that hasn’t really been suggested in the media; that is that the earthquake appears like just another bit of bad news in a place that always has that. It’s like when there’s a flood in Kashmir: it doesn’t seem like news to people. With the tsunami it was like yikes, bugger, hell, these people just had this big super mega smashey thing. With this it’s more: those people who always have crap happen to them…yep… it’s happened again. It seems to me that this one sounds to people like the same old, and so it doesn’t change anything for them.

Fun, bad, and wrong

2005-11-05T15:07:00.000Z

My iTunes sharing name is now “If you don’t like Prince then you’re wrong.”

So which party were you again?

2005-11-03T00:11:00.000Z

Oh, and great quotation, from a response to the right-wing talk shows. I don’t know the landscape, but I have a feeling that the equivalent people on the right in the US have a bit of a more sophisticated operation. (via, which via)…

“If the Republicans are smart, and they are…. They may be evil, but they're not dumb.”

Off the mat people!

2005-11-02T23:48:00.000Z

Charles Clarke calls for a consensus on something beyond 14 days, and talks to achieve it, after weeks and maybe months of saying that he believed in the 90 days but was willing to compromise on it. What the hell do they have to do for people to realise that this is a straw man? 90 days is totally ridiculous; we bloody know that. The problem is that it’s a very clever straw man, which can’t be ignored once this is realised, but still needs defeating.
That said, it isn’t so hard to talk about more than one thing, especially when Charles Clarke trails his straw man by talking about the 90 days every three seconds. Our Opposition have sucked a lot for a long while, but allowing the focus just to be on this and not attacking the rest of this terror legislation is rubbish. The Opposition are being utterly outmanoeuvred. This when Labour’s majority was cut to one today on this. ONE! (Although I looked at Hansard and I don’t understand the counting, cos I got 297 votes for amendment plus 2 tellers, and 300+2 votes against… This looks like my mistake though, cos the guys doing Hansard must be pretty able.)

Nostalgia

2005-11-02T14:56:00.000Z

I’ve been missing one of my favourite sitcoms of all time, Action. I used to watch it at 2AM on Channel 4, drinking milk after going out jogging. It ended up good for my health, as the run was a good excuse to stay up that late in days when my default was about midnight. A little research reveals that it was one of Fox’s flagships for the Fall Season (it’s an American thing I reckon, there’s not really the same concept of an Autumn TV season) of 1999, when the awesome West Wing debuted. Back then, people raved on it, and rightly so, because it rocked. Unfortunately, the ratings were rubbish, and it’s swearing, drug use, and general attitude annoyed enough people that they didn’t need too many reasons to cancel it. Apparently the season finale was rewritten when they knew it was being cancelled, and so Peter Dragon, the excellently enthusiastic lead turn of Jay Mohr (the nasty dude in Jerry Maguire, which I watched recently, and which turns out to rock), died of a heart attack, with the time of death as the end of the show’s slot when the final episode was shown. Fox quite literally killed the show. Of course, whilst endless crap comes out on DVD; we’re still waiting on being able to see this masterpiece in anything but glittering memories. Amazon reckon it’s being released on DVD in the future, 1969 actually, so we may have to wait for the calendars being rejigged for the Second Coming (and 1000 years of Satan in charge) to see it again. Please let’s get it back before then, if only just to prepare us for the horny dude; it probably won’t help, but there’s a petition.
It rocked so much….

Invention?

2005-11-02T14:18:00.000Z

I don’t know if this counts as real innovation, but Hik made me a Sidecar, and I found it a bit sour, so I got him to add rum and tonic, and it became something really rather lovely. It’s fun to say I invented a cocktail, anyway. He named it the Sidecar Fountain, which was a bit of a strange name. A Sidecar Named Desire would be better, but I need to check that it really is good, and that no one else has named the recipe, before using a name that I do rather like…

Boxing; the most absurd...

2005-10-27T18:38:00.000+01:00

Prison-boxing movie? Nope, really, it’s going to happen. You’ve got to love this sport; though if I were the prisoner, I think I might just ask them to honour my human right to pole-vault…

Nouvelle cuisine

2005-10-25T12:13:00.000+01:00

Who’d have thought that cold own-brand Ready-Brek wth maple syrup would make a nice lunch when feeling a tad nauseated from lack of sleep? I’m going to make a cup of tea, and then I might just be able to write the essay.

Tory Big Brother

2005-10-20T13:50:00.000+01:00

That the BBC needs huge amounts of reform is kinda evident. I switched off a debate on R4 the other day in which someone had accepted that the only way of campaigning against a politician was ridicule, but was arguing with the proponent of said premise that people ought to be ridiculing policies, rather than David Cameron’s drug use. That standards droop similarly at ITV may or may not be news; or maybe they are in fact noticing the real modernisation of the Tory party…

If you were a deer, what would be on your iPod?

2005-10-17T11:38:00.000+01:00

The deer seem to like Can I kick it? by A Tribe Called Quest. At least, they’ve come near the window with my playing it. They were kinda noisy last night themselves, so it makes sense I suppose that they haven’t been put off by JC Chavez’s All day long I dream about sex. I’ve been warned that I’ll be annoyed with their noises before long, but they’ve not been too bad thus far…

Embarassing often

2005-10-09T11:40:00.000+01:00

So Casthillo’s weight carried on rising up until the bout, and then he knocked out Corralles with a big left hand, no bloody wonder. It’s ridiculous, of course they’re drawing up terms for the rematch, but not to make the weight by so much is bloody cheating. It’s like someone fitting rockets to their car in Formula One, or something, and being let to compete with just a slight fiscal penalty. Guy was over the weight in my fight, which annoyed me, having tried so hard to get down to it. Grrr… (he beat me on points after I ran out of energy and could hardly box the last round, so I wouldn’t attribute it to the weight, he had trained harder). I can’t call Castillo’s a legitimate win.

iTunes music sharing is great... or a waste of much time

2005-10-08T22:49:00.000+01:00

Without the wonders of our network; I probably would never again have heard Whigfield’s non-seminal non-classic “Sexy Eyes”. It really does deserve a listen to give one a smile. It’s astonishing the way she tries to imbue completely meaningless lyrics with emotion, as if it meant so much to her to sing “Sexy Eyyyyeeeyyyeeesss”. She sounds most sincere when singing “num-num-na-num-num-na-na-ney”, over and over again.

Looking at the html on this, which I’m not bothered to fix, Word with pasted web content does produce awful stuff even with the Blogger tool….

Witness, though elyrics.net actually get this wrong…

This first verse doesn’t happen here in the version I’m listening to…

Ooh ooh aah aah sexy eyes
I'm gonna take you to paradise
Hey hey my my look at me
You got me feeling (bugger, we need a rhyme, what rhymes with “me”, but doesn’t quite scan correctly?) free (there we go, ooh, and deliciously meaningless)

Sexy eyes

On the one I’m hearing, we start here, the true opening of such a true song.

Ooh ooh aah aah sexy eyes
I'm gonna take you to paradise
Hey hey my my can't you see
You were born to dance with me

Ooh ooh aah aah sexy eyes
You know I'm never gonna tell you lies
Hey hey my my look at me
You got me feeling free

Na na na ... sexy eyes (elyrics.net actually get this very wrong, it is, as I mentioned above, a definite, and more catchy, “num-num-na-num-num-na-na-ney” × 3 “num-num-na-num-num-na-na” × 1; “num-num-na-num-num-na-na-ney” × 3 “num-num-na-num-num-na-na” × 1; with narey a “sexy eyes” in sight, maybe this mix was from someone who felt the eyes were sexier…)
Na na na ... sexy eyes

Ooh ooh aah aah sexy eyes
I'm gonna take you to paradise
Hey hey my my can't you see
You were born to dance with me

Ooh ooh aah aah hold me tight
Yes I guess you got me hypnotized
Hey hey my my don't you know
I'm gonna love you so - oh yeah

Sexy eyes “with your sexy sexy eyes; (EMOTE! Sexy eyyyyeeeyeyeyesss, with your sexy sexy eyes, Sexy eyyyyeeeyeyeyesss, with your sexy sexy eyes, Sexy eyyyyeeeyeyeyesss, with your sexy sexy eyes, Sexy eyyyyeeeyeyeyesss, with your sexy sexy eyes”
(“num-num-na-num-num-na-na-ney” × 3 “num-num-na-num-num-na-na” × 1) × 3, maybe? Maybe more….
Na na na ... sexy eyes
Na na na ... sexy eyes

That bit never happens….
This next bit happens quite a lot, before Whigfield goes back to familiar territory……

Ooh ooh aah aah sexy eyes
Sexy eyes
Hey hey my my look at me
You got me feeling free - ooh aah

And yes, as the song closes, she’s happily num-num-nahing away, back in her true vein (“num-num-na-num-num-na-na-ney” × 3 “num-num-na-num-num-na-na” × 1) this rest I don’t think happens, maybe it’s on the album version…..

Sexy eyes
Na na na ... sexy eyes
Na na na ... sexy eyes

Sexy eyes - without your sexy eyes
Sexy eyes - without your sexy eyes
Sexy eyes - without your sexy eyes
Sexy eyes - without your sexy eyes

Ooh ooh aah aah sexy eyes
I'm gonna take you to paradise
Hey hey my my look at me
You got me feeling free

Sometimes (often) professional boxing is just embarassing

2005-10-08T22:03:00.000+01:00

One of the most-anticipated fights of the year won’t be a title fight, cos Jose Luis Castillo hasn’t made the weight in time. What’s the reason from Bob Arum, his promoter? He says his fighter hasn’t had a trainer for two weeks after he was fired by the doctor… WTF? Can anyone imagine another sport where this would happen? This was a fight not anticipated so much like Rahman-Klitschko, and Byrd-Williamson, because it was for the title and the future of the heavyweight division, but rather because their last meet was greatly entertaining, and people hoped for another possible fight of the year.
Over at Audley Harrison’s forum, we’re all lamenting how a possible “future of the heavyweight division” might be able to box anyone useful, cos his name isn’t big enough to mitigate the risk of names losing to his great talent. One needs the matchmakers to think of one as a big name, but one that is over-hyped and really very beatable, so that their fighters can add rep by winning a fight that really isn’t that hard, whilst everyone knows that Audley has great talent (albeit in a not particularly TV-friendly style, focussing on winning, as we said about Sven this afternoon), and yet where it matters in the US, his is not a massive name that will make people hugely anticipate a fight. Ironically, some of the guys with such names are also famed for being very boring to watch, yet still, there is more incentive to fight them… What’s Audley’s problem? Well boxing is so corrupt that he decided to be self-promoted so as not to be sucked into that corruption, and so he has been continuosly resented by promoters (see Frank Warren), and he has never had a manager with fighters to put in with him, in the way Don King can make one of his champions bigger by having him beat another of his champions, and thus can match the two without worrying so much that his fighter will lose (as his fighter must also win). Lastly, without one of the big promoters, one doesn’t have even the contacts and the network to find out fights that could be made, or the position of being someone to whom others must answer the phone, and are obligated occasionally to say yes.
It’s a frustrating game: the best sport there is, and yet run worse than no other so popular…

This isn't the voice of the Mysterons

2005-10-08T11:21:00.000+01:00

Wow; Captain Scarlet is back on TV, but he’s bloody computer-generated, as if the show were somehow about excellent characters in any medium, as opposed to the excitement of toys fighting… Any dignity that remained in this shot disappeared when the bloke proceeded to kiss the image of the woman in green. Captain Scarlet didn’t seem to notice.

Basking in software

2005-10-07T00:46:00.000+01:00

Wow; there’s now a Word-based blogging tool. It’s very cool; I had to test-drive it…

They ask for license fees....

2005-10-06T23:38:00.000+01:00

What did we need? celebrity spelling for a week? well I hadn't realised...

2005-10-06T23:37:00.000+01:00

Someone asked Question Time about the really dumb Dr Liam Fox flag idea.
David Starkey, a revelation of stupidity so far in the programme, supports it of
course. Anne McElvoy says she's glad that in Britain we needn't do such stuff.
Francis Maude, whom I've always rather respected, says that reclaiming the flag
for Britain is a good idea, but that we needn't do the policy, emphasising that
Liam Fox isn't leader of the Tories, and having earlier said that he was neutral
as chairman in the leadership debate, he really did reject the policy. Good on
you; it's one of the worst ideas I've heard in a very long time. Lib Dem and
Labour MPs Jo Swinson and Douglas Alexander also say that forcing schools to do
so would be silly.

Sinn Féin, talking to both sides

2005-10-06T23:13:00.000+01:00

Meanwhile, Sinn F�in skate a little bit on thin ice in the degree to which
they celebrate IRA heritage. It's important to many supporters, but isn't this a
tad dodgy of a new product to be launching?

More on Cameron

2005-10-06T23:07:00.000+01:00

There we go; David Cameron is the Eton-schooled (along with most of his
forefathers) son of a stockbroker, with ancestors who were also Tory
politicians. He's talented I'd say, bur he's a Tory boy through and through, and
that may be a big handicap.
--Update-- Vernon Bogdanor has good words to say about him on Newsnight; that's a good endorsement, though I would expect either endorsement or a refusal to talk. Still, Bogdanor says that he's a centrist, in tune with most people in the country; this guy gets more formidable. The kids on Newsnight like him too.

Tories

2005-10-06T20:26:00.000+01:00

Well I've watched the Tory leadership speeches. Liam Fox (mentioned
Blair 0 times, and Brown 0) suggested he might be alright and then was
crap, but no great wonder there. What was a wonder was that he mentioned
suggesting "recently that all schools in Britain should fly the Union flag as a
symbol of what unites us". It was to complain that people had said he was stupid
and perhaps racist. I was astonished that he wouldn't be trying to hide such a
stupid, stupid suggestion. Thank goodness someone who seems never to have heard
of the North of Ireland shan't be PM.... even if he meant Britain and not the
North by "Britain" (most mean the UK), then it would put the Unionists up in
arms rather than the Republicans. Can anyone imagine what it would be like if a
Tory government were telling Catholic schools there to put up the Union
flag?

Rifkind (Blair 3, Brown 4) should withdraw anyway; if he is a good idea then
Clarke is a better one (in terms of electoral success, I guess he would be
better at party unity, but a united opposition isn't really the point).

David Davis wasm as widely reported, pretty under-whelming. His style wasn't
awful, "statesmanlike" was a kind of decent suggestion of what he was going for,
with the opening about the terrorist attacks and all. He stated though, "prison
works. But too few criminals are in prison." That kind of right-wing trash isn't
exactly one-nation conservatism, and is a stupid sort of thing to be saying if
trying to convince that you can win PM. It lost it for me. (Blair 4; Brown
4)

Clarke's speech was rather splendidly arrogant. His ego seems as big as his
waistline, but it's an effective form of charisma. His speech was almost a chat,
in usual style, but one in which he managed to stat actually what could be a
killer argument for the next election: that government spending should go back
to his 40%, from the currently projected 42% of GDP. It's a big message,
relatively clear whilst complex, and along with the claim 'I did this and that
set up current economic prosperity', it's one that he could deliver with
credibility. The main theme of his speech didn't seem even this though, it
seemed to me that it was, 'we should win, if you want to win then pick me,
because I'd obviously do electorally best of anyone in this party. I'd say he's
right; though it's typically brash to say so in a speech. He also focused a hell
of a lot of attack on Gordon Brown, and put some of the 'it's the economy
stupid' message out there. He is clearly of the view that attacking Brown, who
should be PM by the next election, is the way for them to go. It's a testament
to Blair rather! He mentioned Brown 12 times, Blair only 3.

David Cameron, this new kid on the block (unfortunately not so cool as my
childhood heroes) delivered what I found a good performance as well; like many
of the other contenders, except for Ken Clarke, he offered some pretty detailed
policy proposals. Davis spent huge amounts of time on Home Office policy, Fox
spent time on health I think (sorry, mainly remember that he sucked, ah looking
at his speech there was actually a lot of compassionate foreign and community
policy stuff), and Cameron focused on education. They do really seem to have
been doing the homework that was advocated a while ago, of coming up with
detailed and clear policies that sound interesting ideas, and attack Labour.
IMHO, Davis spent far too much time on this though, whilst Cameron's pitches on
education were family-friendly enough in terms of allowing special schools, and
Tory enough in terms of making exams harder and putting people more often into
sets (mentioned how this helped the brightest, didn't mention the rest, hmm..
what's that reason the left likes comprehensives again? might it be that talk of
allowing the brightest to do well is all well and good except that it tends to
be to the neglect of people who could actually do with help and mightn't succeed
anyway?). He played on his youth and dynamism, strutting across the stage as he
made his pitch without notes, for about 23 minutes one of the longest as well.
He tried to look mature with thanks to the post-1997 leaders, whilst subtlely
emphasising that this class of people were to be thanked for doing that job of
leader of the opposition, implying a confidence that this wasn't the job he was
planning on, but rather that he was asking to be PM. That was v good
speechwriting I felt. He ranged across things decently, mentioning Africa like
many of them seem to have done to emphasise the old compassion point. I thought
he did well, and then he loved the applause, and got loads of it,
enthusiastically whenever he wanted it throughout the speech, and then for ages
at the end, without it looking tired. I reckon they loved him. He has the young
family and Tory wife as well I think; the latter joining him for some of the
post-speech applause and pictures, then leaving again whilst he carried on. I
think a big problem with him though is that he is and looks like a Tory boy. He
was at Brasenose I think, and though I've not found details of a Union or OUCA
career; he gives the impression, the bouffant wavy hair, that certain fullness
of skin that makes it obvious one had been well-fed for a very long time, and
which gives a rounded, smug chin, rather than a strong one e.g. Blair's is
relatively non-pudgey. Certainly they loved him, and he could win leader, but if
they've sense then they should go for Clarke with him and Osborne prominent.
Osborne's (Blair 2, Brown 5) speech wasn't half bad actually, though as he said,
like Charlie Kennedy, he's not trying to lead his party. (Blair 2, Brown 6; more
towards the Clarke strategy than any of the other leadership contenders).

So there looks to be a team there ready, Clarke leading a personal attack on
Brown, his successor who used his spending plans for two years, and who probably
no one else is as well-placed to attack, whilst Osborne and Cameron, who seem to
share his strategy of forgetting Blair as someone they never managed to beat in
the country (it's hard from the right; note where the Lib Dems have gone), and
going after Brown, who is now the real enemy. Beginning the attack now means
that it should be well underway when he gets coronated, and it's sensible
politics. As Heseltine pointed out; they needn't hope only for a victory next
time, as a hung parliament might well see a breakdown and fresh elections after
2 years. So how's this? Clarke leads, with Osborne as Shadow Chancellor, and
Cameron as Deputy leader or major Shadow Cabinet, and used disproportionately
much. If the next Parliament is hung, then the ageing Clarke gets replaced by
Cameron for an early election, and takes them back to power...

It's scary isn't it?

Literary Tagging

2005-06-08T14:42:00.000+01:00

Sarah C has tagged me with this one, so I'll have a go...

1) Total number of books I've owned: I don't tend to buy books; they're lovely things, but I never get around to reading them, and I'm not one for dipping in, so it's a waste to own many. I'd guess I've maybe 100, give or take 300, but I'm not sure at all. All I read nowadays is the paper and then academic stuff, and for the latter I use libraries to the exclusion of buying: the facilities here are phenomenal, so why not?

2) The last book I bought: The Magic Finger- Roald Dahl; it came free with some Shreddies, but I wanted the book more, so I was paying for that. Even at a whopping 56-pages, it's sat with a receipt bookmarking it half-way through...

3) The last book I read: erm, that's hard, I've read most of the Groundwork of The Metaphysics of Morals just recently, but I think there are around 17 pages left... If I were free, I'd taken half-finished books to cafés, not fresh ones of which to read pitiably small portions. Thinking about it, I read through one or two Asterix books last time I was properly ill, so probably those.

4) Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order): Anna Karenin (my version is called that, not Karenina, in fact I think I have two versions like that) is my favourite book: to my mind Tolstoy understands psychology and love from the inside better than anyone I've read. Brave New World blew me away when I read it. That's not particularly cool of me, but I really like dystopian novels, and I liked how much was good about Bernard's painful world. 1984 replaced BNW as my favourite book a few years ago, before AK came along. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the most exciting and potentially convincing philosophy I've yet read. It seems like what he's constructing might actually be real; most seem like they're fiddling, deluded. Of course all of what I've read of him is relevant to trying to understand any of him, but on this list I have to pick one. L'Etranger, by Albert Camus, remains so far as I know the only book I have completed in French. I read it on and off for a couple of years, and I think I may owe the book to my old school, but it's nice to have. Meursault's blamelessness is rather beautiful, I find. That's 5, but the Bible actually has a bunch of cool shit in it, and is only excluded by virtue of itself and Shakespeare being traditionally not eligible for such lists.

5) Tag five people and have them fill this out on their blogs: I'll go better than Chris, and tag two: Willow, and Risa, but I'm not doing 5...

Coffee finality.... (mostly you won't be interested to read)

2005-06-07T16:10:00.000+01:00

The grinder is adjusted to the tightest it can be without sounding scary or
smoking whilst it grinds. The coffee flies out into the grounds container,
having attained a consistency whereby some sticks to the smooth plastic walls,
and it has a natural tendency to save impressions, like flour when pressed by
something dry. About 1.25 spoons of beans is fine for the espresso machine head.
As much as can be fitted in of the grounds should then go into the head, but
without being compacted. This is the secret; the grounds must be as loose in it
as they can be. If layers are pressed down it'll be a wall, not a filter. Coffee
is dropped onto coffee and settles itself, until no more will stay on top. That
the edges are covered is good, but this should not be acheived a the cost of
having to press down the coffee. The top can be smoothed merely by running a
tamper across to draw off excess, without tamping down. When the water is sent
through this, it draws coffee with it, gathering plenty. Ideally, the cup is
saved from the drips soon after the flow is stopped, before the drips dry out
naturally. It's ready to drink almost immediately.

Haaaaaton!

2005-06-05T03:01:00.000+01:00

Tsyzu is pulled out. He did not answer the bell for the 12th round! Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton is the new IBF Light Welterweight CHAMPION OF THE WORLD!
If the papers still ignore him and Clinton Woods; it'll be bloody criminal. What a star! Without seeing a thing; that was one of the greatest performances I have known. YEY!

9 of 12

2005-06-05T02:53:00.000+01:00

Tsyzu tiring; he's cut, and Hatton got the low blow. Tsyzu's 35, and was talking of his next fight; Hatton's 27, and in the best shape of his life. Oh man. In ten minutes we could have a new champion. Go on!

2005-06-05T02:52:00.000+01:00

Hatton did a low reply. Two can play it seems. I don't like that. Boxing's dirty enough without it.

7 of 12

2005-06-05T02:41:00.000+01:00

This sounds like a corker of a fight, damnit! Hatton is focussing on the body it seems, both of them are starting to mark up, although it's been there longer on Hatton. Tsyzu is playing the clever defensive game, not Hopkins, but making Hatton miss and using that. Tsyzu is ahead on points with most of the BBC crew, and the challenger is the one who does the work imho... Low blow from Tsyzu put Hatton down. I don't like that in this sort of fight. It's not like Tsyzu hasn't the experience; if he puts it low then it's not obvious he didn't mean to. They say he looks tired...

Hatton-Tsyzu

2005-06-05T02:03:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, the BBC and ITV used to show boxing on primetime TV. Right now; they're showing reapeats of their respective chart music programmes... So what have we? Live radio coverage on Radio Five, and the visuals are on Sky Box Office.
In any case though; Manchester's wonderful undefeated Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton, (38-0-0, 28 KOs) is challenging Kosta Tyzu, one of the world's best fighters, for the IBF Light Welterweight Championship of The World (31-1-1, 25 KOs), and I am damn well going to listen. Heall yeah. Go Ricky! Go Ricky! Go Ricky!

Attention: Sarkozy 1

2005-06-05T01:53:00.000+01:00

Well I've long been a bit of an ardent of old Sarkozy, though without taking a political position in support or not, but having ended up suggesting over at Chris's that I might volunteer, I fear I now have no choice but to take up the Sarkozy watch baton. Having that pic above appear almost immediately when I was wondering whether or not to give this a go, the choice was made for me. So here we go...

What's going on? Well, as France-Echos would have it, "Sarkozy gonzales" has been daytripping down South to Perpignan (where I have a good friend, incidentally) in response to riots. He's had a rather inspired idea, that the state won't tolerate any violence. He's shoring up his populist credentials with some nice, lock 'em up talk, of crackdowns and prison, and they're helping us to take this all seriously by suggesting nicknames like "l'homme de fer" (the man of iron). At least it's not carbonised....

Why would he need to? Well he is the man of action, as we can tell from the pic, and it looks like he has some way to go to shore up the Tebbitt vote, having rather notoriously argued for positive discrimination in aid of Arabic names... "Le fils de [The son of] Mohamed et de Latifa doit être aidé davantage que [must be helped before] le fils de [the son of] Cécilia et Nicolas". You have to respect that sort of boldness; or alternatively you can claim that in the country of the tournantes, he's managed to make the French second-class citizens...

And the final flourish? Our author asks Sarkozy for his ex-wife's phone number. If Paxman gives up, I would love to see that sort of question on Newsnight...

2005-06-02T09:31:00.000+01:00

From Reuters: "The euro fell to its lowest level for eight months after the
Dutch result. The euro has steadily fallen against the dollar since March when
polls turned negative on the treaty, which needs the approval of all members to
go into force."

Sure, the effects on business confidence will be negative, as they are on
confidence in the currency, but it's just a thought.... It would be certainly
ingenious, instead of the traditional focus on trying to get everyone to agree
on competitiveness-enhancing reforms, leverage our great skill in getting
everyone to diasagree!

2005-06-01T22:20:00.000+01:00

Fridge access here in Magdalen is pretty damn good; one in every room (though
one of mate's doesn't work), but freezer access is less so. This, it turns out,
can be a great thing. A Tesco rocket lolly left in the freezer compartment
becomes not so much an ice lolly, as a slushee on a stick, and that, my friends,
is fucking lovely!

2005-05-30T17:09:00.000+01:00

Why do you have to wait for a coup to be funny?

Because of the putschline!

2005-05-22T21:32:00.000+01:00

I really have cracked it. That was an excellent coffee. Yes.

2005-05-19T16:42:00.000+01:00

Well that was a nice enough cup of coffee. :)

Coffee..... it'd be nice.

2005-05-19T16:10:00.000+01:00

I bought this
coffee grinder, from Amazon for £20. The review claimed that " if you are prepared
to unscrew its setting ring and twist its setting wheel a quarter of a turn
clockwise it will produce fine espresso grounds worthy of a machine 4 times its
price." I like my coffee, and I don't mind mechanical things, so i thought this
was a good idea.

When I got it, its finest setting produced grounds that weren't quite up to
espresso standard, though they'd have suited a cafétière. I duly undertook to
unscrew this setting ring. Of course the damn thing doesn't unscrew. A week or
two later, I've finally managed. This took two pen-knives; plyers; a
fish-gutter; a socket set; and a screw-driver. All of the unscrewing of things
actually achieved nothing. The setting ring is removed, it turns out, solely by
means of prizing it off with hands and knives, whilst trying not to snap plastic
bits. The setting ring inside didn't want to move, but it did adjust with the
aid of two darts. I forgot to keep a note of its original location, as with it
not moving at first, I didn't expect it to begin to move.

Once adjusted, I put everything back together again and pressed grind. The
motor just whined at me, without doing anything, so I took it apart and adjusted
until the motor could turn again. Grand. So I put coffee in to grind. It came
out slower than I have ever seen, which worried me a bit, I shook it to help,
and then I noticed the smoke coming out. I turned down the fineness again.

When I did finally get some coffee out, my espresso machine (cheap at £25-50, but 15-bar at that)
could hardly get water through it, but with the non-uniform grind from my trying
to stop the grinder burning out, it wasn't that nice. So I'll try again.

The grinder motor is cooling down to room temperature now though...

2005-05-12T10:53:00.000+01:00

Why can't you trust ducks?

Because they're on quack.

2005-05-02T14:15:00.000+01:00

Irony is hard to explain, but surely something of its nature is contained in
my joy at Paris Hilton's 'Screwed' coming up on Party Shuffle. It's hard not to
enjoy a chorus that opens "Since I'm already screwed / Here's a message to
you."

This gets better: dancey keyboard breakdown... Yes: the chorus had to follow
and it did, whoever crafted this knew what they were doing!

Screwed

Bugger

2005-04-21T13:36:00.000+01:00

Students being the future leaders of the country and all, I tend to be offered votes both in my home-town of Sheffield, and here in Oxford. So I just got my thing from Evan Harris, and it turns out that this constituency is a Lib-Con marginal as well, like my Sheffield one. I was rather hoping to take my pick of the three parties and then to choose where I'd vote accordingly with where it would be well-aimed. Bugger FPTP: I can't wait for reform! Fingers should be crossed for a hung parliament!

2005-02-03T15:52:00.000Z

I dunno if I'll post on this while back in Ox; maybe I will. For now I needed
somewhere to quote this:

"McDonald's Bahrain
celebrated 100% Bahrainisation at its Muharraq Store in March 2001 and continues
to work with Government departments to secure support for the development of
further human."

Strangely, I was linked by this
band's nice front page, where I was sent by the Melody Nelson music blog, where I
was sent in a thus-far unsuccessful quest to find out who the hell she
was... Anyone know?

Reason for Labourites to be blue as well

2004-11-29T01:59:00.000Z

So how much will this cost? At least they're being oh so robust about the Ukraine... Maybe the behind-the-scenes stuff on restoring the power-sharing assembly is going better.

More reason for Tories to be blue?

2004-11-28T15:07:00.000Z

I'm not generally one to be optimistic about the Tory party, but surely it is a
sign of desperation when David Davis calls
for "an independent judge-led inquiry" to find out whether David Blunkett
expedited what would have been an uncontroversial visa application, for
someone's nanny. Time was when sleaze was sleaze, this seems just like the sort
of thing that people often do at work, doing the bit of it that applies to their
friends quicker than the rest. It may not be right, but it's not incredibly
wrong. People who get annoyed at the barperson's friends getting served first do
not have a case.

2004-11-25T15:53:00.000Z

Why start a blog? Start a blog because some things really can't be said well in
other media. I write to record that Diet Coke Vanilla, with a Sainsbury's
effervescent High Strength Vitamin C tablet (about 1g of actual Vitamin C), is
really really nice. It suggests that it would be even better with a little
whisky, but it's a bit early in the day for that experiment. Still, the
loveliness of these effervescent pills could well be a source of many lovely
(though insignificant) innovations in the realm of drinks in general, and
cocktails in particular.D

He is not invincible

2004-11-14T03:13:00.000Z

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Boris Johnson, although only briefly,
as he was not on form, and was in competition with some other very interesting
people, who were. He seemed to fit his caricature pretty much exactly, which was
reassuring in a certain way. One might easily accuse him of pretension, but, so
far as I could tell, he lives it.

In many respects, he is amongst the most popular Tories in Britain, drawing
rather unique crowds (some with tributary t-shirts) and cheers, when I saw him.
We've often imagined wistfully quite how much fun it would be were he to lead
the Tories. So now they've
sacked him: would this be an opportune time for a leadership challenge? The
obvious answer seems no, but it would be so much fun.

The Tory website gives only this
in response to a search for "Johnson", which is a cute headline to be the
confirmation of their non-coverage of what isn't a non-story. The official
reason is that he's lied about having an affair: his response is classic,
"piffle". There are a number of comments over at his blog, at the end of the
last post. This is rather good, from Stuart L (bizarre blog): "People
don't mind when politicians have affairs. But they hate it when hosts of 'Have I
Got News For You' having affairs."

I heard some rumours recently about him having a brief fling hereabouts,
which were confirmed as rubbish, and with that in mind, I would guess that this
really is piffle. Do look at the article, mainly for the attempt, down to the
right, to imply that it is unusual for him to have crumpled clothes.

The other alleged party to it won't talk to them and Johnson says it's
not true; the sources for the prosecution are her mother, who apparently used to
write for the NOTW, and the usual anonymous and ever so faithful "friends".
Shame.

Arafat dies

2004-11-11T13:32:00.000Z

Abbu Ammar, Yasser Arafat, that evil guy with whom we can't deal, or the hero of
the Palestinian cause, is
dead. I'm almost optimistic about Palestine now; it will be hard for Israel
and the US to reject a new guy, the way they rejected him, unless he (Suha? I
think not) is universally acknowledged as a terrorist. The drawn-out death
should have given the contenders sufficient time to get together a strategy that
will produce someone acceptable. If they didn't then the Palestinians really are
let down by their leaders; much as it is nasty to Palestinian democracy for
Israeli and American acceptance of their choice as a negotiating partner to be
conditional, rather than automatic. Hopefully international sympathy over Arafat
will ameliorate the negotiating position. They've been screwed for a long time,
and accepting that they have to act within bounds in leadership choice is
perhaps humiliating, but in the long run, nothing else is remotely sensible.

2004-11-09T19:09:00.000Z

So briefly: obviously this result sucks, but this post isn't about that.
While I didn't blog them, my predictions were in terms of probabilities: -which
were more ranked and relative than they were absolute- thusly, legal action,
70%; Bush to win popular vote, 65%; Bush to win electoral vote, 50.01%.

The surprise was in the very small extent of legal action: there have been
rumblings in a couple of places, but this prediction, as everyone else's
similar, has to be said to have failed. I figure that this is self-ablating
prophecy in two main ways. Everyone predicted legal chaos over the vote, and so
it was scrutinised to a much larger degree than usual, with armies of lawyers on
both sides. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, as observation of problems is
correlated with intensity of observation, in a way which could over-ride a low
occurence of problems: there is sentiment. John Kerry conceded pretty quickly,
all things considered, and I think that concern for American democracy, and
desire not to be Al Gore, were important. A fiasco where no one expects one is
powerful; one where everyone expects one is not; there not being one where
everyone expects one is powerful in the opposite direction. I have more to say
later on corruption: which it is hard to believe that there wasn't.

The popular vote then: Kerry's campaign was very focussed on the electoral
college. While both candidates ignored the safe states, Bush did seem to make a
more national effort on TV, and with his message. Apparently his campaign also
advertised on lots of specialist networks to reach certain types of voters: i.e.
motoring channels to reach beer-swilling jocks (or "lads" as we'd call them: who
may or may not predominate in the audience of motoring channels: I guess rather
than judging) or whatever: using channels with specialist demographics to tailor
one's demographic reach. Bush's message was about terrorism, religion, and
tax cuts. The first and last aren't that favourable or disfavourable by state,
while Kerry's appeals on manufacturing jobs very much were.

The other big point on the popular vote is that apparently 4 million
Evangelicals stayed at home last time, when Bush lost by 0.5 million votes. This
time, banning gay marriage was on the ballot in 11 states, abortion is an issue
due to the likelihood of new Supreme Court appointments, and there have been 4
years of Bush using huge amounts of religious rhetoric, etc. I think that it
would be worthwhile trying to test the popular vote swing from last time,
according to those 11 states, and I'm on the lookout for a state by state tally
of votes, but something scary is immediately apparent: Bush won this time by 3.5
million votes, i.e. - 0.5 million + 4 million. Anyhow, he got the biggest
popular vote ever, which amounted to around 52%, so I was hella right.

The electoral college vote is explicable by the state-targeting reasons
above: Kerry lost the electoral college by about 150 000 Ohians (<-- is that
the word?). That is close, although the statistical margin of error of the
election was around 10 000: so it's nothing like last time's absurdity. I think
that here, I was again hella right, unlike some
people...

For comfort, I've been offered this. It is excellent.

2004-11-09T18:28:00.000Z

Everything except for Tesco's does close absurdly in this country, but was I
not justified in thinking that my bank might just manage to be open until 1700?
What the hell is with half-past four? It's absurd.

Banks

2004-11-09T14:40:00.000Z

It works: now I will also work; later I'll clear out the local cobwebs.Sweet

2004-11-09T14:39:00.000Z

I don't know if this will work, but Abilon,
which I have used these past weeks for the daily Electoral College Vote Predictor
updates, that underlined just how close we were to a US President not hated by
half the world, has a built-in blogging tool. If this does work, then the
interface I'm using now is so superior, that blogging will be easy, and I'll do
it much more often. Here goes then...

You are not authorized to view this page

2004-10-26T15:03:00.000+01:00

So says George Bush's reelection site... confused? I am. Maybe they're screening people who go there to know their enemy. More likely, are people hacking instead of hacking?

Intuitive?

2004-10-25T16:46:00.000+01:00

The Department of Politics and International Relations sent us a message: this is rather beautiful.
"The Manor Road building will be closed to visitors from 4.30pm – 7.30pm on Thursday 4th November for the official Opening ceremony."
Maybe it'll be open for the closing ceremony, to compensate....

Question Time

2004-10-24T23:39:00.000+01:00

I had forgotten that Question Time was on in Oxford tonight, and so didn't put it on until reminded by a text from Durham. Tickets went in four hours, apparently, so it would have been an inconvenience to go, but since Heseltine was on, that might have been worth it. Posts somewhere, in the archive here I believe, tell me that QT has gone crap these past few years, from an earlier peak. I remember enjoying it many years ago, in Ashdown's time I believe, but haven't watched in many years, due to a combination of tabloid panellists, watching less TV, and probably watching less BBC news, so I was without evidence for this debate. Still, I figured that in Oxford it might be cool, considering that the good panel that would probably come, and that there are some decent questioners in the Union, whatever proportion they are, and that general university people might come too.
Thus my expectations were mixed when I put it on; but it turned out to be rather good. They had Heseltine and Clement Freud, along with a Labourite I didn't know, Peter Tatchell (whom I had subsequently to defend from the charge that he was "a raving communist"), and some Daily Mail person. That this constitutes an odd numbers leads me to suspect that there was another, but never mind. So, it was rather good, and Tatchell even had a funny idea, that Prince Harry could abdicate (or is it just renounce when you're not heir apparent?) to avoid press attention. Heseltine was not on barnstorming form, but was good, although he claimed to have been relatively alone in supporting Prescott's punch, which I had thought was universally popular, albeit in a condescending way in some quarters.
What spoiled it was that they followed it with Andrew Neill's rather embarassing "This Week", notably going out on a Thursday due, presumably to stronger competition in the Friday schedule, this not being the US. While Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo have stopped flirting quite so much as when I first saw this show, other things are far worse. The introduction featured those annoying "Three poofs and a piano" people, who I believe were on Graham Norton at some point, and whom I find utterly crap. As to why they merited inclusion on a politics programme, beyond the issue of any programme... I'm sure that the BBC used to patronise in a much nicer way. As if to hit the point home, Tim Collins (not that one), was then accompanied by poor Drum N Bass, before, during, and after, he told us that the Iraq troop redeployment was a serious departure.
As to that, I think everyone would agree that saying no to this request would have been a bold and popular political step, although I'm not sure that the idea doesn't find most of its appeal in making George Bush look even sillier. So, I don't know whether I support Blair or not on this one.
Conclusion: QT looks better than I have been warned it is, especially compared to just how shit some of the rest gets.

Freedom on the march

2004-10-23T16:13:00.000+01:00

I find Itar-Tass a very good source for Russian news, but they are by no means neutral in a Western sense. Their story on the Duma's opinion of Belarussian elections reports just that: the opinion of the Duma. Incidentally, its website looks like a school one, with bugger all dynamic content, so I dunno where one would read the statement in full. They give, erm, hope for the Russian media's independence, noting that "certain Russian television journalists who were covering [it,] playing into the hand of a certain part of the Belarussian opposition, did not "strengthen the prospects for expediting the establishment of a stable and effective Union of Russia and Belarus,"". Certainly, if one covers elections in a manner sympathetic to an opposition, then one needs censure from the Russian Duma. Of course they may just have a delicious sense of irony: thus to warn that if anyone attempts to encourage Belarussian pluralism, then they'll create a political culture divide with Putin's Russia.

The enemy within

2004-10-19T18:51:00.000+01:00

Bambi always seemed quite sweet, and our deer similarly; but the deer seem finally to have turned, as a Scarborough farmer has been killed by one of his wards. I wonder if we need a risk assessment. Maybe it's a new militant alliance with the animal rights protesters: although often right, they've killed people before now.

The O'Reilly Fucker

2004-10-19T15:47:00.000+01:00

Via Agenda Bender:
Bill O'Reilly, of Sky News' The O'Reilly Factor, tried a pre-emptive strike on a co-worker threatening to sue him for sexual harassment: so, she has done. The Smoking Gun have it here. O'Reilly reckoned he was safe from harm, as he always made friends with his extra-marital dalliances before bedding them. He must have misjudged how friendly one has to be to use a vibrator while on the phone to someone.

Homage

2004-10-19T13:07:00.000+01:00

Sarah rightly points out that this is a thing of beauty, although I don't know enough about Brum to pontificate with authority on whether or not it is shit. Actually, looking at the opposition, admittedly Googled very briefly, I think I'm on Birmingham's side. Its hard to know whether this guy is dumb enough to believe whoever made up the crap about the NUS card, or thinks that whoever nicked his bag is.

Woo, free time

2004-10-14T17:40:00.000+01:00

So it turns out that Lincoln's argument for the Civil War was that slavery was economically inefficient... which is strange, but how about it? A security council for the WTO instead of the UN would be rather interesting, and then we'd get that representation for China et al.
Anyway, a proper reflection on the debate: Kerry did win, Bush did look slightly stupid, and Kerry did respond to most of what he said pretty well, although Bush may well succeed in hamstringing him by the "global test".
Bush seemed to have been briefed on Education, Education, Education, which was interesting: No Child Left Behind was big, but I've never really thought he was into it. I'm trying to work out how this will work, it ought to appeal to women, one of Bush's weakest groups (60-40 against or something), in traditional terms of kids. Now if Kerry has them sown up then he's wasting his breath, but if he can sway some then he'll do very well. Kerry appeals in a much more self-interested way, promising nice healthcare, better jobs, etc. He brushed aside Bush's education comments to answer questions slightly more directly, but mainly to go on about healthcare, on which his pitch is rather good, despite the Bush campaign's ads. He mentions every time that NCLB wasn't properly funded, which works pretty well, but I'd say he could do with a more personal line on education, more "I was in the classroom..." and "This teacher is prevented from..." type-stuff. Still, being Democrat and articulate probably insulates him sufficiently that anyone for whom education is dominant is going to vote for him anyway.
So Bush's strategy was interesting: doing a kind of "but it's all about", especially with education being his jobs answer as well. Kerry had an answer on everything instead, he should probably do better out of it, although by not screwing up, Bush has probably done enough.
Interestingly, there were no split screens that I saw, the odd shot with both candidates, but not the juxtaposition that we saw before of the same perspective on each at the same time. Did the candidates complain about them breaking the rules before, or was Bush too well-trained in the meantime for those shots to be so interesting as they had been?
Laters,

Long time no blog

2004-10-14T02:02:00.000+01:00

Well, I've been bloody working lots, instead of having time for this, so I'll play catch up soon; but I'm giving myself a break, to watch the third and final debate, after extended periods of virtue in the library.
So, first note, Bush just said "The Al-Qaeda", doesn't Al-Qaeda already include an article? I don't so much criticise, as notice it, Arabic remains a mystery to me, and it'd be churlish to mock Bush even if I am right.
So, I thought that Bush was less impressive, but not by a big margin: Kerry did not kick ass.
Both made jokes, Bush more of course, he got a laugh for calling Kerry's assertion, that Bush said once that he didn't think about where Bin Laden was, "one of his (pause) exaggerations." He made a rubbish joke (you pay, they go spend) on Pay As You Go, which he called "Paygo". He used that opportunity to say "middle class", seemingly to break Kerry's monopoly on the phrase: it seems to me to be a mistake. He could go and try to win that argument, otherwise burying it would seem better.
Kerry started his response on gay marriage by saying "We're all God's children." This is clever, Bush didn't mention God in his, and so Kerry gets the religious high-ground, as it were, on this. He then talks about people being gay because that's how God made them. Later when they talked about their faith, Bush played down the idea that he was pro-Christian in an anti-everything else way, while Kerry portrayed himself as driven by faith.
Bush says that health is expensive because third parties buy it, not consumers. What makes the third parties particularly not cost-minimisers? Also, don't consumers choose the premiums, which constitute this price that's increasing.
Kerry got asked how he was going to pay for his health plan, given Bush saying that he couldn't. He dismissed that on the basis that news networks said Bush was lying, and then spent the actual answer responding to Bush's attack ads, by saying that his plan expanded choice massively for people. Bush started saying that the news networks were a bad source, and stopped midway saying "Never mind." as a joke, which fell pretty flat. He then went on to say that government would take over, and that government sucked. Kerry responded saying that the plan he was offering was actually private.
Kerry said as an attack on border control being rubbish "now we have people from the Middle East coming across the border", to me that sounds just plain racist.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. This is notes not anything coherent: more will follow.

Immediate post-game analysis

2004-10-09T03:38:00.000+01:00

Right, I'm off to bed, cos it's very late thanks to the time difference, and I need some sleep, but seeing as how I'm here, and I watched it....
Bush did very well, he looked silly a bit of the time, but he was way better than in the first one. Kerry though, still looked better, he sounds more grown up, more of a guy to whom people defer. They sound a little repetitive, obviously they would, but they say the same soundbites to make them remembered. What Kerry did very well was in responding to Bush's trump cards and making them look like mere slogans: the flip-flopping response was well worked out, and the global test thing was rebutted nicely. Kerry comes across as not an individualist: for his defence he talks about generals who says he's right, and countries that could help.
Kerry didn't talk in terms of visions of how things would turn out nicely, while Bush repeated his visions of how sorting Iraq makes things dreamy there...
In sunmmary, right now, I say Kerry won, but that Bush could possibly win by not losing by much, which was probably his main requirement tonight.
A few more things: Allan Lichtman turns out to be a good commentator, as well.
Kerry doesn't use the oil price, I wonder if he could... except that the next is domestic policy only.
The presenter was much better this time.
There's a rather interesting conspiracy theory over at salon.com, that Bush looked like he was wearing a wire for the first debate, it's too soon to tell, but there's nice evidence, which could just make this a story.
Night night.

Yey, here it comes

2004-10-09T01:58:00.000+01:00

The web said 1AM GMT, and my clocks say 2 now, this must be something to do with BST; this is bloody annoying, but mitigated by how the pre-debate commentators seem to have Bush as the one who has to make the running right now. :)
The more expert seeming of these commentators, Allan Lichtman, has rather impressive hair.
Now they've kicked off, Kerry looks old, but is good, cutaway to Bush just had him looking blank, with his mouth slightly open.

While I wait for the 3rd to start...

2004-10-09T01:54:00.000+01:00

BBC are nicely showing the 3rd, on which my opinion will follow it. In the meantime, I note that our friends at Fox are headlining Cheney-Halliburton, which is nice. It'll take some more investigation to figure out if this is actual non-partisanship, but while the article is critical, it gets by without mentioning Bush or the no-bid contract, which are surely relevant parts of what Edwards was talking about in the debate, so I'd say they aren't about to shed their reputation.
What it does give us this lovely Cheney quotation, "The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments." which is surely a prime one for the Blood For Oil theorists.
John Kerry, meanwhile, has recruited Michael J Fox, to make the stem cells debate about Parkinson's. I seem to recall an FT comment article of some kind recommending stem cells as a way for Bush to break the deadlock, back when everyone was sure there was one, although I don't remember the details... I'd say that it's a bit technical to win, unless Kerry can succeed in getting into people's heads images of the people dying of the diseases. Still, it's a good issue, and I don't see Bush winning many votes by proclaiming that he's right to be on the anti side of this one.

Vices Debate

2004-10-09T01:23:00.000+01:00

So I'm buggered if I can figure out how to work the comments round here, it failed to publish and now won't let me delete.... I think I'll move to enetation.
I watched Cheney and Edwards going at each other as well, in the single vice-presidential debate. Cheney I found rather impressive, he probably doesn't pass that going for a beer test that is seemingly so important, but it makes sense that he got where he is. The two candidates seemed to me about on a par on performance, which should help Bush. Cheney's factcheck blunder may do nasty things to him, but Edwards didn't really make Halliburton hit home. He had a rather point-answering style, reminiscent of traditional debating, in that he would answer many questions by answering the previous one first. It seemed like maybe he's used to persuading juries etc. who are really listening, rather than to playing to crowds. Cheney seemed more like he's used to talking to groups who listen to less of the minutiae. My guess would be that Cheney's style might work better for this purpose, so while for quality it's a tie, in terms of the election I'd say he edged it. The balance on the tickets, of a fun guy and a serious guy, seems to be reversed between the two.
The other interesting thing, while I watched the first with no ads, thanks, was that on Fox, where I'd gone to see whether they covered the stories that hurt the Republicans, and ended up watching the VPs, there were 6 parts to the debate, with ads in between each. The ads were all army recruiting ads, with young Americans (1 black, 1 female, 1 caucasian) telling their parents that they had taken on board parental wisdom, and were thus joining up. Now I presume that there weren't ads in the TV version, so I'm wondering whether this reflects targeting in particular at Fox viewers, or at debate-viewers...

Hello world

2004-10-07T23:41:00.000+01:00

hmm, not sure how worthwhile this is, but it seems fun, so hello. I'm looking to comment on US and UK politics, good music that gets over-looked, and general good things. I shall see how this goes.

1st debate

2004-10-07T16:06:00.000+01:00

Jukebox:Freezepop
I've now watched the first of the presidential debates, and broadly agreed with the analysis that Kerry won, thanks to Bush appearing lost and slow a lot of the time. Bush notably spelled out all the advantages he saw from a democratic Iraq, seemingly pre-empting its foreign policy somewhat: "A free Iraq will be an ally in the war on terror.... A free Iraq will help secure Israel." A non-Saddam Iraq is probably better for Israel, his donations to suicide-bombers' families, while seemingly politically rather than ideologically motivated, probably changed some minds on the margin; but the idea that the Iraqi populace will want to vote "to secure Israel" is strange. Kerry didn't pick him up on it, but it adds fuel to any sceptical that, when Bush calls for democracy in the Middle East, he means democracy with freedom to choose whichever p[olicies prove popular.
Kerry was generally good, dealt well with the questions, and strove to point out differences; but what I suspect may endear him most to people over here (apart from not being Bush), was that he called Colin Powell Colin, and not Coe-Lin. That does make a refreshing change.
Perhaps someone in the town hall debate could give the candidates a list of words to pronounce, especially while Bush still seems worried about "nuke-you-lar" proliferation...