The Highlights
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Overheated It's 31 degrees out there, within error distance of the heat in Dallas the last couple of weeks. The heat here is far worse. Britain, typically, is unprepared for any sort of extreme weather - we can't handle snow, we can't handle more than a few degrees of frost, last autumn showed that we can't handle lots of rain, and heat is completely off the record. Nowhere has air conditioning, never mind *working* air conditioning. Add to this the extreme humidity from being less than 100 miles from a coast, and it's really, really painful. Autoexec for the people Gotta love professionally written software. We've recently had a piece of software written to handle course bookings. It needs to be installed on lots of computers, but it's been a pain. Today, we're working with the most remote office, and the computer won't head into Windows. It stalls with a DOS message. The manager tries to solve the problem, but it's miles over her head - she's having difficulty booting into DOS, a skill that should be second nature. A little bit of disk shuffling and emailing from another PC shows the problem - the PATH command has lost the %path% variable, the one that keeps the previously set path. Duh. Amateurs. REM's "Everybody Hurts" helps dairy cows produce more milk, according to boffins at Leicester University. Herds yield 3% more when the tragic song is played. Other slow songs demonstrated similar results, such as "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "What a Difference a Day Makes." Upbeat songs decreased productivity. Those cited include Supergrass' "Humping On Your Stereo" and anything by Jamiroquai, though that could have been an outbreak of good taste by the bovines. Approximately 1000 Holstein Friesians participated in the experiment. Spokescow Daisy said, "Moo." |
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YAIHD Yet Another Insanely Hot Day. Thankfully, I'm down in the basement workroom for much of it, so avoid the worst of the heat. We've got a chap from the anti-virus company in to install the new system. It's a snap, it's a cinch, it's a shame that the product it's supporting isn't worth the candle. And I get a free lunch out of it, too.
Brass Eye (C4) There was supposed to be a new episode of Chris Morris's groundbreaking satire series tonight. It's been pulled from the schedules. het graun says because of its content, suggesting that it really is addressing paedophilia, the moral panic of the past ten years. Others suggest that this is an episode about the internet, and how it's easy to hoax people. I wait to see the episode with some trepidation: next thing we know, we find Kaycee (aka Debbie Swenson) was, in fact, Chris Morris, pulling perhaps the biggest hoax *ever*. It's replaced by a repeat of the classic "Cake" episode, in which Noel Edmonds and other sundry television celebs sprout off about this "made-up drug" at the behest of Free the UK from Drugs. "It ruins Shatner's Bassoon," exclaims the bearded wonder. Kati: |
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More virus stuff today, along with another free lunch. This looks like a simple, cool product.
Cooler weather at last For once, the hot spell ends with little more than a crack of thunder, though it does rain heavily for almost two hours. Henmania Rain at Wimbledon means I get to see highlights of Pat Rafter beating Andre Agassi in five breathtaking sets. Tim Henman splits the first two sets with Goran Ivanisevic, then races to take the third 6-0. Rain comes early in the fourth, and we're back tomorrow. Digital cable I've had access to digital terrestrial (through one's rooftop aerial) on and off since November 98, and digital cable since moving in April. Suppliers: onDigital and Telewest. I'll refer to them as DTTV and DCab, also making reference to Digital Satellite, to which I've never had access. |
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Quick trip As the weather has cooled somewhat, head into town to do a bit of shopping. It's sale season; it's building season at the Vermin store, so cross that one off my list for the forseeable future. Body Shop yields cheap shampoo and soap, they feel so much better than the regular stuff. Tower is having a lot of singles for not a lot of dough - recent issues by the Bee Gees, Fatboy Slim, Everlast for 49p, and Erasure's classic Abbaesque EP is 99p. Nothing doing at the clothes stores, I pretty much maxed out on those in Dallas. And some interesting browsing in Waterstones, maybe for action in the future.
Back for lunch, a quick trip up the chippie. It turns into a very quick trip back, as heavy rain starts when I'm halfway back. By the time I'm under trees, I'm soaked. Vampire High Imagine Rupert Giles trying to give Spike, Harmony, and a couple of others a decent education. Set it at a private school, and add in an illicit relationship with a mortal student whom our hero is not meant to meet. This has a little promise, but it'll take more than fancy effects and glow-in-the-dark plots to keep me viewing. One of the actors on the precredits is Karen Cliche, a pretty decent summary of the show. (productions la fete / YTV, airing on WOK1) Sport. There would be a review of the day's play at Wimbledon, had there been any. It's England, it's Wimbledon week, it's rainy. Australia is a mile ahead in the cricket already. And the Tour de France is starting. |
SurvivorBig Trousers has set the group a challenge. Walk along bamboo poles. Dive for 25 treasure chests. Richard wins this one, leaving Charlotte certain of her pending eviction. Nothing like pre-judging the public vote, is there.There's a plot to oust Peter. Zo� trusts this Richard person, but Pete's double-crossing himself with Jackie. Charlotte and Eve are rubbing kerosene into Mike's rear end. But who has been canoodling with Big Trousers' Big Trouser? Are bottles of water really an indigenous plant species? Finally, the voting. Big Trouser declares the result from the dairy pot. Charlotte 1, Peter 5, Eve 1. Big BrotherThe Shrink reckons more bitching this week - he's wrong. This week's task is to teach an old dog new tricks - a task they fail. Brian reckons the dog is gay, but this isn't South Park. Liz takes the lead in training Paddy, with a lot of help from Helen, Amma, and Josh."People are getting tetchy... I'm starting to irritate people," reckons Helen. Helen, Brian, and Paul are goodie-goodies; Dean, Liz, and Amma are challenging Big Brother over anything. Josh, reckons Shrink 2, could go either way. Insightful. Brian is making more and more digs at Josh; they are disguised as humour, but they're hurting Josh. Voting:Amma and Paul have 4, Josh 2, everyone else one. Bookies reckon Amma will get around 65% of the vote. Instant reaction: both expected it, Helen squeaks like a dog whistle, Amma's surprised it's taken this long.
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It's as you were for trade sanctions applying to Iraq. An Anglo-Station plan would have made them apply more specifically to arms and oil smuggling and less to most civilian goods. But fear of a Russian veto, which would have killed the proposal for the foreseeable future, meant the proposal bit the dust, and the existing sanctions will continue into their twelfth year. Iraq enjoys increasing financial muscle with its trading partners - like Russia - because of its ability to work around the current sanctions regime. Slobodan Milosevic is extradited to a UN war crimes tribunal in Den Haag. In an attempt to reject the tribunal's legitimacy, the erstwhile Yugoslav president refused all offers to be represented before it by lawyers. "I consider this tribunal a false tribunal and the indictments false indictments. It is illegal, being not appointed by the UN general assembly. So I have no need to appoint counsel to an illegal organ." Judge Richard May (UK) told Milosevic that he will be allowed to challenge the legality of the court later on in the proceedings. Over in Macedonia, the Albanian insurgency is brought to an end - at least for the moment - after both sides sign a ceasefire. NATO troops will help to disarm the rebels. Just when we thought it was safe to go back to the farm, the government warned of the return of foot and mouth. Chief scientist David King tells farmers that the danger isn't over yet, and there could yet be a resurgence of the animal equivalent of the common cold in the autumn. Zimbabwe lurches from crisis to crisis under dictator robert mugabe. A two-day general strike, called over rising fuel prices, paralyses the capital Harare and most of the rest of the country. Zimbabwe's trade union congress says all banks and factories were closed, though some food shops remained open. Mugabe is unable to blame his usual scapegoats, the English, and homosexuals. Ten years after the first trials, the British media finally wakes up to the SpermMaster process for spinning X sperm from Y, allowing prospective parents to choose their offspring's sex. 200 sprats have been born following this treatment. Arguments against baby gender selection because selected children will be more or less cherished, or that one gender is being discriminated against, have a hollow ring in Britain. Candidates for the Conservative Party Leadership in the UK are named. Last time's runner-up Ken Clarke; favourite Michael Portfolio; all-round nice guy Michael Ancram; the unknown David Davis; and extreme right-winger Iain Duncan Smith. The MPs vote in three rounds over the next two weeks, the loser of each round goes out. The two surviving candidates go to a ballot of party members. The winner will be known in September. Not standing: Peter Lilley, who shed the "He's Dead Silly" tag we've been using for the past ten years in one interview this week. The former deputy leader called for cannabis to be legalised and available from off-licences. Outlawing cannabis is unenforceable and indefensible in a country where alcohol and nicotine are legal. He writes, "I have tried deploying the arguments for criminalising cannabis in discussions with sixth formers, students and, come to that, their parents, in my constituency. Whether I convinced any of them I don't know. But I invariably failed to convince myself. The arguments for prohibition crumble on close analysis." From the Politicians Just Aren't Funny files: "Let's put the sense back into sentencing" - David Blunkett (Lab, crime). The proposed changes, like the party's proposed spending increases, are just old stuff re-heated and given a garnish of parsley and watercress. This week's Pointless List Slumping away faster than ratings to Survivor: |