Minimal

Come the revolution

Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies. Ok, who’s for starting the uprising? I’m sick to death of being lied to and manipulated by my own government. A government I helped into office, no less. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more. But... I undoubtedly will. I feel totally powerless. :(

How does one go about starting a revolution, anyway? There are times when I loathe the power of the media, but this is surely one time when it’s the greatest asset we have. How about a few big-name journalists and celebs — not just the usual bolshy lot — kick things off by getting off the fence and declaring their opposition to those who supposedly represent us? Rally the troops and get a proper campaign going. Come on folks, help us out here. You can focus the mood of the nation as well as just reflect it.

Update: Okay, okay, I’ve calmed down now. Must stop drinking coffee.

Shut up and accept your liberation, dammit!

BBC News: Iraqis killed in anti-US protest. Nice one, lads. Smart move.

Howay the Toon!

There’s nothing quite like an email clarion call to rig a national phone poll, is there? Tonight, Newcastle and Gateshead (they are still two separate places, you know) won the BBC’s Capital of Culture vote. Not that it actually stands for anything, but there you go. Let’s just hope Wor Tone realises which side his bread’s buttered when it comes to picking the real winner. ;)

Oh, and have I mentioned that we beat the mackems yet? No? In that case, may I just say... gerrin yer bassers! Enjoy the Nationwide, boys! :)

Mint sauce

You thought I was going soft with the link to cute puppy photos? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Bring on the lambs!

They’d go lovely with a few roast veg and a bit of gravy, don’t you think? ;)

Actually, I’m a bit gutted I didn’t get a photo of one of them mid-bounce. I’ve never seen lambs gambolling before (no, not playing poker, the other gambolling) and it’s just completely bonkers. One minute they’re trotting along, next thing you know they have a sudden spasm and spring into the air for no reason at all. Mentalists.

Ozone

The noise of a rock scrunching underfoot as I stepped off the causeway was enough to bring the memories flooding back. That and the familiar smell of ozone.

Earlier this evening, I got bored and cheesed off with the fact I’d not been able to leave the house all day — a lovely sunny day at that. So, off I went for a quick drive around some of my old haunts. Between stops at Rocky Island (Seaton Sluice) and Tynemouth Priory (ermmm... Tynemouth) was the real highlight — St Mary’s Island at Whitley Bay.

The lighthouse was looking particularly splendid, lit from its base, defying the onset of night. For once, I’d got lucky with the tides too, as the causeway and surrounding rocks were free of water. At the start of June, a whole host of Minis is going to make its way to St Mary’s at the end of what will hopefully be a great day’s driving. Tonight it was just me and I took the chance to indulge in a spot of low-impact vandalism. With a kelp whip in hand, I made my mark in the sand — at least until the sea comes back in overnight. :)

“Organic gook”

Perhaps the thing I find most interesting about reading sci-fi is the distilled insight the books offer into the current bounds of scientific knowledge and theory. Titan, by Stephen Baxter, was no exception to this when I read it about 4 years ago. It went into quite a lot of detail about the surface chemistry of Saturn’s biggest moon, describing a gloopy hydrocarbon slush dotted with pools of methane and so forth. It was a pretty good read, provided you ignore the frankly ridiculous final chapter.

Anyway, it turns out that quite a lot of the speculation it contained is actually correct. Well, the latest findings back it up, at least. Not quite the same thing, I suppose, but the Cassini-Huygens probe should confirm the suspicions sometime next year. Makes a nice change from the old canals of Mars stuff, but what I'm really waiting for is a mission to Europa...

Little bit of politics

People say you shouldn’t talk about your political persuasion on a weblog for fear of alienating the majority of your audience. Screw that.

Throughout my life, I’ve voted Labour at every opportunity. Hell, I was a party member for over 10 years — one of the pre-New Labour bunch. The past few years, however, have seen me growing increasingly uneasy with the choice of where to put my cross on election day. The upcoming council elections are proving to be a tricky proposition. I’m considering breaking the habit of a lifetime.

I don’t think my values have changed that much, perhaps moving more towards pragmatism from my earlier idealist standpoint, but those of the party I support (supported?) seem to have changed beyond recognition. I’m now struggling to spot much difference between Labour and the Lib Dems, the only two parties with candidates in my area. Hell, at local level, I doubt there’s any real difference at all.

Maybe, I thought, a quick look at the respective parties’ websites would clear things up. Here are the results of my search:

Labour

The Labour In Your Area section sounded promising, but turned out to be auto-generated content with a few local stats sprinkled into a generic template. Indeed, the whole thrust of why I should vote Labour in Wansbeck (my local constituency) was an argument against voting Conservative and they’re not even standing!

Lib Dems

Couldn’t find anything locally-oriented in the basic navigation, so did a search for "Wansbeck". Nothing. Not one hit. Back to Google, then.

Wansbeck Lib Dems

It may have changed by the time you read this, but right now I’m getting no response from this site at all.

Overall, I’m possibly even more disenchanted with the whole thing now than I was before. I suspect I’ll end up voting Labour again, if only for the fact they’ve got more experience. I’ll just assume the two parties are otherwise equally incompetent. Politics sucks.

Local Mini Run

New Mini devotees in the NE of England might be interested to know that there’s a Mini day out coming up on the 1st June, organised by the good people of Mini2.com. It’ll be starting off at the Novotel Hotel in Kingston Park and heading up into the Cheviot hills before cutting across to Seahouses and back down the coast to Newcastle. Should be a cracking day out. :)

Full details are available on the Northern Run website.

And finally

To badly misquote Hal David:

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love.
And cute puppy photos.”

All together now... awwwwwwwww! :)

End of an era

It was kind of inevitable it would happen, but hearing that Concorde is being retired is still quite sad. It’s the giving up of a dream. No one likes to do that.

I was going to talk about how it was a plane that was years ahead of its time, but was it really? Was it not just a plane that was incredibly uneconomical? We could’ve sent man to Mars years ago, but the funding just wasn’t there. Indeed, it still isn’t. Until such time as a commercial interest deems it economically worthwhile, I doubt we will at all. Concorde, on the other hand, got lucky. Britain and France ploughed millions (billions?) into it while the heat of technology was still white.

Hey ho. Time for a haiku.

“The images they choose, and choose to ignore”

I don’t know about you, but watching the news tonight, I couldn’t help but wonder how one-sided a view I was getting. Where were all of the Iraqis that were still loyal to Saddam Hussein? Were the pictures of celebration I saw really representative of a significant part of Baghdad, let alone Iraq as a whole? Would the images and emotions have been as played up if the US troops hadn’t offered to demolish (vandalise?) that statue? As has so often been the case in this conflict, Al Jazeera offers a sense of balance so noticeably lacking in much of our own media.

Update: since posting this, I’ve been advised that Al Jazeera is somewhat less than balanced. I can only comment on what I’ve read online and most of what I’ve seen has been of the same kind of standard as UK broadsheets. I’ll leave a discussion of the TV channel to someone else.

Brimming with confidence

Jermaine Jenas talks about the future of Newcastle United:

“We definitely think we are a side who are capable of breaking Arsenal and Manchester United’s dominance.

“We have some of the most exciting young players in the Premiership and that is how Manchester United started their era of success.

“I think there are a lot of parallels with us now and how they were when they started to win things.

“I think we will go far as a team and we will win things because we have the mix of youth and experience.”

Even during the heady days of the Keegan era, our players never talked like this. We might’ve hoped for success, but we never simply expected it. I can’t believe the transformation that’s happened over the past few years. I just hope the trend continues and we finally win something — it’s intoxicating stuff. :)

Boon Army!

The Inspiral Carpets were awesome on Saturday, but here are a few abiding memories:

• Tom Hingley’s mop-top and waistline might not have passed the test of time, but the music and performances definitely have
• The 8:15 from Manchester (wav file) — you’ll not be dancing to the CD-UK music in 13 years’ time
• When crowd-surfing, try not to break a fall with your back — thankfully, it wasn’t me
• Saddam Hussein on drums and Clint Boon as Liam Gallagher — a scarily good impression
• Manic crowd surges that left me fighting for breath

Cool as f•••.

“This is just a scene from hell”

It doesn’t get much more graphic than this. Yet another friendly fire balls-up and this time John Simpson’s in the thick of it, the bomb landing just ten yards away from him. The TV footage was spectacular, with the camera rolling from just a few moments after the air-strike. Blood from the crew drips onto the camera lens as the scene of complete chaos, bodies strewn amid blazing vehicles, unfolds. It will surely be one of the most enduring images of this war, for me at least.

Philosophising

Jason Kottke makes an interesting point today in his note about Microsoft vs. Linux dominance:

If Unix development philosophy is small pieces loosely joined, Microsoft�s philosophy is big chunks tightly coupled.

I wouldn’t contest that, but it made me wonder why two major systems, both ultimately dedicated to making money by pleasing users, would take such diametrically opposite approaches. Which philosophy is better for the user?

Truth is, there’s no one philosophy that best for all users, as people are so different. The benefit of the Unix approach is that it allows people to trade flexibility for a little bit more work in joining things together. If you’re willing to put the work in, great. The Microsoft approach, on the other hand, helps out those who can’t be bothered and will sacrifice the flexibility for an integrated set of tools that require little effort, but ultimately tie you in.

Personally, I favour the Microsoft approach, but that’s just because I’m lazy. However, I also think there are more lazy, pragmatic people in this world than there are those who will go the extra mile for flexibility. And that is why I see Microsoft’s operating systems succeeding over Linux.

Now, Apple on the other hand... I’m stuck there. Why aren’t they more successful? I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t help that I’ve never even used a Mac. Anyway, I can’t help wonder whether they’ll eventually go the way of the Betamax — a good technology that just lost the race. I doubt it — it’s got too many followers and a few unrivalled apps — but I’d be surprised if it ever goes mainstream.

Many Happy Returns

This weekend sees the long-awaited (for me, at least) hometown gig for the Inspiral Carpets and yours truly will be there. Reviews of their Birmingham and Leeds gigs have only served to get me even more excited (links via trainsurfing and Google).

If there’s one band that I could really claim to be a fan of, this is it. Never thought I’d get to see them live, but the current trend for reunion tours is not one I’m going to complain about. Bring on the baggy revival! :)

Showdown — Mini vs. Puma

Two months (and a bit) into Mini ownership and it gets its first proper write-up. Will the Cooper’s punch have the anticipated impact? Will the Puma take a right pasting when the protagonists leave the corners? Will I give up on this crappy analogy? Find out in the 2-month review.