No, this is not another war posting
In fact, it's a posting about a tubby little Swede who likes to make marmalade, a weaselly little bastard who likes to keep very quiet indeed, and 24-hour news services.

The focus has finally narrowed
In war, sooner or later, the cameras stop concentrating on the strategy. They pan away from the issues, and turn their lenses on the smallest (and arguably most important) issues. And in war, those issues are about individuals or groups - about people. In war, those people are usually soldiers.

In the past 24 hours, a US 101st Airborne soldier has been detained for rolling grenades into the tents of his superiors as they slept, killing one and injuring 15. Apparently, there were a few explosions in the night, people in neighbouring tents got hit by shrapnel, and soldiers scrambled to their emergency positions as others conducted a search of the camp. The perpetrator was quickly found.

In the past 24 hours, American soldiers have been captured by the Iraqis, paraded in front of TV cameras in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and as the TV networks worry about whether or not to show the footage, they also have to wrestle harder over whether to show the grisly footage of other, dead, US soldiers.

In the past 24 hours, a helicopter has come down inside Iraq, its crew missing and 2 helmets left at the scene.

In the past 24 hours, US troops have captured a chemical plant. In the past 24 hours, two helicopters collided in the Gulf, killing all soldiers and crew, and a Patriot missile destroyed a jet and killed both pilots in a friendly fire incident.

In 'the past 24 hours', in other words, a lot happens to individual people inside a war zone. It's war; that's what happens. No war can be absolutely clinical; when weapons are involved, no-one can be absolutely safe.

I guarantee that if the war was not taking place, this story would be front-page news all over the world.

America, America... *sigh*
America is hated by some, disliked by others, and sighed at by the rest of us. Henry Porter explains why, while Robert Byrd echoes this, but from the inside.

But first thing in the morning, coffee is more important than anything. Nice to see that Nigel Slater and I agree on yet another point. And apparently, I'm in line for a new, exciting and independent world. What a pile of shit.

Soul of the Web
Does your site have soul? Whether you think so or not, take a look at this new site, which aims to explore the hidden riches of the web, the places where you usually never go, the places which truly have soul over style, substance over glitter.

Saddam may be injured...
...or it may just be one of the fake Saddams who they carried away on a stretcher, complete with oxygen mask, from the Baghdad compound bombed last night. Either way, the assault goes on, with Hussein's elder son reported to be killed. Iraqi troops have been seen from the air preparing chemical munitions as the allied troops push far into the southern reaches, tearing down portraits of Saddam in Safwan.

Iraqis are, however, wary of how to take it all. So am I. Where is the massive aerial assault so much trumpeted by Rumsfeld? If a major plan like that can be abandoned, what about others? Of course there are logistical considerations. Maybe they don't want to bomb the crap out of Baghdad if Saddam is already as good as finished - but maybe Saddam isn't finished at all.

In the wake of all this, there have been protests around the UK and other countries today, with further major action scheduled for tomorrow. People are not happy, and the Guardian's Polly Toynbee points out that Blair has just lost whatever currency he possessed within the EU. As if that wasn't bad enough, Tom Hanks won't turn up for the Oscars and Nicole Kidman is a doubtful appearance...

Someone is even angrier than me.
Go look.

Today I weep for my country. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. - West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd


The American people are ready for the disarmament of Saddam Hussein. They understand what's at stake. The military is ready, the nation is ready and the cause is just. - White House spokesman Ari Fleischer


It's really too bad. What has become of the world? I'm afraid the UN system has collapsed. We have to give our earnest consideration to the problem. - Mikhail Gorbachev


I should stress straight away that the hostilities are being carried out against world public opinion, against the principles and norms of international law and the UN Charter. This military action cannot be justified by anything. - Vladimir Putin


Whatever the duration of this conflict, it will have serious consequences for the future. - Jacques Chirac


This indeed is a very serious undermining of the world. - Jacob Zuma, Deputy President, South Africa


We should not underestimate the risks and difficulties we may face against a regime that is an embodiment of absolute ruthlessness with utter disregard for human life. - Geoff Hoon, UK Defence Secretary

Bush's Deadline passes - 8PM EST, 1AM GMT, 4AM in Baghdad


As the deadline passes, and the long-distance bombers load up, no word from Saddam - and as yet, no attacks over Iraq. It's a strange night.

War Has Started... Maybe
The picture, left, shows an American warplane landing on USS Kitty Hawk in the Gulf earlier today. The plane was part of a squadron of F-14s and F/A-18s sent out to bomb Iraqi artillery pieces in southern Iraq. The mission, however, was described as 'standard no-fly zone activity'. Meanwhile, a 'fierce firefight' of unknown proportions broke out between Iraqi personnel and Special Boat Service soldiers around mid-PM, GMT, near Basra, also in southern Iraq. At the same time, American and British troops have been flooding into the demilitarized zones around the border, and a protester has fallen from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge while hanging a banner.

The mystery flu could have infected more people, as reports come in of a grounded flight after a family was taken ill on board.

So, in these early days of war, whether or not you support it, you'll certainly be in the mood for it. Everyone gets tired of the news during the buildup but the first few days are always exciting to some degree. If you're in the mood for a more thought-provoking, visceral presentation of war, try Band of Brothers. It's a Dreamworks production, with executive producers Spielberg and Hanks co-sponsoring a somewhat unusual project: a TV epic miniseries about Easy Company, 101st Airborne Division, and their progress through the Second World War. To call the thing a TV epic miniseries is an understatement. Combining the washed-out cinematography of Saving Private Ryan with the grisly excitement of Black Hawk Down and the sensitivity to violence of Schindler's List, it's by far the best treatment of the war I've ever seen. Get your copy of the DVD set here, or here if you're American, and as for reviews... who needs reviews for something this good? But you know where to go...

You think this will be one thing...
...and then it turns out to be entirely another. From the way it started I thought it was anti war. Read on:

SEVERE EARTHQUAKE IN FRANCE

March 16, 2003. Today it was reported that a severe earthquakes haveoccurred in 10 different locations in France. The severity was measured in excess of 10 on the Richter Scale. The cause was the 56,681 dead American soldiers buried in French soil rolling over in their graves. According to the American Battle Monuments Commission there are 26,255 Yankee dead from World War I buried in 4 cemeteries in France. There are 30,426 American dead from World War II buried in 6 cemeteries in France. These 56,681 brave American heroes died in their youth to liberate a country which is guilty of shameful unspeakable behavior in the 21st century. May the United States of America never forget their sacrifice as we find ways to forcefully deal with the God forsaken unappreciative, forgetful country of France!

Hmmm. And all it turned out to be was an anti-French rant.

You see how a xenophobic American standpoint utterly ruins perfectly decent political humour?!

US Forces: Iraq Battle Order
Get your updates here.

Someone just stepped on the gas.
Another soldier - he could not have been much out of his teens - spoke to his father: 'It's mad here. There's nothing but desert.' Then the soldier paused after his father asked him a question. 'Yeah, a little bit,' he replied softly. 'Yeah, I'm a little bit afraid.'

From The Observer's extra supplement on the final buildup to war in Iraq comes this report on how the British soldiers in camp near Iraq are gearing up for the inevitable. 'The inevitable?' I hear you say. 'Bush, Blair and Aznar are meeting in the Azores today, so nothing's decided yet.'

Hmm. Well, be that as it may, UK and US troops have been supplied with 'needle pens', powerful injection 'guns' which are intended to be used to limit the effects of nerve gas - an equipment issue which is only given at the very last minute before combat. They carry their gas masks to the showers, and are feeling jittery.

A reporter says efforts in Europe must continue apace to contain the world's best-known bent copper (Bush), but when you look at recent world events, and the diplomatic history between the UK and US, you might be forgiven for thinking that the rift will never heal.

And back in Iraq, Saddam has been somewhat left out of the recent reports. Can he really do anything to inflame the situation once war starts?

Miscellany
Get your beautiful-new-gadget news here, and your heads-up about what happens next year here.

War, and the... excitement of war?
MOYERS: And yet you say in your book that the first Gulf War, that we made war fun.

HEDGES: For those who weren't there. I was with the U.S. Marine Corps and they hated CNN. They hated that flag-waving jingoism that dominated the coverage, or dominated so much of the coverage?all those abstract terms that create the excitement back home become obscene to those who are in combat.

This is from an interview with Chris Hedges, former New York Times war correspondent, in whcih he discusses just what war actually is. Not TV pictures and cute little graphic reports, in case you were thinking that's what war is. (found on Metafilter)

Sir Michael Peat: Prince Charles's Household not to blame
The Peat Report into allegations that the UK's Prince of Wales had an improper influence on the official handling of certain criminal matters last year has, unsurprisingly, given him a clean bill of health - it was written by his right-hand man. But inside it, there's this curiosity which I thought I'd share with you:

The Prince of Wales receives, and gives, a large number of gifts. For example, The Prince of Wales's Office has records of 2,394 official gifts received during the three years 1999, 2000 and 2001.

Furthermore, these gifts include 5 animals and livestock, 15 arms and armour, 53 pens and stationery, and 30 bottles of wine / spirits. Heck, it must be Christmas every day for the poor man, who is obviously in such a state (what with the media description of the report being that it's a whitewash) that he'll have to go and take a couple of hefty measures out of one of the 10-20 bottles of drink he's been given this year.

Consumer Stuff, for a change

It's been a long time since I featured anything you can buy. I really, really like the idea of nicely-printed, well-designed books with some refined design innovation: Chip Kidd's The Cheese Monkeys was one from last year; Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish - a novel in twelve fish was another.

Kidd's book was a typographic masterpiece, setting a rustic, almost linotype serif against the brash, laidback feistiness of the subjectmatter, while Flanagan's book has discreet and refined use of coloured text, and the typeface alone is a masterful choice. Not to mention the fact that the paper, too, changes almost unnoticeably from chapter to chapter.

This year, we have the superbly-designed You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers, which begins in a no-nonsense way - right on the front cover. The first few sentences start right at the top of the cover, in embossed coloured type, with the title and author embossed (in silver, if I remember rightly) into a cloth strap-binding at the side. I haven't read it yet - just gazed at it enviously in the bookshops - but if you want it, hurry. It won't be the same in paperback, that's for sure. Kidd's book wasn't, and nor was Flanagan's. But then, nothing ever is...

Mapping the Pentagon's hive-mind
When a state doesn't function like America says it should, it's part of The Gap. So says the ironically named Thomas "P.M." Barnett (my quote marks) who also includes a few helpful maps of the world.

These maps, here and here in PDF, chart which countries of the world are productive, 'Western' and therefore good, and which are underproductive or even (shock, horror) keeping their goods and money to themselves, part of 'The Gap' and therefore bad. No, Barnett is not saying that these countries are necessarily part of the retail chain's sweatshop ethics.

What he is saying, in sum, as far as I can see, is this: We don't understand these countries. They're so different to our own. They have these weapons, but they're different to ours, and we don't understand them, so we don't really want them to have any. And we really can't understand why they won't work with us. I mean, why wouldn't they? Who wants to go against America in today's world?

Answer: Quite a lot of people, really.

Bizarre conversations
haku: i mean jesus was an alien...u gotta admit...resurrections, 23rd century healing powers and ascending into the heavens...its got star trek written all over it
Pete: The thing is, I think that Americans like Bush are so religious and all because they know Jesus exists. They've got him locked away in Area 51 or whatever it is, and are scared shitless to tell the world, as it'd fuck Osama bin Laden off no end.
haku: area 51 is the moon
haku: they faked the moon landing :D

My degree has condemned me to low earnings
According to a study published in Labour Market Trends, 'a degree in an arts subject reduces average earnings to below those of someone who leaves school with just A-levels' - BBC story. (For those outside the UK, A Levels are your final exams in a school which ultimately qualify you for University entrance.)

I graduated in 2000 with a First Class MA (Hons) in English Literature. Since then, I've been in and out of unemployment, certainly earning far less than many of my peers who graduated in vocational subjects.

I could earn a salary of £17,000 immediately by riding around Belfast on a motorised buggy which sucks litter off the pavements. But finally get any permanent salaried job, in Northern Ireland, which would be a direct progression from my degree and training, I'll earn £10,000 to £11,000 tops.

Pearls
of wisdom at petullant.

Tempestuous
One moment, it was a fine sunny day in south Belfast. The next, the sky was leaden and rumbling, strobed by flashes... and threw down, for 5 minutes, the biggest most noisy hailstones I've ever seen in my life. This is a photo of some of them lying on the windowsill outside this room. Massive, they were. I would post more pictures of the general scene, but this page would slow to a crawl for humble modem-users like me.

A superb introduction to Malt Whisky
...by the unlikeliest of sources. Pictured is a bottle of Caol Ila which the Observer reckons is the ideal introduction to Single Malt.

For FUCK'S SAKE!!!!
YOU SEE THE 'COMMENT' LINKS? I KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE VISIT HERE EACH DAY, AND POSSIBLY EVEN WHO YOU ARE, AND YOU NEVER COMMENT.

THEY *WORK*!

USE THEM!

Blogging is, contrary to popular opinion, a pretty solitary trade, and it's really nice to see that other people who read your site are actually spurred to thought about it - whatever that thought is.

You can, by the way, comment on the archives too. Just so you know how to ignore those comment links, too.

This is me, apparently
These pictures are me. Apparently. According to the wonderful site My Virtual Model, via The Copydesk! The only thing is, the legs are a bit too big, and my hair's a bit darker. And I don't look so goddamn American. But other than that, apart from the fact that my abs are better and my arms bigger, I think it's pretty good! :o)

Upwards
A superb photo from Russ.

US bugs UN diplomats in advance of war, Metafilter fails to discuss it
What was the NSA wanting to do with its wiretap intel? Twist arms? Influence votes? That's what the Observer thinks. The memo itself, from which this information is gleaned, has already been argued about at length on Metafilter, and includes bizarre pointers to the Guardian's style guide to try and rubbish the memo itself.

I'm all for balanced discussion, but what amazes me is that, on Metafilter for god's sake, there are only two notable defences of a newspaper's right to assume a position on a war, and support it with hard-won information.

You'd think that the Observer hadn't done its research properly and needed MeFis to check its sources to stop the story blowing up in its face. Need I point out here that blogging is *not journalism*?

And they've just got the man believed to be ultimately responsible for September 11... apart from Osama bin Laden, that is.

Aside from all that, Gareth Gates stammers during an interview (shock! horror!) and Nigel Slater gets his chin slippy. With fondue.

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq
Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, some more Iraq news, Iraq.

American Police arrest man for talking in library

"I think Bush is out of control", the man said to a woman who he'd seen, in a library, wearing an anti-war badge. Shortly, police arrested him under the US's so-called Patriot Act and kept him in a police station for 5 hours. The man, understandably, is annoyed and intending to sue everyone concerned.

But how did they know he was at the library? Well, the Patriot Act, I understand, means that US law enforcement officials can spy on all sorts of things in their valiant lookout for Threatening People: library records, google searches (and with the recent takeover of Blogger, oh shit, my life's on the line too), student records, realtime phone communications, and christ, maybe even what you buy on Amazon, for all I know.

All I can say is, thank god its powers don't reach beyond US citizens! For now...

Meanwhile, this is what's going on in today's papers in Northern Ireland.

September, Bush, Blair, Iraq

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope at the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

-- from September 1, 1939 - W.H. Auden

Sort of fitting. This should be next week's UN Resolution.

Get ready for it...
...whatever it might be. Ready.gov, the US disaster-plan website, has been spectacularly parodied by many sites - best links here and here. Oh, how I laughed!

There is a serious undercurrent to all this, though. Just how many people in that massive country are going to be panicked beyond all reason by this so-called 'information drive'? Of course people should have information. The small question of useful timing seems to have been misunderstood in this case, I think.

Keep it clean
Heheheee. :o)

Watch wine grow...
...here. It makes me reach for the corkscrew every time.

COMMENT! Dammit.
You see those little 'comment?' links below each posting?

They WORK. They're there for a REASON. Bloody USE them. Grrrr, grrrrr. Growl. Am I being scary and persuasive enough? I don't care. But it'd be nice to have some evidence that people actually visited this site, and read it.

And you can see what you, and everyone else, has posted, too. Don't be shy. *sniffle*

Just thoughts in my head

Let it snow...
...let it snow, let it snow. As more than 20 (yes, twenty) inches of snow fall over Washington DC, the rest of America's East Coast is hit by severe snowstorms... again. And even the Chesapeake Bay is frozen.

Self-promotion
Dammit, I felt like publishing something of my own today. Hope you enjoy. (Adobe PDF.)

Consumer rights
Here's a message I just got from a friend of mine:

we've just bought some jaffa cakes in the office. on the tube it says "this tube should always contain 15 jaffa cakes" so when we had eaten all but one we phoned their customer complaints department to tell them there was only one left. i laughed so much i nearly wet myself.

History...?
I was leafing through an old diary today and came across this. Sorry it's so long, but hell. I was intense when I was 19! And not a little scary, looking back on it!

Wed. 30th July 1997

A rather slow day today. ... I need to be in touch with people. And that works both ways.

Poetry. Nothing much on that front. Why call yourself a poet when you aren't one? Is being a poet thinking about things poetically, or is it just a craft? I suppose it depends on the individual, on their commitment, on how much they write. Anne really is a writer - ever since I've known her she's always had something on the go and always something searching in terms of personality or people - or the self. I'm not a poet of anything in particular - I wonder if I ever will be?

In the afternoon went to an exhibition in the Abbott Hall Art Gallery in Kendal - Sublime Inspiration. The artistry of mountains, paintings and photos. A couple of superb Turners. Then back here.

Watched Morse in the evening - set in Pembroke College, Oxford. No shots filmed near the set of rooms I occupied for a night. Then I went out for a walk in the raining darkness. Dad says there have been a couple of guys hanging around here today with a notepad. They came up to the steps apparently, hanging round the car as well. Hope nothing happens - I'm not entirely sure it will but am sure that it's mostly unlikely - at leasst tomorrow. Gaytime TV starts in less than 5 minutes so will have to go. Back soon maybe.

-back- Dad doesn't want me to watch Gaytime TV - he hasn't said so but is uncharacteristically going to watch a film which is on at this time - and is avoiding my gaze. Bugger. And I thought he'd progressed a bit on that front. He seemed fairly relaxed about about my sexuality when it was touched upon earlier this week. He's just shifted in his chair, and is fiddling with things - sure sign that he's bored but his foot is going round and round so he doesn't want me to know. The time is past for that kind of limitation - it passed years ago in my opinion. That didn't stop him limiting at all, though.

This place seems so different from a year ago... Anne said in her letter that sometimes she thinks that she loves me and other times she knows she must not. I think I shock a lot of people. Anyway. No more now.

100 Poets 3 published
nthposition have just published the 3rd Edition (pdf) of their ever-more-famous-by-the-second poetry chapbook. You know what to do.

I hope!

Old friends...
I've been sitting with a lot of old friends recently. They've all come over visiting from London to live with me, and it's really great to see them all again. They're books, before you think I've suddenly become popular.



One of the best and most treasured is this one, pictured above and expanded upon here. If you're into wine, buy it. If you're into reading, find it in a bookshop and leaf through it and then buy it. If you're into both, of course you already have it so you don't need me to tell you. And if you're not into either wine or reading... why the hell have you got this far??

New Edition
100 Poets Against The War, Todd Swift's eBook mentioned in my last post but one, is out in a new edition which I've added to my server. Get it, and the original, from the sidebar (above the blogrolling links)!

Hobbit Love
So, Merry and Frodo are in love. Really. There are pictures, and comment. When will they come out?

It might just be rumour, and a matter of chance.

You can't hide a poet behind a bush.
A few days ago, America's First Lady Laura Bush was forced to cancel one of her White House poetry symposiums because my American friends were threatening to use their poetry to make a stand against war.

The Guardian quotes Mrs Bush's spokeswoman: "While Mrs Bush respects the right of all Americans to express their opinions, she, too, has opinions and believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum."

What does Mrs Bush think literature is?? In my opinion, she is bordering on being openly stupid if she truly believes that any poet worth their salt will sit politely at a nice afternoon gathering to talk about poetry when aggression is in the offing and must be questioned.

Luckily, an enterprising poet and publisher, Sam Hamill, has set up a website, Poets Against The War, and Todd Swift has published an eBook filled with contributions by established poets from all over the world.

The eBook is hosted on this website in Adobe pdf format - download it from the link in the lefthand bar, copy it to serve from your site, print it and leave it in coffeeshops... up to you!

Dammit.
I want some snow.



Like this.

Brutal cradling, Elusive message, Uneven film

The story is simple enough. 8 Mile presents: Eminem as you've never seen him before. Erm, hang on - that means 'Eminem as we've definitely seen him before, many times'. The master of the moody glare, the mellifluous rap and the lost-boy-loud-boy crossover. But this is a Curtis Hanson film. Curtis Hanson, the director of Wonder Boys and L.A. Confidential, is the last person I would have expected to direct a film like this one. But dammit, he makes it different to all the usual 'music star as film star' films you've ever seen.

And the signs are all there. For all the distinct change of scene from the old-police-stations Hollywood of L.A. or the suburban cosiness of Wonder Boys, the cinematography is still rich and disciplined without you realising it, and the passionate sense of place - in this case, the tumbledown Detroit - oozes from every frame.

The plot follows, so spoiler alert!, don't read further if you don't what to find out here what you'll be able to guess after having seen the trailer. I don't mean that to be disparaging, but everyone, unless their head's been in a barrel for the past few years, knows who Eminem is and roughly how he dragged himself up the rap ladder. And everyone knows that, although Eminem isn't really Eminem in this film - he's 'Rabbit', a young white rapper who's been accepted by the black boys on the dodgy side of Detroit's 8 Mile - this story is nevertheless based around him. Around his story.

Rabbit hangs out with his friends. Rabbit is quietly determined, but appears in the film's opening shots vomiting down the toilet before a battle - a public rap sparring-match between two rappers competing for recognition from their peers. Later, he raps in a parking-lot (the amazing, evocative old Michigan Theatre, pictured left) in an impromptu conversation with a rival group of guys. His lack of security isn't quite pulled off by Eminem, though, and this is where the cracks start to appear.

Because although Eminem is very good at acting determined, his embarrassed Rabbit isn't embarrassed enough. But this is part of Rabbit, which it would take a better actor to deliver: Rabbit is weak, and aware that he's weak. He doesn't fall back on guns to make his point for him - none of the characters do, strangely, (post-9-11th-ally??) apart from one, who injures himself in a shot of poetic justice - but rap.

And that would be fine. But this is not a rap musical. It's a film. It Rabbit could really break into rap every time he got threatened and win through because of that, we'd know. But a savage beating scene gives the lie to that idea, and because of this, Rabbit's slightly-too-smooth edges don't seem right. They look right, though. Oh, yes. Because Eminem looks fantastic on screen - on that point I agree entirely with Rolling Stone. His fierceness shines, but a little too sparklingly at times. He's the angry boy with a soul, who finally gets his chance to flare in a battle, and wins through.

In terms of this film, I'm not sure why I think it's a winner. I'm not sure why I think Eminem is a winner in it, despite his weaknesses. Maybe it's Eminem. Maybe it's Curtis Hanson. Who knows?

Sprawling, untidy inspiration

Martin Scorsese's latest film, which I saw a couple of nights ago, doesn't leave me with the impression that it was a crap film. I remember parts of it with pleasure, and others with the sort of wincing, guilty pleasure you feel at the end of a particularly nasty horror film. But I remember it. I am interested about the characters. If it had been substandard work, as so many people are saying, why do I feel this way?

Gangs of New York is undoubtedly sprawling and untidy. Salon points out that it's as if Scorsese had become lost in the grime-stained playground of his imagination for too long, wanting to revel in the multiplicity of characters (there are no computer-generated crowds, and the cast is huge) and the length of time it takes (nearly three hours). But I incline more towards the New York Times's review. To my way of thinking, the general epic scope is indeed akin to the films of DW Griffith, and there was definitely a feeling throughout the film that, while perhaps the shooting and scripting didn't always mould to a satisfying story like plasticwrap over glass, the style and scope was there to provide a spectacle in and of itself.

Many critics will disagree with me, I know. But I didn't even find Amsterdam, Leonardo Di Caprio's character, awful. Of course, he wasn't impressive. But then, he wasn't meant to be. Amsterdam, the son of the gang leader Priest Vallon (solidly and calmly played by Liam Neeson) who is murdered nastily at the start, only returns vengefully to the Five Points district after some years, and as such is like a fish half-in, half-out of the water at a time when he most needs to glide, silent and deadly, towards his intended victim.

His intended victim, William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, is where the film really starts to fall apart and cohere at the same time. Dealing with the falling-apart first, Di Caprio can't stand up against older actors too well anyway, and Amsterdam isn't scripted to confront him. Instead, he woos him, scared, rather than waiting to reveal his hand. This isn't bad acting but rather a bad situation. (The worst most obvious slips Di Caprio makes during the film's entire length are slips of accent only.)

Now, to the coherence. Daniel Day-Lewis returns with one eye of porceain and one of glare and twinkle, and a voice which has been marinaded in bourbon, tobacco and grit for at least a few months. Standing so tall his character seems precarious, tottering badly at the end as intended, Day-Lewis is the true nucleus of the plot. Around his sun orbit Jim Broadbent, acting well as corrupt local politician William Tweed in his first Hollywood outing since Moulin Rouge, and John C. Reilly (of Magnolia fame). Cameron Diaz slips around tartly, thieving from the plush neighbourhoods before subsiding disappointingly into the story's love-interest, Jenny Everdeane.

All in all, it's sprawling, some characterisation is untidy, but it's not bad. People are used to thinking of Scorsese as a god who can do no wrong - or if not that, exactly, then at least as someone who is higher up there than most. So what if he wants to sprawl occasionally? Does that make this film bad, simply because of that? No. It's absolutely no worse than, for example, Gladiator. It's a lot better than The Two Towers, purely in terms of plot, characterisation and acting. And cinematographically, it's a dream. Before you buy into what the critics are all saying, go see for yourself. This is a big-screen must-see.

Photos and Trivia
If you like London, go here, now.

Talking
There are several kinds:

1. Pointless conversation used first thing in the morning to wake you up. Usually takes place with strangers at bus-stops.
2. Inner monologue. If you're lucky, it's not so much talking as thinking, but if you're unlucky like I was, you end up thinking aloud in coffeeshops over the newspaper. And people look at you strangely, so you smile back, and they don't know where to look.
3. Tentative engagement. Usually used when you're in a room with strangers and you just want to get to know one or two of them. Every sentence is a stepping-stone which might slip on the riverbed and send you flying, but you still keep walking.
4. Fluidity. Can be verbal or written, and I've been having an enjoyable few sessions of this with a few people, including Chris, over the last few days. Nothing is an effort, and freedom and clarity usually result.
5. The kind that I've just heard coming from behind the bathroom door, where dad is probably seated on the porcelain. I don't know what he's saying, but it seems he talks to himself on the toilet quite a lot. I can't say I do. Do you?

First Snow!
But not here, in Belfast, sadly. However, I've just been kidding myself with ample resources from this snow gallery.

Freedom
Look at this piece of glowing invective, from none other than The Pyongyang Times.

Notice that North Korea doesn't call itself North Korea (beware MSN pop-up). It calls itself DPRK - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. There's a slight difference. (Obviously *South* Korea doesn't exist, then. Or not really, anyway.) I think it'd be an interesting place to visit.

Iraq: Liberation, Invasion or Colonization?

Dubya has been at it again. Think for a moment, he told us. Think about what Saddam has done. Think about what we can do for Iraq. And then you'll see that we won't be invading the country, but freeing its people.

A little premature, isn't it. Or is it? Nobody knows because, at the moment, America is the only country in the entire world which has said it's going in there sometime soon. It's true that Britain's Prime Minister is hawkishly keeping his eyes open, and kicked off 2003 with a speech full of dire warnings of worldwide threats to peace and security. (Threats to peace and security, incidentally, which are anything but war on Iraq.) So far, though, he hasn't said yes. His ministers, and others, are increasingly saying no. So, where does this place George W Bush?

In a word: alone. America is massing troops in the Gulf. Britain is due to send its biggest carrier there tomorrow, but even in a few months, its commitment of people and hardware would still be less than America's. There's a very good reason for that: no concrete plans have been made because, unlike the once-in-a-lifetime groundswell of world support for pursuing Osama and the Taleban in Afghanistan, nobody in the world knows why they want to invade - Saddam is not Osama bin Laden; there's no real world interest there. Apart from America, no single country anywhere even knows if there's any point to it, but all countries can see at least one glistening end-result: OIL.

Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not suggesting for one millisecond that America just wants to boot Saddam up his hairy Arab crack and grab some black stuff. I'm really not. The American hawks do actually believe that a regime change would be beneficial to the country. Why they believe this is beyond me. Why would a population which naturally inclines to a multifarious, and sometimes violent 'clan-based' rule, possibly want democracy? They would have to take their place, and recognise their *responsibilities to*, and in, the wider world. America would allow nothing less. Of course, they'd all rather welcome Saddam's downfall because it would give them the chance to get that system established. Self-rule for Iraqis would mean a multiplicity of different local rulers. And yet the press has been so full of a single word, Iraq, that you'd almost be forgiven for thinking it's a single people.

Anyway, so what if they do or they don't have a change of regime. America doesn't like Saddam. America despises his filthy little moustache. Furthermore, the portraits of him in various heroic poses are almost as kitsch as the Stars and Stripes flying all over America. Get the shitty, weaselly sand-nigger off his perch and let's show the world we whupped his ass. Then, let's set up a postwar interregnum in Iraq, which we won't call a ruling council because that would give us too much actual responsibility, and let's make the interregnum as slow as we can so that we can get as much OIL as possible out of there.

Oh, come on Britain, you know you want to get in the car with us. Come oooonnn! :o) You'll like it, I promise. We suckee suckee. Aww, please think about it? We can't do it without you! Britain? Britain. I'm not going to ask again... Now. Get in the fuckin' car.

Weapons of Mass Destruction
Each word or phrase which is over-used becomes one of the above against the power and magic of words. The top offenders on Lake Superior State Uni's list this year (showing just how much ordinary Americans hate Bush (thank-you, Jeeeee-zus)): Material Breach; Make No Mistake About It; Weapons of Mass Destruction; Homeland Security.

Today's quiz: what literary surname links together all items on the above list?

Answer: Shakespeare.

Yes, that's right. Because the Pentagon is slipping a copy of Shakespeare's racier war-based plays into its soldiers' backpacks before they get helicoptered, shipped and flown to Iraq. I ask the next question in all seriousness: why??

Am I turning American?
5 minutes ago, I typed 'That sucks' into a message to a friend on OUT. He wrote back and told me I'd written 'That sucks'. I stared in disbelief. No, I *couldn't* have written that! I went back through my history to check. And there it was. Since my friend is Canadian, he asked me why I'd said it - us 'brits' never say it, apparently.

Well, we do now. God help me.

And. . . . . ?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, because I'm sure this happens to a lot of people, I'm feeling rather unmoved now that we're in the aftermath of 2002 turning into 2003. Today, arguably, the internet is 20 years old, but other than the usual celebrations around the world, there's not much to say.

Today is, however, the first day of something a lot bigger (to me at least) than just another year: the appearance of Samuel Pepys' Diary online. Presented in the form of a blog, the diary will be put online at a rate of one entry per day. Pepys started the diary on the 1st of January 1660 and died in 1703. That means that we have about forty years to wait before the complete text is online, but it will be a valuable experiment in whether readers will actually come back each day, or for catch-up sessions, to read something on the web that they wouldn't necessarily have read on paper.

I really don't know what more to say. I usually feel underwhelmed by New Year things. I feel much happier that it's still Christmas!

Disbelief
Two stories have set me blinking in indignation today. The first is that a strange sect masquerading as a 'scientific' cloning company claims to have successfully cloned the first human being.

The second is that steel from the now defunct World Trade Center in New York is to be used... to make a great big warship. Maybe I'm wrong, (no, really, maybe I really am - I can't remember properly) but I seem to recall that shortly after the catastrophe, the Twin Towers were lamented and the description of the buildings leant heavily towards values like peace, creativity, freedom, beauty and so on. Obviously the same sense of peace and freedom which led US law enforcement officials to jail two foreign students for being 'work shy'.

And there's one more star in heaven tonight - or one more star-maker - as news comes in that photographer Herb Ritts is dead at the age of 50.

What? A white Christmas?!
No, we didn't get one here in Northern Ireland. But Arkansas (right), Missouri, Pennsylvania and New York all had a freakish snowstorm sweep across them yesterday. We could do with some of that. There are so many warm nuggets of colour and food and drink in this house that I long to look towards the window and see snow-light, to step out of doors and hear the crunch of snow.

Blatant, Over-reactionary Lunacy
American Airport Staff scared, or insane? And I thought I was badly treated in the UK...

More comments here.

The onset
I just went out to the back garden and could tell as soon as I stepped outside that it's much, much colder tonight. The pergola is dusted with frost, and when I went to the bin, I spent a while cracking the ice around the lid so I could open it.

This is where I start to feel the onset of Christmas. There's a very bright star in the eastern sky; of course it's not that which the Three Kings saw... but things are starting to coalesce. :o)

The Little Friend

When I heard, on a winter day late last year, that Donna Tartt's second novel would soon appear, I longed to plunge back into The Secret History with new eyes, and take heed of signs, and wait, and wonder. At last, She was publishing again. At last, I would read something by Her which I hadn't read before. Her new book would be as rich and studded with jewels as Her first, and hitherto only, novel. It would change my mood for weeks on end. It would devour me over a period of perhaps three days, and I would devour it many times thereafter.

Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling; and our story shall be the education of our heroes.
This prefatory quotation from Plato, slipped ironically into the first pages of The Secret History, certainly cannot be applied to The Little Friend. It is a large book. At more than 500 pages, bound in black, and excitingly solid and bulky, it is just heavy enough to make you think you might be carrying a box of riches in your bag. You will undo the clasp, open the lid, and gaze, wide-eyed and short of breath, at the dim glitter inside.

But this is a slow book, and its richness is as thick as a midge-filled summer afternoon. While occasionally you may be allowed to canter through a few pages at most, the rest of it may as well have a "Do Not Run" signboard, presided over by some stern, angular matron. The syrupy paragraphs drop slowly and heavily through your mind, one, two... three...... and another..... Some of them are light and sweet, some as dark and tinged with bitterness as black treacle.

It's not such an easy lay as The Secret History. It won't lie down with you and engage you in sweaty abandon for days on end, only to spit you out light-headed and spinning afterwards. It will hold you firmly, talk slowly, smile in a small way, and though you may want to pull away and do something else, you'll know you have to keep listening. This tale does not tell itself simply, but then, in the American South, a story may be months in the telling...

Donnie Darko

Yes, there is a film (its young director's first) called Donnie Darko. No, I hadn't really heard of the thing until about two weeks ago, when my friend Jonny mentioned it to me. It's about... well, it's very difficult to say exactly what this film *is* about. It follows Donnie Darko through either the first or last years of his adult life, depending on how you look at it.

Feeling increasingly alienated from the world around him, Donnie, played by Jake Gyllenhaal (right), moves through it in a sensitive, troubled, and increasingly playful way. Testing the boundaries of the reailty he lives in, as directed by a big evil bunny, and fascinated by increasingly bizarre events which lead him to kickstart the mind-bending denouement, this is a film which made me laugh, well up with tears, go all hormonal for Donnie, and all motherly for him and the rest of the misguided characters (played by a wonderful cast), all at the same time. Nobody's talked about it here in Northern Ireland, where it would usually be regarded as an irrelevant piece of childish weird shit, instead of the quirky masterpiece it undoubtedly is.

Go see.

PS. - Dec. 19th - Apparently, it caused a huge stir in America when it was released. Due to the release-date being only a few months after September 11th, and the prominence given to a jet engine and a house.

Hunting
A lack of jobs is entirely caused by too much hunting by too many people in the first place. So, because I need a job, there should be a complete ban on other people hunting, especially those with more impressive stallions than mine.

Jobless, again
Even I am starting to think that I'm hopeless. Today, in the middle of the afternoon, someone from my agency called me to tell me that someone in the very building I work in had decided to say byebye to me and quite a few other recent temp workers today - because work was slowing down before Christmas. So, my manager lived down the corridor and he didn't have the guts to tell me. And I've been employed now for a grand total of, oh, 9 days.

I could swear here, really. But there really fucking wouldn't be any fucking arsing cunting point.

Driven to Distractions

It's time I lightened the mood on here, at least. So, after a somewhat shitty day at work, here's a nice handkerchief belonging to a Shaker Man, woven by George Constantine in about 1936.

And a brilliant doorway with corridor beyond (at Chatsworth House, UK), with a little violin hung on a door. Architect thought to be Jan van der Vaart, in the 1670s.

Does any of this not ring true?

That's because the handkerchief's actually a watercolour. And beyond the doorway out of the room, there isn't a corridor at all. Just another painting.

I need more...
Time to myself, people to talk to in work, things to look forward to, ability to capture lovely memories with photographic clarity, lunch money, sleep in less time, cheese...

Something missing
That's how today has felt, really. Not in the sense that I've had nothing to do - quite the opposite. I got up earlier than I've done in ages, rocketed out of the house and into town, had breakfast and then started my new job. And kept at it without any real sort of break (except for lunch) until I got back home a while ago.

But the job involves doing *nothing* (and I mean nothing) apart from sitting in front of a computer in a small room with one other person, wearing a pair of (rather painful) headphones, and transcribing letters from the tape. So you can't even talk to the other person because you have no time and no hearing, and the only break is when you cross the room to print stuff out, or leave the room to get another tape.

I'm going to see how it goes tomorrow, but I think today's provided enough experience of the job to give me a great big "I won't like this type of work, not even slightly" signal. It would be much better, and I'd actually sort of like it, if I was in a slightly bigger room and had a variety of duties. I think I'll be calling my agency tomorrow though!

Melancholy
It's one of those days. This is the first day of advent, and just like the first day of advent last year, this one definitely doesn't feel like it. The weather is there - gales and rain - enough for you to believe it's December. But I feel dislocated. For a start, I'm now (very suddenly) not jobless. Friday afternoon, and a call comes through from my agency telling me I'm starting work on Monday (tomorrow) on an audio typist position inside the Central Services Agency, whatever is precisely is! I'm sure I'll know all about it this time tomorrow, but right now I don't have a clue. It's the usual night-before-new-job feeling.

But this time, it's compounded. Jonathan arrived from London on Friday. On Saturday, we just went around town, had lunch in Apartment, went for a drink in Bar Bacca and then for another few in Irene and Nan's. My plan, before getting drunk, was to then go home and spend a quiet evening indoors with him, eating and drinking and just generally catching up. It would have been an oasis of calm and relaxation before he left the next day, as well as a bolster before starting work again after such a long time (nearly one whole year) unemployed.

But we ended up getting drunk and going to the Kremlin, and not doing much catching up, and getting even more drunk before getting home and collapsing. I woke up this morning with a hangover from hell, knowing that Jonathan had to leave the house at 4pm, knowing I had work tomorrow... *sigh*

And now he's gone, it's raining outside, the house seems very very quiet, and the news is bad. A few minutes ago I caught myself looking at digital photos I'd taken while he was here, and wondering where he's disappeared to. God, listen to me. (Peri)pathetic indeed. But like all other emotions, melancholy rears it head sometimes, and when it does, writing about it needn't be bad. I just feel I need a few days' holiday to get myself back together again - and this on the eve of my new job. But never mind. I know I'll feel better when I've got the first week of it over. Routine always settles me, sooner or later...

Twisted meanings
Found at Chrisonomicon. Fantastic things from a fantastic blogger. Anyone know of any more examples of this?

An Adult Fairytale
Awwwww.

von Hagens still faces arrest

Professor Gunther von Hagens, who last night carried out the first public autopsy in the UK for 170 years (right), is today the subject of a discussion which could end with his arrest. Medical experts are to discuss the nature of the autopsy, and will pass a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, which will then decide if von Hagens has a case to answer. If he is found guilty of breaching the Anatomy Act, he could be jailed.

I think this has all been blown a bit out of proportion. Although there has been a lot of media attention (The Times - Editorial / The Guardian - Leader) most of it has concentrated on whether or not he was right or wrong to carry it out. Surely the people who paid to watch can be given that task. Yes, it's wrong in law. But *should* it be? That's the question the papers should be asking - and making an attempt to answer. Certainly, a member of a government medical ethics committee who was present at the autopsy, made encouraging noises on the principle of the thing. Is it a circus? That's hypothetical anyway. It certainly wasn't conducted as one.

Another outdated institution has been fucked with, as the UK's Princess Royal is fined for letting her mutt run riot and attack 2 kids. And finally, SpongeBob SquarePants has become a gay icon.

UK sees first public autopsy for 170 years
See the earlier post, about Gunther von Hagens. Despite a police presence, his autopsy was carried out as planned. Police sirens wailed towards Brick Lane, London, about 20 minutes before the procedure was due to start, raising fears of an arrest. In the end, however, it went ahead. The BBC again:

"There were gasps from the audience as he cut into the head of the body and sawed through the skull with a hacksaw. Accountant Louise Cotton, 40, said: 'I think it's absolutely fascinating. I've never seen anything like it before, it's just amazing.' Medical student Cristina Koppel, a fourth year student at Imperial College in London, said: 'I was a bit surprised by the speed of it all but there is no delicate way of doing this with finesse.' A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said anatomy professors would watch the autopsy to check if it breached the law but would not say if the professor would face arrest."

First public autopsy since 1800s is planned

Professor Gunther von Hagens, creator of plastination and the controversial Body Worlds exhibition, in which flayed human corpses are shown, plans to conduct a public autopsy on the night of the 20th of November 2002, in the centre of London.

But as the BBC reports, public autopsies are illegal in this country, and Prof. von Hagens may be arrested before he makes the first incision.

If you have a TV, the UK's Channel 4 plans to film the procedure when it takes place (or, more likely, von Hagens' arrest) and televise it with a debate at 11.45pm on the same day.

"There is not a single sound reason why anatomical dissections, as commonly experienced by medical students during their studies, should continue to remain the private domain of medical professionals. In a liberal democracy with an open society, excluding medical laypersons from anatomy can no longer be justified. The possibility of attending dissections that are open to the public should be an unqualified right of every citizen of legal age, if spatial and personnel-related circumstances permit." (Body Worlds website)

Thoughts, anyone?

Ahhh. *sigh*

(From Minizen)

Regal

The Queen, and Elizabeth Windsor at the state opening of Parliament earlier this month. Yeah, like the tiara, Phil. Did your wife choose it specially? (Pic captured from BBC News.)

Reading Poems
Famous poets reading their own work. I've only been really impressed with one poet's reading of their own work, and that's been Seamus Heaney. He was a good reader because he could actually speak the lines right through your ears into your emotions. He was gently animated.

Listening to some of the poets who make it into this webpage, however (and a lot more who haven't for copyright reasons), I often wish that more poets or novelists - or writers generally! - would recognise that they're not all great, or even passable, at reading their own work aloud. Ali Smith writes spare and superbly crafted fiction, but she's hopeless at reading it out.

Whereas, at a reading a few years ago, yours truly got applauded loudly for reading his own work! Now, what exactly *is* it about hearing a writer read their own work, even though they might do it really badly? They don't add anything to the experience. You hear the same words and the same sentences, and the writer simply cannot be trusted to illuminate and nuance. So why do people part with the money?

My own bet, even though I write myself, is that people just want to be able to say they heard such-and-such reading once. Sort of interesting conversation-material, but hardly food for the soul.

Pictures
Moving ones. The latest two I've loved have been One Hour Photo and 28 Days Later... One Hour Photo has at its centre a solid, terrifyingly quiet Robin Williams who "gives an eerily still, contained performance as Sy, the put-upon express photo clerk in his vivid white shirt and retina-piercingly blue waistcoat. These are colours that match the strip-lit white of the surreally enormous discount store where he works, the police interview suite where he winds up, and indeed his own pallid skin tones - an albino in everything but his eyes", according to the Guardian review.

28 Days Later..., by contrast, is a film which is cinematically full. It lacks the washed-out emptiness of the above. But it's so fcking terrifying when nothing much is happening onscreen. The opening 20 minutes or so will either do nothing for you, or give you the feeling that the world you knew has ended, just like that, and you'd quite like to cry. Plus, the divine Cillian Murphy (pictured) has a lead role, along with Christopher Eccleston, who brings his usual bad-man-with-good-heart into frame.

Poles Apart
But there's only one South Pole, I hear you say. Haha. Wrong!
And I didn't know that so many countries think they own the place!

New Arrival in London!
My uni friend 'Justin' has arrived in London, people! And he's feeling a bit, well, washed-up and lonely after having moved down from Edinburgh. So I'm asking all my friends in the city to take a look at him here and if you like what you see (who wouldn't?) then write to him and take him out for a coffee or a drink or something. And be nice. Offenders will be prosecuted!

Mystery Bunny
Hmm. Seems I've a mustery admirer somewhere in Lanarkshire. I got 2 framed urban photos and a fluffy bunny (below) in the post today from someone who didn't include a note or a name. Weird. They did include their address though. I'm trying to figure out what to do. Should I write back? Should I try to find out who they are using more covert methods? Tell me, people.

Not quite angels on horseback...
"The Russians are wrapping the bodies of the terrorists killed in last week's siege of a Moscow theatre in pig skin in order to deter future attacks by potential Islamic fighters. The idea, according to the newspaper Moskovski Komsomol, is to turn the terrorists' own beliefs against them. While jihad martyrs believe they ascend immediately to heaven upon fulfilling their duty, Islam regards the pig as unclean. Corpses wrapped in pig skin, the Russians say, will therefore be barred from entering heaven for eternity." -- from Wired

And, hehehe. :o)

Thinking
The things we do when unemployed:
1. Don't earn any money
2. Don't get the chance to go out. Ever
3. Have loads of free time
4. After a while, treat that free time as something which will go on, because we also
5. Get used to thinking there isn't going to be a job within the next few weeks, so
6. Make plans for people to visit us, etc. in the future free time

On Thursday, I went for a little chat to Waterstone's who are looking for a goods-in temp around the Xmas period, but starting on Monday. Despite not having heard anything yet, and despite initial doubts about whether or not Jonathan and Mikey will still be able to visit (which they allayed - time off is a virtue), I'm looking forward to getting back into some sort of work. I'm meant to hear something over the weekend - i.e. before the end of tomorrow. If I don't, I'll start thinking, oh, there's another potential job which has turned me down. Dammit.

Oh, bloody hell...
There's a suspect device outside the offices of The Belfast Telegraph in Belfast City Centre. This comes a few days after other security alerts in the city, and already I'm thinking that it's going to be another Continuity IRA-attributed event. Why do paramilitary or terror groups think it's a good idea to plant devices in or near the offices of newspapers? Easy. They don't particularly care about bad press. It's the disruption they want. Last week, a similar alert inside the Telegraph building disrupted production for several hours. There's nothing like that to steal headlines and publicize their activity.

However, there are no online reports about it at the moment. I only found out because as I was leaving town, the staff radio on the bus was reorganising traffic through central control. What has shocked me, however, is a story about gross mistreatment of kittens.

Nonsense?
The USA is cowardly and ham-fisted in its attempts to tackle terrorism and present any convincing arguments about them to the world, as well as possibly guilty of deliberately allowing 9/11 to happen, according to Gore Vidal in today's Observer Review. Usually, I think he enjoys the sound of his own voice too much. But his 7,000-word article was very good indeed, in my view. Unfortunately, until some kind soul posts it to the web somewhere, you can't read it unless you can get hold of the print edition.

Silliness
First off, nearly 70% of Americans feel that a war against Iraq would make America safer. Hmm. Where the hell do they get that idea from? Now, having said that, this result did come from a site which sells really paranoid stuff. Their informational courses on such matters as nuclear, biological and chemical attack last only 45 minutes each - just enough time to either get the essentials across - or go for bust to give lurid details with a bare minimum of useful, balanced advice. Which do you reckon it would be?

About the one thing they sell which could benefit most people is a first-aid kit. But you can also choose from items such as this. Sigh.

Does anyone remember that in the days immediately after September 11th, 2001, manufacturers of nuclear bunkers were maxing out on orders? Within a few weeks, the demand died down. I began to think that maybe everyone was getting a bit more balanced again. However, as the presence of this quirky Christmas gift emporium shows, there must still be demand somewhere. They have an outlet in Manhattan. What happened to the concept that New York was famous for being almost non-American in its outlook?

Oh, and "They had given the price of Booker of the man to 'the duration of the unit of elaboración'." (Which means they've given the Man Booker Prize to 'The Life of Pi'.)

Fire-Water
I downloaded this because I thought it looked nice. Then I had second thoughts. Why the hell put ice in the bloody glass? And why such a miserly amount of the good stuff? Shame. Shame.

In other news, Northern Ireland is now back to direct rule after a rather nasty spat over the results of a raid on - among other properties - a Sinn Fein office in Parliament Buildings, Stormont.

Go here for more on this - or more on anything NI.

Memory - Reality
This is Jonathan, my... friend, for want of a very much better word, in Greenwich. I took this picture earlier this summer, saw the scene through the window, and had to capture it. It sums things up perfectly. Or disturbingly. Sometimes it's like he's blurring so much I'm not sure he's there. But I can always see him, so he always is. But blurring. Oh, god. Listen to me. Missing friends always gets to me. Now, for minor artistic effect:

Plates. So many meals eaten off these. The foundation of any good meal. :o)

Bananas. Snipped from another picture for no other reason than they look nice. I like bananas. Especially from the other side of a misted window, when I'm outside on a summer night.

Dammit. I miss this London life. Well. This bit of it.

Oh. My. God.
Conservative MP leaves Westminster for Ian Paisley's DUP. Congratulations to Andrew Hunter, who claims this week's "Tory Masochism" prize. Now we know there can never again be a Conservative Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Everyone here would revolt.

What really made me laugh was that Ian Paisley Jr., Big Ian's son, said it was "probably one of the most significant developments within unionist politics for several decades". Yes. It is! It's like piling more shit on top of an already huge pile of shit!

Whirling water
The most dangerous whirlpool in, possibly, the whole world is to be found between Scarba and Jura off the west coast of Scotland. The page linked at the start describes a typical dive there, with obviously no approaching the whirlpool!

Another great place I'd love to dive - partly because I've done no diving *at all* so I'm just more excited than scared - is Scapa Flow. Van der Vat's book The Grand Scuttle provides an electrifying story of how the wrecks of Scapa Flow came to be; this site gives more info on the experience. When I worked at Waterstone's Piccadilly, London, I spent many happy afternoons reading Dive Scapa Flow which contains great pictures of the wrecks as they are today.

Strangeness
I've never been one to believe this sort of thing, but this is just plain weird. Someone recorded a strange appearance in their home and put it on the net. The weirdness is in the sound so a soundcard and speakers may be handy.

Taking sides
"I was never a member of the IRA" states Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein's President. Okayyyyy, right. We believe you, Gerry. The book which alleges otherwise is doing nothing new. But the SDLP's leadership are reacting as if it's the first they'd heard of the matter, with leader Mark Durkan saying it "raised questions about his credibility". What balls. Everyone *knows* he was an IRA member. But does it really matter anymore? Think 'greater good', people.

Meanwhile, SF compatriot and Belfast Lord Mayor Alex Maskey has been snubbed by the UUP and DUP who are refusing to elect a deputy lord mayor. They are clearly unhappy about having a Sinn Fein member as their council leader. But acting childish isn't going to do anything but cause them to wither a bit faster.

Breaking up?
Hear'Say have called it a day. Now, I'm not going to say "thank god" about this, as I haven't ever heard anything they produced and I don't really give a crap about this sort of thing usually. What strikes me about this case is the state of mind of the people concerned. Here's a snip from the BBC story:

The break-up was confirmed by their management company as well as record label Polydor, with the group blaming public hostility and the rigours of music industry life for the break-up. In a statement, Polydor said the group felt "they had lost the support of the public and Hear'Say had come to a natural end". "The group's first plan is to spend more time with their families."

I think two things: one, the band probably never got away from the public awareness, and its own awareness, that it had been mothered (and fathered) by a TV programme in the first place; and two, why the hell are Polydor still calling these people a group when they've split up? The hard-done-by darlings' statement about public pressure suggests to me that they have leant on the embracing support of big companies too much. A successful musucuan of any kind doesn't sit back and let a TV station make them visible and successful. They fight for that. And now, the onetime band's members have to go back home. Whose fault is that?

No, really? Whose fault is it? I'm having trouble figuring that one out.

On a calmer, more hopeful note, the Eden Project is to build another dome. It already has 2 giant plastic constructions but wants a third biome dealing with drier, more arid environments. Hopefully, seagulls won't be able to peck through the plastic like they're doing with the current buildings.