Eliminate the impossible

"...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."(Sherlock Holmes)

The current situation between Israel and Lebanon is depressing (see this article if you've been living in a cave or other place void of media coverage and scatter cushions). However, all is not lost. I have a plan to fix things. It is a little radical but bear with me.

Basically the problem is that Israel and Lebanon are bad neighbours. They don't see eye-to-eye about certain things, just as happens between people who live next door to each other sometimes. Ok I'll admit that any problems I've experienced with neighbours usual extends to late night parties or parking issues and not to fundamental idealism, but the problem is pretty much the same. And what do we do when we really don't get on with neighbours? We move. So lets move Israel. Not the land, just the people. But where to? I hear you ask. Well I've thought of that I think we move them to Wales. In fact my plan is to move everyone out of Wales and into to Israel and all the Israelis into Wales, thus killing two birds with one stone - well the Welsh have never liked us English much. I reckon we would get on much better with Israel and I wouldn't be surprised to find that Hezbollah and Plaid Cymru had a lot to talk about as well. Think of what it would do for both western understanding of the middle east situation as well as for leek sales. I'm sure most Welsh miners would find the transition into the oil industry trivial and they would soon start singing about them "beige dunes of home". Why I'll bet there are many warring nations that just need some breathing space from one and other where this kind of exchange program would work.

See, easy. I just hope Kofi Annan is still reading my blog.

My mistake

Actually it's £8m for the spacewalk on top of the ~£10m for your trip to the ISS first. So that's £18m in all. Still feasible I think. Actually if you think about it, at £8m for the spacewalk makes the cost of the flight and stay on the ISS for 16 days sound like a bargin. Considering the spacewalk last for just 90 minutes and you have to walk!

The rain in Spain...

...falls mainly on the plain. Something which, in these temperatures, must really upset the extravagant and fancifully dressed.

When I was a kid I wanted to be an Astronaut. Still do. Why? This is fucking why....



Cunt. Hope he falls. Ha falls, get it? - thats a physics gag. Anyway all I need is about £8m and my dream can come true, if this BBC article is to be believed. Perhaps I could add a donation button to this blog and get everyone to donate money to send the first blogger into orbit? Given that I tend to get about 2 comments per post thats about £4m each. Game?

Damn it Jim every cell in his body has been disrupted

I read today in this article on the BBC news site that President Bush is the first president in almost 200 years to not use his veto in all four years of office. (what, he agreed with every bill congressed passed?) However he is soon to use his first veto in a bid to defeat a bill increasing funding of embryonic stem cell research. Sweet. A real piece of joined up thinking. He lets congress run amock and then sticks his ore in when his sensitive Christian principles are offended. Well, I'm not complaining if he wants to set US research into an important and promising future technology back a few decades on us Brits thats fine by me. We had an Empire once you know? But we had to sell the bastard to pay America for it's involvement in the Second World War. The story might not be all that reliable. As ever they claimed Ronald Reagan died of Alzheimer's when in fact he died of Frontal and Temporal Lobe Dementia.

On another subject I am seriously liking this new fangled version of 'Battlestar Galactica'. I know it sounds stupid, because the first version, back in the 80's, was frankly like watching a cat shit - you can do it, but it ain't that entertaining and everyone ends up embarrassed - but this is way neat. I'm not usually a fan of remakes but I also watched 'Batman Begins' again last night which is a cracking version, as good as the Tim Burton original.

This I laughed at until a little bit of wee came out....

The gift that keeps on giving

Just what century does the Royal Mail live in? They made an announcement yesterday that they would be issuing a new set of stamps to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the National Portrait Gallery. It read...

"A new set of stamps from Royal Mail celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the National Portrait Gallery is set to bring back memories of some of the nation's most famous men and women."

Whilst I implore the idea of celebrating real British pioneers, who the fuck is gonna see 'em? 95% of the mail I receive are mailshots most of which invite me to either consolidate all my debts - a quick note to these loan sharks companies I don't find my current payments difficult as this is handled by a direct debit with my bank and not by some cash-or-your-TV-at-the-door system. I also am uninterested in extending the length of my loans beyond the expected lifespan of our solar system and I am definitely not interested in securing any of my terribly insecure loans by signing the rights to my home away if I so much as fail to answer a phonecall from you! - where the frig was I? Ahh yes, or it's for credit cards - a quick note to these people, thanks the kids love it when you send the sample ones. Virtually none of my mail has a stamp on it. It's all franked. If I ever buy stamps I get the bland, looks-like-a-paper-version-of-the-one-pence type.

Do you have to ask for these things? Does my local paper shop stock a wide assortment of stamps that I have failed to notice? Perhaps next time I'll ask I'll ask for 3 first class Churchill's, 2 first class Shakespeare's and a couple of second class Simon Le Bon's - yes there is a gag there but it is just too obvious for this heat.

Atmospheric Conditions

I haven't seen a cloud all day which in England, particularly Manchester, is only likely to occur if you don't actually look outside (or do so only with your eyes firmly closed). Today we are experiencing the kind of temperatures that our Continental cousins would agree constitutes a proper summer, rather than the usual miserable affair we typically go through here in Blighty. This morning, I put sun block on the kids, not because my wife told me to do so (which she did), but because I thought they actually need it. I can almost see the ultraviolet rays pouring from the fiery ball in the sky.

Unfortunately in Britain we can never be happy with the weather for very long and I have overheard conversations which demonstrate two approaches by which it is possible to reconcile both the fabulousness (is that word?) of the current weather with our desire for dissatisfaction*. The first of these revolves around it now being "too hot" or "uncomfortable at night" making it "difficult to sleep". The second is the more pessimistic "It won't last" often substantiated with "I hear it will rain by the weekend". Both of these approaches allow people to discuss the current, near perfect, summer weather conditions whilst retaining a sense of mild displeasure. Perhaps it is only in this way we British can truly enjoy the sun.

*many people are unaware that the English actually have a complaint gland that secretes a hormone specifically to induce dissatisfaction with the current situation.

Good News Everyone!

Ok this could get a little heavy, but on the way home last night I was thinking about the nature of information storage in electronic documents and the limitations thereof (well it beats listening to Scott Mills on Radio One). Now you can consider a document, such as this blog, to be a fixed projection of an idea, in this case my idea. You can read it, maybe view some pictures or other media (if I could be arsed to add them) to try and understand the idea being presented. However, the document itself isn't the idea and only presents a fixed representation or projection of it. Now I could sit at the end of some link and try to answer individual questions to allow people to explore the idea in different ways, specific to their level of understanding, education, perspective, interest etc. However, I've really got better things to do. So, for Christmas, what I really want is a technology into which I can embed the actual idea and have this technology do all the work in terms of re-projecting the idea based on various forms of input from the user.

The irony, of course, is that you probably don't understand what I'm on about for the very reason I'm on about it. Still, I can't help but wonder what the thinking was behind this...

No News is Good News?

I appear to have failed in yesterdays attempt to post my 'News'. I can only imagine this is due to fact I totally forgot which is unsurprising given that I didn't actually have any News in the first place.

Anyway, what about Big Brother eh? 'citing isn't it? as Russell Brand would say.

Have I got news for you?

Yes, but it will have to wait until tomorrow as I'm tired.