853blog reflects on the Stephen Lawrence trial, and the continued presence of casual racism in south London. Until politicians and others – both nationally and locally – stop whipping up tensions, suburbs like Eltham will never totally escape the spectre of racism.

From ReadWriteWeb, we read, G****e+ is going to mess up the internet. Ah, but G****e has already messed up the internet. Those annoying-as-shit domain squatters? Brought to you courtesy of the unmentionable advertising brokerage. G****e has already messed up television. The death of Children's ITV? All because advertising spend was suddenly diverted from television to the internet. G****e has already messed up the legal system, scoffing at the concept of privacy, and assuming that everyone's happy with it unless they complain. Sweetheart, we're complaining. Long and loud and at anyone who will listen. G****e is a curse, a pox on the internet, and the sooner it is closed down and broken up, the better.

Opposition newspaper Gazeta explains how to spot a rigged election, the Russian way.

Gaelick reports on Netflix hiding its gay & lesbian section from games consoles. How terribly depressing, and what a rubbish first impression to make.

Apparently, the organisers of the Crass Spectacle want to stop people from blogging and microblogging about their experiences. Officially, this is for good security, but we're convinced that most of the reason is to protect the rights-holders, so that the likes of NBC aren't usurped by Nobby from Norwood.

In the days before Big Brother, people got their slices of everyday life from books. Very few were more successful, more insightful, and more damned well written than the Adrian Mole series, which is marking its 30th anniversary this year. Carrie Dunn explains why Pauline Mole is a feminist icon, and a mother, and something a little unusual for 1981.

Pauline gravitated towards Greenham Common. Today's equivalent, the permanent protest against the powerful, is the Occupy movement. Like Greenham Common, it's the subject of misleading and slanted press coverage, as though Associated and News Int are frightened of hippies knitting tea-cosies for their heads.

Evidence suggests the police have wilfully acted in a political manner to negatively distort the image of Occupy, with the complicity of parts of the press who share this political aim. This especially relates to the City of London Police; there is evidence they are acting directly for the interests and possibly under direction or duress of multinational corporations, banks and elites who are the dominant power within the City of London Corporation.

The future is, we hope, something other than The Handmaid's Tale, which marks its 25th anniversary this year. Margaret Atwood remembers her thoughts in writing this science-fiction classic.

Still with Canadian fiction, extra large has been redefined. The national coffee chain Tim Horton's has introduced a pint-and-a-half cup, and called it the extra-large. All the existing servings move one size down the chain - extra large becomes large, large becomes medium, medium will be a small, and small has been rechristened extra small.

And if you think that's confusing, Colbert and Stewart for a better America in America.

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Well, that's made TV Cream's year. Adam Curtis writes about Ghostwatch. And, so long have we been sitting on that link, that he's followed it up with a post on the USSR, Russia, Afghanistan, and poodles.

At the end of last year, there was a successful campaign to improve a London toy store. No longer would it split its products into "boys" and "girls" floors, but it intermingles them. Laura Nelson explains what she did and the lasting results.

The White Review has an interview with David Graeber. "Nothing annoys forces of authority more than trying to bow out of the disciplinary game entirely and saying that we could just do things on our own. Direct action is a matter of acting as if you were already free."

Some actual research into The Charlotte Church Countdown Clock, with the aim of exploding the myths perpetuated by Miss Church. The Sun wasn't responsible for keeping tabs on how long it would be until Miss Church reached 16. But another tabloid, one edited by a Moron, was.

From the department of Spectacularly Good Fanfic (That Just Happens To Be From A Great Show), Your Body Broke Your Fall, the ongoing lifestory of Carly and Sam and Freddie. But mostly Carly and Sam. Two points of genius here: first, it's episodic fiction, going from high school to middle age. We don't see every detail, or even every year, but we get the story. And second, author Perfectly Still has caught Carly's voice and bottled it, in a way that many iCarly writers can't quite manage.

Fast Five, for those of you who aren't 14-year-old boys (and don't have the soul of a 14-year-old boy, like I do, though I plan to give it back at some point), is the fifth movie in The Fast and The Furious franchise, which stars a man named after petrol driving a car quickly, writes Natalie Hayes. A man named after petrol? Does she mean Julian Hydrocrackate? Peter Mogas? Clifford Put A Tiger In Your Tank? Hercules It's More Than Just Petrol It's Liquid Engineering? Nigel Better Living Through Chemistry? Benedict Octane XCIII?

News from London, where the Piccadilly line joins the Heathrow Free Travel Area. Journeys solely between Heathrow Terminals 123, Heathrow Terminal 4 and Heathrow Terminal 5 are free for all Oyster card tickets.

The perils of relying on that other wiki number 97: Our new cardinal is an extremist, says Catholic church. Inevitably, the Ratfans have had to row back on that assertion.

Remarkable Putdown of the Week time:

Sex is an activity which two people can enjoy performing together. Now, I’m sorry that Mr.Regnerus has never elicited any such reactions from his sexual partners, but being a shitty lay doesn’t entitle you to make stuff up about how women feel.

This blog watches Only Connect, we listen to Round Britain Quiz, and often we find ourselves suggesting clues for the teams. RBQ host Tom Sutcliffe reviewed Richard Wilson on Hold by saying:

The problem with self-service tills in supermarkets, I realised the other day, is that most of them are manned by idiots. I don't exempt myself from this charge, by the way, and I don't mean to be insulting.

This blog reckons there are idiots involved, but they're not operating the automata. No, the people who programmed them assume everyone in the world is a moron, and operates down to their level of inefficiency and uselessness. To the extent that it's not possible to use two hands to hold as many as two items at once, or to operate at anything other than a speed of "so now I've scanned it, where does it go again? Oh, in the bag. Thank you, oh wise computer." This is what happens when your testing group is made up of senior managers, who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

And finally, a headline from thejournal.ie. It's Friday, so here's a slideshow of ducklings from around the world.

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The world is suffering from a dearth of lies, untruths, and stuff people made up down the pub at lunchtime yesterday. The planet's usual source of made-up guff, That Other Wiki, is participating in a piece of political grandstanding aimed at boosting James Wales' ego, itself the size of three solar systems.

To make up for this lack of lunacy, here are some of the factoids that people aren't able to post to That Other Wiki.

gilibugg: Broccoli is in fact trees for little elves.

mikey_1980: Eternal's hit song "I Am Blessed" is based around their desire to be like actor and national treasure Brian Blessed

k8hmurf: Father Ted is a documentary

dazgale: Twitter was invented in 1980 after Rupert Murdoch ran out of post it notes.

TheHogwartians: Rebecca Black, Jacob Black and Sirius Black are relatives.

Twitflup: When a cat purrs, he is actually pretending to be a helicopter.

DannydFletcher: Sir Clive Sinclair invented the Jack Russell terrier.

andywinter26: Rice Krispies are named after Condoleezza Rice who invented them accidentally in 1982

Cavalorn: Ronald McDonald is a Celtic pagan deity whose worship was hijacked by the hamburger corporations.

dannydavies23: Axl Rose's forthcoming autobiography will be entitled 'Yes! I Have Buggered an Owl!'

JacksofBuxton: Taxi driving is a lonely life. Encourage drivers to share their opinions.

Shrednek: Barrack Obama used to play Corner Forward for Leitrim

srLeoSalazar: France has lost its AAA rating. This means they are no longer allowed to sell small batteries

GeekOfOz: When said backwards, Julia Gillard is pronounced "Beetlejuice".

Meehan990: All under-16 discos have a smoking area

timdbear: the pyramids are fake. The real ones are in Yorkshire.

LongNightIn: The O' in Irish surnames is short for "Oh Begorrah!"

JamesScullin: The speed of light is slower at night

Rayechayelle: Cats have their own internet, and it is filled with pictures of us

ohheyyitsalex: Nickelback is widely known as the best band to ever exist.

DannyjClayton: The Great Wall of China was built to keep the rabbits out.

rabbifelix: Jedward is just one person

PissingKittens: The artist, formally known as Prince, is most famous for his paintings 'The Mona Lisa', 'Scream' & 'The Last Supper'

KeizerrijkAarde: Lady Gaga only went into the music business after failing as a race horse.

amiesmith1001: Sweden have had their credit rating downgraded from AAA to ABBA

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After Ellen takes a look at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Rooney Mara did an impressive job as the gothish, badass hacker, but she just wasn't as believable as Noomi Rapace. She came off as angry and highly intelligent, sure, but she lacked the "I'll seriously f--k you up" spirit that Rapace oozed... That's a little bit of what was missing for Mara, specifically: The anger and fury.

This is doubly irritating: the director had quicksilver in his hands, and let it drop.

And then we go off and read a movies.com blog on the same subject. And find we could quote about two-thirds of it. Here are some of the very best bits.

Rapace warped her body to look more masculine, to appear like the slight, easily misjudged Salander. She's sexual, but not sexualized; she has vulnerabilities without being vulnerable; she cares for people without ever seeming warm or romantic. She's an enigma to the modern moviegoer, and we're the better for the challenge of knowing her, the challenge of not understanding her.

The first teaser poster for Mara's Americanized Lisbeth showed Daniel Craig's Mikael holding her half-naked form close, protecting her as she held onto him. This one image immediately coded him as the troubled girl's tough protector. Her image was further tarnished by the R-rated version full of bare breasts and sexual intrigue. Lisbeth became the objectified and sexualized heroine, the goth punk Bond girl saved by 007 himself... Now Lisbeth was a sexual tease, and it was okay because she looked good doing it.

In a pivotal moment in the book, Lisbeth says: "I'm going to take him" and runs off as Blomkvist tries "to shout to her to wait." In Fincher's film, she asks him for permission, and only acts with his blessing. Perhaps we can accept the changes in how Mara presents Salander. But it's unacceptable to take a woman made into a phenomenon because of her solitary strength and particular moral compass and drive, and turn her into a romantic girl saved and guided by a man.

We know that Fincher had liquid silver in his hands, but he knew the movie he wanted to make. Bullets have been dodged. Silver bullets have been dodged.

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A fascinating pair of articles from Adam Bowie on podcasting (2). He identifies the fundamental problems with mobile MPx: they're a terrible faff to use. Some people use the PearTunes shop for everything; that does simplify the process, but it's not as simple as (say) downloading a standard song. And the name suggests that one has to use a PearPod to listen to them - while this is false, it's an obvious confusion.

And if you're not using the PearTunes software, you're on your own. Mr. Bowie correctly summarises the process: users have to copy the RSS feed details - an XML file - and paste it into their software of choice. I can't think of anything less consumer friendly and more needlessly technical if I try. Even this blog finds it a faff to fire up RSSOwl, download the pods, and copy them up to our generic MP3 player, knowing that if there's a fault and we have to re-format the player, the files are lost.

Mr. Bowie has a wishlist for mobile audio files.

• "A new name that wasn't perceived as device specific." We agree, though we don't have any particularly good idea.
• "A file format that means browsers would automatically launch the default application associated with 'podcasting' which may or may not be PearTunes." From a technical perspective, we recognise this as something that could be met, at least in the short term, by a browser add-on. Albeit one that's widely available. Firefox and IE have made tentative efforts to establish this with their XML parsers, but it's nowhere near ready yet.
• "The ability to charge for podcasts." This blog has long campaigned for a proper micropayment system, and it does seem that the Pear company is one of those blocking micropayments.

• "True downloading of new podcasts in the background without necessarily needing to run the software." This does feel like a browser add-on, running in the background while one's browsing as normal.
• "The ability to 'sync' your podcasts to your chosen device from more than one host computer ([or] remove the need for a host computer altogether)." That feels like a cloud-based data store, and we're a little uneasy about this sort of thing in any event. However, so long as it's possible to disable this, we're OK.
• "The word 'subscribe' in relation to podcasts comes with a certain amount of baggage." But it is the mot juste. We want to be notified when there's a new CBC Comedy Factory widget, because we damn well want to hear it. It's exactly the excitement of a new edition of Private Pear.
• "The format would allow 'enhanced' podcasts to be available on all devices" In effect, an open extension to MP3 to cover video and pictures and hyperlinks. Again, this should have happened by now, and in a way that properly degrades so audio-only devices play the audio without re-sampling.

The second post looks at some specifics, concentrating on how the Pear Company might start charging for files, and reasons why they don't. Music copyrights, yes, that feels like a red herring. More suppliers? We don't see that as a tremendous problem for a suitably agile company, and perhaps the Pear Company isn't as agile as they'd like us to believe. Advertising problems? Trivial.

Billing problems looks like the biggest problem, and they're resolvable, with effort. It might be that single files could retail for 25 cent if they're hosted externally, 30 cent if hosted by The Pear Company. Or that having paid for a file, one can download it as often as one wants within a broad window. If The Pear Company sets a maximum price (say, €2 per hour), series that get cancelled halfway through are less of a problem.

Of course, we blithely assume that The Pear Company will retain dominance over these files. It's the sort of thing that an enterprising startup should be able to solve.

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It's the Steve Richards Sunday Show memorial review of last year's predictions. He had the honour to look back on the guesswork from twelve months ago, and so do we. Here's what we reckoned would happen.

(More: How wrong were we last year, and will we ever learn not to make foolish predictions? (No.))

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The last two months in cricket saw Australia edge New Zealand in their Test series, and the Aussies take the first against India. Bangladesh suffered defeats by the West Indies in Tests, and Pakistan in all forms. India beat the West Indies in two Tests, and had the best of their one-day series. Pakistan lost a "home" Test to Sri Lanka, but won the one-day series easily. South Africa split Tests with both Australia and Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe lost their Test to New Zealand. Namibia and Kenya played an interminable 20-20 series, and the Asian Associates played their 20-20 tournament, won by Afghanistan.

(More: England, Australia, and South Africa head the various forms)

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And now, our traditional look back to the BBC's Correspondents Look Ahead programme. We're reviewing the UK edition, first transmitted on 31 December 2010, and previewing the events of 2011. A slightly different version was transmitted for listeners of the World Service. Stephen Sackur hosted the programme, the final time he'll be given this show. His panel began with their top-line prediction:

• James Robbins, diplomatic correspondent and defending champion, who predicted some sort of military unrest in the Koreas, and at least one government falling over the problems in the euro-zone.
• Lyse Doucet, world affairs editor, suggested that there would be increased tension in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area.
• Paul Mason, economics correspondent and winner when he last played two years ago, Portugal and Spain in the firing line for euro-zone crises, and that both will get bail-outs as the euro-zone bank defeats the bond markets.
• Mark Mardell, Americas correspondent, predicted that Mr. de Bouwer will get his mojo back, winning a clash with the car salesmen and used-pizza dealers of the new congress.
• Sackur noted that there would be a presidential election in Egypt, and uproar at Mubarak's attempt to secure the presidency for his son Gamal. "There will be real unrest in Egypt."

(More: Will the euro collapse? Will people look to Britain as an exemplar of mutualism? Will anyone predict the Occupy movement?)

This year's edition of Correspondents Look Ahead is on Radio 4 at 8pm on Friday 30 December, repeated at 1pm on Saturday 31. It's also in the World Service, check local listings for details.

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