15January

Time to bring up the line to Ashton Vale, our friendly local neighbourhood deity, who is in a position to speak with almost god-like authority on matters of ethic. Here's the first conundrum.

My ethics system does not believe that there are significant negative externalities caused to the copyright holders of the properties I am spreading on file replication systems. Is the good that I do to the world by spreading entertainment to people who want it better than the damage I cause to the environment by leaving my computer and router on overnight every night just so that I can seed while I'm asleep?

Ashton Vale writes: In the spirit of the question, I shall ignore the matter of copyright, not least because it is an attempt by humans to take credit for work that we gods have a hand in. When was the last time someone sent us a royalty cheque for putting grass on the park lawn, eh?

By leaving a computer switched on for a time when it would otherwise be turned off, it is using electricity. On its own, this is a moderately small amount, between one and two kilowatt-hours per night of operation. The marginal cost of generating this amount of electricity is trivial, and though subject to fluctuation on a night-by-night basis, can be estimated to a reasonable precision. So can the environmental damage caused by generating this amount of power.

The thing you do not know, when you go to bed of an evening, is how much good you'll be doing by sending out these files. Will you be inundated with requests for your files from fans who have not seen the programmes since the invention of time? Will you send out precisely one file to someone who will watch the first two minutes, think My word, this was rubbish and delete the rest unwatched? Will you be cut off the network two minutes after leaving the computer, rendering the whole exercise pointless?

Without asking the people who receive these files, you can only assume that they took some value from them. You may wish to consider a metric that relates the number of files uploaded, and perhaps their size, to the disutility (money costs, environmental damage) incurred through the amount of time your computer spends online. If it transpires that no-one is uploading your files, then perhaps you should turn the computer off; if your files are in high demand, or you expect your files to be in high demand, then upload away.

Why does anyone ever play Truth or Dare?

Ashton Vale writes: For the same reasons that people play other games: they have a reasonable expectation that it will prove more entertaining for the participants than sitting around in stony silence for the duration. Truth or Dare belongs in a class of contributory games, where the result is not so much the statement or the dare, but comes from the act of creating that outcome.

It is possible for humans to take the game so far that they regret it, but sensible heads will not allow that to happen. We gods haven't played Truth or Dare, not since Epaphus dared Salmoneus to take Zeus's chariot out for a spin, with the results we all recall.

Thank you, Ashton Vale, and I'm sure we'll see you around.

Ashton Vale writes: Oh, I know.

Ethics

16January

Just over two months ago, Two Songs a Week featured Gabrielle, in a work she did with East 17. To-day, we look at the group.

East 17 was formed by London Records, ostensibly as a performance band to the songs of Tony Mortimer. The lead vocal duties went to Brian Harvey, with John Hendy and Terry Coldwell the members who never achieved any fame at all. Though marketed as a London's answer to Manchester's Take That (pre-empting the Blur versus Oasis battle by a couple of years), East 17's songs were lyrically complex. For all his abilities, Gary Barlow never wrote a song about extra-terrestrial life-forms, including quotations from the book of Revelations.

The group broke through in summer 1992, placing House of love into the UK top ten; Deep and It's alright book-ended a busy 1993, when the group moved from features in Smash Hits to regular cover stars. They had the festive number one in 1994, with Stay another day, and continued their string of hits until this week in 1997, when Brian Harvey boasted that he had taken twelve ecstacy pills in one night. Don't try this at home, children, it's not big and it's not clever, and it'll cause your career to go down Ver Dumper very very fast indeed.

So fast that Hey child plunged from number 3 to outside the top 40 in just three weeks. It's a chart run that even Cliff Richard would find a bit rubbish. By the time it had gone, Harvey had left the band, swiftly followed by Tony Mortimer. A 1998 comeback, with Harvey but without Mortimer, yielded minimal returns, and the band gave up the following year.

With the current undeclared mania for all things 90s, it was only a matter of time before someone from East 17 turned up on one of the many Celebrity Torture And/Or Bickering shows, or the group decided to re-form. The latter approach led to a one-off show in Shepherd's Bush last summer, and a few gigs here and there since. With the remarkable success of Take That's return, a further recording from the Walthamstow squad looks inevitable.

Two Songs a Week

17January

Jan Herman at Straight Up has taken to calling the figurehead of the military junta in some rebel provinces Huha. The turn of phrase reminds me of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's third great song (and fourth single) Welcome to the pleasuredome. Yes, I can just about see the junta's figurehead camping it up in an ill-fitting leather jacket and wearing a Hitler moustache. That'll play well in Peoria.

Football 25 years ago - what happened to the non-league sides at Steps 1-4 (Divisions V to VIII). Which current league side was then playing in Step 3? Which Step 4 side is on the verge of top-flight football? Whatever happened to Milton Keynes' league team? And half of which league has stopped playing?

The World Database of Happiness.

Those of you who live in London have the opportunity to see a series of shows featuring crafted popular songs. The works of Stephen Sondheim, Frank Loesser, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter will be featured in weekly cabarets at Jermyn-street from 6 February.

Migrants are no threat to us, says Philippe Legrain. While concern about entrenched segregation is understandable, the real issue is not multiculturalism, but social exclusion. Nobody is terrified of rich whites clustering in Chelsea.

On the benefits of learning Latin, whether rote learning through singing or another method.

On the theft of Iraq's oil.

M16 refuses to say that there was a national security reason to stop investigating BAE's bribes to Saudi Arabia.

A visit to a toaster repair shop.

Why Anita Roddick should be ashamed - the book that explains how L'oreal grew through theft and extortion.

Bundeskancellor Angela Merkel has proposed a revived European constitution, which she would like presented before the 2009 elections to the European Parliament. Frau Merkel said, The reflection pause is over. By June, we must reach a decision on what to do with the constitution. It is in the interest of Europe, its member states and its citizens, to bring this process to a successful conclusion by the next European Parliament elections in early 2009.

We do wonder what Simon Jenkins is on, and if we might have some. Writing in Het Grauniad toady, Mr. Jenkins tries to answer the West-Lothian question by subsuming it into a general constitutional settlement. Mr. Jenkins calls for a more federal structure, and cites Mr. Prescott's idea of partial autonomy for England's regions - a plan that didn't go far enough, but was a step in the right direction.

But then Mr. Jenkins exposes the depth of his research. This has made the 72 Scottish MPs seem a bizarre presence. There is no question but that their number must be reduced. If Brown were constitutionally honest, he would propose such a reduction now.

The number of constituencies in Scotland reduced to 59 with effect from the 2005 election. If Mr. Jenkins wishes to give us an up-to-the-minute commentary on a contemporary problem, why does he raise a matter that was resolved three years back?

Miscellany

18January

Blimey, it's a bit blowy out. And it's all down to the people who insist on driving their cars, pumping extra greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These gases create more heat, which creates more violent depressions, which leads to to-day's exceedingly windy weather.

Another paen against consumerism was released in 2004, though it remained off my radar until last year. There are just three great things about Johnny Boy's single You are the generation who bought more shoes and you get what you deserve. One, the handclaps. We're big on handclaps. Two, the title. We're big on big titles. And three, the song. It's brilliant.

If you must, official website (CAUTION: it's a Whorespace). crap flash video clip (non-flash link). scrobble.

Two Songs a Week

19January

There are many shades of anti-Yankeeism, claims the Boston Post, citing four strands. One, the charge that the breakaway country is being hypocritical by not living up to its professed values and ideals. Two, critics who oppose the provincial economic policy because it promotes laissez-faire ideals and erodes welfare state protections. Three, opposition to geopolitical and cultural dominance on the grounds that there is a threat to national identity and strategic interests. And four, a radical form that says the area's identity must be transformed, from within or without.

The Boston Globe's article is carefully balanced, and while some may disagree with what it says, this can be done for rational academic reasons. Not so for Andrei Markovits, who writes a long and rambling essay on how utterly racist it is for Europeans to think that the Yankees might not know best about something. In a 4000-word piece, he doesn't offer any defence of his adopted country, and fails to advance a single reason why the Europeans might be wrong to think what they're thinking.

(More: ...though it's hard to tell sometimes. (692 words))

Ethics

20January

It was once cool to dis this show. But that was back in '94 when it aired. All the cool kids who did it couldn't care less now. Or, y'know, actually did finally watch the show.

What's the difference that lies between / The colour blue, and the colour green? The Economist on colour perception

Howard Jacobson on Jade Goody's real crime. At some point the accumulation of missing information and curiosity amounts to your not being in the world at all. And it is this condition - a condition that can with far more justice be described as alienation than the ennui of the intellectual - that Big Brother and its host of satellite celebrity magazines have for years been encouraging us to embrace.

And Language Log on the phrasal construction, People of colour. We don't just throw this set of links together, you know!

Make music, not war - the Music Manifesto.

Fact-check: for Richard Ingrams, East 17 are still having top ten hits. It was almost exactly 25 years ago, in January 1972... PRI's The World doesn't know the difference between Channel 4 and the BBC, referring to BBC's Channel 4.

President Chávez says that President Castro is near death. Obituaries ... ready, and not just for the pop singer Doherty. That's Denny Doherty, of the Mamas and the Papas, and not anyone else of a similar name who readers might have expected to turn up on the obit list.

Miscellany

21January

This week, we've been watching...

* MI-High (BBC-1 / CBBC) - a junior version of Spooks. Konnie Huq and an obnoxious weathergirl this week.
* Blue Peter (BBC-1) - Andy goes driving, Gethin goes with a stunt plane.
* Taller in Ten Ways (Box) - A ten-best from the Sugababes. We have a lot of time for Keisha, Mutya, and Siobhan, or whoever they've got in the band this week.
* Spoof! (BBC-1) - A series of short sketches, taking the rise out of Deal or No Deal, news presenters, Dr Who, Charlotte and Gavin, Theoc, Simon Cowell, Raven, Charlie and the Cheese Factory, and Blue Peter. No use for the line, what we don't want to see is heads... that would be a complete disaster, and we offer ten bonus points for any script writer who can engineer that in. A greater laugh-per-minute score than anything we've seen all year, and rather wasted in a CBBC slot.
* The Trial of Tony Blair - some interesting lines, but lacked an overall plot.

... and listening to...

* On the Beat, Celia Hirschman's weekly commentary on the business of popular music, is usually ascerbic. This week, she's been bigging up the latest phone / computer / teasmade from Apple Inc, falling for the hyperbole rather than evaluating the product on its own (very marginal) merits. Far better is the CBC's coverage, pitting the promotional numptie from Newsweak magazine against an advocate against Planned Obsolescence.
* Ockham's Razor, exploring the causes of the 1979 aeroplane crash into Mt. Erebus. Podcast - expires 10 February.

Albums in rotation this week were McFly's Wonderland - not as bad as the press would like us to believe, but £3 was about the right amount to pay. And Natalie Imbruglia's Counting Down the Days, which I'm only half-through.

And game shows: Junior Mastermind, UC. This week's Week was going to look at ITV's Fortune, but the events in Big Brother rather forced their way onto the front page.

Media

21January

Akon, Clitring Aguilera, and Bouncey move into the French top 10. Puff Daddy is new in Germany at number 5, just ahead of Cascada's old song, Everytime we touch. U2 enters in the top 20, while both Lovex and the combination of Reamonn and Lucie Silvas are new in the top 30. Local talent in the Irish top 10 from Damien Leith, whose Light of my life is tenth. This week's oh-so-cutting-edge hit from Ireland is at number 36, Eye of the tiger. You know, the Survivor song. From MCMLXXXVII.

A new number one in Estonia, and it's Mika's first week at the top anywhere on the planet, courtesy of his debut single Relax take it easy. A new number one in Finland, and congratulations to Iron Maiden. Curios from the Finnish charts include Audio Thieves' cover of Scritti Politti's Pray like Aretha Franklin, and the welcome return of Kirsty Hawkshaw, previously of Opus III, now with Mr. Sam. In Lithuania, we note the combination of Reamonn and Lucie Silvas on The only ones.

 20 NE Just Jack - Stars in their eyes
 19 11 Justin Numberwang - My love
 18 12 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow
 17 18 Faudel - Mon pays
 16 16 Fatal Bazooka - Fous ta cagoule
 15 NE Jojo - Too little too late
 14 NE Mika - Grace Kelly
 13 14 Monrose - Shame
 12 17 Lily Allen - Littlest things
 11  7 Razorlight - Fall to pieces
 10 re Cascada - Everytime we touch
  9  6 Snow Patrol - Chasing cars
  8 13 Fray - How to save a life
  7  3 Razorlight - America
  6  8 Eric Prydz - Proper education
  5  9 Akon - Smack that
  4  4 U2 - Window in the skies
  3  5 Clitring Aguilera - Hurt
  2  2 Take That - Patience
  1  1 Nelly Furtado - All good things

Last week's UK foot-notes: Wotserface from X Fools (someone so memorable that I've completely forgotten her name already) beat Eric Prides by just 92 copies, and was just over 400 ahead of Mika at number 3. Koopa, the people who claimed to be the first self-distributed act to have a hit share the same PR agency as Sandi Thom, which explains why the claim is utter bullshit - Simply Red managed a top 20 hit in 2003. Evanescence appeared at 7 on physicals, 186 on downloads - their overall position was 32. A measure of how few physical singles are being sold - the number 27, by Ben Macklin, was number 160 on downloads, and held position 71 overall.

So, after holding last week's top spot by one of the slimmest margins ever, Leona Lewis comes down to number 6 (SIX) this week; and with total sales of 800,000, it's entirely possible that she'll join Heraset, Michelle McManus, Sam and Mark, Steve Brookstein, and Shane Ward in the ignominious club of acts that sold half of their career total of singles in just one week.

Mika takes the top spot, and his is the second single to be a weekly best-seller on downloads alone, following Gnarls Barkley last April. Just Jack rises to second place, with a song loosely inspired by Michelle McManus. View has a top-three hit, outpacing Jojo as the top new physical release of the week. Ordinary Bores (22-7), Jamie Tee (40-9), and Akron (35-16) also put in some decent climbs.

Nathan is in at 11 with a Princess Superstore cover. The Epocsoerazzib is cranking overtime as Ickle Billie Piper's Honey to the bee re-enters at 17. Originally her second chart-topper in 1998, it's been re-promoted by Radio Onelistener's surprisingly womb-free Chris Moyles. Piper has since married and divorced Cliff Evans, and appeared in CBBC's Dr Which. The Good, The Bad, And The Queen hit number 20. Guillemots chart at 27 with a re-recording of Annie let's not wait. New entry for Fray, who are charting fully nine weeks before the physical single is released. A similar phenomenon affected Shaggy's It wasn't me in 2001, when import sales saw him chart in February; to stem the tide, the UK release was moved up from May to March. Lower down, we have our first back-to-back of the year, with My Chemical Romance holding down positions 37 and 38; the lower is with their second single, a much heavier track than the last one.

Lower down, Gossip climb from 63 to 42 with Standing in the way of control, a song I've still to hear. Lady Sovereign, the lesbian chav queen, enters at 48, one place ahead of Gnarls Barkley, and Eye of the tiger is number 51 for no adequately explored reason. That was number one in 1982; The Jackson 5 are two places further back with their 1970 number 2 (and 1988 number 8 in a remix). Keane, Two-pack, an old song from Jamie Tee, Ludacris, and Bill Conti with another Rocky theme, enter in the bottom 15.

Amy Whinehouse holds James Morrison and the Fratellis on the albums list, with Lily Allen and My Chemical Romance making good climbs. Jojo hits a new peak at 30, but is overtaken by Ray Lamontagne, profiting from his ROPRA awards nomination. Deep discounting allows Queen, Ronan Bleating, Abba, Mary J Blige, Bert Bills, and ABBA to push their greatest hits albums well up the chart. There are more usual climbs for the Ordinary Bores (37), Guillemots (52), and Bloc Party (63). Nicky Spence, a tenner from Scotland who has the grave misfortune of looking like Patrick Kielty, debuts at 69.

 1  3 Mika - Grace Kelly
 2  4 Just Jack - Stars in their eyes
 3 11 View - Same jeans
 4  6 Jojo - Too little too late
20 NE The Good The Bad And The Queen
  - Kingdom of doom
22 15 Nelly Furtado - All good things
27 NE Guillemots - Annie let's not wait
29 NE Fray - How to save a life
30 25 Razorlight - America
35 34 Razorlight - Fall to pieces
37 37 My Chemical Romance
  - Welcome to the black parade
38 68 My Chemical Romance - Famous last words
39 30 Automatic - Raoul
41 33 Feeling - Love it when you call
43 44 Shakira - Hips don't lie
44 39 Automatic - Monster
53 NE Jackson 5 - I want you back
55 57 High School Musical OCR - Breaking free
56 32 Evanescence - Lithium
64 62 Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
67 59 Lily Allen - Littlest things
68 69 Jay-Zed / Linkin Park - Numb / encore
69 45 Nelly Furtado - Maneater

Charts

21January

North Europe was hit by violent storms on Thursday and Friday, leaving at least 45 people dead. British train services were restricted to 80 kph, German long-distance services stopped entirely. Schools in Berlin were closed, and people in the Netherlands were advised to stay at home.

Edmund Stoiber announced that he was to step down as premier of Bavaria. Mona Sahlin was elected leader of Sweden's opposition Social Democrat party.

British politics was dominated by a row over apparent racism on a celebrity edition of Big Brother. Opposition leader David Cameron reminded viewers that there was such a thing as an OFF button; over 1% of viewers lodged a formal complaint with the UK television regulator.

Ruth Turner, a close aide of prochain ancien British prime minister Mister Tony Blair, was arrested by police investigating the loans-for-peerages scandal. She was released without charge.

Red China has blown up a satellite by launching a missile at it. The orbiting robot, a Red Chinese weather bot, was destroyed by the impact. Many nations have written strong letters to Peking, protesting against the notion of launching arms into space.

Sports news, and there were no upsets in the French Cup round of 32, though Nice and Bordeaux were both taken to penalties by lower-division sides. Calais's dream of competing in Europe is over, after losing 2:1 to Sedan.

News

21January

The week was dominated by a sustained period of strong winds on Thursday, with gusts of up to 55mph in the Birmingham area felling trees and causing significant damage. Aside from that, the week continued in the pattern established since the end of December, with warm south-westerly winds, though somewhat less rain than we've seen of late.

15 Mo cloud              5/ 9
16 Tu rain o/n, bright   8/10, 3.5
17 We rain o/n, sun      7/ 9, 2.5
18 Th rain o/n, wind     5/12,14.0
19 Fr cloud              9/12
20 Sa sun                4/ 7, 3.0
21 Su sun                4/ 7, 1.5

Rainfall this month: 73.5mm; Monthly average: 74mm.
Degree heating days: 229
2005-6: 378½/808
2004-5: 305/677½.

Weather