6August

Skins comes to Channel 4 on 21 August, we suspect at 10pm. Do not be distracted by the first episode being a pile of pants, it does get a lot better afterwards. We're pleased to hear that the show's going to quit while it's ahead, giving one more run then getting out.

France Profonde on French university education.

Skodafone has pulled its advertising from a website after it was displayed on the same page as editorial describing a fringe political party. Its lead was followed by HSBC, The Cable Corp, and a number of other lily-livered companies. Clearly, the second-best way to have an online experience free of those annoying advertisements is to visit hardcore racist sites. The best way is to run Firefox and Adblock, and that's the reason why website advertising is doomed to fail. Well, that and a sudden boycott of Poxycola.

Nocto writes on the broken nature of book recommendations. If you buy a book in hardback, you're probably not going to want to buy that same book in paperback. Surely...

Building a better CAPTCHA, because words with lines through them are a pain in the arse, and generally not needed. We do find it remarkable that comments on this particular post are protected ... by just the CAPTCHA that Jani was arguing against.

It's very rare for us to disagree completely with a blog, but Aaron Toponce comes remarkably close. He has the misfortune to take the positions we abhor on a number of trivial matters. For instance, we respect his right to use a light-on-dark colour scheme, but his myth-based justification - and arrogant refusal to consider actual facts - annoys terribly.

Those of you who are Mr. GB may be interested to note that Mr. Toponce's blog allows YADIS commenting. If we're to believe one of the comments, YADIS will be included in every edition of Firefox 3. This is bad, for YADIS is a back-of-the-envelope solution to a toy problem. We don't trust it as far as we can throw the inventor, and that's not far enough.

Just to make it a three-fer, we went on to read Mr. Toponce's approach to the lunch break. To preçis: he's entitled to one, store staff aren't. He really doesn't have the first clue about the absolute sanctity of a break, and is overtly rude about its defenders.

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6August

In at 18 came North and South, with their second single Tarantino's new star. The group had been put together as part of the plot for children's comedy No Sweat, but used that show as an excuse to release their own records. In a throwaway pop kind of way, these were amongst the best tunes of the era, and possibly of any era. Lead single I'm a man not a boy had graced the top ten in May, and they'd have a sell-out tour before the year was out. The law of diminishing returns struck - the second series yielded just one hit single, and the group rather gave up in 1998. Or, to be exact, BMG Enterprises - who co-funded No Sweat - threw these guys to the lions, cancelled their album at the last minute, and put their weight behind another project, this time guided by their pop svengali Simon Cowell. Whatever happened to S Club, anyhow? Anyway, this version is taken from the soundtrack of a Top of the Pops appearance. We'd not heard the song in nigh-on ten years, and reckon that it's a better three-minute Eurovision entry than about 80% of the UK's throw-ats since.

(More: Robin Cook, the Levellers)

Of last week's top ten, Ultra Nate and The Mamas and the Papas slipped three to 11 and 12, while U2 slumped from 10 to 29. Oasis came down from 5 to 10, Coolio and Meredith Brooks dropped two to 9 and 8 respectively, and Boyzone came down from 2 to 7. Notorious BIG came in at 6 with Mo money mo problems, by far his most commercial hit, and also his biggest. It's the one that samples Diana Ross's I'm coming out. Texas had their third top ten hit of the year as Black-eyed boy entered at 5. It was like their previous hit, Halo, only with slightly different words. Backstreet Boys dropped one to 4, and in at 3 came Peter Andre. Go on, do you remember All about us? We don't, even though it was his fourth top three single in five releases. Completely forgotten. Gala moved up two places to two, but there was no shifting Puff Daddy, number one for the sixth week.

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7August

M'learned friend Mr. Choccers wonders about cities with equitable temperatures. Let us assume that temperatures that range between 10°C and 25°C are comfortable for urban living: below that, you require significant heating, and above that significant cooling... Is there anywhere else in the world that has a greater period of time each year with temperatures in that range?

Yes. Get thee to Quito, Ecuador, a city where the average daytime high ranges from a chilly 21°C in April and May to a sweltering 23°C in August and September. Indeed, much of the equatorial Andes stretching into northern Peru and southern Colombia has a climate of equitability-to-boringness. The northern part of the Amazon basin is also stable, though it's a bit remote. Still in South America, we note that Uruguay and the Argentine side of the Plate Estuary fall well within Mr. C's requirements. (Where strict data isn't available, we're eyeballing maps, looking for average temperatures (daytime and nighttime) of between 8 and 16 degrees for as much of the year as possible.)

In the northern part of the Americas, correspondents have picked up the benign conditions on the Pacific Coast from Vancouver to Isla Cedros. There's also a small portion of the Atlantic coast that's suitably equitable, between Chesapeake Bay and Cape Fear, though it's an awfully long way from any civilisation.

Asia is subject to extreme climates, and there's no large area that falls within these guidelines. In Europe, the northern Spanish coast and west coast of France are moderate in temperature, though are very wet, particularly the area around Finisterre. The North Atlantic Drift warms Ireland, and carries on to keep Denmark and the far south of Sweden a little warmer in winter. Dublin, Copenhagen, and Gothenberg are major cities in this area, along with the lowland parts of Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Mediterranean coast of Morocco meets the requirements, thanks to the cooling effects of the Atlas mountains. Much of South Africa and Namibia is also equitable, though not the political centres of Pretoria and Johannesburg. Namibia, of course, is mostly desert; the south-east coast of South Africa rather wet. Finally, Tasmania and the North island of New Zealand make for good places. Auckland, here we come!

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7August

Many happy returns to rec.humour.funny, celebrating its 20th birthday to-day. The USENET newsgroup survived censorship; begat ClariNet, which in turn begat every .com; and is the oldest blog still posting.

Jeff Randall writes on the closure of Gatwick's fast-track security lane at 2pm. From this, he concludes that the British Airports Authority needs to be broken up. He's wrong: Mr. Randall should be concentrating his ire on John Oh, fuck you Reid, and his nonsensical scare-story about being able to make a viable liquid explosive out of nail polish, toothpaste, and a rusty can of coke. Something must be done, and it's gratifying that Mr. Reid has (belatedly) realised that he was promoted well above his level of competence. It's also good to see Marina Hyde arguing – as we did last year – that there is a trade-off between convenience and security.

Ancien Belgian prime minister Jean-Luc Dehaene blames voters for the plethora of laws. We, the politicians, we have to pass new laws and rules covering everything. Even when it makes no sense for me, the mayor, to have to pass some new rule banning dogs from doing their business on the road! But who convinced the voters that passing laws could make a difference? Step forward — the politicians!

Thrill-seekers go elsewhere: Teenager officially A Flop. Serves them right for being so sale-killingly prissy on the back cover of their first album.

No time left, as the time towers at Rugby are demolished after 80 years.

A Scotsman comes to London, and sees things that its residents rarely see.

Literature news, and The Dandy is to return to a fortnightly publication. The humour magazine was founded in December 1937 as a weekly, moved to a fortnightly publication for much of the 1940s, but has been a weekly since. Falling circulation and the rising price of newsprint means that it's now more profitable for DC Thompson to issue the journal every second week. There are no plans to alter the distribution of the UK's formal journal of record, The Beano.

One of m'learned friends enquires, Why on earth would a woman in this day and age take her husband's name? Because it's always been that way? Because they want to subsume their identities into their husbands', being treated as a vestigial appendage of the man? Because of some reason we cannot begin to understand? We're at a loss here, people, give us a clue.

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8August

It's about here that we completely give up on Six Apart. Liz Marcs explains the root of the problem, the company's customer service is worse than atrocious. The problem is that the senior management are acting like drama queens with entitlement hang-ups. The company's customers make them, and the company's customers can break them. At the rate things are going, Six Apart's customers will break them. The half-million Russian customers have been sold off to gangsters in their neighbourhood for pennies in the pound, and now many of the hyperactive Fans Of Anything are looking around for the door marked ExIT.

(More: It's going down)

In the case of The People Versus Six Apart, the power lies with the customer. Not the management. As a demonstration, we're working on bringing our old Livejournal content to a subsidiary of this site. We'll keep you posted.

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8August

The front page of Tuesday's Grauniad stated, Arsenal lost in Iraq. Which does pose the question, why would London's second-best team play an away match there, and why didn't they take a map? That's the sort of rubbish we'd expect from Fulham.

Three cheers to Lynsey Hanley, who spots that the BBC's plethora of narrowcast channels does not add up to public service broadcasting. The Beeb's role is to make the popular good and the good popular, like a better version of Coast. (Not that it's easy to improve on Coast, but there's a way. Probably involves not sticking plugs for the next show over Neil's speech.) She cites Dizzee Rascal, a moderately-popular man whose recordings are stuck in the ghetto of Radio 1 Xtra. At least 1 and 1X try to cross-over a bit; there's no pollination between Radio 2 and 6 Music, or between Radio 3 and any other music station.

We're pleased to see the government will stop linking arts funding to its "diversity" obsession. Both the government and BBC are guilty of pigeon-hole thinking - just because people fit into a certain arbitrary category, that's all they can care about. Identity politics may be true for some unimaginative left-wingers, but it is a cancer upon the greater society.

More good cheer: the new-look St Pancras is about three months from opening, and there's a slightly gratuitous zig-a-zig-aaaah moment.

From Kassiesa: lower league sides in UEFA competition. Gretna wasn't the first.

Tea for masochists.

More of the usual pisspoor publicity for Ryanair: 47 passengers told to bog off.

But better news from this neck of the woods: fire crews rescue trapped duck. In the recent floods, the bird became trapped in sluice gates at Earlswood Lakes, and specialist de-sluicing equipment had to be called in from Rugby. A fire service spokey said, It's all a matter of prioritising which incidents to attend, and crews would have left the duck if a more urgent call had come in. "But there's nothing more important than a trapped duck," writes Mr. and Mrs. Mallard of Middlesbill.

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9August

Donna Covey discusses Mr. The Soup Dragon's proposal to allow translators for the occupying forces to return with them to the UK. It's nowhere near enough to discharge our responsibilities to the refugees we've created. A proper re-settlement programme is needed.

The Economist covers a terrorist plot to tax the rest of the world. Someone needs to take these people aside and do something useful with them. Sleeping policemen, perhaps.

Though we were happy to read the following in the broadsheet pages of the Universal Daily Register to-day, we do wonder if the Hoax Department was busy elsewhere.

The engagement is announced between Miss Snape Essie-Babe, daughter of Dai and Violet Hare of Grimmauld, and Mat GB of Buddleigh Salterton, son of Hy and Bea.

Once again, the UDR's reputation as a paper of record is let down by inaccuracy in a very small detail.

Julian Baggini explains atheism in a page.

Arts news. The Torygraph calls Grease too big for the talent-show duo. Should have stuck to Loud Webby shows, surely. And there's a review of Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work, and why they're more interested in retaining old readers than attracting new ones. And old computer games, reborn. It's not Scrabble® over IRC, mind...

0898-gate continues, with GWR slapped on the wrists for fixing its radio games, and Channel 4 ticked off for pretending it didn't know how much would be given away in the No-Longer-Legalised Telephone Lottery.

Sports news. Christine Ohuruogu has raised the stakes in her battle with Britain's Crass Spectacle Cronies, led by Lord Sir Sebastian Coe of Ranmore. If Mr. Coe's mob don't let her run at the 2012 Crass Spectacle, she'll change nationality and run for someone else. Miss Ohuruogu has not been convicted of taking drugs, merely of not being where the testers thought she would be. There would be no justice for Mr. Coe leaving his head in the sand.

We were hoping to bring you a Two Songs a Week about Modern Talking. For reasons beyond our control, this is not going to happen; the post will appear next week.

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10August

Back to Germans Have The Best Hits, and it's Modern Talking. Songwriter Dieter Bohlen and singer Thomas Anders began working together in 1983, and had their first hit You're my heart, you're my soul the following year. They did have one British hit, Brother Louie, a top tenner in 1986. Creative tensions split the group in 1987, but solo careers bombed, and they came back together in 1998. They had hits including Atlantis is calling (SOS for love), and the group's Good girls go to heaven (bad girls go everywhere) was covered by the Teutonic rock star Meat Loaf.

Our chosen Modern Talking track is from 2003, and is entitled TV makes the superstar. It was written as a reaction to Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar, the local version of Pop Idle. It spend two weeks as Germany's number two; the first behind future Eurovision contestants Tatu, the latter behind DSDS winner Alexander.

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12August

New number one in Sweden, I'm gay by 6AM. Other than that, it's a week of almost no change. Here's a measure: this week's Finnish number 1 is Tytöt tykkää by Tea. It's the same as last week's, something that hasn't happened since March.

20 NE David Guetta - Love is gone
19 17 Arctic Monkeys - Flourescent adolescent
18 re DJ Ötzi - Ein stern
17 NE Azad - Prison break anthem
16 NE Plain White Ts - Hey there Delilah
15 15 Christophe Willem - Double je
14 NE Robyn - With every heartbeat
13 16 Mark Medlock - You can get it
12 13 Monrose - Hot summer
11  9 Linkin Park - What I've done
10 10 Amy MacDonald - Mr. Rock 'n' roll
 9  7 Marquess - Vayamos campeneros
 8 14 Mika - Grace Kelly
 7  5 Enrique Iglesias - Do you know?
 6  4 Stacey Ferguson - Big girls don't cry
 5  8 Mika - Big girl (you are beautiful)
 4  6 Timberyokel - The way oi are
 3  3 Mika - Relax (take it easy)
 2  2 Åvril Lavignnesøn - When you're gone
 1  1 Rihanna - Umbrella

12August

Eleven new entries into the top 75. New at the bottom bit is Lloyd, a bit of a banker that. Amanda Bynes has been a Name To Watch since The Amanda Show crossed our radar some years back; after two weeks at 76, she finally sneaks a place in the chart at 71, in the company of Zac High School Musical Efron and someone called Blonsky. Also good to see Ben's Brother bring some acoustic goodiness in. The Pigeon Decectives hoped for better than 58 with Take it back, we're sure. Not entirely sure why the Gossip are back in at 48. Not that we're moaning.

Richard Hawley cracks the top 40 by one place. Not that the listeners to Radio 1's chart show will have heard it; Jay Miss and Off Target forgot to bring the CD into the studio with them, and had to play Take That. Can we get Bruno Brookes back? Nonsense from Eve comes in at 38, generic nonsense from Mario at 30, and from Axwell at 27. Media whore Amy Whingebag is this week's fastest climber, and isn't it remarkable that she only flounces off stage when she's a single to promote. David Guetta's French dance comes in at 21.

Into the top twenty with Darren Hayes; he's up to his third album, and On the verge of something wonderful perhaps channels Muse on a good day. Elliot Minor have been promoting their emo-lite on the EMAP video channels a lot, and Jessica lands at 19. Any danger of getting behind Little Man Tate, purlease? We note the coincidence of Bouncey Knowles and Rihanna Tart landing at 12 and 11 with songs called Green light and Shut up and drive. Enrique Iggleseas makes ten weeks in the top 10, without once threatening to be interesting. See also: The Old Rihanna Dirge, down to 7.

The Plain White Ts rise to 6, confirming their intention to stick around like the Fray without being as good. Stacey Ferguson drops two to 5, Katherine Nash to 4. Highest new entry honours to Kayne West's dismal Stronger; it's at 3 on downloads alone. Timberyokel drops to 2, allowing Robyn to give us one week (and that's probably all it is) of A Quality Pop Song At Number One. Huzzah!

On the albums, Katherine Nash hits the top, with Made of Bricks. It's been dragged forward from a September release following the success of Foundations. Paul Potts slips to 2, Newton Faulkner holds at 3, Amy MacDonald (the Amy who lets her songs do the talking) drops two to 4, Timberyokel to 5. Coral are in at 8 with Roots and Echoes, and Ben's Brother put Beta Male Fairytales to 24. Kaiser Chiefs, Pigeon Detectives, and Gym Class Heroes get the big climbs down in the 30s.

 1  5 Robyn - With every heartbeat
 8  7 Newton Faulkner - Dream catch me
 9  8 Hoosiers - Worried about Ray
13 12 Åvril Lavignnesøn - When you're gone
14 11 Mika - Big girl (you are beautiful)
17 16 Amy MacDonald - Mr. rock 'n' roll
19 NE Elliot Minor - Jessica
20 NE Darren Hayes
  - On the verge of something wonderful
25 20 My Chemical Romance - Teenagers
26 18 Arctic Monkeys - Flourescent adolescent
40 NE Richard Hawley - Tonight the streets are ours
41 29 Jack Penate - Once and never happy hour again
46 41 Reverend and the Makers
  - Heavyweight champion of the world
48 re Gossip - Standing in the way of control
50 42 Mutya Buena - Real girl
53 55 Mika - Grace Kelly
55 53 Åvril Lavignnesøn - Girlfriend
63 75 Newton Faulkner - Teardrop
64 57 Mika - Love to-day
67 50 Enemy - Had enough
69 NE Ben's Brother - Let me out
73 25 Coral - Who's going to find me

.. 38 Cribs - Moving pictures
.. 45 Manic Street Preachers - Autumnsong
.. 65 Daniel Merriweather - Stop me
.. 66 Fray - Over my head
.. 67 Paul McCartney - Dance to-night
.. 71 Kelly Clarkson - Never again

12August

This week, we've been watching and hearing...

• The Beginner's Guide to the Cosmos (OU/BBC-2) Depressingly simplistic; maybe we did too much astonomy in our youth.
• Coast (OU/BBC-2) The Channel Islands, including a repulsion of the French invasion of 1994.
• The Now Show (Radio 4) featuring a song that Richard Stilgoe knocked up in ten minutes. And still sounded better than anything Timberyokel ever did. The audience was asked what the ultimate point of the universe was; one response was to bring about a stable equilibrium of matter and energy, which would then gravitate towards one central point and explode to happen all over again. The response concluded, What do you expect; this is Radio 4?!

12August

This week's crisis in Poland was caused by the resignation of two cabinet ministers from the Auto-Defence party, ensuring that the Law and Order party was without a parliamentary majority. In a separate development, interior minister Janusz Kaczmarek was removed from office for not complying with a corruption inquiry. Early elections look inevitable.

The British government has finally woken up to the fact that five of her subjects are being illegally detained and tortured in Occupied Cuba. Rather than send in the SAS to bring the men out, foreign secretary David Miliband has written a nice letter to Condy Rice, a terrorist from Alabambam.

M. Popup has interrupted his holiday to harangue photographers on a lake. The French president delivered a long and heartfelt tirade at the snappers, but because the photogs didn't speak anything other than broken English, they couldn't understand a word he was saying.

A minor constitutional crisis in Germany, where a court blocked a rail strike from taking place. The pay dispute, between Deutsche Bahn and their drivers, will return to negotiations, but the union is asking questions about whether judges have the power to curtail the right to strike.

Russia took a submarine to approximately 5km due down beneath the North Pole, to plant her flag on the seabed. Russian geologists believe that the top of the world is connected to their country. Canada is having none of this, and prochain ancien prime minister Steven Harper ordered the construction of two more military bases in the frozen north.

12August

A settled week, without the notable heat of the first week-end of the month, but with sunny skies never far away. Temperatures were kept low until Wednesday by a north-westerly airflow; a weak front passed over late in the day, introducing milder south-westerly air and ensuring that night-time temperatures remained high.

06 Mo sun, showers      13/21, 1.0
07 Tu sun                8/18
08 We sun                7/19
09 Th sun               14/20
10 Fr sun               15/22
11 Sa sun               16/23
12 Su sun               17/21

Rainfall in July: 181mm; monthly average: 69mm

Rainfall in August: 4mm; monthly average: 69mm

Degree cooling days: 64
2006: 302/360
2005: 161/238
2004: 151/198
2003: 246/328