* Sexually Transmitted Infections, Sexual Behavior and the HIV/AIDS Epidemic is a (PDF) paper that discusses - well, exactly what it says on the tin. This paper suggests the entire difference between western and African HIV prevalence is the transmission rates - fifteen times higher in Africa. The obvious conclusion: lowering transmission rates by targeting STDs is more cost-effective than trying to reduce HIV prevalence using drugs or even education.

* The United Nations has warned that governments need to come through with their pledges for the Asian tsunami relief effort. Speaking at a donor conference in Geneva, UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Jan Egeland said that even though more than three billion euro had been promised, only 200 million had actually been committed to projects in the field. In past disasters, such as the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran, the money pledged has often failed to materialise.

* The remaining British detainees at Guantanamo Bay are to be freed, along with the one Australian there. The five have been held without charge, trial, or conviction for around three years, on no legal authority whatsoever. Even in defeat, the failed fascist state has been trying to throw its weight around, claiming that the UK and Australia will do everything they can to stop these people from supporting terrorism. This directly contradicts the UK's foreign secretary, John "Jack" Straw, who confirms that the kidnapees will receive the full protection of English law upon their return. This is most probably a sop from the military junta that rules the PDRUP to their laptog, Toy Blair.

We await the freedom of the Belmash Dozen, a group that have been held under no lawful authority for just as long. Either they face trial, or we start calling for the resignation of Charles In Charge.

* Under-nines shouldn't be given handys, according to the UK's national radiological protection board. While there's no proof that the mobile communication devices cause harm, the group finds significant concern that radiation may penetrate the young child's thin skull.

* Bill Gates is a lying capitalist whore. Software patents, espoused by Bill and propounded in his speech last week, are not a reward for clever design but a brilliant device to squelch free innovation and competition.

* The campaign for Birmingham Yardley has begun, and ID cards are the centre. The seat, held until now by Estelle Morris, was the early indicator in 2001 that Labour had held off the Lib Dem challenge in urban seats.

In not entirely unrelated news, Jack Cunningham will stand down from Copeland at the next election. His seat will fall to the Conservatives on a relatively small swing, and must now be seen as a good target for the main opposition party.

In sport, Liverpool and Everton will not share a super-stadium, and Sri Lanka's tour of New Zealand will be re-scheduled for April.

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posted 11 Jan 2005, 20.25 +0000

We're intrigued by a piece by Jonathan Friedland in to-day's Grauniad. Comparing Brown and Blair, he sees two disparate visions of the Labour party, perhaps rivalling the battle between Bevan and Gaitskill for the party's soul in the late 50s. On one hand, we have Blair promising that Labour would "drive through market-based reforms in the health service" and beyond; Brown saying that nurses and teachers were fired by an "ethic of service, which is [...] about compassion, duty and respect".

We have Blair, in the new Gaitskill role, accepting that standards of living have risen, and affluence prevents the Marxist revolution from taking place now; the best he can do at this time is to tame the edges off capitalism. Brown, like Bevan before him, sees that a revolution can take place, albeit through democratic means. According to Friedland, Brown would devolve power from Whitehall to the nations, regions, counties, and as far down as neighbourhood committees.

Brown is said to favour election for the entire upper chamber, force a debate to authorise war, and maybe even introduce a written constitiution. Much as we welcome these ideas, we have absolutely no confidence that the Blairite Labour party is capable of delivering them.

Called off - there were no chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Iraq. The 21-month hunt for the phantom weapons finally limped to a conclusion to-day: there were never any there to begin with. Attention must now focus on the incorrect intelligence information that led to the original claims, and on those who trumpeted them as the unvarnished truth.

A new site for Europe's busiest public building. Birmingham central library is set to move from its inverted cone, for pastures new. Baskerville House is just a few hundred metres away, and is handily placed for the entire city. The Labour group's proposed site, at the obscure Eastside development, is over a kilometre from the existing building, and twice as expensive.

A Radio 3 producer has resigned from the BBC after watching Jerry Springer The Opera.

And finally, Thatcher pleads guilty to coup charges. It's Mark, not his mother. Close, but...

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posted 12 Jan 2005, 19.12 +0000

Yesterday, a well-known British book supermarket fired a worker after working out that he was responsible for a blog critical of their company. The fall-out's been quick. No-one, it seems, has a formal policy for employee blogs, preferring to rely on general contractual clauses about not bringing the employer into disrepute.

Of course, this doesn't cut much mustard; talk down the pub can be just as damaging as talk online, though less easy to police. Should we be looking for further alternative to this bookmart, given that their main competitor is owned by a bunch of damned Yankees?

As if BANES hadn't been criticised enough in Private Eye... The much-fabled Bath Spa project, which will (allegedly) deliver a wonderful tourist attraction in the centre of Bath, is already four years and £33 million over-budget. Now, a borehole intended to tap the springs has, er, missed its target, and will have to be re-bored. Until then, the springs have run dry.

Speaking of which, the Indytab's diary reports that Robert Kilroy-Shaft is to form his own political party. Presumably spurned by the producer's of ITV's Vote For Me, the perma-tanned loon will call his party something in Latin. Mentior seems more than a little appropriate.

Going up in our estimations: Sascha Baron-Cohen, filming in the character of Borat at a rodeo in the breakaway province of Virginia East. Mr Borat said how he supported the war on terrorism and said: "I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards. And may George W Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq." He then showed his appreciation by singing the breakaway provincial anthem, Bye Bye Baby. His version ended with the words "your home is the grave". At this point, the PDRUP tradition of censorship reared its head, and Mr Borat was escorted from the premises.

In Birmingham, plans for an extension of the city's metro will go ahead. First, the Bull Ring Bus Mall will work both ways, rather than heading out of the city only. This will free up Bull and Corporation Streets for the trams - it'll also make the main shopping streets a hell of a lot quieter, as the number of buses will effectively halve. There'll be one attraction fewer at the Bull Ring shopping centre - a large electrical retailer will pull out of its two-floor store when someone agrees to take it over. "It was just too big to work," said the retailer.

Speaking of too big to work, Manchester tries to go big with its art. Bigger is not always better, natch.

And still on the theme of "too big", Eamonn Holmes calls Britney Spears "thick". Pot, kettle...

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posted 13 Jan 2005, 20.45 +0000

The first in a short series of newspaper reviews, looking at each of the serious week-end papers available in Birmingham. We'll be looking at the quality and depth of news coverage, the breadth of features and lifestyle, and the comprehensiveness of the television listings magazines, with bonus points for good coverage of radio and intellectual television. We start with...

The Times, 8 Jan 2005

£1, in just two physical sections - the (tabloid) main paper and a fallout plastic bag. Section pagination is as follows:

Main paper (news, finance, sport) 104p
Body and Soul 20p, contains Body Beautiful 12p, contains Money 16p
Weekend Review 36p, contains Travel 36p.
In the plastic bag were the magazine (120p), Eye (64p), and half-a-dozen fall-out-n-throw-away adverts.

The main paper

Front page Strapline - "Free health guide". Picture - a red-headed young woman. Headline: "Thousands missing as British death toll passes 400."
p2 - Contents.
p3 - puff for cosmetic surgery, pretending to be news.
p4 - signed comment
pp6-11 - tsunami coverage
p14 - celeb Big Brother, 3 paragraphs
p17 - investigative journalism on what one finds on walks in Lake District criticised as being "too white". Doesn't address the underlying conceit from the government.
p23 - leader puffing cosmetic surgery
p25 - big article attacking the BBC
p30 - Tory party infighting
p33 - columnist "not taking the election for granted" but assuming a Labour victory.
p40 - short piece defending the BBC
p47 - withdrawal from Iraq "a step closer"
pp50-51 - Palestinian election preview
p52 - business starts
p60 - full-page feature on why internet commerce doesn't work
pp70-71 - obits (Nick Scott, Anthony Meyer)
pp74-75 - churches
p81 - weather. 1/16 page map for to-day, plus very small maps for each of the next five days. Text summaries for to-day only, no outlook. Atlantic chart unusably small.
p82 - sport starts
pp88-89 - Ali Campbell on darts
pp92-104 - Football, including pseudo-scientific approach to forecasting results, and mini-previews of each of 31 FA Cup games.

In summary: News is poor, business passable but not gripping, sport is football-dominated but enthusiastic and readable.

Features

Body and soul Pic - Suzi Godson (who?) in tight top. Health, beauty, life section. Lots of criticism of the NHS, lots on plastic surgery. Good article on workplace illnesses, dull article on relationship ladders, David Baddiel gets a makeover, and a plug for clementines.
Body Beautiful Cosmetic surgery advertorial.
Money Cover article: closed mortgage funds, never explains what one is nor why they're bad. Whinge about television licenses, stuff on buying a home for one's kids, and four pages of dull tables.
Review Cover: plug for Who's Who serialisation in the daily next week. Julie Burchill guffs on p3. "Ideas" section falls into the history-has-an-end fallacy, presuming that current society is as good as it ever gets.
Books include Hans Christian Anderson, al-Jazeera (no mention of its roots as the BBC Arabic TV service), Japan, and Ann Widdecombe.
Arts - Michael Tippett, singing acters.
Life - cooking and gardens.
3 pages of games - sudoku, crosswords, chess, scrabble, words, logic.
Travel Water sports, Spain, lots of classifieds. Could benefit from some coherent editing.
Magazine Travel special. Lots of cruise ship ads, push for budget airlines, only two UK trips in 20 featured, very little for under £150 per person per night. Only really off-beat destinations featured are Mexico N and Riga. All very expensive, all (apart from the UK) involve flying.

In summary: Review is comprehensive, everything else is poor.

Listings

Comes in Eye, an A4 supplement. Film, games, and music reviews and interviews. Listings give 2 pages to terrestrial television, two to cabsat channels - full listings for sport, prime-time for all KYTV movie channels, 13 entertainment channels, and 4 factual ones. Titles only. Radio follows Friday's listings, gives titles for R1-5, Virgin, Classic, Talkshit, BBC Wales, details for R3, and World Service overnight.

In summary: Poor.

An overall verdict: The Times is past it. Only the sport and the highbrow review sections cut the mustard, while the news section was so weak that Great Uncle Bulgaria would surely have changed to something less crap.

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posted 14 Jan 2005, 18.50 +0000

In to-day's Microtimes, an article on Any Question Answered, a service that claims to be able to answer any question via SMS. "It's the death-knell for the pub quiz" reckons AQA. "The pub quiz will have to introduce questions that aren't easily researched" said someone from the British Quiz Association, wherever that falls in the hierachy of ego. According to research by the Microtimes (and there's a sentence you don't see too often), AQA's gimmick is to respond quickly to simple questions, and give poor answers to questions it doesn't know. Approach with caution.

Over in Het Grauniad, how local people stopped faith-based schools from polluting their children's minds. Big ups for the people of Doncaster for out-thinking the cretins of the religious reich.

The PDRUP's zionist client state has cut off ties with the new Palestinian president. "We call on the Israelis to resume a meaningful peace process and dialogue, because this is the only way to break the vicious cycle of violence."

And still with wankers trying to throw their weight around outside their sphere of influence, the Torygraph reports the EU's arms embargo against China may go, but the PDRUP is stomping its tiny little feet and will thcweam and thcweam and thcweam until it's thick. We hold far more store by the reservations of the Japanese, who know what they're talking about.

One cricket result: Australia 301/4 (Martyn 95, Ponting 78, Clarke 66) beat West Indies 185 (Lara 58, Hogg 5-32) by 116 runs. As one-sided as it sounds.

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posted 15 Jan 2005, 10.34 +0000

Some of the tunes we're looking forward to over the next couple of months. All subject to change / deletion / amendment.

January 24
Alison Krauss and Union Station - Restless/Cluck Old Hen
Hanson - Penny And Me
Juliet Turner - Vampire
Lemon Jelly - Shouty Track
Moby - Lift Me Up

January 31
Kimberley Locke - Coulda Been
Noise Next Door - Calendar Girl

February 7
Doves - Black And White Town
Hall & Oates - I Can Dream About It
Rammstein - Keine Lust
U2 - Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
The Wonder Stuff - Bile Chant/Rubbish Island
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Machine

February 14
Embrace - Looking As You Are
Presidents Of The United States of America - Love Everybody

February 21
Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God
Tears For Fears - The Closest Thing To Heaven

February 28
British Sea Power - TBA
Fightstar - They Liked You Better When You Were Dead EP
The Rasmus - Funeral Song (The Resurrection)
Rufus Wainwright - The One You Love

March 7
Annie - Heartbeat
McFly - All About You/TBA
New Order - Krafty
Phantom Planet - California

March 14
Beverley Knight - Keep This Fire Burning
Mercury Rev - Across Yer Ocean
Natalie Imbruglia - Shiver

Catholic blighters, aren't we.

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posted 15 Jan 2005, 10.42 +0000

This article is available for premium browsers only.

Two by-elections this week. In Erewash, a Lib Dem seat falls to the Conservatives after a prominent Independent withdraws. And in Hull, the UIP seat falls to the Lib Dems following protests; UIP finishes fourth there. Putting all this information into the swingometer gives the following printout:

Transfers
=========

Con - Lab + 7.03% (+ 6.17%)
Con - LD  - 4.10% (- 5.03%)
Lab - LD  -11.13% (-11.20%)

Seats
=====

Lab 323 (+ 0 -78) (335)
Con 227 (+64 - 2) (213)
LD   65 (+12 - 0) ( 67)
--------------
Labour overall majority: 1 (25)

Lots of extra information this week, including some of the big names, and the battleground. All margins are in percentages.

Targets
=======

Lab held
--------
Birmingham Yardley * LD GAIN by 8.38
Phil Woolas * LD GAIN by 8.51
Lorna Fitzsimmons * LD GAIN by 3.42
Broxtowe * CON GAIN by 0.35
Reading East (Lab maj: 0.94)
Stephen Twigg (0.95)
Ruth Kelly (1.03)
Copeland (1.64)
Denzil Davies (7.05)
Charles Clarke (7.59)

Con held
--------
Oliver Letwin (0.65)
David Davies (1.91)
David Heathcoat-Amory (3.05)
Theresa May (5.19)
Michael Howaerd (9.92)

LD held
-------
No names in marginals

Within 1%
=========
Cleethorpes           Lab 0.97 Con
Batley & Spen         Lab 0.96 Con
Enfield Southgate     Lab 0.95 Con
Reading East          Lab 0.94 Con
Worcester             Lab 0.92 Con
Leeds North West      Lab 0.90 Con
Brighton Kemptown     Lab 0.83 Con
Harrow West           Lab 0.82 Con
Norwich North         Lab 0.78 Con
Gedling               Lab 0.31 Con
Wirral South          Lab 0.30 Con
Birmingham Edgbaston  Lab 0.29 Con
Pudsey                Lab 0.29 Con
Morecambe & Lunesdale Lab 0.24 Con
Rossendale & Darwen   Lab 0.22 Con
Corby                 Lab 0.05 Con
Stafford              Con 0.32 Lab *CON GAIN*
Broxtowe              Con 0.35 Lab *CON GAIN*
Dover                 Con 0.47 Lab *CON GAIN*
Bradford West         Con 0.48 Lab *CON GAIN*
Pendle                Con 0.58 Lab *CON GAIN*
Tamworth              Con 0.69 Lab *CON GAIN*
Great Yarmouth        Con 0.78 Lab *CON GAIN*
Warwick & Leamington  Con 0.88 Lab *CON GAIN*
Gravesham             Con 0.91 Lab *CON GAIN*
Vale of Glamorgan     Con 0.96 Lab *CON GAIN*

Dorset West                             Con 0.65 LD
Surrey South West                       Con 0.07 LD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale  LD 0.01 Lab *LD  GAIN*
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar               SNP 0.99 Lab *SNP GAIN*

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posted 15 Jan 2005, 13.38 +0000

Robert Jackson, who is apparently the MP for Wantage, Oxon, has resigned the Conservative party whip and will vote with Labour. Mr Jackson, a higher education minister in the dying days of the Thatcher regime, has been increasingly disaffected with Conservative policy. He believes, for instance, that Labour's student fees regime is a good idea, that there were weapons in Iraq, and that butter can jump over the moon. He will stand down at the next election.

The last election winner, Rodney Hilton-Potts, triumphed on ITV's Vote For Me programme last week. It's descended into a bit of a farce, really, after one of the defeated contestants claimed he said that in the 1960s "you could drive to Henley without seeing a nigger on the streets". Dominic Carman, a man whose manifesto was so completely forgettable that he left the show at the first opportunity, told the Observer, "Putting forward a comedy fascist as a serious candidate was always going to be playing with fire. It gives a voice to extremism in the name of entertainment." After his performance on the Today programme yesterday, Mr Hilton-Potts clearly has a future. Er, maybe not.

In Hobart, Australia 253/6 (Clarke 97, Lehmann 49*) beat Pakistan 272/6 (Inzamam 68, Butt 61, Afridi 56*) by 4 wickets under the Duckworth-Lewis rules.

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posted 16 Jan 2005, 11.24 +0000

This week, I've mostly been watching Vote For Me, an interactive experiment to see if ITV's viewers really will vote for a thinly-disguised racist over any number of single-issue campaigners. "Yes, if he's charming enough," was the general opinion, so VFM died because it under-estimated the Grate British Public. If the GBP had chosen a single-issue campaigner, VFM would still have shown up the shallow, sound-bite culture of political coverage these days. Where did that lack of depth originate? In the tabloid newspapers, edited by VFM judge Kelvin MacKenzie.

Seven Days That Shook The Weathermen was Channel 4 documentary making at its most superficial, a simple clip collection with no over-arching narrative and little effort. There is a documentary to be made about the effects of global warming on the weather, but this isn't it.

Not entirely sure about Zoe, the new presenter on Blue Peter. She seems to be there to up the totty quotient, just as Katy Hill was about ten years ago. Still, it's early days yet, and we won't write her off before the summer.

Also not sure about Don't Watch That, Watch This!, BBC4's new weekly news satire show. This week's opening weekly installment seemed to be a Greatest Hits of 2004 compilation. David Plunkett is soooo last year, and let's all give thanks for that.

Charmed tried to do something with the Lady Godiva story. They're always at their weakest when working from real history, and while it's correct to portray her as a crusader who used her naked body to bring about social change, the role of a demon was a pointless fiction.

And The Krypton Factor continued the 1992 series. A little past its best, but still very good indeed.

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posted 16 Jan 2005, 12.55 +0000

We remain stuck on 997 chart-toppers, even though Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock falls from 1 to 10, the second biggest slump from the top ever. That's because he becomes the first person since John Lennon to succeed himself at the top, with the re-released One Night I Got Stung. His 29th hit single was originally a chart-topper in January 1959, the Pelvis has now secured 1,200 weeks in the full UK charts, and is closing in quickly on leader Cliff Richard. It's a long way to go for the Manic Street Preachers, Empty Souls is their 31st hit, and second consecutive number 2 hit. Re-releases abound this week, with the Killers finally doing something with Somebody Told Me - originally a number 28 hit last March, it makes the top three second time around. Steve Brookstein slips to 4, and Rooster - the band that would like to be the new Busted, but will probably end up the new Let Loose - land at 5 with Staring At the Sun. It's not a U2 cover. Six new entries in the top seven is a record, and Stonebridge's Strings of Life and Darius's Live Twice round out the charmed set. This is Darius's biggest hit since 2002, and sets his career back on some sort of track.

Best performing of last week's new entries is Iron Maiden, and there's a phrase you don't hear too often! They land at 8, Dana Rayne's 11, and Erasure's 14. Pop!'s career has rather gone pop, as Serious can only land at number 16, which is a bit of a shame. We also like Pornography, as in the single by Client, which features one of the Libertines on extra vocal duties. Here's the full countup:

 3 re Killers - Somebody told me
 5 NE Rooster - Staring at the sun
 8  3 Iron Maiden - The number of the beast
 9 10 Uniting Nations - Out of touch
11  7 Dana Rayne - Object of my desire
14  4 Erasure - Breathe
15 12 Gwen Stefani - What you waiting for?
16 NE Pop! - Serious
20 NE The Music - Breaking
22 NE Client - Pornography
27  8 Kasabian - Cutt off
39 18 Interpol - Evil
43 30 U2 - Vertigo
52 31 Urban Cookie Collective - The key : the secret
62 42 McFly - Room on the third floor
69 47 Damien Rice - The blower's daughter
71 48 Morrissey - I have forgiven jesus

Slumps of the week, even worse than Kasabian and Elvis, include Ronan Bleating and Prat Stevens (13-30) and Band Aid Ill (6-31). By comparison, the Seagull Ska drop (17-45) is piffling. Curio of the week is a third Elvis track, That's All Right makes it back in at 54. It was originally released last July, and the recording is now out of copyright, so anyone can release it on payment of royalties. Would this explain the rash of re-releases? You bet!

Albums

Two weeks on top for the Killers, with no change at all in the top seven. Snow Patrol, Jay-Z and Linkin Park and Gwen Stefani all push into the top ten. Ashanti has the biggest move up, from 30 to 23, while the Council Estate Slappers slump 8-15. Busted's split briefly halted the decline of their albums - the live work slipped just one to 23, and last year's A Present for Everyone dropped from 23 to 26. Lucie Silvas has the highest entry, Breathe In is in at 28; John Legend's Get Lifted comes in at 31, and Delta Goodrem re-enters at 34.

20 10 Jojo - Leave
19  8 Destiny's Child - Lose my breath
18 NE Papi Sanchez - Enamourame
17 20 Kimberley Locke - Eighth world wonder
16 NE Star Academy IV - Adieu monsieur le professeur
15 NE Kasabian - Cutt off
14 NE Garou & Michael Sardou - La riviere de notre enfance
13 14 Keane - Somewhere only we know
12 16 Annie - Chewing gum
11 12 Embrace - Ashes
10 11 Green Day - Boulevard of broken dreams
 9 15 McFly - Obviously
 8 19 Franz Ferdinand - Take me out
 7  3 U2 - Vertigo
 6  7 Britney Spears - Toxic
 5  9 Kylie Minogue - Am I really you?
 4  5 McFly - Room on the third floor
 3  4 Eric Prydz - Call on me
 2  2 Uniting Nations - Out of touch
 1  1 Gwen Stefani - What you waiting for?

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posted 16 Jan 2005, 20.40 +0000

Another mild, and occasionally stormy week, with little rain. The winds on Sunday and Tuesday night here weren't as bad as first predicted, though they were damaging in Scotland.

10 Mo Some cloud, odd showers 6/11
11 Tu Cloud, showers, windy later 6/12
12 We Some sun 5/8
13 Th Sun 2/7
14 Fr Sun to cloud 2/7
15 Sa Cloud, lt showers 5/9
16 Su Cloud 5/10

22½ degree heating days this week, the winter's total is 269.

Next week should remain mild, in a south-westerly airflow, so showers are possible at any time.

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posted 16 Jan 2005, 20.53 +0000

older writing... write to