So, the last episode in the current run of Gilmore Girls.

Lorelai and Rory are off back-packing around Europe. Rory, dear, you do not need to take twelve books with you. Take two, and then buy some more from second-hand shops as you go on your travels. Annoy your future room-mate, be pretentious, have a bookshelf filled with cheap paperbacks in European languages.

Paris can't resist one last snark about how Chiltern Chilton speech-makers never make much of their lives. Miss Gellar, define, if you'd be so kind, the point you're making here. A success by whose standards? Though, as class president, shouldn't she be entitled to somewhat more than the usual two minutes of film?

That's an interesting excuse to celebrate, Lorelai. And the first time we've heard about Sookie's sproglet in forever.

Good to see that Emily completely ignored Miss Sea-Lion's advice from last week. Green indeed. What *was* the old bat thinking?

And then, Sir Robin Gilmore puts on his bow-tie and suddenly turns into Ligu Hnelg. A kind and generous deal-maker, whose prime aim is to improve the life of everyone around him. Newton's Third Law of Television applies - for every incidence of The Banker off of Deal or No Deal, there's an equal and opposite Grandpa Richard. This analogy is going to confuse the hell out of the Bother's Bar regulars, and I commend it to the house.

Oi, Sookie! No! And what's with the obsession about the insurance for the courtyard?

Good grief, Paris has cousins? But no parents. And an embarrassing middle name. Which says a hell of a lot about the kid. Shame we didn't get to see her rip the flag-waving schlock to smithereens.

More schlock-ripping with the revelation of the graduation present. For Rory. No-one else would think to do the same as Sir Grandpa Hnelg.

And that's it. End of the Chilton years. End of the road for this series, and with Nickelodeon putting lesser programmes in the 9pm Sunday slot next week, end of the road for the thoughts.

Remember, people, four episodes in two days is the hallmark of a crap channel. And anything that happens after this point is a spoiler. And spoilers are bad, mmmkay?

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posted 13 Feb 2006, 18.54 +0000

Well, it may be ten degrees above freezing out there, and the only white stuff on the ground is soap from washing the windows, but the World Biathlon (and Other Sports and Entertainments (but we don't count those)) Championships continues in Italy.

The Ladies' Individual event was won by Ishmouratova, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Pyleva and Glagow came second and third.

In the "Oh, blast, forgotten my rifle" event, it's a victory for the forces of Schmirgen. Kristina Smigun was fastest in the 15km race for ladies, and Eugeni Dementiev won the 30km for gentlemen. Both races ended with dramatic chases through the stadium.

In the "What? The event's taking place at the *bottom* of the hill?", pre-race favourite Antoine Deneriaz was fastest to finish, beating Michael Walchhofer by three-quarters of a second.

Ahn Hyun-Soo won the 1500m short-track skating event, and Armin Zoeggeler retained his "Sliding Down A Hill On A Tea-Tray (Feet First)" title, with Martins Rubenis coming third for Latvia.The "Skating Round A Big Track" was won by a damned Yankee. The Cheek!

The country-by-country medals table is currently headed by Russia, with Germany, the Yankees, the Netherlands, and South Korea also doing well.

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posted 13 Feb 2006, 19.23 +0000

Day four of the World Biathlon (et al) Championships, and the reign of Bjorndalen is over. To lose by a smidgeon on Saturday was one thing, but for the greatest athlete in any sport to miss three shots, finishing 12th, is quite another. Sven Fischer came out on top of to-day's 10k sprint, coming eight seconds ahead of Halvard Hannevold. Everyone's favourite Lord of the Rings character, Frode Anderson, came 11 seconds further back in third. Rising stars Wolfgang Perner and Mattias Nillson made the top ten. Greis, the champion in Saturday's long event, finished in 35th, three minutes off the pace.

In the day's other sports, Svetlana Zhurova won the ladies' 500m long-track speed-skating. Germany swept the top three in the Downhill On A Tea-Tray Feet First, with Sylke Otto first past the post. Swedish teams won both the gentlemens' and ladies' Rifleless Relay, while both of the favourites came unstuck in the slalom legs of the Downhill Tripleplay.

Germany's four golds still top the medals table, Russia and the Yankees have three, while Sweden's double strike puts them fourth, one ahead of the Dutch.

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posted 14 Feb 2006, 19.35 +0000

The Commons last night voted to overturn the Lords' amendments to make enrolment on the identity database truly voluntary. This has the makings of another game of Constitutional Bogies (see entries March ult.)

Labour would dearly like to invoke the Salisbury convention against the Lords. This is not going to fly - Labour's manifesto explicitly stated a voluntary identity register. The Lords' amendment ensures that Labour keeps to the letter of its manifesto commitment, and they will be right to insist on it.

The Commons to-day voted to outlaw smoking in all enclosed public spaces. While this does deny people a freedom they have previously enjoyed, it also ensures that other people aren't forced to partake of their habit, and there is a clear health rationale at play. You'll not find us objecting too strongly.

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posted 14 Feb 2006, 20.03 +0000

Oddness... In which a relatively simple Ask The Audience question takes an unusual twist.

It's the web version of Celebdaq - as of this evening, UKGS was worth ACU32, the heavily plugged mtv.co.uk is ACU60. Channel 4 is something over ACU1100, and the Beeb will cost around ACU27,000. (Caution: site contains a large number of obnoxious Google ads.)

A brief exchange on the future of Neustraße station. The main problem, of course, is the persistent failure of Labour at both a national and local level, to recognise the overcrowding at the station until far too late. There is a substantial problem resulting from the fragmented privatised network, and that's as much Gordon Brown's fault as anyone's.

The Canadian Seal Hunt got an adjournement debate in the Commons yesterday. I don't have a particular view about this, but I know that many of you do.

Spencer and Ashley, television's newest couple. Doing for 2006 what Ricky Vasquez did for 1995.

Lib Dem wanna-lead Chris Huhne on freedoms. Someone is standing up for freedom against tyrrany.

Radio in a nutshell. The entire day's output of BBC radio condensed to two minutes.

To-morrow, how much would banning smoking cost?

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posted 15 Feb 2006, 19.46 +0000

M'learned friend P. Vague suggests that HMG has been altogether far too wimpish.

Ban tobacco sales. Bite the bullet, raise income tax, work out what you're going to do with a load more pensioners than you can afford in 40 years time and get out of bed with BAT and Phillip Morris. If you want to play nanny state, then bloody well do it properly.

A little thought experiment. Let us ban tobacco for the 2008-9 tax year, and consider the consequences.

-- Income from tax on tobacco will, fairly obviously, immediately reduce to zero. Excise duties were £8.1 milliard in the tax year 04-05. The Treasury is not increasing this figure in real terms, so let us assume that a ban imposed for 08-09 would cause a drop in income of £8 milliard. We do not need to consider the consequences of VAT on tobacco, as the money will still be spent, and we may assume that the vast majority will still be spent on VAT-able items.

-- Customs and Excise will not be able to harrass visitors for going over notional tobacco import limits, but they will need to make searches to ensure no contraband fags enter at all. I'm going to make the assumption that this will be a negligible cost.

-- An old ASH document cites a £1.7 milliard charge for tobacco-related diseases. These would be 97-98 figures, and perhaps £3 milliard would be a reasonable figure for 08-09. This expenditure will still be required, and will be required for each year to come. However, I suggest that the incidence of smoking-related illnesses would decline over time. The expenditure on diseases related to passive smoking would decline at a somewhat faster rate, but I don't think this is a huge amount to begin with. I shall model this as a charge of £3 milliard per year without indexing it for inflation (which I'll refer to as a fixed-cash sum.)

-- We would also save on incapacity benefit, as tobacco-related disabilities would also wither away. I suggest that most of the gains would come in the early years, and could amount to £500 million in the first year, falling to a fixed-cash £300 million thereafter.

-- Policing the ban would be a non-trivial matter, especially in the early years. I would suggest that it could take up 5% of the police time, which would have a nominal cost of 5% of the police budget, perhaps 2% of the Home Office budget, £250 million. The pressure would decrease over time, and I suggest that a fixed-cash sum of £200 million would suffice in the long term.

-- In the private sector, smoking breaks would decrease. This could increase productivity by as much as £1000 per smoker per year - a potential £6 milliard gain. I'm going to assume that not all of this potential gain is realised, and that not all of it will accrue to the government in additional taxes. 20% should come through in corporation tax, and a further 10% in increased revenues on spending (VAT and other duties). It should still be worth £1.8 milliard per year.

-- Fires caused by discarded cigarettes would also decrease. I'm not aware of any research on this matter, but I suspect that a figure of £3.5 milliard would not be unreasonable. Most of this recovery would be bourne by the private sector through insurance costs, which should fall, thus precipitating a fall in insurance premium tax. The net result to the government coffers should be a small decrease. There would be fewer fires in government buildings, and profits on the insurance companies may rise, so this item may be negligible to the government.

-- With one of the premature causes of death removed, people will live longer. For the sake of argument, let us assume that the average smoker lives for 4 more years, and that 25% of the population are smokers. The recent Turner Report on pensions suggests that the cost of an additional year's state pension would be £10,000 per person per year; private sector pensions would require a similar increase. Let's assume a worst-case figure of £15,000 per person. Taking a maxmimum retirement cohort of 750,000 people, there's a potential increase in funding of £11.25 milliard. However, this would be 20 years in the future, and an allowance of £6 milliard would be more than sufficient.

-- Would there be an increase in the economic contribution of people, above and beyond the smoking breaks? Very possibly, though I don't think it would be particularly large, and certainly not as big as the change in attitude required to ensure retirement age stops being a bar to employability. I'm going to tentatively add in £5 milliard to the economy as a whole per annum for other economic benefits, of which (on the same analysis as above) the taxman might expect to take £1.5 milliard.

Overall, then, the government would take a short-term loss of perhaps £7 milliard in the first year, stabilising at around £5.5 milliard once the measure has become bedded in. In the longer term, the increased longevity would increase the net loss to the Treasury to perhaps £10 milliard. This is around 2% of the Treasury's projected expenditure for 2008-9, and within the margin of error that any prudent Chancellor would allow.

The economy as a whole would grow by at least £8 milliard. Like any good economist, I've not factored in any changes to people's behaviour - I'm assuming no increase in spending at pubs and clubs, no decrease in air conditioner sales. Nor am I taking much note of quality-of-life - more people remaining healthy for longer may well be worth the £10,000,000,000 price.

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posted 16 Feb 2006, 19.57 +0000

At the World Biathlon Championships, Florence Bavarel-Robert won the womens' sprint event, finishing just 2.4 seconds clear of Anna Carin Olofsson; had she hit a clear round, Ms Olofsson would have won by about 20 seconds. Lilia Efremova came through to finish third, with Akhatova and Zubrilova fourth and fifth.

Other winners. The ladies' downhill went to Michaela Dorfmeister, not a surprise. Austria won the Nordic Combined team event. Germany and Italy won the speed skating team pursuit, a remarkable event that's reminiscent of cycling. Wang Meng won the 500m short-track event. The tea-tray (feet first) doubles was won by Linger and Linger; the tea-tray (head first) ladies' event went to Maya Pederson. The BBC went ape as local competitor Shelley Rudman finished second.

The national medals table is still headed by Germany (5 golds) from Russia, Austria, and the FARCE (3 apiece). The UK is tied for 17th place.

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posted 16 Feb 2006, 20.05 +0000

The annual BRITS this week, and Het Grauniad had live commentary and sober reflection. The winners were, almost entirely, a poor reflection of anything associated with quality music.

This week also saw the annual Naomi awards, honouring the worst music around at present. Lisa Scott-Lee won big, while Westlife won the coveted Outstanding Lack of Contribution To Music award. Worst International Male at the Naomis and Best International Newcomer at the BRITS went to Jack Johnson, clearly indicating that one of them has got it badly wrong.

(Memorandum to Mr Petridis: Lemar did not win a reality show. David Sneddon did. Who? Exactly!)

The modern thinking when it comes to architecture was confirmed by this week's ideas for the New New Street station. Make it out of glass, pay for it by shops and offices, and do absolutely nothing to help the trains move properly. The station desperately needs a new tunnel (or a fly-over, but probably a new tunnel) so that the cross-city commuter trains don't have to cross half the station throat every five minutes. Instead, it's lots more escalators (which will help move people), a bigger concourse (which looks good), and, er, that's it.

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posted 19 Feb 2006, 18.14 +0000

The ladies' pursuit took place during a snowstorm. Kati Wilhelm was the only athlete to master the testing conditions, finishing over a minute ahead of Martina Glagow and Alena Akhatova. The gentlemen's pursuit was one of the classiest events every to grace a World Biathlon (And Other Sports and Entertainments) Championships. Vincent Defrasne had been chased down by Ole Einar Bjorndalen, fell at the final corner, only to come back as if powered by a rocket, and came to win by less than two seconds.

The snow-storm means that both the ladies' combined event and the gentlemen's super-giant slalom were delayed; when they were run, Kjetil Andre Aamodt won the super-G, Janica Kostelic the combined. The ladies' super-G has been postponed by the weather.

In the Tea-Tray (Head-First) (Gentlemen's) event, Duff Gibson was fastest down the course, with Jeff Pain following. Tanja Frieden won the Snowcross (Women's), after Lindsey Jacobellis fell over while showing off at the final jump. Jin Sun-Yu won the ladies' 1500m short-track, where pre-race favourite Yang-Yang (A) came twelfth. Ahn Hyun-Soo won the gentlemen's 1000m short track, Shani Davies and Marianne Timmer won on the long track.

Estonia continues to lead the world in Oops No Rifle, with Andreas Veerpalu winning the Gentlemen's 15km race. The ladies' team finished last in the 20km relay, though, with Russia winning by a margin, and Germany pipped Italy for second. Italy won the gentlemen's race, Germany pipped Sweden for second, with Norway failing to place in the top three at all.

Germany's six golds still heads the national table, five for the FARCE, four for Russia, and three for Austria, South Korea, Italy, France, and Estonia.

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posted 19 Feb 2006, 19.24 +0000

A new number one in Germany, as the unlikely combination of Eros Ramazzotti (big in Italy) and Anastacia (big in, er, Germany) outsells everyone to move to the top. Another dodgy duo hit the top in the Netherlands, opera star Andrea Bocelli works with local star Marco Borsato on Because we believe.

*20 NE Eros Ramazzotti / Anastacia - I belong to you
*19 20 Natasha St-Pier - Un ange frappe a ma porte
*18 NE Richard Ashcroft - Break the night with colour
*17 17 Pati Yang - All that is thirst
 16 13 Melanie C - First day of my life
*15 15 Nolwenn Leroy - Nolwenn ohwo!
 14 16 Kent - The hjarta and smarta ep
 13 re Shakira - Don't bother
 12  6 Madonna - Hung up
*11 11 Depeche Mode - A pain that I'm used to
*10 10 Bob Sinclar - Love generation
* 9 12 Juanes - La camisa negra
  8  7 Mattafix - Big city life
* 7  9 James Blunt - Goodbye my lover
  6  8 Sugababes - Push the button
  5  5 Coldplay - Talk
  4  2 Tina Arena - Aimer jusqu'a l'impossible
  3  3 Sugababes - Ugly
* 2  4 Arctic Monkeys - When the sun goes down
* 1  1 Kelly Clarkson - Because of you

No change at the top of the singles chart, with erstwhile Atomic Kitten member Liz McClarnon having the highest new entry at position five. Her covers of Woman in love and I get the sweetest feeling might be politely described as soul-less. Willy Oung climbs back into the top ten with his valentine's song, with Friday Hill, Goldfrapp, and the Magic Numbers finding their way into the top 20. It's so quiet that long-forgotten tracks like I predicate a riot and Ubiquitous climb twenty places apiece. And that Nickelback find a place in the top 40. Two entries on the chart for the Gorillas this week at 57 and 58, and positions 59 and 60 sound like Coldplay now.

Four weeks on the albums for ver Monkeys, pipping Boys Aloud, K T Tunstall, and Worst International act Jack Dullard. The Gorillas and Coldplay also show strong climbs, and the Jam's new album Snap is the highest new entry at 10. Beth Orton manages position 24, one ahead of Panic At The Disco, a group that has completely passed me by. Belle and Sebastian fall from 8 to 34.

Here's the good stuff on the singles listing:

 8  5 Dead or Alive - You spin me round
 9  7 Source - You got the love
10  8 Fall Out Boy - Sugar we're going down
18 14 Arctic Monkeys - When the sun goes down
19 16 Jesse McCartney - Beautiful soul
22 23 Kelly Clarkson - Because of you
23 15 Ashley Simpson - Boyfriend
24 21 Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats
25 18 Kubb - Grow
26 NE Boy Kill Boy - Back again
28 44 Boys Aloud - I predicate a riot
30 28 Sugababes - Ugly
42 43 Arctic Monkeys
        - I bet you look good on the dancefloor
43 NE OK Go - A million ways
45 54 Sugababes - Push the button
47 32 A-ha - Analogue
49 35 DHT - Listen to your heart
62 29 Bullet For My Valentine
        - All these things I hate
63 re K T Tunstall - Suddenly I see
66 63 Kelly Clarkson - Since you've been gone
67 re Boys Aloud
        - Every day I love you less and less
71 55 Editors - Munich
72 47 Go Team - Ladyflash

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posted 19 Feb 2006, 19.29 +0000

Cloudy and relatively mild, turning colder for the week-end.

13 Mo cloud, showers       7/ 9
14 Tu rain and showers     6/10, 4.0
15 We rain o'night, sun    6/11,13.0
16 Th cloud                4/ 7
17 Fr sunny spells         5/11
18 Sa fog to sun           1/ 7
19 Su fog and drizzle      1/ 5

Just 25 degree heating days this week, the winter's total goes to 547½, well above the score at this point last year 443½/677½. The current figure was achieved on 4 Mar last year, that one's increased by just three days.

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posted 19 Feb 2006, 19.32 +0000

older writing... write to