Things we like to hear:

* Radio Active on BBC-7, this week with the 1986 fly-on-the-wall documentary about the Family family. Morwenna Banks replaced Helen Atkinson-Wood for this recording, perhaps because she can do the wide range of female voices required here. Highlight of the programme, though, was the song from leading Norwegian band Mm-hmm.

* Places That Changed the World on Radio 4. Gavin Esler and some learned economists, including Robert Skidelsky, discuss the future of the Bretton Woods institutions - the World Bank and IMF. The World Bank has become a lender for Africa alone, the IMF a specialist in disaster management. No-one had a good word to say about the joint policy of forced economic liberalisation. These aren't museli-crunching Grauniad readers, but hard-nosed Economist contributors. Maybe the wheels are beginning to grind, ever so slowly.

* And speaking of the museli-crunchers' orgna of record, Het Grauniad has re-launched in a new format to-day. They're calling it the Berliner, I'm referring to it as the Mondial, after the French paper. They've taken the opportunity to throw away the increasingly annoying sans-serif headlines, and have moved to a slightly more legible body typeface.

The design is five wide columns, which I think is a mistake - the paper is the width of a tabloid, but somewhat deeper, so the columns are just too wide to read at a glance. Six slightly narrower columns might have been more like it. The front page doesn't have any complete stories, but summaries and links to six others. Back page is an advert.

Inside, lots and lots and lots of links, at the foot of almost every story. They've been there before, but the smaller pages and introduction of colour makes them more obvious. "Hoping to combine the gravitas of the Economist with the colour of the Beano", says a review of the paper's plug on Sunday AM yesterday. They're forgetting that the Beano was far funnier when only Dennis and the Kids were in colour, and the likes of Roger and Minnie appeared in red-and-black only.

The news section starts out as a bit of a muchness, but there are some decent reads towards the middle. Monday's business sections are always rubbish, and the comment pages haven't much changed in style, though they've expanded from three broadsheet pages to five mondial. Weather continues to feature a titchy Atlantic chart, though it's still legible as a synoptic overview.

The media section works just as badly as a mondial as a tabloid. The rest of G2 is slightly smaller than a tabloid, and feels strange - like the weekly Guide pull-out on a larger canvas. The sports section is now a separate pull-out, and feels more like the experimental Sindie sports tab from the mid-90s - might be the combination of size and typeface that does it. Still far too much emphasis on football, a common failing amongst all the Grauniad grope's organs.

Overall: it's got more class than the Universal Daily Registertab, but I don't expect to change my paper of choice away from the Indytab.

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posted 12 Sep 2005, 14.55 +0100

Stephen Pollard is an honourable man. He is also either the most masochistic man out there, or one of the stupidest, for he is also the biographer of the most over-rated politician of our times, Herr David Plunkett Lab, Sheffield Brightside. He's therefore in a reasonable position to referee yesterday's little spat between the disgraced former interior minister and John Stevens, who stepped down as London's chief constable last year, and is now hawking his own autobiography. Writing in to-day's Universal Daily Registertab, Mr Pollard is blunt.

From all the interviews I conducted for the book, the most oft-cited of his characteristics was his phenomenal memory. But sometimes Mr Blunkett does appear to have a truly terrible memory. By an amazing coincidence, however, his memory failures seem to happen only at especially convenient times. When the news broke of the speeded-up visa for his own son’s nanny, he claimed to have no recollection of having raised the matter with his private office. And now we learn that he has no memory of having spoken to me for my biography.

The issue is, in reality, black and white. Either Mr Blunkett said what I reported him as saying to me or he did not. In his letter to Sir John, he said that he did not — in which case I must have lied and made the quotes up.

Mr Blunkett’s accusation goes to the heart of my integrity — and, more importantly, his. If there was any truth to his claims, I would have behaved shamefully. No journalist can be allowed to get away with making up quotes.

There is only one person who has lied, and it is not me. Lord Stevens writes that he had been advised “never go to see him alone, but always take a witness”. I had a witness with me throughout my interviews: my tape recorder. I listened to the relevant interview again yesterday. His words are crystal clear. Mr Blunkett said everything I quoted — and a lot more which has yet to emerge. Indeed, as I interviewed him I would go out of my way to point out to him that the tape recorder was running, lest he forget and, being blind, be unable to see the red recording light. So not only is it plain wrong for Mr Blunkett to assert that I made the quotes up, it is also stupid. He knows that the interviews were recorded.

With the issue of Labour politicians’ willingness to lie now at the forefront of many people’s minds, the brazen insouciance with which he defamed me to Sir John can only worsen the public’s contempt for his party — and politics in general.

Perhaps the most useful thing Mr Pollard can do is to put those tapes into the public domain, so that we can all hear Herr Plunkett damning himself against his own rock of lies.

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posted 12 Sep 2005, 19.34 +0100

Poverty campaigners are moaning because their nakedly political adverts have been banned from television. Said one white-band wearing moppet, "The millions of people who are wearing a white band or taking action as part of this campaign do not see it as a narrow party political issue. They see it as the great moral issue of our time."

This doesn't answer the question. Is the campaign aimed at influencing the activities of the government. Yes or no? If yes, then it must - by its nature - be a political campaign. It is possible to be political without attempting to influence government, but if you're trying to change the nation's self-proclaimed leaders in any way, you're being political. Now shut up and do something.

In other non-news some eedjits with larger trucks than brains are planning to blockade the M4 on Wednesday, in protest at the rising cost of fuel. What good will that do? The problem is, quite simply, that there's too much demand for fuel, and if society took sensible steps to reduce oil use (say, by not transporting apples by road, but by buying local produce), these truckers would be out of a job completely.

"Oh, but the government's making a packet out of increased tax," they claim. Bullshit. What finance minister Brown gains in VAT from private motorists at the petrol pumps, he loses from them not spending that money somewhere else in the economy. What he gains in increased tax from oil revenue he loses because the economy will deflate by the same amount. Even their claim that the petrol companies are operating a cartel doesn't bear up to scrutiny, as this article from the Toronto Star shows.

Let's face it. These petrol protesters don't have an argument that stands up to a millisecond's scrutiny. They may as well stay at home.

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posted 12 Sep 2005, 20.07 +0100

A listing of selected television and radio broadcasts, with a deliberate emphasis on culture and intellectual programmes.

Regulars
Composer of the Week (Radio 3, noon): Karl Hartmann, from the Weimar Republic to the Bundesrepublik.
Book of the Week (Radio 4, 9.45am and 12.30am): Judge Sewall's Apology, by Richard Francis, read by Richard Mitchley. An account of the Salem witch trials.
Woman's Hour Play (Radio 4, 10.45am and 7.45pm): Cashcows, by April De Angelis. A circle of women is bound together by guilt and cash.
Book at Bedtime (Radio 4, 10.45): Le Pere Goriot, by Honore de Balzac, read by Benedict Cumberbatch. Second week.

Saturday

9.25am ITV M.O.M.

ITV hasn't regularly done Saturday morning shows well. Tiswas, of course; Motormouth, arguably; SMTV, certainly; MOM, not a chance. So current hosts Holly Willoughby and Stephen Mulhern have roped in "a host of stars from Saturday morning shows past and present". If we're lucky, that's Chris Tarrant, Neil Buchanan, and Antan Dec; if we're unlucky, Gordon Astley, Andy "No brain" Crane, and Sedgley The Penguin.

10.30am Channel 4 Popworld

Get the coffee in, we've not even mentioned Dick and Dom. A new Saturday morning time for the top pop show. with performances from McFly and a conversation with the Sugababes. Viewers in Wales get this at 10am.

11.30am ITV CD:UK

A new set of presenters means we get Lauren Laverne and Tatu on the same programme.

12.30 Radio 4 Dead Ringers

Ah! A new series!

1 pm Hallmark Gilmore Girls

Writing in this week's rusty old Radio Times, Sandi Toksvig says, "So well executed, I repeat some of the dialogue out loud to myself." Make her a dane already.

2 pm Radio 2 Chris Evans

Yes, we bought the Radio Times this week, mainly to figure out what the hell the fuss is about. The ginger tosspot is on Radio 2 now, displacing Dermot O'Bleary to 5pm, Gambo to 7 (his show didn't gel at 6, I don't hold out hope for the later hour), the Critical List to the depth of 10, and Bob Harris to 11. Richard Allinson will now only be heard on BFBS, or as holiday cover. Mark Lemarr's Alternative Sixties show has gone, as has Lulu's Sunday show, the latter making way for the return of Pig Of The Pops. At least they've left Russell Davies alone.

4.10 Channel 4 Ashes Fever

In a change to the advertised programme, two hours of people shouting "Rupert Murdoch! Your boys took a hell of a beating!"

6 pm Radio 3 Jazz File

Arrangers Anonymous: Russell Davies begins a four part series into jazz arrangers.

7 pm BBC-4 Walking the Wall

The physical remains of the Berlin wall, and the memories of people who lived with it.

8 pm Radio 4 The Archive Hour

Auntie Beeb and her Little Listeners. Jane Seaton reviews radio for children.

9.10 ITV It'll Be Alright on the Night's 50 Years of ITV

An unwieldly long title, but this looks like comedy gold. Norden shorn of all the foreign accents.

9.10 ITV3 An Audience With Bob Monkhouse

Go on, take your pick.

9.50 Radio 3 The Verb

Ian MacMillan presents the weekly cabaret of new writing, poetry and performance. Travel writer Alexander Frater contemplates the darker side of the monsoon in a special commission and novelist Kitty Fitzgerald discusses her startling debut Pigtopia. Plus a performance from the UK's first ever poetry boy band, Aisle 16.

10.50 BBC-4 The Sky at Night

A Journey Through Space and Time

10.55 Channel 4 Zippy and George's Puppet Legends

Postponed from 7 July, featuring interviews with Orville, Sooty and Sweep, and Nobby the Sheep.

Sunday

8.10 am Radio 4 Sunday Worship

Paul the Pilgrim: The beginning of a week of pilgrimage following the spiritual journey of St Paul. Continues in the Daily Service, 9.45am on Long Wave only.

7.20 BBC-4 Fall of the Wall

A two-part programme, showing back-to-back, explaining how the wall came tumbling down.

9 pm BBC-2 Europe: A Natural History

Ice Age Sean Pertwee narrates a series chronicling the events which shaped the continent of Europe as we now know it. This had better be as good as Coast, otherwise we'll have to get Nick and his crew to do it. Properly.

Monday

11.00 Radio 4 Losing my Religion

People who don't wish to continue their religion.

3.45 Radio 4 Five Shapes

Marcus Du Sautoy talks about his favourite shapes. In order: Cube, Pyramid, Sphere, Bagel, Blob. (R)

4 pm Radio 3 Stage and Screen

Secret Love Edward Seckerson's profile of the only living person with a public holiday named after her, National Doris Day. (R)

4 pm Boomerang Animaniacs

And every day at this time.

4.30 Boomerang Roobarb and Custard

And they'll be making the same error as every bloody twit makes each day at this time.

7.05 World Service Looking For Democracy

The World Service is having a major series right across the schedule this week, "Who Runs Our World", but you wouldn't know it from reading the rusty old Radio Times. Robin Lustig takes a critical look at 'democracy' each day at this time.

8 pm Radio 4 Germany

Misery to Miracle. Charles Wheeler's history of post-war Germany starts with the occupation. There's an election in Germany on Sunday, and it appears no-one is providing live results. CNN tried in 2002, but suffered a power cut after a couple of minutes, and had to cobble together an explanation from the various party headquarters. It didn't work, and we'd have liked to see them try again.

8 pm BBC-2 Map Man

Mackenzie's Chart of the Orkneys So, is Murdoch Mackenzie's map of the northern isles good enough for Nick to sail through? And is the host mad enough to camp out overnight in the middle of winter?

8.30 World Service The Word

Who runs the world of book publishing? Continues next week.

9 pm BBC-2 The Secret Life of an Office Cleaner

The claim: nearly all office cleaners are immigrants working illegally. The reality: the BBC's hyped it up and is arguing by anecdote. Again.

9.30 Radio 4 Six Places that Changed the World

Geneva, as in the refugee convention.

10 pm BBC-2 Ebay: Money For Old Rope?

Rajan Datar tries his luck as a small-time entrepreneur selling on Ebay, and sees how the company's success is now attracting the attention of the taxman. (R)

Tuesday

9.30am Radio 4 Further Five Numbers

1,729, and prime factor cryptography.

6.30 Radio 4 Old Harry's Game

Andy Hamilton's comedy series set in hell is back for a new series, and the devil tries to persuade mankind to be good. With Robert Duncan as Scumspawn, a step up from his previous role as Gus Hedges.

7.30 Radio 3 Performance on 3

From the Edinburgh International Festival, Mahler 3, performed by the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, Royal Scottish National Orchestra Junior Chorus, and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

10 pm Channel 4 When Blue Peter Became Abba

Peter Duncan, Janet Ellis, Stuart Miles and Romana D'Annunzio are going to be ABBA.

Wednesday

7 pm BBC-2 The Ambassador's Last Stand

John Sweeney tells the story of Craig Murray, Britain's colourful former ambassador to Uzbekistan. Murray says that when he tried to reverse Britain's secret use of intelligence obtained under torture, he was accused of being a crook, a drunk, and selling visas for sex. He suffered a nervous breakdown, retired, then stood against his former boss John Straw in the general election.

Thursday

8.30 Radio 4 In Business

Why do employers need to subject their workers to psychometric tests and what do they learn from them?

9 pm Channel 4 Dispatches

The Big Heist Investigating the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast last December.

Friday

5 pm BBC-1 Blue Peter

In which Zoe starts to clean London's sewers. With a toothbrush. On her own. And she can't come back up until she's finished.

7 pm BBC-2 Little Europe

Allan Little goes on a journey to discover what Europe has become and asks if Britain feels part of it. Along the way he visits Airbus, which has eclipsed Boeing as the global leader in aviation and the Eurovision Song Contest to find out what has changed in almost half a century of the European Community.

9 pm BBC-4 BBC Four Sessions

Loudon Wainwright III.

9 pm Discovery Conspiracies on Trial

Robert Maxwell So, was Robert Maxwell assassinated, or was he driven off in a speedboat driven by Lord Lucan, Elvis Presley, and Shergar?

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posted 15 Sep 2005, 16.27 +0100

Well, I come back from a couple of days away, and find that a few things have changed. John has ceased writing Shot by Both Sides, because someone took offence at something he wrote, and thought it would be a wise move to complain to his employer. Some people have no sense of -- anything, really.

And Google has launched its long-awaited blog search. Those of you who have been following the rants here will not be surprised to learn that this blog is having exactly nothing to do with the evil behemoth's latest attempt to flog adverts. And usually not even their own. As Burningbird pointed out:

"I searched on Missouri and then had to wade through pages of real estate ads. From the review, I gather it searches blogs based on those pinging the 'popular' ping servers. The same servers that bring every comment spammer in the biz sniffing around your place. So I can ping weblogs.com or blo.gs, get hundreds of new comment spam; in order to show up in Google Blog Search, and thereby attracting even more hundreds of comment, referer, and trackback-attempt spam. Oh, yes. Just what we needed.

Boring. Boring, boring, boring. If these hotshot companies would hire more women engineers, we might actually see something different, something new rather than the same old, same old with a new package and a godlike name attached: Google Blog Search. But don’t let this stop you middle aged white boys from jumping up and down, y’hear?"

(With thanks to someone in the comments for the post title.)

Google likes people to think that it was always at the forefront of innovation. This is rot. It was late onto the search engine market, didn't advance the cause of webmail one iota, and has acquired all of its half-way useful offerings before dumbing them down and robbing them of all usefulness, rather than developing them in-house. And so it is here; half-assed searches of Yankee blogs are already done perfectly poorly by the likes of Technorati, and Google hasn't even risen to those woefully low standards.

It appears that the source for this search is the RSS file published by all good blogs. Now, while Google's RSS crawler appears to respect the robots.txt protocol that all good crawlers follow, there's no way of telling it to "Index my main site, but not the RSS feed". This is important, because it is perfectly possible to publish one thing in the main article, and only a precis - automated or hand-written - in the RSS.

Dejanews encountered a similar problem when it began to archive Usenet posts, but advocated the X-no-archive header and provided a simple mechanism to remove posts. Google has not thought this problem through, or it has and has decided to ignore it. Either way, the giant is not offering any solution to the no-index RSS problem they've created. Even their suggested removal mechanism requires one to accept their never-expiring cookies, which are a clear invasion of privacy and are probably illegal under EU data protection rules.

In the arms race between real internet users and the commercial monsters, we have the upper hand. I will be diminishing their profits by withdrawing my writing from Google. They cannot come back on to my site until they fulfil all these criteria:

• Abolish the never-expiring cookie.
• Show emails from non G-mail users without commercials, for we have not accepted their "conditions".
• Reverse the 2005 changes to the Google Gropes interface.
• Implement a mechanism to avoid RSS feeds marked as private.
• Admit that the company is out to make money first, and the whole "do no evil" thing is a subsidiary of the pursuit of the almightily worthless dollar.

Until such time as these conditions are met, I have no compunction about using scrapers to take the behemoth's results without seeing their servers. Nor do I have any moral qualms about adding the following lines to my .htaccess file:

The net result? Any request for anything from Google is redirected to a page explaining my boycott, and that they're only seeing that page because Google is fundamentally broken. (And, no, I don't want the page to redirect to itself. That would be daft, and would throw an error message on decent browsers, or choke IE to death.)

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posted 16 Sep 2005, 17.37 +0100

Also while I was away, Seymour The Safety Elephant has put himself in contempt of court. The British interior minister was previously billed here as "Charles In Charge", until we realised that he wasn't actually in charge of his own charge card.

Anyway, Seymour suffered one of the many serious reverses in April, when a jury threw out a fantasy about a ricin plot. There was no ricin plot, and anyone who claims there was does not know the first thing about jurisprudence, and should not be promoted above his level of incompetence, such as Second Under-secretary for Paperclips. Even Under-Minister of Culture would be a job too far.

So, safe in the knowledge that the government has planted lies in the media, the Grate British Public goes to the polling booth and gives them a guarded vote of no confidence. Five months on, hoping that no-one will remember the fact that there was no plot, Seymour has ordered the seven people to be detained and thrown out of the country.

One person was convicted of having a Mad Scientist Plan. He wanted to make ricin out of breadcrumbs and butterbeans, then kill lots of people by, er, smearing the concoction onto their exposed skin, because that's the only way that ricin kills people. It doesn't suffice to breathe it in, it's got to touch you.

Does the rule of law count for nothing any more? Or is an acquital not worth the paper it's written on? Seymour and his cronies will try to deport seven people who have been convicted of no crime to a country where they will almost certainly be tortured. Or executed.

The Interior Ministry has declined to confirm the identities of the seven people detained, or where they were being held, or on what grounds they were being imprisoned on no lawful authority.

How many times we got to do it? El-if-i-no.

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posted 16 Sep 2005, 19.22 +0100

Almost 18 months after being axed by Vermin Radio, Captain America will play some quality alt-country on The Arrow (UK) each Sunday night from 2 October. The show will run between 7 and 9pm.

The station is on DAB in the West Midlands, South Wales and the Severn Estuary, the North West, North East, Yorkshire, Central Scotland, and London; it's also on NTL channel 874, and is on Astra 2B, transponder 32 (12324V), service ID 5755.

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posted 16 Sep 2005, 19.36 +0100

Less than four years after opening, Beatties in Birmingham is to close. The upwardly-mobile department store occupies the former C&A building on Corporation Street, and has been hit a little more hard by the new Bull Ring than Beatties hoped. The Wolverhampton-based department store was taken over by the House of Fraiser over the summer, and it's clear that the new paymasters haven't got the patience to let the store turn a profit. Impatient sods.

The government looks set to delay the council tax rebanding exercise scheduled for this autumn. The re-assessment of property values needs to take place in order to make the local government tax a little less unfair. It's being held up by the innumerate right-wing press, who are blithely peddling the myth that taxes won't adjust depending on the distribution of property around the bands.

Suppose, for example, that a council has 800 houses, 400 in band D, and 400 in band E. The council starts by working out how much money they need to raise through council tax - say, £850,000. Under the council tax rules, houses in band E pay 9/8ths as much as houses in band D - this factor is laid down by central government and cannot be changed. Therefore, each house in band D must pay £1000, and each band E house pays £1125. Result? £850,000 to the council.

Now suppose that 300 houses are upgraded from band D to band E. The council still wants £850,000, but there are more houses in band E. Crunching the figures shows that the 100 remaining band D houses pay £957.74 (and an odd 0.65p), and band E houses now pay £1077.46 (and a half-penny). The houses moving up a band are paying more, but not as much as they're currently paying.

The first paragraph of to-day's leader in the Torygraph goes as follows:

When devolved authorities get things wrong, there is huge pressure on the centre to assume responsibility for the problem, and the test of a brave leader is that he is able to resist such pressure. Mr Bush has failed that test.

The paper's analysis is holed below the water-line: as soon as Louisiana's provincial premier requested assistance from the federal team, on the Saturday before the hurricane struck, it ceased to be a devolved matter. The provincial response was hamstrung in any case, hampered by the gradual winding-down of local emergency management over the last decade, in favour of a one-size-fits-all policy imposed from the national centre.

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posted 17 Sep 2005, 13.53 +0100

So, the first day of Radio 2's new Saturday schedule to-day. Here's some quick thoughts:

2pm Chris Evans He wasn't particularly entertaining on Radio 1, his show on Vermin Radio might have made sense for someone a little drunk but no-one's going that way at 7 in the morning. After four years away, and having shagged Billie Piper back into popularity, is Cliff Evans any good on Radio 2? Er, no. The programme's perhaps even more dull than Hold the Gravy, his brief stint on Radio 1 in 1992, after Phillip Schofield left to concentrate on his acting and before The Big Breakfast came calling. That was a pointless programme, so is this one.

5pm Dermot O'Leary The "Saturday Club" conceit just about worked between 2 and 4, I'm not at all convinced it works in the later hour. Mr Flintoff has the chance to connect with people coming away from the football, and I'm sure he'd be able to do it well. Probably a little better than this. In fairness, I broke away after the first hour to hear Journey Into Space (the antepenultimate episode, I'm not leaving it after 37/40 weeks) and...

6.10 Antan Dec's Gameshow Marathon - this week, "The Price Is Right". Can Antan Dec present the show better than Bruce Forsyth? Yes, they take the piss out of the format in a way Bruce never quite managed. Are they better than Leslie Crowther? It's difficult to tell. I'd like to see a full-length Crowther episode to compare. Certainly, fitting a 30-minute show into a 60-minute slot requires a lot of padding, and all the camera spins don't help.

7pm Paul Gambiccinni It's strange to think that Gambo's show aired 5.30 - 7 from April 98 until March 00, so would have finished before it now begins. (The later timings: 6 - 7.30 from March - June 00; 6.30 - 8 from July 00 to this time last year; then back to 6 - 7.30 until last week.) It's difficult to tell if the show works better in this slot after one week, but I fear it'll always sound best with a news break after 30 minutes. Without it, the second segment of the programme too easily becomes an unstructured and very long period, without the obvious style landmarks of Country and R&B in the third segment. With a news break, the second segment is split in two, and always came out of the news with a familiar contemporary hit. The Last Salute feature seems to have been dropped, I won't miss it.

(For the record, the show-clock is as follows. Segment 1: oldie, newie (sometimes two), album of the week. Segment 2: one or two tracks, old Bubblers that missed the 100, one or two new tracks, album of the week. Segment 3: may begin with a new track, Country then and now, may have a rock track, R&B then and now. Segment 4: album of the week, current hit album, two number one singles, current number one. Segments 1, 3, and 4 have run unchanged since 1998; segment 2 has included Grammy songs of the year, Oscar winners, "Only In America", "The original is still the best", and "The last salute".)

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posted 17 Sep 2005, 20.39 +0100

Your blurb

Scott Simon takes a moment to note England's first-ever victory in the Ashes cricket tournament with Australia.

manages to cram two errors into one sentence. Congratulations, this must be the sloppiest piece of journalism I've read all month.

For the record, England has regularly won the Ashes since they were established in 1882, though the side had not won them since 1987. Furthermore, the trophy is awarded on the result of a "series" of matches, similar to golf's Ryder Cup. In cricketing parlance, a "tournament" will always involve three or more teams.

You may wish to review the comprehensive Wikipedia article for a more detailed overview of the series' history. You may also wish to look into the power struggle that's ruined your country's chances of advancing up the world ladder of cricket - I'm sure it would make a useful five-minute feature.

Best, Weaver

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posted 18 Sep 2005, 11.00 +0100

Mister Blair claims the BBC's coverage of Katrina was "full of hatred of America" and "gloating" at the area's plight. Well, so says Labour's puppeteer Rupert Murdoch, which instantly makes us wonder why the PM has taken to attacking the public service broadcaster with a reputation for impartiality. He could, for instance, have attacked partisan television "news" services that make insentitive comments such as "I think that works to our advantage, in the western world's advantage.". Wonder why he doesn't.

"Vote Lib Dem, Get Tory", repeats Peter Hain in the Obs. No, if people vote Lib Dem, then they will get Lib Dem. It really is a very simple proposition, but one Mr Hain is clearly having trouble grasping.

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posted 18 Sep 2005, 11.31 +0100

We're rather liking the hits from Germany at the moment - Tokio Hotel and Die Firma are joined this week by Marc Terenzi, whose tender ballad Love to be loved by you deserves its hit status. A new list-leader in Denmark - Trine Dyrholm's Mr nice guy topples Anna David. Old friends return - Brainstorm's Thunder without rain has made it in neighbouring Lithuania, and Norway plays host to Celice, the revival single from A-ha. Depeche Mode's Precious is the biggie in Poland, while Bon Jovi are number two in Sweden.

North Europe's Top Twenty

*20 NE Rasmus - No fear
*19 20 David Gray - The one I love
 18 17 Tokio Hotel - Durch den monsun
 17 10 Raphael - Caravanne
 16 12 Ilona Mitrecey - C'est les vacances
 15  8 Rhianna - Upon the replay
*14 NE Black Eyed Peas - Don't lie
 13 13 Pinocchio - T'es pas cap Pinocchio
*12 18 Juanes - La camisa negra
 11 11 Schnappi - Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil
 10  9 Gorillas - Dare
  9  6 McFly - I'll be OK
* 8 NE Pussycat Dolls - Don't you
  7  5 Ilona Mitrecey - Un monde parfait
  6 14 Charlotte Church - Crazy chick
* 5  7 Kelly Clarkson - Since you've been gone
  4  4 Crazy Frog - Axel f
* 3  3 Shakira - La tortura
  2  2 Daniel Powter - Bad day
* 1  1 James Blunt - You're beautiful

The three new entries mix two slices of predictable corporate junk (or "crunk", as I understand it's now called) to one portion of agreeable if lightweight Finnish rock.

In the UK, the Dolls retain the top spot, ahead of Sean Paul's We're burning. Bon Jovi bows at 6, one place ahead of 28 New Pence. Another, slightly heavier, portion of Finnish rock is in at 10, in the shape of Him's Wings of a butterfly. Even better, they've pushed Status Quid's The party ain't over yet down to number 11. It's third single trouble for Jem, Wish I only makes number 24, but that's still ahead of the Subways' With you, or this week's Pointless Re-Release Of The Week, Riot radio from the Dead 60s, back in at 30. On the albums front, David Gray tops the list, Paul Fab Macca Whacky Thumbs Aloft McCartney is at 10, Sigur Ros at 16, and Simple Minds can only make 37. The chances of a Jim Kerr revival are mercifully nil.

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posted 18 Sep 2005, 14.07 +0100

So, the German election exit polls are in. The scoreboard, reading right-to-left:

CDU 36.0 -2.5
FDP 10.2 +2.8
SPD 34.0 -4.5
Grü  8.2 -0.4
Lnk  8.2 +4.2

Which means that, as in 2002, the SPD have pulled off a bigger result than the pollsters were expecting, but both major parties have lost ground to the minor parties. The Christian Democrats under Angela Merkl are the largest party, but they've lost ground, mostly to their proposed coalition partners the Free Democrats. The FDP's picked up a few votes from the Socialists, but most of their voters have hopped to the new Links party, including the PDS, the former communists from the East. The Greens have just about held their position.

Germany uses an almost-perfectly proportional system, so the percentage of votes will translate almost exactly into seats: CDU 223 FDP 64 SPD 210 G 51 L 50

The major outcome: the CDU and Free Democrats look unable to be able to hold their coalition. The possibilities under discussion immediately after the polls closed were a Grand Coalition (CDU + SPD) - something the CDU pooh-poohed during the election; or a traffic-light coalition (SPD + FDP + G). Neither major party was prepared to discuss a coalition with the Links party of the left - the CDU ruled out this idea because of the ideological gulf between the parties, and the SPD won't talk to people who left their party in the recent past. An SPD + G + L coalition looked likely to gain just enough seats to form a majority; as there are no by-elections in Germany, any majority would also be a working majority.

Franz Münterfering, chair of the SPD, told the party HQ that his party would be expecting Herr Schröder to remain Chancellor, and they would not talk to the Linkspartei.

In other elections recently, the Japanese election (last Sunday) saw an increased majority for the ruling Liberal Democrat parties. Their cause was helped by a tactic of standing celebrity candidates against leading opposition figures - think Labour parachuting Tony Robinson into one of their marginals. The New Zealand election (yesterday) saw the Labour party beat the right-wing National party by just one seat; both parties are discussing coalitions with the minor parties, which hold the balance of power.

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posted 18 Sep 2005, 17.35 +0100

Further to my post of two hours ago, it now appears that the SPD and CDU are within one point of each other, compared to a 3,5% gap when the polls closed. Could it be that Herr Schröder's party will be the largest in the new Bundestag? If so, what does that say about the economic reforms his party has implemented; should other countries within Europe move towards that social bargain, and away from the hire-n-fire policy beloved of the free marketeers?

May we live in interesting times.

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posted 18 Sep 2005, 19.32 +0100

A final burst of humid weather this week, but the Jumper Front came crashing down on Thursday, bringing the westerlies and cold air that makes everyone go digging out their sweaters.

12 Mo sun                 11/23,  0.0
13 Tu sun                  9/23,  0.0
14 We sun                 14/22,  0.0
15 Th cloud, hvy showers  12/22,  7.6
16 Fr sunny spells         8/14,  0.5
17 Sa sunny spells         6/14,  0.0
18 Su cloud               12/16,  0.0

Ten more degree cooling days this week, taking the summer's total to 233. I suspect this will be the final total.

There's another vigorous low passing north of Scotland to-morrow, with a front draping across the whole country. Might sweep away the worst of the cloud, and Tuesday should be quiet. Another depression will pass between Scotland and Iceland around Wednesday, bringing strong south-westerlies and the threat of rain. Slacker air should bring a more quiet week-end.

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posted 18 Sep 2005, 19.33 +0100

older writing... write to