An update to the German election three weeks ago. Angela Merkel will be the new Chancellor in a Grand Coalition. Her CDU will have six cabinet seats, compared with eight from Herr Schröder's SPD. The current Chancellor will not be amongst them, he will now return to the back-benches. There's a lot of disquiet in the SPD's ranks about this move, and many activists are disaffected enough to drift over to the Linkspartei. The chance of this coalition lasting the full four years appears minimal.

And an update to the BBC CWR station. Jon Gaunt has been engineered out of the breakfast hot-seat after barely a month. His crime? He's signed to opine for the Daily Tabloid, and puts himself in breach of the BBC's new rules preventing news presenters from writing opinion columns. The new voice at the start of the day will be named in the coming days.

We're entertained by The Great Canadian Mileage Run, the diary of someone trying to clock up a million air miles in 60 days. Two questions: 1) Shouldn't that be "kilometreage"? 2) Why?

Infinitely less impressive: the Yahoo podcast directory. All Yankee gobshite, all the time. Where are the world voices?

Some unfortunate cuts to last night's Gilmore Girls premiere. Season 3, episode 4, I'm not going to explain the context, but the words in black type were muted on Nick:

LORELAI: Now, hold on. You have no right to judge me. All I said was that for my particular circumstances things worked out okay. I advocated nothing to them. You’re all acting like I walked into that room tossing condoms in the air.

LADY 2: You might as well have.

LORELAI: Fine, next time I will. I'll bring a banana and we'll have a little show and tell. How 'bout that?

The censorship was blatant and noticeable, which I think is more honest than the BBC's sly cuts. On the one hand, it's a shame that Nickelodeon felt compelled to censor such mild innuendo at 9.45 in the evening; on the other hand, they are being honest about what they're doing, and they are showing Gilmore Girls once a week in a sensible slot, rather than once a day in the middle of the afternoon.

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posted 10 Oct 2005, 21.30 +0100

"Crackers" - David Plunkett. Indeed it is. What does it say about this government that a man drummed out of office for telling complete fibs last December should be back in the cabinet barely 20 weeks later. They're a bunch of lying toe-rags.

"This government lacks intelligence" - the words of Douglas Hurd, who was both Interior and Foreign secretary under the Conservative regime. He was speaking on this week's Panorama, which tried to explain the conflicts between the government's dash for restriction and the desire for liberty coming from members of the legal profession. This tension was exemplified by some very stilted and un-natural dialogue that purpoted to be conversation between Mister Tony Blair (somehow, still the prime minister) and Mistress Cherie Blair (under her maiden name of Cherie Booth, a human rights lawyer.) That device didn't work; the conversations with members of the ricin non-plot jury were a very effective counterbalance to the heavyweight lawyerly speak.

"No, Plunkett." Which brings us to A Very Social Secretary, Alistair Beaton-Generation's satire for More 4 last night. It'll be repeated on Channel 4 next week. Don't go out of your way to watch it - the programme lasts for 90 minutes, but contains very little of substance. It would probably have been fine as a 60-minute programme. Particularly poor here, as on Panorama, were the impressions of Mister Blair - Jon Culshaw has set the bar particularly high.

And speaking of labour solidarity, I'm sure that the former education minister Herr Plunkett will be backing the teachers of British Columbia in their battle against a lying, cheating government of tosspots. Er. Fabulous coverage from Yule's Log there.

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posted 11 Oct 2005, 21.42 +0100

And now there are four. Malcolm Rifkind has withdrawn from the Conservative leadership election, saving everyone the hassle of taking the balloting over another week-end. The right-wing candidates - David Davis and Liam Fox - and the centreists - David Cameron and Kenneth Clarke - will be narrowed down to two by ballots of the party's MPs on Tuesday and Thursday next week. Those two will go to a ballot of the party membership, with the result due in December.

Het Grauniad's swenglob takes a look at Mr Cameron's record on drugs. Quite frankly, who cares if he did or didn't. Indeed, if he did, would this encourage a more open and rational discussion on the use of drugs?

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posted 11 Oct 2005, 21.43 +0100

The BBC has announced its funding bid for the next seven years. Central to the Beeb's strategy is, er, building lots more transmitters. Why? To allow the analogue signals to be replaced by digital ones. Why? So that ... well, good question. Why is the country being put through the mill of having its analogue television switched off? And why are we having to pay for it through the television tax? Is there not a case for the government meeting this out of projected gains from selling off the analogue spectrum - Gordon Brown can't object, as it won't count as borrowing over the economic cycle.

In fact, why not replace some of the license fee with a tax on televisions? Let the BBC take, say, 10% added on to the cost of each new set when it's bought. By my back-of-the-envelope reckoning, this would allow the Beeb to reduce the license fee by about £25 per year. What's more, this would be a far more progressive tax than the existing flat-rate per household. Those who could afford large televisions, or expensive televisions, or a television in every room, would pay a lot of television tax; those who only have one small television in their house, and who use it until it breaks, would pay very little.

Instead, the Beeb wants to increase the license fee by inflation plus 2.3% each year until 2013. That's rather rich, especially as the Beeb has abandoned its traditional drive for broadcast quality in favour of broadcast quantity. There is no obvious need for the Beeb to have a national radio network serving the Asian community, not when there are already many competing stations for that part of society. There should be no need for the BBC to have a legal black music radio station, but the other radio stations have consistently refused to serve that part of society. Is there a case for 6 Music to have such a narrow remit? For BBC-7 to concentrate exclusively on comedy and drama, at the expense of other speech output? Is there still a case for BBC-3 in its current guise?

And, the burning question at the moment: with the extra money, will the Beeb be able to find the readies to show this month's Eurovision 50 gala? No? Oh, close 'em down for the week-end.

And take the dog from More 4 with you - we probably don't need to know we're watching M4, we certainly don't need to know that the show we're watching is "new". Quite honestly, I'd have expected better than that. BBC-4 knows when to show its identifier during programmes, and far more importantly, when not to.

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posted 11 Oct 2005, 21.43 +0100

those who objected to this [internment] legislation should provide an alternative argument to how else the problems we faced could be solved (PMOS, yesterday)

Better intelligence is one plank of the answer. That's more approriate and more accurate targetting of individuals. The extra-judicial killing of Sr de Menezes has all the problems in a nutshell - the pursuit was amateurish from start to finish. So many opportunities to resolve the matter without any shots being fired were spurned.

The use of phone-tap evidence in court is surely a no-brainer. The only argument against it: there would be calls for the interior minister to lose his absolute discretion to order phone taps and other message intercepts. That's a price I'm more than happy to pay, because I think it would be an improvement to the current, somewhat arbitrary, arrangements.

What else would help? Better intelligence at the top of government. Put someone in charge who has the brains to think things through. Someone who will not attempt to force a contradiction with treaty obligations they've enshrined in law. Someone who can do some joined-up thinking. Someone who can do some independent thinking in the first place, not just mindlessly parrot what his handlers (A Campbell, D Rumsveld, P Mandelson) tell him to say.

So that's my alternative argument. Better intelligence all round.

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posted 12 Oct 2005, 19.08 +0100

This was sparked off by a post on Burningbird, putting a coherent case arguing against mass syndication. I'm not going to reduce this feed from full-content to excepts, though I reserve the right to do so in the future. Especially if I can do something as clever as Shelly has.

But this feeds into something I've been thinking about for some little time. I'm aware that the Livejournal feed of this blog includes the ability to make comments. I tend not to read these comments, and I won't particularly pay any attention to them.

Should I add comments to this main journal / diary / blog, and what value would they provide? Ever since this site began, it's been mostly a monologue. There have been inputs from contributors by email, and by link, but these have been few and far between.

Much of this has been for technical reasons. My service offers a large webspace, but charges a nominal fee for CGI scripts. I can't really justify that expense for a handful of comments from a handful of readers. For similar reasons, I've not been inclined to spend ages setting up something, only for no-one to use it.

The fashion in blogs has changed - when this project began, the standard was for each site to be a self-contained entity. It's only in later years that comments became possible, and only in the last eighteen months that they became expected. I'm never convinced by an "everyone else is doing it" argument, and don't intend to make an exception here.

One of the less attractive sides of allowing comments is that they make more work for me. Some I'll want to reply to, and that will be at the expense of something else I want to write about. And sometimes I'll just get annoyed at comment spam, though without the wit and tenacity of Mr Plastic Bag last week. I reckon that spam comments will devalue legitimate comments, just as spam email has devalued legitimate email.

Another argument comes from political activists from across the pond. Comments, they argue, will tend to make a site a destination in its own right, and distract attention from the actual point of the post. I've learned a lot from people who read the news so I don't have to - insomnia and mmaestro, to name but two. The newslinks are great posts in their own right, and perhaps don't need further comments.

Perhaps the clincher, though, is something that's implicitly suggested in Althouse and Atbozzo. As a rule, the quality of comments is an order of magnitude lower than the quality of main journal posts. Now, this place may not have particularly high standards, but I do make some sort of effort. I'd hope that every post is cogent, correctly spelled, free from obvious grammar errors, and is worth spending a moment of time reading.

In contrast, the average comment is undeveloped. While there's a germ of a good idea behind most of them, too often it's lost in the rush to comment.

By holding off on comments, I reckon that any spur-of-the-moment ideas will be exposed to the harsh light of reason. Thoughts will be properly thought through, and the resulting writing should be of a higher quality for all.

If you want to comment, this technology will always work, no matter how thrifty I'm being, no matter what platform I'm running:
1) Get a blog.
2) Publish your coherent, well-thought-out comments.
3) Include a link back to mine.
4) In the fullness of time, I'll find your comment, and the cycle will repeat.

Is this arrogant? Probably.
Underestimating the quality of my readers? I sincerely hope so.
Underestimating the quality of Joe Randomvisitor? Doubt it.
Idealistic? Almost certainly.

I remain to be convinced that comments are worth the candle. But I'm open to persuasion.

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posted 12 Oct 2005, 19.43 +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): Frederic Chopin.
Book of the Week (Radio 4, 9.45am and 12.30am): Two Lives, by Vikram Seth, read by Sam Dastor and Renu Setna.
Woman's Hour Play (Radio 4, 10.45am and 7.45pm): Betsy and Napoleon, by Julia Blackburn.
Book at Bedtime (Radio 4, 10.45): Arthur and George, by Julian Barnes, read by Clive Merrison. Second of two weeks.

Saturday

10.30 Radio 4 Trouble in the Magic Circle

Jeremy Vine investigates why the Magic Circle has been expelling some of the best conjuring talent in the business. And Dominic Wood.

7pm Channel 4 Building of The Year

Last year, the prize was won by 30 St Mary Axe, or "The Dildo" as we call it. Kevin McCloud hosts coverage of this year's contest.

7.10 BBC-2 Who do you think you are?

Moira Stewart. The newsreader traces her ancestry all the way back to Ian Messiter. Featuring a guest appearance by HH The Rangdo. (R)

Sunday

7.25 Radio 3 Drama on 3

A Bequest to the Nation, by Terence Rattigan. The passionate relationship between Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton causes tensions and friction amongst Nelson's family and colleagues. What does the greatest naval hero of the day see in this drunken, vulgar and blowsy woman? And what will he say when she comes back from Denmark?

8.05 BBC-4 The Bad Food Guide

Raymond Postgate, the man who invented The Good Food Guide in 1951. Contributors include Humphrey Lyttelton and Clement Freud.

9.30 Radio 3 The Sunday Feature

The Lion of Judah, the Gentleman of Bath. Haile Selassie.

10.15 Radio 3 Andy Kershaw

Kate Rusby performs songs from her new album The Girl who Couldn't Fly.

Monday

11.00 Radio 4 The Politics Of Remembrance

Plans to redevelop the site of the former Maze Prison have exposed the absence of any semblance of an agreed history of the conflict. Kevin Connolly looks at how Northern Ireland interprets its past and its relevance to the future.

4pm Radio 3 Stage and Screen

Tommy Steele talks with Edward Seckerson about a 50-year career including Cinderella, Finian's Rainbow, Singin' in the Rain, Hans Andersen and Half A Sixpence.

8pm BBC-2 Map Man

Mrs P's A-Z Nick Crane re-traces the steps of Phyllis Pearsall, the woman who compiled the London street map by herself.

8.30 BBC-4 Dinner with Portillo

The Legacy of Post War Britain Guests include Baroness Williams, PD James, Katharine Whitehorn and Sir Bernard Ingham. (Subtitles)

Tuesday

11.30 Radio 4 Crackerjack!

What did you expect it to be about? Janet Ellis presents.

6.30 Radio 4 The Consultants

Comedy sketch show written by and starring Neil Edmond, Justin Edwards and James Rawlings.

8.30 BBC-4 Thoroughly Modern Antiques

Domestic Appliances This series is a hidden little gem, exploring design in the modern era. This week, it's things like vacuum cleaners and food mixers.

9pm BBC-4 A Very British Olympics

"After the disaster of the 2012 event, it's easy to see why Britain will never again be asked to run anything more than a hot bath. This documentary, originally made in 2005 when the seven wasted years began, reviewed the 1948 games. Back then, British athletes got fit on jelly and custard, the women had to make their own kit, and no one could find the British flag for the opening ceremony. Perfect planning" - The Intelligent Radio (and Hologram) Times, 18-24 October 2014.

10pm BBC-4 Moscow. The Cold War Olympics

Steve Cram recalls how the Moscow Olympics of 1980 came to symbolise the intensity of the Cold War between East and West.

Wednesday

8.45 Radio 4 A Long Time in Politics

Brian Walden recalls seven days in July 1993 when a group of Conservative rebels threatened the Maastricht Treaty and the very survival of the Conservative government. (R)

9pm BBC-4 Cold War Dirty Science

Back in the 1940s, Britain tried to develop chemical and biological weapons. And wasn't invaded by christian fundamentalists eager to expedite the rapture.

9.30 Radio 3 Night Waves

Clive James talks to Matthew Sweet about politics and the art of essay writing, his tempestuous affair with Formula One, the importance of literary style and why he lives in constant fear of wasting his life.

10pm BBC-2 Room 101

In which Phillip Schofield tries to consign Gordon the Gopher to the infamous room. That'll be the end of his career, then.

Thursday

11.30 Radio 4 Faking the Classics

Shakespeare. LiteraTec's Jonathan Bate investigates the attempts to forge the works of the great. With a guest appearance by Emma Hamilton as "Ophelia".

7pm BBC-2 The Culture Show

Charles Hazlewood is this week's presenter, including a first glimpse of some new big work in the North.

8pm Radio 4 The Truth About School League Tables

They're measuring the wrong thing. Simon Cox will take 27 minutes to explain the blindingly obvious.

9pm Channel 4 A Very Social Secretary

Not particularly recommended, but if you want to see what all the fuss is about...

9.30 BBC-4 The Battle For The Ashes

Over 120 years of test cricket culminated in "Rupert Murdoch! Your boys took a hell of a beating!" last month. Contributors include Michael Vaughan, David Gower, Ian Botham, Shane Warne and Richie Benaud.

Friday

6.30 BBC-2 Trafalgar 200. Nelson's Glorious Victory

Live coverage, once again, is confined to News 24, but there's same-day highlights on BBC-2. Newsround veteran Huw Edwards is the nominal host, but all eyes will be on Neil Oliver, the historian from summer smash Coast.

7.30 Radio 2 The Likes of Us

The world premiere of the first musical collaboration between Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The Likes Of Us is the story of the life of Dr Thomas Barnardo. Written in 1965, the musical has never been performed to the public until now. Recorded at the Mermaid Theatre in London, the BBC Concert Orchestra is joined by a star studded cast, headed by Stephen Fry as the narrator.

7.30 Radio 3 Performance on 3

It seems like years since The Third Programme last gave a premiere. This Trafalgar Day concert contains the debut of Errollyn Wallen's Our English Heart. If more traditional sea shanties are your thing, hither to Classic FM at 9.

9pm BBC-4 Matt Monro. The Man With The Golden Voice

The young Londoner born Terry Parsons who became one of the world's most popular ballad singers. Contributors include Paul Gambaccini, Don Black, George Martin, John Barry and Monro's family. Narrated by Neil Pearson, or Dave From Drop The Dead Donkey.

10pm more4 Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain

We don't normally plug films in this column, and we've no intention of wasting a perfectly good Friday night on this nonsense. Still, it might entertain one or two of you, for some inexplicable reason. In French with subtitles.

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posted 13 Oct 2005, 19.59 +0100

One-all for the government in the courts yesterday. At the High Court, it was victory in the Railtrack case, brought by small shareholders who were unhappy at the way the government had bounced the track-and-signalling company into recievership back in 2001. The judge threw out the case for malfeasance, but also slammed Stephen Byers. The transport minister at the time gave evidence "little above gibberish", said the judgement; opposition parties have reported him to the ombusdman. The case proved to any reasonable observer that the government had run Railtrack into the ground, and denied funding that would subsequently be provided to Notwork Rail. In the judge's opinion, this did not amount to a deliberate plan to use targeted malice to close the company. An appeal against the substantive judgement has not been ruled out, but experience shows that the judiciary tends to close ranks in this sort of case. However, there could yet be further egg on the government's face - a leading hedge fund manager reckons the evidence has shown that Railtrack was not insolvent when it was wound up, and that this misleading claim came from the Transport ministry.

The defeat came in the small matter of deportations to Zimbabwe, where the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that Seymour the Safety Elephant was getting it wrong. Big surprise. The error in this case: whether Zimbabwe was likely to abuse people returned to the country. There's a wider implication than just Zimbabwe: remember Mister Blair's plans to deport innocent terror suspects back to their country of origin? This result is further ammunition to those who argue that "memoranda of understanding" are not worth the paper they're written on. Question: why haven't the press picked up on this angle?

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posted 15 Oct 2005, 13.02 +0100

Back on Tuesday, I briefly mentioned a pointless spat about drugs. Since then, it's gone on. And on, and on. Respected Conservative writer Guido Fawkes suggests what David Davies is up to. He reckons, rightly or wrongly, that David Cameron took cocaine at university.

That, apparently, is the key question facing the Conservative party. Not, "How can we better connect with the voters." Not, "What policies will help us to defeat Labour next time around." Not even, "What vision do we share and we can communicate to the people over the coming years." No, the only important question facing the Conservative party is, "Did you sniff cocaine while at university?"

This is not the most important matter on the agenda for this leadership election. Indeed, it appears that Mr Davis knows that he has completely lost the battle for the soul of the party. Mr Davis knows that his vision, of an increasingly reactionary, increasingly out-of-touch party cannot possibly provide the stiff opposition that Britain so desperately needs. And if Mr Davis doesn't know that much, he should do.

Bereft of actual policy ideas, Mr Davis and his team have resorted to the one weapon they have left: personal attacks on their opponent. There is an interesting hypocracy at work here, as Mr Davis's shock troops in this battle have been the journalists of the Daily Hell and its sister sleaze-rags. The leader of these attacks is that Peter McKay, who has a reputation for being a complete drunk. Is there a moral difference between getting completely smashed out of one's face on alcohol, or getting smashed out of one's face on cocaine? Leave your legal arguments at the door: is there a moral difference?

It's the most blatant campaign of smear and misinformation since the loopy claims on Iraq. Evidently, Mr Davis wants to be the new Mr Blair. Don't.

According to all reports, to-morrow's Hell On Sunday will go big on these cocaine claims. Why would any sane person buy this tissue of lies? Even more importantly, why would any sane person write for this tissue of lies? Without journalists, the papers would be thinner than the Morning Star. With Mr Davis in charge, the Tories' chances of winning would be about the same thickness.

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posted 15 Oct 2005, 13.19 +0100

M'learned friend Jiggers points out that Google revised its privacy policy overnight. Is it any better than the last one? Is it compliant with all of the EU's Data Protection Principles (DPPs)? Allow me to analyse them, one by one.

I: Personal data shall be obtained and processed fairly and lawfully
In effect, this principle insists that the subject has given their informed consent, or there's a legal contract involved. No particular problem here, though it's curious that Google is still making cookies mandatory for some services.

II: Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes.
And here we have a show-stopper. The formal policy states: We offer some of our services in connection with other web sites. Personal information that you provide to those sites may be sent to Google in order to deliver the service. We process such information in accordance with this Policy. The affiliated sites may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies. This is inadequate. If the affiliates have different privacy policies, it is Google's responsibility to draw this to the user's attention. It's not the user's responsibility to seek out an oft-hidden policy. Already, the conclusion is inescapable, but it's instructive to go through the remaining clauses.

III: Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed.
There's a probable breach here. Google's cookies are still set to expire in 2038, at the technical limit of a UNIX system. Furthermore, every search is recorded on Google's servers, cross-referenced against the cookie. The company has consistently refused to explain how this is not excessive retention of data, and appears not to realise that the onus of proof is on the data processor.

IV: Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.
Google appears to take no particular steps to ensure the information is accurate, allowing individuals to edit their information at any time. This is imperfect, but acceptable.

V: Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
This is where the cookie falls down. Keeping data indefinitely is a prima facie violation of this principle.

VI: Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under these Principles.
Again, this doesn't happen. For anecdote, I've been engaged in a guerilla battle to get Google to remove my work from its blog search engine. The company has failed to respond to any of my correspondence. Even when the BBC is clearly wrong, it is prepared to enter into civil correspondence. This is a clear failure to allow the deletion of personal information under the DPPs.

VII: Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.
According to the policy, We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data... We restrict access to personal information to Google employees, contractors and agents... These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations. We'll read this as a "yes".

VIII: Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area, unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.
Google claims to have signed up to the Safe Harbour scheme, run by the FARCE to allow its local companies to claim compliance with the DPPs. In this case, the policies fail to meet the DPPs. However, by signing up to this scheme, Google has rendered itself amenable to challenge by any of the EU's Data Protection Commissioners. It's a rare example of European law extending its tentacles across the Atlantic to influence the practices of the FARCE.

It'll be interesting to see how Google responds to Data Protection Directive requests for all the information it holds about a given person. It'll also be interesting to see how the company responds to calls for deletion from those who know their rights.

Ultimately, this is a step in the right direction, and it's a long way better than many others. But it's still not good enough. There remains a huge legal hole, especially for users of Google's mail service. The local laws only reckon emails are confidential for six months after being sent, and can then be inspected with nothing more than a police warrant. The Privacy FAQ states, Google does comply with valid legal process, such as search warrants, court orders, or subpoenas seeking personal information. Such searches are clear violations of principles II, VI and VII, and rather make a mockery of the "Safe harbour" protections granted under principle VIII.

It's barely a month since I published my Five Criteria for Google's return. They were:

• 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.

Of these conditions, only the fourth appears to have been met. Furthermore, as the privacy policy does not meet the DPPs, I shall not be sending anything other than a formal and reasoned take-down notice to the company.

That includes those of you with G-mail accounts - don't expect to receive any mail from me there, because it's not secure.

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posted 16 Oct 2005, 13.43 +0100

David Cameron can breathe more easily this morning. The Hell On Sunday splashed on "Tories Back Cameron In Spite Of Drugs Claims", stuff they've made up as they went along. The News of the Screws does go big on top Tories and drugs, but it's shadow chancellor George Osbourne, pictured sniffing cocaine off the thighs of another student. Some blighter has kept hold of this snapshot for ten, fifteen years, and sold it to a tawdry little rag.

Somewhere in the depths of history, about five Tory leadership battles ago, there's a copy of the last ever edition of the Sunday Correspondent, the paper that gave the world "Pass notes" and the end-of-magazine questionnaire. In a desperate effort to stave off closure, the Corrie went tabloid for exactly nine weeks in the autumn of 1990, and in its compact compact life, charted the inevitable slide to war, the enveloping cloud surrounding the leadership of Mrs Thatcher. The final issue came out two days before the second leadership ballot, and led on the surprise news that Mr Major was more popular than Mr Heseltine. Mr Hurd stood no chance, the paper stood even less of a chance, and closed before the result was announced. Each 50p (or €0.70) edition cost something like £2.70 to produce.

To-day, the paper that did more to kill the Correspondent follows the tabloid route. The Independent on Sunday had brought forward its launch from autumn to January 1990, in an effort to prevent the Corrie from establishing more of a foot-hold. The Sindie gave us "The Sunday Review", a stapled magazine section that's been critically lauded, but isn't much more than a glorified arts section with a couple of magaziney features bolted on the front. I'll be studying this week's edition carefully, and will post about it in due course.

If they're not getting their knickers in a twist about students doing drugs to the sounds of the Stereo MCs, the papers are fretting over bird 'flu. It's true that an influenza pandemic is inevitable, eventually. It's not true that we're "overdue" a mass 'flu - since records began, they've occurred at the rate of roughly three per century, and the last three were in 1918, '56, and '68. It's not inevitable that this strain of bird 'flu will become transmissible between humans; all the cases so far have required significant contact with infected birds (usually, touching chicken shit). Nor is it inevitable that this infection would prove particularly harmful to humans, we can't predict these things with any level of confidence.

It's right for the government to be taking steps to be prepared, calling in vaccines and drawing up contingency plans. They may well not be needed, and at this stage, I'd suggest that the greatest risk to society is of a grave shortfall of edible turkeys this Christmas.

Finally, a heads-up from the Sunset Times: Malcolm Kendall-Smith is a senior officer in the RAF, and has refused to serve in Iraq. He says that the war is illegal. The MoD says that it is. The sides will meet in court towards the end of the year.

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posted 16 Oct 2005, 14.07 +0100

You can always tell when it's October, as the new series of Star Academy starts in France. This year's is the fifth incarnation, and the lead single is Je ne suis pas un heros. It sounds like every other Star Academy single ever, quite honestly, but that doesn't stop it from hitting the roof in France and Walloonia. Depeche Mode rules the roost everywhere else, dislodging Trine Dryholm from the top in Denmark, and Darin in Sweden.

North Europe's Top Twenty

 20 15 Gorillas - It's there
 19 16 Rhianna - Upon the replay
 18 10 Tatu - All about us
 17  7 Shakira - La tortura
 16 14 Coldplay - Fix you
*15 NE Alex Parks - Looking for water
*14 NE Bloc Party - Two more years
*13 NE DBT - Listen to your heart
 12 11 Juanes - La camisa negra
 11 13 Pinocchio - T'es pas cap Pinocchio
 10 20 Sean Paul - We be burning
  9  6 Crazy Frog - Axel f
* 8  8 K T Tunstall - Suddenly I see
  7  5 Franz Ferdinand - Do you want to?
  6  2 Daniel Powter - Bad day
* 5 NE Robert Williams - Tripping
  4  3 Pussycat Dolls - Don't you
  3  4 Sugababes - Push the button
* 2  9 Depeche Mode - Precious
* 1  1 James Blunt - You're beautiful

Yep, that really is Depeche Mode at number 2, the highest placing they've ever seen in a significant chart.

Alex Parks, the winner of the UK's second and final Star Academy series, is back with the lead single from her second album. And it's a goodie. Bloc Party really have the zeitgeist behind them, and have the biggest hit of their career so far; it's probably not the last we'll see of them. DBT have done for Roxette what DJ Sammy did for Bryan Adams three years ago - taken a classic ballad, done a faithful re-working, and then made another dance version out of that. Both mixes are available to buy, and they're deservedly huge. Listen to your heart has always been overlooked in favour of Roxette's other big ballad, It must have been love, and that's a shame. Finally, Robbie Williams is back. Bored now.

In the UK, there's no change in the top three, as the Sugababes continue to hold off Mr Bills. U2 takes the highest new entry, ahead of Friday Hill. Feeder, Lee Ryan, and Lisa Scott-Lee enter at positions 11, 12, and 13; Mr Ryan was formerly the lead singer with Blue, while Ms Scott-Lee said that she would retire from the music industry if her single failed to crack the top 10. 'Bye.

Not much of interest lower down, though Simply Red's first single in donkey's years can only make number 30, which is about right. And Angela Chase look-a-likes Inme are back at 33. Only they don't look like Angela Chase any more, so we're not interested.

Better news for the Sugababes, whose fourth studio album, Taller In More Ways is this week's biggest seller. Paul Weller lands at position 4, with the Franz slipping to 5. Brynt Awful and Mariah Cantsing clog up the top ten, but disaster for the Flopstars (27) and Cricket Martin (40).

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posted 16 Oct 2005, 14.24 +0100

For the most part, this was a calm week, with light winds, a good deal of sunshine, and warm temperatures. However, that would be to ignore the vigorous front that swept through the region on Wednesday afternoon and evening. It left 15mm of rain in just two hours between 3 and 5pm, and a further 20mm between 7 and 11 that night. A total of 39.8mm between 2pm Wednesday and 2am Thursday represents almost all the expected rainfall for the month.

10 Mo sun, humid           7/20,  0.0
11 Tu cloud, rain late    14/20,  0.0
12 We heavy rain pm       15/18, 17.3
13 Th sunshine            10/14, 22.9
14 Fr cloud                8/14,  0.0
15 Sa sunny spells        12/18,  0.0
16 Su sun                 12/16,  0.3

The good news is that the threat of strong winds I noted for this week-end hasn't happened. The sunshine will remain for Monday and Tuesday, then a front comes up from the south-west over Tuesday night, introducing a windier and more showery airflow. The winds will be from the south-west, so it should remain mild.

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posted 16 Oct 2005, 19.19 +0100

older writing... write to