Feeling very crappy today. The cold has gotten worse, I've not slept properly in some nights, and tried to take an early night last night. Didn't work - I was up and down for much of the night having really huge pain in the back of my throat.

If there's a slight upside, it's being able to get round the store the moment it opens. Not worth the pain.

Yesterday looked like being a very good day. Hans Blix delivers the most cheery report yet, saying that Iraq is being "active, even proactive" in this disarmament thing. One by one, the grounds for launching a war are being cut from under the feet of Blair and the junta. They're just not going to get a second resolution through now, the global public appetite is turning increasingly against war, and aggressive moves are going to backfire on the seemingly impregnable leader of the free world.

However, the buggers are going to give it a shot. Mr Straw submits a new resolution, setting a deadline of Mar 17. France and Russia stick their fingers on the "no" button, Germany looks like saying "no", China can't be counted for a "yes" over an abstention, and that only leaves three more to defect before the resolution is lost regardless of veto.

Interesting article from Johnathan Friedland in Het graun today. In a nutshell, he suggests that war against Iraq is another nail in the coffin of the sovereign nation. But then carry on too far down that road and we're facing a repeat of the 19th century imperial expansion.

Rules are needed. Let's try this lot, published by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty back in June 2001. There needs to be a threat of large scale loss of life or ethnic cleansing; the prime motive of the interveners has to be averting suffering; action has to be multilateral; war must be a last resort and the means proportionate "to the magnitude of the original provocation"; and the consequences of action must not be worse than the consequences of inaction.

Compare the junta's activities against this yardsticl. Threat of loss of life is claimed, though not proven. Avert suffering: Blair claims that, again, the evidence is scratchy. Multilateral: nope. Last resort: not while Dr Blix is in place. Proportionate: depends on the actual threat being proven.

This is why the Blair / Rumsveld / Chainy junta is barking up the wrong tree. They don't have a diplomatic figleaf. Nor do they have popular support. Someone's career will end, and I reckon it's going to be Blair's.

Mark and Lard reckon Scrappy Spice's new single, "I'm Witheeau," is a dead ringer for a Sealion Dion track. They don't know which, it could be any Sealion track, but it's clearly one of hers.

For my money, Scrappy Spice really is the new Spice Girls - I'd love to dislike the blatant marketing, really dislike the co-opted imagery, but there's something about the songs themselves that blows away all doubts. And if Witheeau is the equivalent to "Two Become One," it's all downhill from here.

Digital broadcaster Pseudo.com plans to release a weekly tv show hosted by rapper IceT on Kazaa, in attempts to start a new model of advertising-supported television.

Never mind the rights and wrongs of a television show hosted by the man who brought us "Uzi Lover." This is the death-knell for the DMCA-inspired challenges to Kazaa in particular, and peer-to-peer networks in general. Make a go of this, and there is a clear and obvious non-infringing use of the technology, so blatant that even a dumb Californish judge can see it.

Good day.

European Railway Journies travels from Bonn to Hannover, Magdeburg, and Berlin. The film was shot in 1999, when the Potsdamerplatz was still a building site, the Brandenburg Gate was still open, and Deutsche Bahn ran on time. Nowadays, Potsdamer is one of the largest shopping malls in the world, the Gate is closed for repairs, and DB runs on time, except when I'm around. I reckon everyone should visit Berlin, it's so worth the journey.

I'm not concentrating on Blair's address to the MTV nation. Instead, the UK bows to the realpolitik of the situation, and starts circulating a more conciliatory second resolution, perhaps postponing war into the summer.

Nick Clegg MEP: "Psychologically, the Labour party has just broken free of Blair, for the first time. But it is less obvious what will happen next. Sullen weariness does not last for long. Voters, in the end, don't like being taken for granted. The spring in their step will return, and then there will be all to play for."

Richard Dawkins: "Regime change in Iraq would be nice for Iraqis. Regime change in Washington would do more good to the world in the long run."

Lifechanging albums. Up to five. Reasons no longer than the longest title on the disk.

1 Change Everything - del Amitri
Life's more than pop
2 Suede
Be queer
3 The Piano Concerto / MGV - Michael Nyman
Making classical music possible
4 Under The Pink - Tori Amos
Women rock
5 Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too - New Radicals
There is life at the end of the tunnel

Hidden Weaver Indicator of the Day: Typing "Map Newport Drive" in place of the regularly suggested command. I don't know anyone who lives down Newport Drive. I don't even know where the nearest one is.

Not Well Hidden Smartarse Indicator of the Day: A consultant visits to talk about backups. He quotes a 30MB per minute throughput, then has to go off to his personal organiser to work out that that's 1.8GB per hour. Some of us did this in our heads ages ago - long enough for his software to write The Snow In The Summer and its predecessor to tape at least once.

On the upside for Blair, a strong performance at PMQ. On the downside, news that Russia, Germany, and France are uniting to oppose war; and thousands of schoolchildren leave lessons to protest.

Incidentally, it transpires that the Plagarised Dossier (previous) was authored from within Mr Blair's policy unit. Does the Rev know that he has bent people working for him? Of course he does, remember Mr Ecclestone, Mr Mittal, Mr Hinduja, the other Mr Hinduja...

This from Saizai...

"[Non-geeks] consider social cues to be most important - all the stuff that goes into indicating politeness, status, tone, forcefulness, etc. - whereas geeks generally consider raw information to be more important. Geeks also tend to have far less redundancy, presumably on the assumption that fellow geeks are more likely to comprehend and not *need* the redundancy.

"This is also why my OpSys teacher described my answers as "extremely terse". My thinking on it is that, if writing two words answers the question succinctly, why should I write paragraphs? It's a waste of my time, and by my way of thinking, an implicit insult - it presume that you do not understand the workings, and thus need to have them explained to you. Which is not a bad thing, unless you actually do understand them."

Work is suffering at the moment. The builders are in downstairs, renovating a nice new office for us to move into in March May. It needs more windows, so they have to remove the brickwork, and that creates a lot of dust. Some of that seeps upstairs. If today hadn't been so wet, we would have had to quietly evacuate the office owing to the dust.

None of this helps my throat, which has been sore from some sort of infection for a couple of days now. Doesn't feel like a cold, and that's the really strange (and annoying) thing.

Damned if I'm not going to make something of this...

It's Comic Relief week, and eight celebrities will be locking themselves away in a large house near Hampstead Heath. Keep Ulrika Jonsson away from society and in captivity. You know it's right. (CELEBRITY STAR ACADEMY, BBC1/BBC3/CBBC, all week)

The main event fills Friday night's schedules.

LOST HIGHWAY goes Beyond Nashville, telling the story of country's left-field, from the extraordinary Bakersfield sound of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, through the wild music of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, up to the feisty alt.country movement of today. (BBC2, 1935 Sa)

Earth Mother Davina's new show, REBORN IN THE USA, has been hit with a defection already, and the show's been running for less than 18 hours. Will anyone survive to Saturday's opening show? Find out, 2135 on ITV.

The 17.2 catchup begins with episodes one through three from 0040 Su, BBC2.

On BBC4, Dr Beverley Milton-Edwards hosts A HISTORY OF IRAQ. 2050 Su, complete in 50 minutes.

New to BBC1 Monday is REAL STORY, a soft newsmagazine. This week, Fiona Bruce examines French claims that Britain has been 'too soft' on North African terror cells based in London, and follows the story of 14-year-old Rachel Lloyd, who recently returned to Turkey in an attempt to keep her 24-year-old boyfriend out of prison. (1930 Mo)

ONCE AND AGAIN repeats the first season at 2000 weekdays on Hallmark.

THIRTYSOMETHING continues at 2000 weekdays on FTN. Someone needs their heads banged together.

ROADIES 2 follows Bowling For Soup, The Cure, Nickelback, Garbage, and Lostprophets. 2300 weeknights, UK HORIZONS.

C4 tells us HOW TO ROB A BANK at 2100 Mo. Over on E4, SEX RULES begins with a programme entitled Fuckbuddies. Documentary series observing first-timers in their search for sexual satisfaction. A young man and a young woman are in search of someone purely to have regular sex with. They both take very different approaches, and end up with very different results and takes on their experience. 2230 Mo.

David Dumbledore's profile of Nelson Mandela continues 2100 We.

This week's BBC4 SESSION is Eliza Carthy. 2100 Fr.

Or, you could be watching the Last Ten* on POP IDLE US 2. 2100 Fr, stretching for an eye-popping 150 minutes. Don't forget to vote Olivarez.

Thought about putting the BLAIR up one point today, but then Russia determined that she would veto any war resolution. This knocks a rather large hole in Blair's support for the junta, and leaves Straw's bellicose meanderings before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee rather irrelevant.

Jiggers raises the perpetually fascinating topic of sleep patterns. As most health experts know (read: Barefoot Doctor cited this in the Obs once and I can't be arsed to find further sources...) As most health experts know, the body works in an approximately 90 minute cycle. Alertness waxes and wanes, the digestive system processes faster and slower, and exercise is more and less fruitful.

For your correspondent, this means that meals are best taken at intervals of 4.5 or 6 hours - breakfast just after 7, lunch at 12:30, evening meal around 6:30. Sleep is generally 7.5 hours during the week, in bed by 11, asleep by 11:30. I tend to need a nap or a quiet lie down at some point during the week, and at some point over the weekend. Nine hours a night is too much, and I'm more drained than after 7.5. I can survive on six hours for a day or two, but no more than that.

Most of my work on changing time zones is based on a single event, so treat with caution. Shifting back by six hours was no trouble; moving back seven was more difficult, but that could be because of the 27 hour nature of the journey. Moving back five was decidedly tricky, as was heading back 3.5. Moving forward one hour is no problem, as the cities in CET tend to work on the same actual time as the UK.

I've not tried moving back six hours, then forward one the next day, so that'll be something to note next month.

Which brings me to an odd dream the other night. Those who know me from school, or the first year at Manor, will probably remember Anna S; for everyone else, she was an academic friend right through school, and an occasional card recipient since.

Anyway, picture a small room, roughly decorated in white, not squalid, but certainly not luxurious, . Off to one corner is a dimly-lit passageway out to the front door, but the main feature is the bed. Perfectly white sheets and a yellow-orange blanket (or duvet) just about covers the form of Anna S. We're talking about nothing of consequence, but it becomes increasingly clear that she's aroused, and that she wants to jump my bones, and that I'm resisting. This isn't causing any tension, both she and I accept it as the way things always are. Peaceful.

That is the vignette. I don't much care for interpretations, and do think it worthwhile jotting down.

Three from perfectlyvague, taking The Way of the Artist.

My favourite childhood toy was an abacus. Ten beads, five rows, red, yellow, green, blue, white. Perform complex mathematics well into my teens. Perhaps still underlies my understanding of number.

My favourite childhood game was Blockio. Two safe areas, about 10m apart. One person is "it" to start with. "It" has to try and tag people running between the safe areas, and call "Blockio." First game of the break, first person tagged is "it" next time round; second game, second person tagged; thereafter by rotation and consent. Didn't survive the transition to middle school, when footballs were allowed.

I don't do it much, but I enjoy reading in bed. There's always something keeping me up.

The final word on Scrappy Spice's second single. Which is a bit of a shame, because the sibilance of such sentences seldom ceases to send sentinent social snarks into snoopiness. Or something.

Something I didn't mention from the quiz was the interval game. Put 50p into the pot, predict whether a coin would land heads or tails, longest unbroken string of correct predictions (ie last one standing) wins.

In order to determine my strategy, I shook the bowl of peanuts on the table, as a sort of makeshift entropy detector. All the big ones rose instantly to the top. Clearly, there was some localised form of entropy dip taking place.

Determined that the first toss would be heads, it was. Figured the second would be heads, then spotted that almost no one else had bet tails, and I'd be best served by going tails. Playing the odds was a fatal mistake: the coin came down heads. Doh! Entropy dip still in force! Heads came up again. And again! Four heads in a row. Shake the peanuts, and some smaller ones rose to the surface. Looks like the entropy dip has bottomed out. But by the fifth toss, only one person was prepared to bet tails, and that lady became the winner.

Now, does anyone sell proper entropy detectors?

From the less than intelligible files: "Please let [zem] have your e-mailed orders before 1.00 pm on the day the order is to place the order."

It's been back to the parents this weekend, mainly so that the sister can take part in a charity quiz. It's a charity quiz, it's the only sort I'll do, otherwise my competitive streak becomes a bit too intense.

A very well structured event: easy questions for the opening and closing round, more taxing specialist subjects (Wolverhampton and cookery) in the middle, and a picture round to do during the tea break. One round was made up from questions asked while giving out the previous answers, another was a simple List Round - quick, the last ten British Prime Ministers.

The questions and marking were suitably pedantic, though the question setter putting himself in the picture round struck me as a little conceited. Also didn't like the use of tape (cassette tape!) for the music round, making Jose Carreras sound exactly like Mario Lanza. Didn't know which Underground line joined up with all the others, completely forgetting the East London Line. Did know the legend on the side of the Toonie, and who was on the back of the US$50 bill.

A good time was had by all, a lot of money was raised, and pleasantly surprised to find that we'd won with 74%.