The Snow In The Summer Or So-So

The Snow In Previous Summers, Or So-So

Saturday May 17

I sense you'll be wanting another Buffy popup. Ah, go on then. Buy now, while stocks last.

The BBC's Big Read campaign, to find Britain's favourite book, moves into top gear this weekend. The top 100 is out, prompting a quick review of which books I've also read and/or enjoyed.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - didn't live up to the hype
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - a set text in Primary 6 (or P7) with a really dull teacher.
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - worth the plod.
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - I'm going to have to read this sometime.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - a fantastic romp.
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - another set text, in Senior 1. Got through it decently quickly.
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - Set text in Senior 3. Wish it wasn't.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - A lovely easy read.
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - Tried to read this in Primary 7, but bounced off the inpenetrable prose.
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontė - "Light" reading at the first year of university, when the cheap reprints of Wordsworth Press were just getting going.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis - Mrs Thomas tried to make this the class story during Primary 5, but had to cut out a third of the book to finish by the end of the year.
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott - Came to this about six years ago, and it's a riot.
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - Set text at GCSE. Can't stand it.
On the Road - Jack Kerouac - Tried to read it in final year at uni, but never got into it.
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - Set text in Senior 2. Can't remember a thing about it.
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - Who hasn't?
Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontė - Second year at uni, and not quite as good as I'd expected.

In a fair and balanced interview in Het Graun, some politically illiterate pleb called Ann Coulter claims never to have met an attractive liberal woman. She's not met our Lixz.

Originally, this was going to be a day cutting the tops from the trees. We'd planned without the rain, and remnants of this precipitation would have given us an unwelcome cold shower.

So, in with Plan B, get new shoes and peajamas in the city centre. Done that. Also had a look round the Bull Ring, which has been under construction for the past three and a half years, and still isn't bloody well finished. Most of the buildings are up, including one that's decorated with hubcaps on the outside (they're not really hubcaps, it just looks like it.) Moor Street station is going to be great, the Bull Ring Centre perhaps won't. The pedestrian walkway between the markets and the rest of the city centre is still too narrow and still too winding, constricted between building sites like a drunk snake, and the sooner it's converted into a proper path the better for all of us.

"Not much longer, finished in September," the posters claim. Which September? And will it be worth it?

Friday May 16

Those Top 40 "Worst" Britons Of The Present, according to a downmarket trashy Channel Bore poll recently, and something good they've done for us. Those dead or with a criminal record need not apply. Spellings are as per the Channell Bore webstie.

40 Edward Windsor. Gave us a documentary on real tennis.
39 Catherine Zeta Jones. Helped to clarify the laws on privacy.
38 Andrew Lloyd Webber. Gave us one musical, and turning it into seventeen stage shows. Was recycling his material well before it became fashionable.
37 James Hewitt. Brought fame and fortune based purely on one boink..
36 Tara Palmer Tomkinson. Brought to the party a positive role model in recovery, almost (but not quite) as good as Cory Falcon.
35 Harry Potter. Did various bits of magic all over the shop.
34 Sara Cox. Did wonders for Radio 2's listening figures.
33 Simon Cowell. Spread the traditional British values of fair play and honesty to the rest of the world.
32 Naomi Campbell. Had one massive hit record, #40 with an anvil in 1994.
31 The 3AM Girls. Reinvented the gossip column on national trashy tabloids.
30 Max Clifford. The original PR spinmeister.
29 Cliff Richard. Competed - and lost - at Eurovision not once but twice. Still the total and utter king of rock 'n' roll.
28 Jamie Oliver. Taught Jay Leno how to cook, and Mrs Leno how to suck eggs.
27 Chris Moyles. Did wonders for the television nostalgia industry.
26 Edwina Curry (sic). Brought life and colour to the Conservative party, and a lightning rod to pull negative publicity away from The Dear Leader.
25 Anne Robinson. Hosted a primetime game show on US television.
24 Charles Windsor. The best advocate of the republican cause we've had in a generation.
23 Lady Victoria Hervey. Who?
22 Darren Day. Hosted a year or two of quite decent kids' show Clockwise.
21 Charlotte Church. Has an asset or two.
20 Jim Davidson. One of the best arguments for voting Conservative...
19 Neil and Christine Hamilton. ...and two more.
18 Peter Stringfellow. Invented the nightclub as we know it.
17 Robbie Williams. Made y-fronts sexy.
16 Bernard Manning. Kept Norfolk happier than the turkeys.
15 Anthea Turner. Built Tracy Island out of papier-mache and old yoghurt pots.
14 Rik Waller. Thought people with criminal records were barred from the survey.
13 Victoria Beckham (sic). Gave great hope to pipe cleaners everywhere.
12 Chris Evans. An ace weed-o-gram.
11 Liam Gallagher. Co-wrote "Wonderwall" with John Lennin.
10 Elizabeth Mountbattenburg. Told Tony Blair where to get off.
09 Gerri Halliwell (sic). Gave Nelson Mandela a good time.
08 'H' from Steps. Now we're getting silly.
07 Alex Ferguson. Managed Scotland to their best ever World Cup performance in 1986.
06 Gareth Gates. Brought back the spiky-haired vicar's son look.
05 Martin Bashir. Made fair and unbiased reporting look simple.
04 Jade Goody. Now a US foreign affairs advisor.
03 Margaret Thatcher. Did for Neil Kinnock.
02 Jordan. Good looker, great kisser, lovely hair, shame about the tryst in the car with Rayanne.
01 Tony Blair. Thought people with criminal records were barred from the survey.

Wednesday May 14

The German POP IDLE was a chap called Alexander. The song for the winner was Take Me Tonight. Neither of them was as good as Will Young performing that Cathy Dennis number. They both fall well short of the yardstick by which all Pop Idles across the world are measured, Antan Dec performing Let's Get Ready To Rhu... hang on, sorry, that's far superior to anything the series has produced. The yardstick by which we measure all Pop Idles Across The World, Globally, is Kelly Clarkson's belting version of A Moment Like This. Personally, I'll go back to listening to Anne-Laure, winner of STAR ACADEMY 2 in France, and her upbeat pop choon Superwoman. British radio listeners can expect to hear absolutely none of these.

Channel Five, of course, is the new Channel Four. And C4 is the new C5. C5 has picked up some of the best US imports - Charmed and Daria have aired there for some years, Dark Angel, The Shield, CSI, and Alias have joined more recently. Last month, C5 took terrestrial rights for the final series of Dawson's Creep, and today concluded their deal to buy the third and subsequent seasons of Angle. These two are on direct transfers from C4. The commercial public service broadcaster is concentrating on high-quality domestic formats, such as Big Brother and 100 Worst Top 100 Lists.

"Any time anybody attacks our homeland, or our fellow citizens, we will be on the hunt. We will bring them to justice. Just ask the Taliban." So spoke the junta's chief moron, commenting on the junta's latest attack on a sovereign nation, this time Saudi Arabia.

Taking the moron at his word just for once, let's Ask The Taliban. Hello, Mr Mullah Omar. How's life in an American prison?
"I don't know, how is life in an American prison?"
We're coping, thank you for asking. So, the combined military might of the US forces haven't arrested you yet?
"Nope."
And they haven't tracked you down to your hiding place?
"Nope."
In fact, they haven't the faintest where you are, have they?
"Not a clue."
Do you expect to be brought to justice for your criminal record?
"Not really. Ten million people bought the last Eminem album, and they can't throw us all in jail... can they?"
Mr Mullah Omar, thank you.

On line two, Mr Osama bin Laden. Hello, Mr bin Laden. How's life in an American prison?
"I don't know. Ask someone who is actually in an American prison."
We're coping with it, thank you for asking. I take it that the US hasn't captured you, then?
"That's right."
And they don't know where you are?
"They sure don't."
Do you expect to face justice?
"I'll give myself up when that pigdog George Bush gives himself up. Stealing an election like that is unforgivable, and makes my crimes look like small beer. Small beer, I tell you"
Don't mind if I do, cheers. Respected US commentator Mr Conan O'Brien has a theory...
"He's absolutely right. Cancelling MY SO-CALLED LIFE was the sign of a society that lost its last civilised gene years ago."
So the whole reign of terror can be laid solely at the feet of Ted Harbert, the Disney exec who cancelled MSCL?
"Not entirely; it's my belief that some of the blame can be laid at the feet of Claire Danes. And I, for one, would dearly love to lay at the feet of Claire Danes."
Mr bin Laden, are you suggesting...
"The hand of American Justice has been amputated, and lies shivering on the operating room floor alongside Palestinian dreams, Saudi people, and my crush on a girl who dyed her hair red that time. There's your sound bite, go eat." Mr Osama bin Laden, thank you. And you'll find it was crimson glow.

Tuesday May 13

Today's spam includes: "American Is No Longer Christian, What Changed". The text includes "PEhUTUw+" and "IEFMSU" and the classic "FjaXN0L". Well, that just about wraps it up for the faithful.

Another radio station, please. Because we already have enough stations playing the same 40 songs over and over again, there'll be another one appearing within a year. Applications closed today, and here are the contenders:

Analysis... 3C, Kerrang, The Storm, and Virgin have all run 28 day pilot broadcasts in the area. Jazz, Capital Disney, and Sunrise are known quantities, and WBC is reasonably deducible from the companion operation.

We can rule out CapDis as it's not distinctive enough from BRMB. Best of the rock-ish stations will be either Kerrang or The Storm. There are diversity points for putting Sunrise onto FM; I don't think the station makes programmes of appropriate quality. Newstalk is a pale imitation of WBC, while 3C and Jazz have obvious unique selling points.

My gut feeling: it'll boil down to WBC's speech, 3C's country, Jazz, and Kerrang. I can't split those four at the moment.

Avid watchers of those figures on the left of the page will know this already. The lowest estimate of the Iraq Body Count - civilian casualties killed during the recent illegal conflict - has now surpassed the highest estimate of civilian casualties suffered on September Eleven. That's without counting cluster bombs, water shortages, cholera in Basra, and sundry anarchy. On the upside, Hussein backers are regaining a role in Iraqi government.

Reasons for disliking Internet Deplorer #84: This note I've had to add to a document. "You must use the IP address, not the server name. Doing so forces Internet Explorer to treat the server as part of the Internet zone, and enforce cookie security. If you use the server name, IE will not enforce cookie security, and you will not be able to logon. IE is broken by the fact that the document uses frames."

Reasons for disliking Internet Deplorer #85: it completely breaks this site. You could do far, far better. Here's one idea. And here's another.

Monday May 12

Questions... we've got questions. Especially for you North Americans. Is the second Sunday in May a celebration of all mothers, or just one? Is it Mothers' day, or Mother's day? If the latter, whose mother? In the UK, we neatly get round this grammatical problem by declaring it Mothering Sunday, and saying that it falls three weeks before Easter. I suppose it's still a daffodil festival for you Canadians...

Better late than never: Clare Short resigns as International Development Secretary. She brings Mr Blair's pretence that there's a role for the UN in Iraq down with her. "The assurances you gave me about the need for a UN mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached." "I don't believe in the legality and wisdom of the action the UK is taking in the security council. These are very serious mistakes."

Fifty greats by female writers. A veritable who's who of the world of female prose (and a dash of poetry, but not much.) #1 makes it purely on the strength of Colin Firth's buttocks. #2 to #8 are legends in their own lunchtime, though perhaps only Jane Eyre and Frakenstein stand reading twice in a year. I've never read #10, and hadn't heard of #9, which appears to make it purely because it was the mass market sensation of 2002. Any book with an Amazon rating of 7/10 is in deep trouble. Elsewhere in the 50, #11 is one of the books that changed my thoughts, the tie at #23 is quite remarkable, #28 is a surprisingly readable romp, and #41 is the only one I studied for English Lit.

Sunday May 11

Ah, let's have a new look. This one is far, far, far better when viewed in a properly compliant browser like Mozilla. It understands how to render pages according to strict CSS rules. Internet Explorer doesn't, and that explains why you've got three pictures of a small lake in south Michigan. Not that you should be complaining about that, it's a beautiful lake... But if you were using a proper browser, you'd only be seeing the one lake, in all its glory.

Mixed news in the Obs today: Andrew Rawnsley writes a good piece on how Tony Blair cocked up, this time on UK accession to the Euro. He points out that Labour is badly split on this issue, perhaps as badly as the Conservatives circa 1995. On the substantive issue, the view from here has always been to get in when the time was correct. It's not quite correct now, but the gap is shrinking, and small enough to be closed by accession.

On the upside, BBC to cut commercials. The ads, for other BBC products and shows, have increased exponentially in recent years. Whether the drive for cleaner intervals will stretch to less talking over the end credits (case in point: last Thursday's BUFFY on BBC2) - or having the guts to show them (case in point: every show on CBBC) remains to be seen.

In the US, another Blair has been caught out lying. Jayson Blair was fired by the New York Times last month, after it emerged he had plagarised a Texas newspaper report. An Editor's Note introduces a Corrections And Clarifications Supplement, the likes of which haven't been seen outside the pages of Het Grauniad.