Some of the stuff that's led people to my website recently...

disgusting facts about henry viii He was a royal, he was a god-botherer, he couldn't keep it up and took out his rage on the ladies. If only they'd had Viagra in the 1580s. Actually, watching the 1990 reruns of DEAD DONKEY this week, and there was a setup for a classic Viagra joke -- and they didn't use it, because that drug didn't appear for about five more years.

gwr black thunder jobs The only job that pile o'shite needs comes from the Lack Of Competition Commission.

mando eurovision dress Would look very good on Vic.

moira stewart started news reading for bbc1 Autumn 1980, as part of the Great Argond Visit To Earth. There are those who think Jon Tickle is a precursor to a Martian invasion of the planet... close, but no cigar.

times sick man europe sertab erener This is actually two queries smushed into one. The first three words refer to the decline and fall of the Former Paper Of Record under Homophobia Murdoch. The last three refer to the probable Queen of European Culture, La Turquie Douze Points.

your email message has been idle and this link has become inact If you say so, darling.

It's about time we did a Compare and Contrast. This one's also going onto SITS2, to see if the rest of the media (specifically: BBLB) will pick it up.

On your left, Sissy, the fashion designer contestant on BBIV.

On your right, Lena Orisityulia, of the top-selling faux-Russian band of the moment Tatu.

Was the lady who sung in tune at last month's Eurovision Snog Contest a ringer? Has half of Russia's answer to Antan Dec really been around for ten years longer than she makes out? Will anyone in the house make out like Lena claims to, perhaps with someone who looks a bit like Yulia Orisitlena, which (on the available evidence) is either Cameron or Steph?

And, most importantly: could these people be related? I think we should be told.

(On a complete sidebar: do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a picture of Antyn Decski when they're not a) wearing tight white shirts or b) exposing acres of cleavage? Mutters something about the downside of looking at pictures of nubile maidens from Uckfield, then reckons it'll pick up the dirty old man vote, and moves on to the next subject.)

When CNN (CNN!) starts publishing columns calling for the impeachment of Antipresident Bush, you know the situation just got really, really serious. The telling paragraph comes right at the end:

To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."

Though the UK constitution is unwritten, and hence doesn't have any formal procedure to remove a lying bastard prime minister (or any other minister) he would become such a massive electoral liability that he would either fall on his sword, be removed in an internal party coup, or suffer a huge loss that would make the 1997 landslide look like a small rockfall.

For the record, this commentator does not support the impeachment of Mr Bush, as that would entail accepting the theft and grand larceny he and his junta perpetrated in 2000.

Play or pass? Henry Kelly's been dropped from the Classy fm breakfast show. This is good news, until we realise that his replacement is the even more tedious Simon Bates. Still, if it means the GAME FOR A GIGGLE host will replace the GAME FOR A GIGGLE hostess on Radio 2, we'll all come out winners.

Last week, I posted a link to JON001's contributions to Usenet. One week later, an eternity in internet terms, tabloid daily The Moron witters on for pages and pages about how "dull" they find Mr Tickle's ramblings. Evidently no one at The Moron understands Usenet. It is (or was, before the spammers made its use untenable circa 1999) the natural home of the pedantic, the anorakish, and the geeky. Usenet is not like the web: you need a brain to use it, and a functioning brain to use it well. Usenet is all about content, and style counts for nothing. In that last respect, it's like the newspaper business - good writing will attract repeat visits, pap and fluff will earn you scorn. And, most likely, lawsuits from the people whose writings you're ripping off in clear breach of copyright. Already, one of the people quoted in Teh Moron's "article" knows that their words have been stolen. Entertaining stuff, really.

Now, this is odd. Het Graun has pulled an article (see this file yesterday) confirming that the US junta saw the Persian Gulf conflict as about oil. The preap claims that it misunderstood junta leader Paul Wolfowitless. That correction in full:

He said, according to the department of defence website, "The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq." The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war.

This is, of course, complete bullshit from both Het Graun and Puppywits, and I stand by my conclusions from yesterday.

All, some, or fewer of the last but one Buffy popup. And last week's makes more sense with this link.

"We have removed all the extras to ensure it works as quickly as possible." So speaks the Vermin Trains rep, not referring to the new Pendolini that aren't churning up the route between London and Birmingham, but their media website. It's the public website, only shorn of useless presentation elements like Flash "animations." Proof positive that, for Vermin, style is far more important than content.

Don't know if you've spotted it, but we're seeing the government fall to pieces here. After two weeks of continued pressure over the continued non-appearance of Iraq's notional chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, soon to be former prime minister Mister Tony Blair has ordered a non-independent inquiry. This morning, The Party chairthug "Dr" John Reid was completely shish-kebabbed by John Humphreys on Radio 4's influential "Today" programme. Asked a simple question about some people in the security services giving out information undermining the government's ludicrous claims, the hard-hitting Glaswegian tried to spend the entire interview shooting the messenger. About nine minutes into the mismatch, Reid let slip that these were "leaks", not "falsehoods", with all the truth that a leak entails.

At question period, Mister Tony Blair rather missed the point. The critics don't need to disprove the allegations published in the government's name: it's for those in power to substantiate their claims. If there's evidence to back it up, let us see it. Let us judge for ourselves.

And this afternoon, leading US junta-ite Mr Paul Wolfowitz said in as few words the war was about oil (Link now defunct). Oh, don't bother any more, Mister Tony Blair. Your bluff has been called by your own "allies."

With children back at school for a final seven-to-eight week burst of activity, time to think about the best pattern for organising the school year. My thesis is that the current requirement for 38 weeks education a year is overcooking the pudding, and standards would rise on 35 weeks education per year. I have no evidence for this claim, but neither do supporters of the status quo.

So, how would the term list look for the current year?

January 6 - February 21 (7 weeks)
[1 week midterm]
March 3 - April 9 (5 weeks 3 days)
[2 weeks, with Easter on the second weekend]
April 24 - June 20 (excluding public holiday May 5, May 26; 7 weeks)
[9 weeks summer break, plus two days for the public holiday at the end]
August 27 - October 16 (7 weeks 3 days)
[2 weeks midterm]
November 3 - December 18 (7 weeks 4 days)
[2 weeks Christmas]

Last year, Easter fell early, so the first half of the year could have looked like this:

Jan 7 - Feb 15 (6 weeks)
[1 week midterm]
Feb 25 - Mar 27 (4 weeks 3 days)
[2 weeks, but with Easter on the first weekend]
Apr 10 - Jun 14 (9 weeks, with PHs on May 6, June 3, June 4)
[10 weeks summer break, back on Aug 28]

If public exams are still required, they fall immediately after Easter. The bulk of GCsSE and A levels are sat in five weeks, so they're over by the end of May. I still don't see terminal exams as being any more valid than coursework as a means of assessment, and some subjects lend themselves to ongoing performance rather than one big bang.

Would performance flag towards the end of term? Of course. Is that different from now? Of course not.

For your perusal: May's stats.

Jon and Justine up for eviction on BB. Intelligence will take you nowhere.

Neither will bad practice and attempts to take over the world, as Martha Stewart is finding out. The holier-than-thou Model Housewife looks set to be indicted on criminal charges. Gloss over the fact that they're on insider share dealing, the mere fact of Martha Stewart on criminal charges should gladden the heart.

Listening to Scrappy Spice's recording of Knocking On Heaven's Door, and remembering the joke that "Hey! It's Lavigne covering Guns 'n' Roses! Yay!"...

Then a serious though struck home. This is the fourth recording of the song with which I'm familiar. The Bob Dylan original, the GnR cover, the Scrappy cover, and an ear-screechingly rubbish remake by a Perthshire choir. All except the original became charity anthems: the Roses version gave money to AIDS research after their performance at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert in 92, the Perthshire Demons was a fund-raiser for their political campaign, and Avril's version benefits Warchild.

All worthy causes, but why this particular song? Could it be something to do with the pointless mortality contained in the lyrics, or the way any idiot can holler the lyrics in something vaguely approximating the tune (as demonstrated by at least two of the versions referenced above.)

Knocking On Heaven's Door has joined the ranks of tunes that get wheeled out when someone's trying to raise money, or advance their cause. It's more than a mere song, it's emblematic of the unfairness inherant in living. It doesn't really advance any solution, though some would argue that recognising the problem is a result in itself.

For my money, this is all the result of Axl Rose's performance eleven years ago. This was his defining contribution to popular culture.

It's hay fever season. How much do I hate hay fever season. Let me count the ways...

1) Sneezing; after the first dozen sneezes, it stops having any resemblance to fun, and starts becoming very, very irritating.

2) Blocked nose, which leads to shortness of breath and not having any sense of taste and other sundry irritations.

3) Itchy eyes, feeling like I've got to wash my hair every day to get the gunk out, and generally rather run down.

4) It's a boost to the drugs companies, who sell all sorts of products that claim to block the symptoms, but have unfortunate side effects, like increased drowsiness, propensity to crash motor vehicles, and adding support to the assumption that all problems can be treated by medication. Some are symptomatic of the damage we're causing the planet. This is one of them.

5) It makes me cranky and itchy and generally a bit hacked off.

6) This is why I don't plan to do much outdoors in June and early July. There goes the social life.

Normal service will resume when the pollen clears.

Elsewhere, I've referred to Mister Tony Blair's Scrapheap for Broken Promises. What might an enterprising team of amateur bodgers and fixers find on this pile of detritus? Robert Llewellyn and Cathy Rogers asked Duncan Cough, and his friends David Davies and Michael Howard, to try and find the makings of a decent political platform there. Could "The Conservative Party," as the anorak group rather grandly calls itself, bash together a sleek political machine?

At the top of the scrapheap, a pledge not to increase taxes on income. It looks in decent enough nick, and was clearly very well preserved for a number of years. But this pledge has been shot through the camshaft with a hypothecated tax bullet, and is spewing all over the NHS.

What other rubbish can The Conservative Party turn into gold? Ah, this flimsy little gem. An "Ethical Foreign Policy," clearly the handiwork of the once-fashionable team Cook & Short, and probably dating from 1997. Certainly from before Short went mad. Don't find many of these around, especially one as scarcely-used as this. They'll have to design their whole system of governance around it, otherwise it'll be an attractive folly, pleasant to look at but of no value whatsoever.

Reform of the House of Lords? Looks like this one's been used, and quietly thrown out of the back door. As for voting reform across the land, doesn't look like this has been touched at all. More open and transparent government is still in its shiny packaging, and there's this fragment of things that look like they were once a data protection policy, but now aren't.

Anyone for a slightly used convention on human rights? The only bits we've got on the scrapheap are to do with detention without trial, and it's amazing how they ever got excised in the first place. Cutting child poverty in half in ten years, cutting asylum seekers by 50% in six months, sending troops to the scene of any gross violation of human rights, cutting vacuous promises by half overnight. Look good, but touch them - or just look at them hard - and they're so much cobweb.

Yep, plenty of good stuff here, but can The Conservative Party turn them into a smooth, election winning machine? We may be able to turn trash into working stuff here on Scrapheap Challenge, but we can't work miracles!

This from the British forces in Iraq: "Our armies do not come into your lands and your cities as conquerors, but as liberators." That's the British forces in Iraq in 1917, when they took over defeated parts of the Ottoman Empire before establishing Mesomopotamia. Niall Ferguson argues that the USA has become an empire even more controlling and suffocating than the British empire of a century ago, and doesn't have the honesty to admit it.

1752, Pierre Fermat conjectures that the sum of two nth powers is not an nth power for n>2. M Fermat claims to have "a remarkable proof that this margin cannot contain." It's not until 1996 that the theory is formally proven to everyone's satisfaction.

2003, Mister Tony Blair conjectures that the Iraqi regime of Mr Sadaam Hussein had weapons of mass disappearance until its overthrow in a coup on April 9. Mister Tony Blair claims "I certainly do know some of the stuff that has been already accumulated ... which is not yet public." As M Fermat demonstrated, it's incredibly difficult to prove a negative, comparatively easy to prove a positive, and yet Mr Blair hasn't told us what is that remarkable proof contained in his margins.

If we believe Mister Tony Blair, then we're calling the Australians a bunch of lying criminals. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, "Australian intelligence agencies made it clear to the Government all along that Iraq did not have a massive WMD programme. Nor was Saddam Hussein co-operating actively with al-Qaeda. And there was no indication Iraq was intending to pass WMDs to terrorists."