"Alistair Campbell has entered the building," said the C4 News producer just after seven last night. The Uberlord of Spin has, indeed, forgotten the first rule of spin: don't let yourself become the story. Thankfully for us, this hasn't happened for The Party's valiant attempts to distract us from the actual story. Let me backtrack...

At the end of May, the BBC's flagship Today programme claimed that Downing Street's spin machine inserted a claim that Iraq had weapons of not insignificant distraction, AND that those weapons could be primed for use within 45 minutes. The then Minister For The Today Programme, Dr John "Bruiser" Read, spent almost twenty minutes on that show the following week, refusing to answer one question on the matter. A House of Commons committee has been investigating the claims for the past little while, and there we expected the matter to simmer down.

But no. Mr Campbell has continued to attack the BBC, keeping focus on the process by which the Beeb obtained its tale. His appearance on last night's Channel 4 News, and Ben Bradshaw's stumbling appearance on today's Today, concentrated The Party's fire on whether the BBC should have run the allegations. They don't address the accuracy of the allegations. While Mr Bradshaw is quibbling over whether Number Ten or the Defence Ministry should have been invited to comment, he's quietly accepting the truth of the claim.

They're a bunch of liars.

In better news, finally installed the TV capture card, which was trivial. And make sure it works properly, which most distinctly was not.

Yes, it has been quiet around here. Something to do with the crashed hard disk, Countdown finals week, and the gas man who came yesterday to service the boiler, and today to fix the boiler.

Only in Latvia...

TW LW  WC PK    Title  -  Artist
 1  1   6 1(3)  Plaukstas lieluma pavasaris  -  Prâta Vetra  [LV]
 2  2   6  2    Dirty Sticky Floors  -  Dave Gahan
 3  4   5  3    Star  -  Reamonn
 4  3   6  3    Bring Me To Life  -  Evanescence
...
 9 RE   3  9    There There  -  Radiohead
10  6  13 1(6)  Colder  -  Brainstorm  [LV]
...
19 16   3 16    One Heart  -  Celine Dion
20 24   2 20    I Feel Good  -  Marija Naumova  [LV]
21 NE   1 21    Rock Your Body  -  Justin Timberlake

#1: Well, that'll be next year's Eurovision entry, please.
#3: When oh when will these guys get a UK release?
#9: The best band in the world today, except their new release is a Corrupt Disk...
#10: ... no such problems for Mr Kaupers and the team.
#19: I smell Eurovision winner whose subsequent career has gone down the pan rather.
#20: I smell Eurovision winner whose subsequent career has gone down the pan rather.
#21: Quite frankly, that's rubbish.

That'll be the Latvian Airplay chart for week ending last Saturday.

Still on the tunes stuff, Monday's credible singles...

Black Box Recorder - The School Song
Michelle Branch - Are You Happy Now
Peter Gabriel - Growing Up
David Guetta vs Bowie - Just For One Day (Heroes)
Ben Harper - Diamonds On The Inside
Lisa Marie Presley - Lights Out
Sinéad Quinn - What You Need Is...
Richard Thompson - Destiny
Underworld - Twist

Plus albums from Electric Six, Amy Studt, and the Thrills; and somewhat mistitled greatest hits collections from Morcheeba (one and a half hits), and Lonestar (one hit, and it didn't even make the sales top 20. Sold 57,000, didn't make the 20.)

We've been quiet because the hard disk went a bit kerphooey over the weekend. Not good. In our enforced absence, this stuff happened...

Five principal untruths:

1) That Iraq represented a threat to the United Kingdom;
2) That she presented a current or increased threat to her neighbours;
3) That she had developed nuclear weapons;
4) That she was linked in any way to al-Qaida and to the devastation of September 11;
5) That Hans Blix was being fooled, through his own ingenuousness, in his scrupulous and thorough searches for chemical weapons.

Does the world need to be this complicated? We're only using 10% of the functions on our mobile phones, claims one company. Do we need to pay good money to be taught exactly how to use Esoteric Function #343 on our handys? Shouldn't they just concentrate on producing a cheap product that makes calls and nothing else? Not to mention the dubious circumstances in which that project launched, with the scent of avoiding significant profit sharing with one inventive member of staff, but we digress...

If there's one thing these days away from the PC have taught me, it's that reading a book is a simple pleasure. It needs a book, and a bit of light, and that's it.

In the German top 10 selling singles at the moment... a duet between Nena (her of the obviously chopped-together video) and Kim Wilde (her of the brief hit career in the 80s) ... and a remix of 1993 dance* classic* Mr Vain. This year's Eurovision winner-on-the-night Sertab Erener is at #19, one place behind next year's winner, Gagagagagagagareth Gates.

Where fiction leads, fact can't be far behind: the first real world case of the US denying due process to a criminal suspect by the unconstitutional means of deeming him an "enemy combatant." It's clearly a situation where the US junta is making up the rules as it blunders along. In the fictional world of 17.2, the British representative is leading the charge towards war. Where fact leads...