Le rouyame-uni, nul points bis

Last year, there was a cheeky rumour that the UK entry for Eurovision would be The Cheeky Girls, whose "Cheeky Song" had just been released. In the event, the UK managed to find a group with even less talent, and one that was very lucky to score nothing.

So, who will be flying the flag this year. The BBC is playing its cards close to its chest, but these names have leaked out...

Lolly. As in, the hype for six year olds in the brief gap between the Teletubbies and the Tweenies during 1999. Anna Kumble (for it is she) was last seen doing Exchange for CBBC.
Scooch. As in, Pete Waterman's pisspoor attempt at a Steps clone. One great single in 2000, then Pop's Dumper beckoned. I thought they split up.
Claire Richards. As in, 20% of Steps. Could be decent on her own.
Jonathan Wilkes. As in, who? Oh, that erstwhile flatmate of Bert Bills' who has no talent whatsoever, like his flatmate.
Supersister. As in, oh gawds.
Zoe Birkett. As in, the talented one who hasn't done much since Pop Idle 1.

Any danger of recruiting Peter Brame to give Germany and Russia a run for their money in the Mad Moment On Stage stakes? In fact, given that this lineup seems to be a complete load of twaddle, maybe the Beeb will get Gareth Gates to work with the Cheeky Girls.

Lies, lies, lies.

Today's reasons to impeach come from the Carnegie endowment and cite deliberate misinterpretation of dodgy intelligence evidence.

Forthcoming singles

January 12
Amy Studt - All I Wanna Do
Amy Winehouse - Take The Box
Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster - Mr. Mental
Grandaddy - I'm On Standby/Stray Dog And The Chocolate Shake
HIM - Funeral Of Hearts

January 19
Easyworld - 'Til The Day (That I Die)
Maroon 5 - Harder To Breathe
Ryan Adams - So Alive
Tatjana - Santa Maria
The Offspring - Hit That
Albums from Gary Jules, Ryan Adams, and Sparks

January 26
Belle & Sebastian - I'm A Cuckoo
Five For Fighting - 100 Years
Lostprophets - Last Train Home
NG3 - Holler
Albums from Air, the Coral, and B-sides from the Cure.

February 2
Alarm - 45rpm Clea - Stuck In The Middle
Funeral For A Friend - Escape Artists Never Die
Hilary Duff - Why Not?
Kings Of Leon - California Waiting
Norah Jones - Sunrise

Where's Wally?

Soon to be former prime minister Tony Blair may not bother turning up for the debate on the forthcoming Hutton report. The debate will take place a week after the report's published and will be webcast at BBC Election Repeats. Could this be because Mr B knows he'll have resigned by then? Just hoping...

Elsewhere, Easterblogg ridicules Mr Bush's apparently serious plans to put a man on Mars. Hang on...

Hello, Latvia, may we have your votes please

Mr Bush wants to send a United Station to Mars, and we suspect Mr Bush doesn't want to be that United Station. Shame. Shame.

However, a phone vote run by the always-reliable Irish Telecom reveals that yes, Mr Bush will be the first man to set foot on a planet other than that of his birth; that Latvia should have doubled her vote at Eurovision 03; and that bacon comes from a goat.

The Irish Telecom poll also featured this message, from a Lena Katina of Moscow. "I'm not a lesbian, I have boyfriends in Moscow, and I'm quitting the group in the Spring to launch a solo career as president of Russia. We are very tired of each other and it's not fun playing lesbians any more," red-head Katina said. Well, that's no fun at all. Now that someone's worked out which is which, I can't even call them Antan Decski. Though knowing which one's Ant and which one's Dec never stopped me in the past...

Some people will do anything for publicity. Acel, the group formed by four of the rejects from Popstars 2, caused a minor wave with their debut single "Download It" late last year. The four-piece, taking its name from the members' initials, caused a major wave this week when they did some promotional work on Blackpool beach. That's a damp, wet, cold Blackpool beach in the first week of January. Prizes for hard work, methinks.

Traf Fic News

Engineering work desk for the West Midlands area.

Nuneaton. Nuneaton will be closed each weekend until Eurovision weekend, with trains diverted via Birmingham. Lichfield and Tamworth will also be closed, and extra buses will be laid on.

London. From 2100 on the 17th until 1100 on the 18th, the line between Leamington and Didcot will be closed. Chiltern Trains will only run as far north as Bicester. The alternative route will be blocked at Hemel Hempstead from 2100 Saturday until 0900 Sunday, and with Nuneaton closed too, your least worst bet is the bus.

Five Ways. The Cross City Line South will be closed from 2300 on the 17th until 1000 on the 18th. Buses will replace the half-dozen trains.

Bescot. Completely closed on the 19th until 1900, so buses replace trains between Walsall and Birmingham, Bloxwich and Cannock, and Wolverhampton.

Early warning. Watford Junction to Rugby will be completely closed from 29 May until 6 June. Do seek alternative destinations.

Safe now?

"If we undermine the basic liberties and freedoms we've enjoyed for centuries, the terrorists achieve victory." Junta "security" spokesmoron Tom Ridge admits defeat following this. And this and this. And this, this, this, this, and this. Links from Metafilter, decision to avoid the US until that country sees sense my own.

Radio One Listener

Three days in, I'm still more impressed with Cliff Moyles than I ever was with Sara "Oh, no" Cox. Moyles is far better at presenting live radio, and has the capacity to be genuinely entertaining. Sadly, his choice of guests (Victoria Peckham (a bad singer) and Tom Crewes (a monosyllabic actor)) for the 0815 interview leaves a lot to be desired. Haven't yet heard anything after 0830, though, and the show might be radically different after I stop listening.

If not Cliff, then whom? Radio 1 is still employing Colin Murray and Edith Bowman, and they sometimes substituted for Annoying Northerner during her too-infrequent absences. Scott Mills, I insist, is an under-used talent, while Wes Butters can quite easily be replaced by Aaron the Aardvark.

The news!

It's 77 years since the London - New York public wireless telephone service began operation. Calls between the greatest city on the planet and New York were charged at GBP 5 (then USD 24) per minute. Now, a similar call costs as little as GBP 0.05 (now USD 0.42) per minute. That's progress for you.

According to a tabloid, Carolynne Good's squeeze Ben Adams is set to launch a solo career. Adams, formerly of pop no-hopers A1, is not the first person to ride their more famous girlf's shirt-tails to success, but perhaps the most brazen.

Michael Meacher calls for a significant cut in the prime minister's power. Meacher sees the prime minister's patronage reaching to all corners of the polity, and with no real check or balance. Cabinet and party are downgraded and ignored. He calls for independent checks of cabinet appointments, greater powers for select committees, proper oversight of departmental spending, and, yes, a few single-issue plebiscites. In short, a modern, grown-up democracy. Never happen.

Speaking of "never happen", the Indescribablyoveroptimistic says that soon to be former prime minister Mister Tony Blair has pledged to take the UK into EMU by 2007. The PM's expected to call a referendum soon after the next general election, so in the early days of 2006. In 1998, the Treasury put forward a changeover plan with a four month gap between the Cabinet's decision to call a referendum and the plebiscite. If the public were to vote in favour, there would be a delay of between 24 and 30 months before euro notes and coins became legal tender. The pound would operate alongside the euro for six months while it was phased out.

Talk show guests

This is as much for my information as anyone else's.

LETTERMAN, CBS (ITV2: late one day later)
Tu 6: Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Paolini, Howie Day

THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO, NBC (FTN: 2200 one day later, CNBC weekends) Tu 6: Tom Cruise, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Tori Amos
Fr 9: Britney Spears, Jim Belushi

Spot the terrorist

In the name of fighting terrorism, the US itself resorts to a form of low-grade terrorism, certainly purposeful intimidation. Threatening to blow plane-loads of innocents out of the skies unless your demands are met is insane, not to mention incredibly rewarding for your enemies. Just imagine what a chuckle Osama and crew get from the knowledge that they can depend on the Pentagon to put hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans and Europeans under threat of violent death merely by ramping up al Qaida telecom traffic. Talk about force multiplication. [From Reason online.]

Today's other headlines: Thomas Cook refuses to allow guns on its planes ... Gary Younge on why Kiddyfiddler Jackson has suddenly become black, not white ... Belgium raises its ire against the "copy protected" disks. Hurrah!

What, someone's doing something about these Corrupt Disks?

Oh, indeed. Belgium's consumer watchdog, the Test-Aankoop, is suing EMI, Universal Music, Sony, and BMG. The aim is to force the killers of decent music to abandon the unlawful (and probably terrorist) practice of "copy protecting" "CDs" in order to prevent them being played on certain devices.

The watchdog has realised that consumers are being illegally prevented from making backup copies of their favourite choons, and that they are being deprived of their legal right to play disks on computers. "The honest consumer is the victim of a practice which ultimately fails in its objective [to prevent copyright piracy] and is in breach of copyright legislation. Test-Aankoop is demanding a change in the attitude of the big CD firms because copying a CD for personal use is not a crime."

If the group wins the case in Belgium it hopes it will set a Europe-wide precedent and spark copycat cases by other consumer bodies. Test-Aankoop has received "several hundred" complaints from consumers about the "copy protection" system being used by music companies.

The terrorists are winning

1) Peter Preston on the relentless growth of terrorist bureaucracies. They are worried that a child, an elderly Chinese woman and a Welsh insurance agent pose an unacceptable risk.

2) It's beginning to look that the "threat" against BA223 to Washington DC (twice cancelled, three times delayed over three hours) is relatively frivolous. The main thrust of the campaign is from the terrorist bureaucracy to force armed "guards" onto European flights. These "guards" are oh-so-competent that they often leave their guns and ammo clips in the toilets, or under the seat in front of them.

3) Alistair Darling warns of flight delays that could last for many years. "What's new?" asks the people regularly delayed 24 hours and more following Spanish air traffic controllers' strikes.

4) The ever-reliable Italian press reports the FBI forced down a website containing a WMV (Windows Media Video) threat to explode radioactive material in the New York area.

Moreon John Read

In Het Graun, Peter Davis explains John "Oh, Fuck Health" Read has come up with the racist idea to end "health tourism." The Health Dept polled all doctors and health trusts over the summer. 48 of 600 NHS trusts responded, as did exactly five GPs and 27 members of the public. Only 58% of the respondents suggested any change in the rules, and there's no indication if anyone thought the existing rules were too tough. Never mind the facts, feel the headlines.

Illiterate economics of the day

This from WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS, PO Box 14491, Scottsdale, 85267 popped into my inbox today. It contains some ludicrous pisspoor economics.

Since Day 911 the US dollar has fallen over 40% as compared to the Euro, the European currency basket. About half of that drop occurred since May 2, 2003, when hostilities in Iraq were reported to have ended.

Already, we're in deep, deep trouble. The Euro is the European currency, just as the dollar is the US currency. Neither is a "basket", unlike my correspondent. The reference to 911 is unclear, but since November 01, the USD has, indeed, lost 40% of its value against the Euro. About half of that drop was due to systematic undervaluation of the Euro in the years it was a phantom currency.

The mysterious Euro is not the only measure of the dollar's collapse. There is hardly a currency that has not gone up against the dollar, including the South African Rand, which has more than doubled! Stories of the falling dollar are whispered in hushed tones but do not often make it into the US press, or when it does the explanation is usually murky.

I can't speak for the financial reporting in the US press, but anyone who pays the slightest attention to the financial pages will have spotted this. Oh, and there's nothing "mysterious" about the Euro, unlike the barking eedjits who wrote this screed.

Few Americans as yet give any real meaning to the fall of the dollar or related it to the rise in gold prices. But it is not a coincidence, and there is reason to believe the trend has not run its course.

Well, of course the fall of the dollar will lead to a rise in the price of gold. Most gold is bought outside the US, and when the dollar is worth less, more of them will be required to buy an ounce of gold. Duh! More tellingly, the price of gold in terms of the Euro is more or less stable. That, in turn, indicates that the "rise" in gold is entirely specious, due to the markdown of the dollar.

What do serial wars have to do with gold and the dollar?
How is our currency diluted?
Why didn't CNN or 60 Minutes explain this?

Taking these in turn. The junta's continual war against Eastasia needs to be funded from somewhere, but instead of hiking taxes to pay for its speculative adventures, the junta has cut taxes. This is economic suicide, it's transparently not working, and once the markets became convinced (past tense, sometime around May 03) that the junta really will follow through these atrocious policies, they started to call in the massive US trade deficit, and mark down the dollar. As explained above, this led to an apparent rise in the price of gold. Effectively, gold is a proxy for All Other Currencies In The World.

The spam then witters on about how gold is a perfect investment opportunity, and how it's hoarded by the big banks. Not really.

Whopper Of The Year (2003)

A brief history of the Iraq offensive. Sadly, everything you see on this page is a lie. Lies have consequences, of course.

"Howard Dean is right," declared the silver-haired Hollings, launching into a spirited defense of Dean's assertion that Americans are no safer now that Saddam Hussein has been captured. "Saddam wasn't causing anybody any problem. You have some little smart-aleck announcer on television asking, 'Do you think we're better off with Saddam gone?' What else is gone? We have 456 dead; 11,000 maimed for life, and I don't think it was worth it. I had intended to vote against that resolution [giving Bush the authority to wage war against Iraq], but Rummy and Condi Rice and Cheney said you can't wait until the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud. I thought they had some intelligence, that they knew something."

The charts

No change atop the album listings, with Willy Oung staying clear of the Black Eyed Peas. Sales mean that Evanescence bounces back up 10 places to 3, with Busted holding at 4, and the Sugababes dipping a couple to 5. Coldplay's "Rush Of Blood" is up from 27 to 6, Delta Goodrem from 14 to 7, and Busted's eponymous debut - still young enough to be counted as a current album - from 29 to 11. New peaks for Katie Melua at 13, and Outkast at 15. Some big dips for Daniel B'dingdangdong, from 5 to 12; Atomic Kitten slumps from 7 to 18, and Blue plummets from 6 to 20.

Lower down, a good climb for the Lord of the Bling soundtrack, 34 to 23. Norah, Council Estate Slappers, White Stripes, and Stacie Orrico also do well, as does Damien Rice.

No change on the singles front, as Andrews and Jules' "Mad World" spends its third week at the top, ahead of Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne. Victoria Posh Spice Beckham Aadams has the highest new entry at 3, the Black Eyed Peas' "Shut Up" is back up two to 4. Well done to Ali Griffin, whose "Bring It On" comes in at 5. Sophie Ellis Bextor's "I Won't Change You" is in at 9, but there's trouble for S Club 8, who can only make 11 in the slowest sales week. Very little movement beneath, apart from the festive singles melting away like snow. Council Estate Slappers and Nelly Furtardo do especially well from the shakeout, making 3 and 5 place climbs. New entries for DMX (34), Jaydee (35), and Ocean Colour Scene (40) make the listing.

The big story comes at 43, where Craig David's sixth single from an album released the year before last becomes his smallest solo hit by a long shot. Also out of the 40, from last week's 16, is Pestside's "Mandy," landing at 45. Ha ha ha ha ha. The Party Boys enter at 44, and (er) that's it for new entries.

older writing...