Five short thoughts

1. when have you unexpectedly met someone who quite possibly changed your life, or how you looked at your life?
That, I suggest, would be just about every day. There are those who argue that chance encounters do not exist.

2. what has recently made you laugh?
You've gone to Private Eye, have you not?

3. what have you been singing along to?
Anything, but very badly out of tune.

4. what is a recipe you enjoy cooking that is basically affordable to make?
My cookery skills are limited to beans on toast.

5. what are your television "can't miss" shows?
At the mo: As If, University Challenge, Bremner Bird & Fortune, Powers, Mind Games, Charmed, Harry Hill's TV Burp.

This Week's Iraq Body Count

Civilian deaths in occupied Iraq due to invading forces since January 2003.
At least: 8245
At most: 10,089.

Source: Iraq Body Count.

Elsewhere: Pressure grows on soon to be former prime minister Mister Toby Nlair to close Britain's own Guantanamo. For two years, the home office under David Blunkshett has held fourteen foreign nationals without bothering the courts with such trivialities as evidence. Human rights group Liberty is quoted in today's Indytab:

We are holding 14 foreign nationals and denying them their right to trial. It would be gross hypocrisy of the Foreign Secretary or anyone else involved in the return of the Guantanamo Bay detainees to vote in favour of almost identical legislation to that used in America.

Meanwhile, the man responsible for leaving four Brits at the unlawful US detention facility has been fingered. To the surprise of absolutely no-one, it's David Blunkshett. Back to the Indytab:

Louise Christian, lawyer for two of the four men, said Mr Blunkshett had prejudiced their case by implying they posed a security threat to Britain. Ms Christian also said the Home Secretary had undermined the efforts of the Foreign Office to get all of the detainees released.

Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, stepped up the pressure on the Prime Minister by asking: "How long has the British Government known these men posed no threat? Why haven't we been told until now?"

Mr Blunkshett stunned many in the legal establishment, and in Whitehall, when he announced on Thursday: "No one who is returned ... will actually be a threat to the security of the British people." Anthony Scrivener QC, the former chairman of the Bar Council, said the remarks would be "the most quoted words the law this year" because they implied any police action under terror legislation was unnecessary. "That will ensure, with a bit of luck, that every one of them who comes back will get bail," he said.

News from Eurovisionland

Lithuania: Investigators will charge Bertrand Cantat with the murder in Vilnius last year of his companion, Marie Trintingant. M Cantat, a singer with French rock band Noir Desir denies striking Mme Trintingant after she had finished filming a production about Collette.

Latvia: to have a Green party PM. Indulis Emsis takes the reins at the leading Eurovision nation as head of a proposed five-party coalition. The Greens are the second smallest party in the grouping, but they've got the support of the larger People's Party and the previous kingmakers, the First Party.

Statements of the obvious

Het Graun reports how the US has taken to SMS messaging. Well spotted. Even the United Stations r falling 2 z incomprehensible phenomic phenomenon. As ever, g1 bn ide.

Nicky Campbell will take over Robert Kilroy-Shaft's show on BBC1. Does this mean he's off the Radio 5 breakfast show? We can but hope.

Your Vote Counts

In some election last November, Hinds County in Mississippi used a WINnVote (sic) touchscreen machine. Things didn't go too well, reports the Clarion Ledger.

From Risks list, more on Operation Enduring Vote.

Six down...

...650 (or so) to go

Mark Town

Radcliffe off to Radio 2, taking over from Richard Allinson who (hopefully!) will be taking over from Steve Reich. Riley is off to 6 Music, slot tbc.

Lies, Damned Lies, And Republican Press Briefings

As expected, the junta's desperate attempts to cling to their vestiges of power have turned nasty already, and there are still 37 weeks until they lose the election. There's a faked photo of Democratic prospective candidate John Kerry sharing a stage with Jane Fonda. It's a fake photo, confirms Het Graun.

In less than a week, the forgery travelled from a message board on a rightwing website to a Vietnam veterans' mailing list to mainstream organisations. Two British national newspapers - the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday - used the photograph in editions on Friday last week and at the weekend.

Similar attempts to claim Mr Kerry had slept with an intern were rubbished when the lady in question confirmed she had no relationship with the man.

"There are going to be a lot of dirty tricks in the campaign. It's like the story of the intern, which flew high as a kite before being shot down," said John Hurley, Mr Kerry's campaign adviser on veterans' issues.

Elsewhere, Easterblogg has a hot stock tip.

Expect a wave of mergers, acquisitions, and takeover bids. Why? Executives know the junta is in increasing danger of being forced out at the ballot box. Now would be a good time for big corporate transactions that might face scrutiny under a Democratic administration.

And finally, today's unanswered questions about the general cockups - if not conspiracy - that led to September 2001's second most famous events.

Sellouts

The Muppets sell themselves to the Dismal Corporation, the copyright-thieving company behind Michael Mouse, ABC, ESPN, and a breathtaklingly large amount of twee rubbish. Pillocks.

Bad news for Nigel, worse for Nigella

Margaret Beckett to kill thousands of badgers. Women and children first.

The government unveils its plans for 14-19 education. The GCSE and A-level will be phased out, replaced by an overarching diploma to ensure that everyone has basic skills, and the most talented are stretched beyond the existing A-level. In an unusual turn of events, the proposals are similar to the ones I put forward last August and I need not repeat here. Four tiers, check. Common core, check. They've added an extended study, which is a very good idea I overlooked. Very good.

Tonight's telly

1730: As If (E4). Sasha discovers that something's been going on, Jamie does his version of the truth, and the whole episode tries to be MSCL's "Betrayal" episode. And fails, but not by that much.

1800: Miracles (UK Living, shifted from 2200 yesterday). Skeet tries to tell people that haemography can be dangerous without the correct number of vowels. Will they listen? Of course not.

1900: Cold War (UK History+1) Make Love Not War. Featuring the greatest political speech ever.

2000: Live At Johnny's (BBC3) Johnny Vaughan and Lauren Laverne ask people to send in pictures of themselves with meat. The studio guests are Westlife, but no-one makes the obvious joke.

2030: Round Britain Quiz (Radio 4, shifted from 1330 yesterday) What links a Mercian dyke-builder, Linus's sister according to Schultz, a and someone the Beatles found sexy?

2100: Drop The Dead Donkey (PCom2) Love hurts, especially for the barman.

Indescribable

Does the new tabloid version of the Independent mean it's no longer the Indescribablyboring? Very probably.

There's a verve and vivacity and vavavoom and lots of other words with "v"s in them about the paper now. It's the sort of vamoose that the Indy had when it launched, but lost along with most of its yuppie readers in the early 90s, and never quite recovered. No longer does it plod through stories relentlessly, the tab moves along at a canter, but doesn't lose any of the detail or accuracy of which the paper is rightly proud.

Even better, some of the articles are specifically done with the tabloid format in mind. For instance, Saturday's paper had a feature on ice-skating champs Torvill and Dean twenty years after their brightest moment. Were this placed in the broadsheet, it would probably be one full page, with two large pictures and a daunting block of text. In the tabloid, they can spread out to two pages, place the pictures more naturally, and fit the text around them. There's no less text, but it's no longer so daunting. It doesn't look so much, more people will read it, and that makes it a better designed spread.

In retrospect, that is the thing that Indytab has learned from the short-lived Sunday Correspondentab of 1990. Though the writing in the Corrie was still head and shoulders above anything else, the paper felt like it was a broadsheet that had shrunk in the wash. It didn't use the smaller format to best advantage, and that spelt the end for the paper. OK, that I was paying 50p (or, as they put on their cover every week, 0.7 ECU) for a journal that cost something like £2.50 to produce didn't help.

So, yes, the Indytab is not the Indescribablyboring. It's not the Indescribablywonderful, either, some of the articles still drone on a little, devoid of any interest to people who don't live and breathe politics, but it's a far better paper in tabloid than in broadsheet.

Anyone But Candidate X

Meet the Republicans campaigning for a new candidate. After seeing their chosen man crash and burn last time out, the youth wing wants someone other than Sad Loser Bush Jr. According to some...

Bush was destroying the party's ideals and was "not fit to stay in office". Club member Alexander De Filippi had been fuming for ten minutes already... One woman expressed her dismay at the president's "lurch to the left", and several members lamented the president's hour-long TV interview on February 8, tying it to an unimpressive State of the Union address at the end of January.

"It wasn't stellar," said one. "He should have had a lot more ammo, and been better briefed" said another...

Guest speaker Carl Limbacher, the editor of Newsmax.com, told the packed meeting that he was worried that the White House had become too passive. "Eventually Karl Rove will unleash the attack dogs, you'd think. But they never do it."

Only say it if you mean it

Tutu tells Blair to apologise. Desmond Tutu, the third most powerful symbol of the struggle against apartheid, spoke in a London lecture today.

The turmoil after the war proved it is an illusion to believe that "force and brutality" leads to greater security. "How wonderful if politicians could bring themselves to admit they are only fallible human creatures and not God and thus by definition can make mistakes. Unfortunately, they seem to think that such an admission is a sign of weakness. Weak and insecure people hardly ever say 'sorry'.

"It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying: 'I made a mistake'. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would recover considerable credibility and respect if they were able to say: 'Yes, we made a mistake'."

The archbishop linked the US junta's support for capital punishment with a new philosophy behind the invasion of Iraq. "It may not be fanciful to see a connection between this and the belligerent militarist policies that have produced a novel and dangerous principle, that of pre-emption on the basis of intelligence reports that in one particular instance have been shown can be dangerously flawed and yet were the basis for the United States going to war, dragging a Britain that declared that intelligence reports showed Iraq to have the capacity to launch its weapons of mass destruction in a matter of minutes.

"An immoral war was thus waged and the world is a great deal less safe place than before. There are many more who resent the powerful who can throw their weight about so callously and with so much impunity."

Credont

Children to study atheism alongside more popular (though scarcely less credible) mainstream religions, according to a report in today's Obs. The Qualifications and Curriculum Agency said: "It is very much the intention that young people in the context of religious education should be studying non-religious beliefs. There are many children in England who have no religious affiliation and their beliefs and ideas, whatever they are, should be taken very seriously." The report, due out tomorrow, will encourage youngsters to debate morals and philosophy in the classroom, something that didn't happen in my education until the sixth form.

Good news

Johnnie Walker will return to Radio 2 on March 1. He's been off since last June while taking therapy for a cancer. Stuart Meerkat will now return to general Phil Inn duties.

Makes pregnant chads look like a picnic.

The problem with electronic voting is there is no independent way to check that the results are valid. So says David Dill, the Stamford professor who yesterday criticised the US government's rush to electronic voting. Some models, including those supplied by a major Republican party contributor, don't give any record of how the ballot was cast, nor how the machine recorded that ballot. It's a recipe for fraud on a scale that makes the attempted theft in Florida last time around look like a children's tea party.

Poiree Of The Day

...is Raphael. The gentleman of the most dominant husband and wife team in - well, forever - won his third and the couple's seventh gold of the tournament in today's 15km mass start. Ole Einar Bjorndalen ran him very close until the final shoot, but a second miss dropped him back into a seven man scramble for the minor placings. Lars Berger came from the back of the group to finish second, with Sergei Konovalov breaking in the last 100m to finish ahead of Tomasz Sikora, Halvard Hanevold, Vincent Defrasne, and Bjorndalen. Loser of the day was Ricco Gross, second in the world cup standings going into today's race, but he suffered from a broken ski binding and finished 29th of the 30 starters.

In the World Cup standings, Poiree has now taken the lead from Bjorndalen. Three weeks of racing remain, the next is in Lake Placid from February 25.

Fab 40!

Four weeks on top for Katie Melua, ahead of a new entry from Franz Ferdinand. Snow Patrol, Joss Stone, and Emma Bunton's Free Me album round out the top five. The next newie is the Von Bondies' Pawn Shoppe Heart at 18, then it's Jamieson's Think On Your Feet at 21, Lambchop's Aw C'mon / No You C'mon one place lower, and Courtney Love's America's Sweetheart at 31.

Climbers are thin on the ground, but Daniel B'dingdangdongeveryhourwhenyoupickaflowerevenwhenyourloverisgonegonegone bounces up six to 14, non move for the Black Eyed Peas (6), and one place climbs for Birtney (10) White Stripes (24) and Strokes (27). Of the others we're looking at: Lemar slips one to 17, Sparky's down four at 37. Sarah McLachlan is down eight to 30, still ahead of Courtney Love. On the classical chart, Lord of the Bling holds top spot for a fifth week at 39, with Westenra at 41 - both are down 10.

[Above edited 28.02, on news that Norah Jones, Air, and Jamie Cullum's albums are Corrupt Disks and hence not eligible for the chart.]

On the singles side, do not be confused. Sam and Mark were two of the sad losers from the recent Pop Idle 2 contest, and though their single has sold more copies than any other this week, it's still shifted fewer units than the already low average for 2003. With A Little Help From My Friends is the lead side of the single, it's a cover of Wet Wet Wet's cover of the Beatles Number. Measure Of A Man is the other side, it's (sadly!) not a cover of Alf Poier's song from last year's Eurovision, but is a cover of the lead track from Clay Aiken's album. Clay was the equivalent sad loser from Pop Idle US 2, and his second single was Invisible, itself a here-today-gone-tomorrow minor hit for another Simon Cowell project, D-Side. Just to add to the confusion, the PIUS2 winner (whose name escapes us at the moment) covered Westlife's Flying Without Wings as his opening number. Willy Oung, of course, also covered Westside's album track Evergreen as his debut, while Hobbit Idle Kurt Neilsen's cover of Tal Bachman will be released here next month. Phew.

All this means there's no space to note Ronan Bleating's #2 hit with A Load Of Rubbish, the Stereophonics' Pile Of Crap at #5, or Fatman Scoop's What Is He Drivelling On About at #9. We recommend Speedway's Can't Turn Back (12), the Stands' Here She Comes Again (25), and the Rapture's Love Is All (38). Also recommended: the Poppy Fields' 45rpm (28) - back in the 1980s, this group was the Alarm, and have their first hit since 1989.

Other newies, for the record: Ferry Corsten, Strokes, Underdog Project, Jagged Edge, and Chingy. In week 14, Outkast is back where they came in - quite literally - as Hey Ya slips three to 6. Katie Melua's Closest Thing to Crazy run continues with a non-mover at 15, quite remarkable with six newies above her.

older writing...