Dah dah dah dada! Dah dah dah dada! Dah dah dah dada!




(And if you know what I'm talking about, you might also want to check out the website of Cyberdyne Incorporated....)

...By Beaker from the Muppets.


(We won't even go into how Beaker's meeping has become an outlawed example of high school rebellion. Yes, really.)

So it's 1940s, and over in the US the Ku Klux Klan is experiencing something of a revival. The Second World War is over, and without the threat of Hitler and Hirohito to unite the country, the old tensions are resurfacing. Atlanta has become the capital of the Klan's secret society, and while it isn't keeping up the membership explosion it experienced in the 1920s, the migration of around 5 million Africa-Americans away from the southern states would seem to at least partially indicate that the Klan is still an influential force.

Not everyone is down with this, of course. Enter Stetson Kennedy, folklorist and journalist, moral crusader and buddy of Woody Guthrie. During his time as Southern correspondant for a liberal newspaper, Kennedy carried out a number of undercover exposes on the Klan and the Jim Crow laws (leading to the publication of his 1954 book I Rode With the Ku Klux Klan, a partially novelised retelling of his experiences during the forties). However, none of this seems to be dealing the Klan quite the body blow Kennedy would like to deliver...

While all this is going on, Superman is making an impact on radio. The Adventures of Superman ran from 1940 to 1951 and became pretty influential, introducing Jimmy Olsen, Perry White and Kryptonite to the mythos. Played by Bud Collyer, the success of the show and the popularity of the character lead to Superman being characterised and promoted as a defender of tolerance and equal rights (it's an element that's downplayed in the current versions of the character, but the Golden Age Superman was a popualist defender of the oppressed, going after wife beaters, child abusers and corrupt businessmen). However, the War's over, and now Supes can no longer fight Hitler - where's his next serious threat?

Stetson Kennedy would help to provide a new nemesis for the immigrant from Krypton. While he'd succeeded in gathering a huge amount of information on the Klan, it wasn't having the desired effect of destroying the organisation. A new tactic was needed - what's the best way of crippling a secret society? Answer - expose all their secrets.

And so Kennedy gets in touch with the producers of The Adventures of Superman, suggesting a story where Superman goes toe-to-toe with the Ku Klux Klan. As an added incentive, Kennedy provided the writers with genuine Klan passwords and rituals, leading to 1946's Clan of the Fiery Cross storyline (available here). Suddenly the Klan's mystique was on the wane - a secret society can't easily survive being forced into the mainstream. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner suggest in Freakonomics (in a chapter that was the inspiration for this post) that this dissemination, alongside other shows doing similar things, was a major factor in a decline in the group's fortunes, noting that: "Although the Klan would never quite die...it was cerainly handicapped, at least in the short term, by Kennedy's brazen dissemination of inside information. While it is impossible to tease out the exact impact that his work had on the Klan, many people have given him a great deal of credit for damaging an institution that was in grave need of being damaged."

Life moved on. Kennedy went on to run for Governor in his home state of Florida (with campaign song written by Woody Guthrie), and in 1954, Fredric Wertham used his infamous anti-comic book treatise The Seduction of the Innocent to claim that Superman was un-American, fascist and bringing Nietzche into the classroom. Only eight years later, and already the world was forgetting how a strange visitor from another planet helped break the power of the Klan. Yet this footnote in pop-culture history is worth remembering; somehow it's a very Superman story.

The Muppets do Bohemian Rhapsody.

Today is the 46th anniversary of the greatest TV show ever, Doctor Who, and so I figured now is as good a time as any to link to the official website's Greatest Moments pages. It's nowhere near comprehensive, of course, but hey, there are 46 years of fantastic moments to choose from, from William Hartnell saying goodbye to his grand-daughter, Paul McGann's shoes fitting perfectly, and the beautiful moment when some boys from England walk together in France on a terrible day in 1914. It's a show that can go from being gloriously silly to being totally heart-breaking within the space of an episode, and it's my all-time favourite TV show. So there.

(Oh, and because somewhere along the line Doctor Who fandom somehow became an important part of the show itself, here's a link to the best fan video I've stumbled across - it's good stuff!)

So, I'm 33 today. I think I'm okay with that; I more or less got over the 'getting older' thing when I turned 30. Admittedly it raises questions of how much I've actually done with my life, given that the greatest achievements of at least two well-known people had been made by the time they were my age, but I refuse to compare myself with Alexander the Great and Jesus. That would be silly.

Of course, birthdays always make us think about what we want from the coming years. That's where I always get stuck, because I just don't know. I think I'm doing okay for myself - I have a decent job, a nice two-bedroom house full of books and comics, a car that gives me no trouble at all, a cool group of friends, and access to a global information resource that allows me to look up things like Schrodinger's Cat and a sneezing panda. I don't have to worry too much about money. Health-wise, well, I could stand to lose a few pounds, but the worst I have to face is an occassional migraine. Church is okay. I don't live in a fascist dictatorship. They're still making Doctor Who. Simon Cowell hasn't quite gutted the cultural life of the United Kingdom, at least not just yet. Darth Murdoch and Dave the Sock Puppet won't be taking over for a few months. Things are pretty good, all in all.

So, what do I want out of life? Not that this is a question I expect many people to be interested in, as it's a bit emo and self-indulgent, but hey, this is my blog, and I promise to go back to talking about Batman ASAP.

I'd like to go back to Canada. I like Canada. I like the US too, of course, but Canada is friendly and polite - "Welcome to Canada!" they said to me, as I walked through Toronto Airport. This is in contrast to Newark Airport, where I thought I was going to end up in Guantanamo Bay, or at least cavity search by a big dude called Bubba, so yeah, Canada. Maybe Vancouver. Heck, I don't even know what's in Vancouver, apart from every planet ever seen on Stargate. I just need to go on holiday somewhere, get my new passport christened.

Hmm, okay, what else? Think geek culture.... Comic-Con! Sure, it's already sold out, and it's not about the comics any more, but it's Geek Mecca. Oh, and talking of comics, I want to read something published - not just written, published - by my friend Sudge, cos he deserves it.

I want song lyrics to make sense. I say this because I'm aware Christmas is fast approaching, and therefore I'm going to have to listen to Chris DeBurgh being both blasphemous and scientifically illiterate in the same song. If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, I'm not linking to it, sorry.

I want to get back into writing more. Sure, I do plenty of it at work, but that's not the same. I'm just too lazy to do more recreational writing - there's a reason sloth is one of the seven deadly sins. I need to get over that, it's not good.

Church-wise, I wish I was a better speaker. I've lead quite a few groups now, and while it always looks fine on paper, I always think it gets short-circuited somewhere between my brain and my mouth. I suspect that's mainly because my gifts are more based around writing than talking (that's not arrogance, that's just how my brain works). Good communication is an art though, and I'd like to learn more about it. Given that we're talking in a religious context, I guess it could be that the church tends to see communication as part of a teaching model, although Rob Bell, in a recent interview, suggests we could learn something from storytellers and poets and stand-up comedians. Of course, there's an argument against making communication simply a performance, but the Bible's full of parables and performance art. I just think there's something to look at here, something I'm interested in. Maybe it's a potential project, I dunno.

I need to read more. There's no way I'm going to hit fifty books by the end of December. This isn't good. Reading is my way of staying interested in everything. Reading more is essential.

And I've really got to stress less. That or throw a chair at the next stress-bringer, thus dealing with the problem at source. One or the other.

(For an example of the above, see Terry Tate: Office Linebacker.)

I'm 33 today.

When I'm 34, I'd like to at least be blogging about a couple of the above in the past tense...

In honour of Armistice Day, please take a few minutes to read up about Walter Tull, a man whose story deserves to be far better known. To quote his Wikipedia entry, Tull was "the first black/mixed race officer in the British Army, and the second black/mixed race player in the top division of the Football League", and I guess that makes his story a fairly modern one, raising issues of race in sport, the military and our shared history, but today it seems more appropriate to remember him as one of the fallen, a leader who became so beloved among the troops under his command that they were willing to risk themselves in an attempt to recover his body, a soldier whose valour has lead to a campaign for posthumous recognition of a recommendation for him to receive the Miitary Cross. And maybe it's symbolic that someone with such a distinguished career can also represent all the other victims of conflict we remember today...

There's a memorial plaque at church, commemorating a victim of the First World War. He was 33 when he was killed in France, just weeks before Armistice Day - 33. It's not particularly young, I guess, but that's how old I'm going to be in a couple of weeks, and it's a sobering reminder that a one of the main reasons that I'm unlikely to ever faced armed conflict is precisely because the generations that faced the Wars did. Heck, even in the response to terrorism, the reason I'm fairly insulated from the whole thing is because other people aren't; we may be involved in community cohesion projects at work, but it's not exactly the same as being in the middle of Helmand Province.

Remembrance Day always feels like the most sacred day in the secular civic calendar. The poppies, the veterens who get fewer each year, "They shall not grow old..." It would be easy to turn it into some triumphalist, jingoistic, flag-waving nonsense, but there's an ambiguity in our attitude to war that restrains that, certainly with regard to the current conflicts in which the UK is involved - distrust as to our motives for being in Iraq and Afghanistan versus loyality to the personnel on the ground getting shot at. That's why, when it was mentioned that the National Memorial Arboretum in Lichfield has space for another 15,000 names to be added as and when necessary, well... It's a kick in the gut.

Sure, The West Wing may be right, all wars might well be crimes, but some people steal because they're greedy dishonest thieves, while others steal because it's their only means of survival, and others steal because they're junkies desperate to feed their addiction, and what should be black and white blurs into shades of grey, and in the midst of all that, all you can really do is look for the red of the poppies and pray that one day we'll be able to beat swords into ploughshares, and that the peacemakers will truly be blessed.

Somewhere along the line, a bird-loving saint from Assisi had a prayer attributed to him, and regardless of your religious affiliation (or otherwise), it's hard not to recognise within it a call to recognise that peace doesn't really come about just because a ceasefire is called:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

And next year, we'll once again stand in silence at eleven o'clock; next year, and the years after that, waiting for the poppies to grow once again, throughout the fields of France, along the canals of Basra.

1991 always strikes me as being way too early for the Internet (I only came into contact with email at university around 1996, although I was a bit of a late adopter among my peers - I have, of course, made up for it since), so it was fascinating to learn that the Net (specifically the Relcom network) was being used to get information to Yeltsin during the Russia coup of that year. It's amazing what you can do with 56K and Finland.

(This also reminds me of how the eruption of Krakotoa in 1883 could be considered the first 'modern' news story, in that the new international telegraph network allowed information to be shared far more quickly than before. Everything old is new again...)

So I'm browsing the website of my local newspaper when it's revealed that a UFO has been flying around the nearby shopping complex. This is a concern, as I'm not sure I like the idea of aliens invading Dudley. Sure, there are some cynical, disloyal folk that would suggest that we could use a Dalek invasion, but I'm not one of them - marauding extra-terrestrial invaders belong on TV, where they can be easily kept in check by David Tennant and Matt Smith (or David Hewlett and Jim Parsons if I'm allowed to be radical).

This isn't the first time this has happened. There were the Rowley Regis mince pie aliens, continuing lunacy on Cannock Chase, and last year's Dudley Dorito. Clearly the Black Country is being targetted by some bad flying saucer mojo, and therefore I need to look into investing in a tin foil hat. You know, to block alien transmissions and cosmic rays and stuff.

Alternatively it could just be a big fat fake, but hey, where's the story in that?

Okay, he did it. I refused to call down the thunder, I kept my calm, but NO, people had to push it. Like a Clint Eastwood movie, someone took the placid, quiet guy who just wants to live his life and mind his own business and pushed him over the edge, like Humpty Dumpty on a day trip to the Grand Canyon. See, he KNOWS I have issues with certain films, which I mentioned in my last post. He knows this. I thought he respected it. And yet, there I am, turning on my computer, and what faces me? 

THIS faces me:



This is a grotesque act of provocation. I tried to mitigate it. I sprayed 'NO SUCH THING' over it. But it didn't work, and the collatoral damage is growing. Heck, take Indiana Potato Head. He's normally a happy, chilled out kinda guy:




But he sees that Terminator 3 thing and what happens?



Because Terminator 3 SUCKS. It's a sequel to a film that spends a good couple of hours telling us that the future can be changed, so it's a bit of a disappointment to find that T3 states that no, things can't really be changed, just tweaked a bit. Well, I say 'disappointment'. More like eye-popping disgust at its nihilistic rewriting of what has to be one of the best action movies ever made. And you know, I could handle that, really I could, if the film was GOOD, but it's NOT, it has the scene with Arnie, playing possibly his most iconic, wearing pink sunglasses. It has the scene where the female Terminator inflates her cleavage to distract a cop. It has a great final five minutes, but considering those five minutes widdle all over the previous movie it rings kinda hollow. I mean, that's what Terminator 2 is all about! Things can be changed! Arnie's character becomes a metaphor for the whole plot! And yes, I KNOW that technically T2 doesn't work within the context of it's own model of time travel. I DON'T CARE. It doesn't involve Arnie wearing sunglasses that Elton John would reject as BEING TOO STUPID.      

Oh, and then they do Terminator: Salvation, which involves Christian Bale vs Terminators, but everyone knows a REALLY good film would involve Christian Bale as BATMAN vs Terminators. That would be AWESOME. What I can absolutely guarantee is that, unlike Terminator 3: Rise of the Pointless Sequels it wouldn't force me to pull my jumper over my head so I didn't have to watch great chunks of it. Unfortunately I was in a dolby stereo-enabled cinema, so I could still hear it, but I figured it wasn't worth cutting off my ears over. It was close though.

However, it doesn't bring me to rage like another movie trilogy. Yes, I'm talking about The Matrix, and not just The Matrix: Recycled and The Matrix: Regurgitated, which everyone accepts are utter gibberish, including the death scene that lasts approximately 14 months and the bit with the rave which makes the post-apocalyptic future of humanity look like the Burning Man Festival with added death robots and the fact that the script sounds like someone cut-and-pasted the Wikipedia article on Descartes into Ghost in the Shell. No, I have a problem with the first Matrix, mainly because of one scene. "Ooo, ooo, we're cool and played by Bill and/or Ted and we have long flappity jackets and have superpowers, so OBVIOUSLY we need lots of guns because guns are soooooooo coooooool, especially when we use our superpowers to break into a police station and mercilessly gun down a bunch of cops but that's FINE because they could TURN INTO HUGO WEAVING AT ANY MOMENT! And now I'll run up a wall and shoot another innocent person! Whoa! Look at me! I'm so cool and existential! Flappity Jacket! Flappity Jacket!" When Arnie shot a bunch of cops in the original Terminator, it was an atrocity. When Keanu does it, it's kewl. Someone pass the blue pill before I puke.

But who cares about human life, because in the last film, which may or may not be called The Matrix: Reprehensible, it looks to me like all the humans stuck in the Matrix do indeed turn into Hugo Weaving. But that's okay, because in a nice sunsetty scene we see that the nice anthropomorphic computer programs are okay to live their life free from being over-written by Elrond. Never mind that the majority of humanity is apparently dead, and the survivors are a bunch of raving hippies who are probably too stoned to rebuild civilisation anyway, THE COMPUTER PROGRAMS ARE SAFE! LET JOY BE UNCONFINED!

Ganga-smoking crusties. I'd've told them all to get jobs, but I was really kinda hoping that the robots would obliterate them first.

I may have misread the ending of course, there may have been dialogue to suggest that a viable human population was not, actually, extinct. However, as the dialogue in the films either a) wasn't technically English, or b) able to go more than three words without referring to a new noun ("I am the Keymaker, but to escape the Matrix you must traverse the Corridor to meet the Architect, who lives in the Office, which lies behind the Third Door On The Right, located equidistant between the Fire Extinguisher and the Decorative Yukka Plant."), I was utterly unable to understand what was going on. In fact, I was sitting there thinking how much better the virtual-world-called-the-Matrix was when Doctor Who did it back in the Tom Baker years. Now, Tom Baker vs Hugo Weaving, I'd pay to see that. At least I wouldn't have to sit through the only love affair in cinema history that generates so little heat that the Kelvin Scale should be revised and a death scene that, for all I know, may still be going on as we speak.

OH! And you know what else I learned today? Jordan now has four autobiographies available. This got me thinking - name another relatively young person who has four best selling life stories readily available. That's right: Jesus of Nazareth. Sometimes I hate this country.

However, I realise all this is pointless, especially as I'm now experiencing shooting pains in my left arm. Instead I'll leave this post with three examples of pop culture I like.  In tribute to the ending of the original Matrix, they all involve Superman, and act as a necessary counter-balance to the above rant - necessary because there's a strange red mist descending and I have easy access to a range of kitchen implements and a strimmer. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you three pop culture antidotes to the nihilism I've tried to eviscerate here:

• All Star Superman #3: Superman kisses Lois on the moon, Earth rising in the background. One panel - ONE PANEL - is hotter and more romantic than ANYTHING in any of The Matrix films (artwork by Frank Quietly, story by Grant Morrison, copyright DC Comics):

• The climax to The Iron Giant. In which a robotic instrument of death and destruction learns to overcome its programming and instead save the world from nuclear devastation. It's basically Terminator 2, only with added comic-book references. I cried.

• All Star Superman #10. "It's never as bad as it seems. You're much stronger than you think you are. Trust me." Cliches? Maybe. But also, in context, somehow beautiful

There.

I think I'm calm now.

People have been trying to provoke me to rage recently. Kerrang Radio tried to get me mad only a few hours ago, when they played that stupid 'It's cool to know nothing' song (I don't care if it's meant to be ironic or not, it provokes me to off-button stabbing rage every time I hear it). DC taking Superboy out of Adventure Comics? Eye-rolling bouts of disappointed frustration. Heir Apparent to 10 Downing Street David Cameron getting into bed with the people behind Fox News and who want to eviscerate the BBC? That's going to make next year's election an eye-popping festival of incandescent fury.

Then to top it all, my friend Dave has tried to get a reaction by seeking my views on The Matrix films and Terminator 3, at least one of which doesn't really exist. If you want to hear THOSE rants, first click on the Hunger Site to get free food to those facing starvation, then let me know, I'll just have to remember to wipe the flecks of spittle off the screen of my laptop.

But I'm going to rise above it all, and instead provide a link to this story of a teenager in Malawi who Macgyvered a windmill out of old bike and tractor parts. His village now has electricity, and you can see an interview with him at the ever-awesome TED website; as stories go, its pretty inspirational. "It's cool to know nothing"? COBBLERS!!!

The A-Team. One of the most iconic TV shows of the 80's. The adventures of Hannibal, Face, Murdock and BA were an integral part of Saturdays for a whole generation, and now they're facing the remake treatment.

Yes, I know. I agree with you. How do they replace one of the most perfect ensemble casts ever put together for a TV show? Well, with Liam Neeson, a bloke from The Hangover, a bloke from District 9, and an American footballer. Not sure I can see Neeson as Hannibal myself, but okay, we'll give them a chance. However, that chance will be fleeting and short-lived unless the producers are sure to include seven fundamental elements:


1. The Theme Tune
They'll probably make it a rap. Or a dance remix. Or a Peruvian nose-flute anthem. No. What they should do is find a group who are capable - nay, worthy - of coveirng one of the best TV themes ever. Get this wrong, replace it with some bland rockless piffle, and then they will have no choice but to be faced with hoots of derision wherever they go.


2. No-one Dies
"Oh, but it's unrealistic," they'll say, "It's not dark and gritty enough." Pah. Of course it's unrealistic. Guess what? It's not a scathing indictment of the US military justice system or a sensitive portrayal of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Despite greater levels of gunfire than some small wars, the A-Team never killed anyone. You know why? They were so good that they always aimed to miss, ensuring that the military wouldn't add murder or manslaughter to the list of charges against them. Obviously.


3. Inadequate Security Within Medical Facilities
They have to break Murdock out of the mental hospital. Bonus points if he has a pet rock.


4. A Lack of Forward Planning Among Evil People
"Bwahaha! The A-Team can't stop me! For I, Developer McNasty, have locked them in an abandoned garage, together with nothing but an old ice-cream van and miscellaneous spare parts and tools. Now nothing can stop me building a souless shopping mall on top of the family-owned organic smoothie factory! Haha!"


5. Academy Award Nominee Liam Neeson Dressed as a Sea Monster
This.


6. Aviophobia
Believe it or not, this is starting to look like a deal-breaker. According to this report in the Daily Mail, photographs from the set of the new film show the guy who plays BA sitting conscious in a helicopter. This is wrong. It was one of the running gags of the show that BA was scared of flying - this big, tough, scary dude who threw bad guys through walls wasn't getting on no plane, foo'. They always used to drug his milk, or hypnotise him, or hit him with a plank whenever they had to fly anywhere. If the new movie can't get that right... Well, I'm outraged. So outraged that I demanded an opinion from the people around me. Unfortunately the only person around me at that precise point was Indiana Potato-Head.

So what do you think, Indiana Potato-Head?



He's not happy, and who can blame him? You remake The A-Team, you've got to get it right. Maybe they're scared of looking silly, and not serious enough. Well boo-hoo. It was okay for Mr. T and he was an icon. Heck, he even had his own comic! Okay, so it wasn't good but that's not the point. Get it right!


7. Obscure Geek In-Jokes
At some point I want to see Bradley Cooper (playing Face) do a double-take as actress Tricia Helfer walks past. Only five people would get it, but those five would all shout "GENIUS!" Because, you know, I love it when a plan comes together...

In an article written by someone who seems more interested in bookcases than the things that go on them, it's suggested that people use bookshelves to show off how well read they are. After all there's no other point in keeping all those books cos, like there's libraries and the interwebs and, like, classic literature is SO 18th century.

Of course, I'm a bookshelf exhibitionist, but trust me, they're not there for show. They're there because books are good things to have around. Sure you can find plenty of information on the internet, but the quality control still isn't great and it's hard to separate the useful stuff from the crazies - it's always depressing to get halfway through a page before realising the writer thinks the Queen is a lizard person. Cory Doctorow hit the nail on the head, I think - the internet almost hypnotises you into multitasking ("I'll read a book online, whilst carrying out a virus check, downloading Journey's greatest hits, checking my email, playing Minesweeper and Wikipeding the Bloop!"), whereas books don't like you multitasking - they're offering you another world or fresh knowledge, they don't want you getting distracted by how you can become a millionaire due to a Nigerian politician spontaneously combusting or something.

And so we keep our books, because we like having them around, because they're readily accessible (I know where to go on my shelves for pretty much anything I'd need to look up, largely by instinct), because they're symbols of permanence in the face of New Media's instant gratification. And you know, I'd rather that didn't change, even if I have picked up a Sony Reader (for reasons of space and the ability to carry around hundreds of books IN ONE PLACE!). Do they make me look well-read and socially acceptable? Well, let's see...



Those are my Doctor Who books, collected over many years of trawling through second-hand stores. Note also the Health-and-Safety-Executive-defying wires and the strategically placed Ducktor Who perched atop the collection. I would argue that this little library means I'm well-read, as everything I know about the Laws of Thermodynamics, I learned from Doctor Who. Admittedly that isn't much. And it may be wrong.



These are all my other books, admittedly less impressive than Neil Gaiman's. Note the filing system that would make Melvil Dewey weep with joy. Note also Kal and Jor-el sitting next to the Terry Pratchett books, the vacuum cleaner (without which no home library is complete), and further evidence of literary sophistication in the form of two longboxes and a mountain of comics, some of which have plots.

Okay, so I may have proved the article's point by posting those pictures, but most of those books aren't going anywhere. I don't really care who sees them - they're there because I love books, think reading is important - heck, vital - and because you can celebrate the anniversary of the Billy Bookcase all you want, what counts - what really counts - are all those amazing worlds that sit on those shelves and make a difference to our lives. Lock them away in boxes because it's more convenient? Not a chance.

Yarrr! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, ya scurvy landlubbers! This year all true wolves of the sea shall be sending their dubloons and associated booty to Marie Curie Cancer Care, which be a good cause, tho' they don't have a boat. And if you be sailing the good ship Facebook, you should be switching yer language settings to 'English Pirate', because it be talking how pirates should be talking.

'Tis a hard life, being a pirate. 'tis a time of recession, and me pieces of eight are getting shorter. I sailed to the American colonies to get me piercings done, and when I ask what it be costing, they said "A buck an ear!" Pirates be good at figures though - 3.141% of us are Pi Rates. It not be easy to cope with tasks like that, having no schooling. I tried to learn me alphabet, but spent years at C. Still, 'tis better than Bluebeard the Pirate, who fell into the Red Sea and got marooned. It got him interested in religion, and now he's looking forward to Arrrrrrrrrmageddon.

But I need to be sailing off to the horizon now. I have a coconut flavoured chocolate bar beneath me hat - aye, I have a Bounty on me head.

Yarrr!

(Please note, none of the above should be considered an endorsement of digital piracy, which as we all know funds terrorists, is the leading cause of climate change, and was directly responsible for the Napstaaaarrrrrrrrr Wars.)


.........


(Serious link to Cory Doctorow's alternative take on the digital piracy and copyright debate.)

I'm interested in stuff. I can't always tell you exactly which stuff I'm going to be interested in at any one time, but that's good, because stuff is endlessly fascinating and if you limit yourself to a particular brand of stuff, you're going to miss out on all the other stuf that's out there waiting for you.

So over the last few days I've been spending a bit too much time listening to talks from the TED conference. TED (for Technology, Entertainment and Design) is an annual gathering bringing together a range of speakers from across a variety of disciplines (famous names have included Gordon Brown, Al Gore and Bill Clinton) to deliver a series of talks averaging 15-20 minutes each. This means a huge amount of ground and topics can be covered, and if you're not really bothered about hearing Richard Dawkins talk about religion, then Stephen Fry will be along in a minute. Best of all, over 500 talks are freely posted online, which means I've been listening to an awful lot of, well, stuff.

So, if you've ever wondered why crack dealers live with their moms, what an international mash-up of Stand By Me would sound like, how Adam from Mythbusters made a replica of the Maltese Falcon, where to go if you need to grow food in the event of the apocalypse or what discovering DNA is like, you could do worse than checking out the TED archive. Fellow geeks can expect a lot of their time to disappear.



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A poll of British school children has found that their dream celebrity headteacher would be David Tennant. I heartily endorse this idea. Sure, science lessons would be slightly shonky, there'd be way too much running in the corridors and the head of geography would turn out to be an alien cyborg, but your school days would be gloriously bonkers. Like Doctor Who, coincidentally.


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[jealous]Neil Gaiman has better bookshelves than me[/jealous]

I was at work when news of the Twin Towers broke. We started getting phone calls and comments from people passing by the office - a plane had hit the Empire State Building and/or the White House, there were bombs in New York, rumours that sounded wild and crazy and, sad to say, more like a movie than anything that was likely to be happening. We did what everyone does in the Information Age when your boss doesn't like you having a radio in the room; we clicked onto the internet, and that's when I realised that something big was happening - using the net was like surfing through treacle. Then I started getting emails from an online friend based in NY - fear, confusion, no way of contacting relatives in the vicinity of the Towers, a human face to the emerging tragedy. I don't recall getting much work done for the remainder of the day, the BBC's website finally yielding photos and a gradually emerging picture of the day that would go on to define the 21st century. After getting home I spent the rest of the night in front of CNN, watching home videos from a whole new world.

It's hard to say that my day-to-day life was changed dramatically by 9-11. My friend's family was found to be okay, and hey, I'm in Britain. I wasn't there (I was there following year, and perhaps the hard-nosed reception at Newark Airport was a symptom of what had happened). Heck, even when we faced the July 7 attacks in London the country adopted its typical ticked-off disdain for anyone who'd be so crass as to blow up public transport. I'm not going to sit here and claim to have any insight into the whole thing - leave that to those who were in the Towers, office workers and firefighters, cleaners and cops. A lot of voices arose in the days, months and years after events, ranging from those predicting Imminent Terrorist Apocalypse to those who claim the whole thing was an inside job, but to me the real stories are those belonging to those who were attacked directly, those who ran into the Towers to save them, and those who toiled in the wreckage for weeks afterwards. All today's memories really belong to them.

So I'll remember 9-11, and I'll play The Rising and The Hands That Built America, and I'll look at vertical gardens and wireless electricity and watch Doctor Who fan videos on Youtube and remind myself that most people actually don't want to kill each other or fly aeroplanes into office blocks. They want to hang out with their friends and family, do their jobs, chill out and be creative, and that's true whether you're in New York or Dudley or the Middle East.

Because when all is said and done, 9-11 may define the opening years of the 21st Century, or the War on Terror, or George W Bush's presidency, but it doesn't have to define us.

Q. Hi Matt, how's the computer?

A. Are you taking the proverbial?

Q. What, haven't they fixed it yet?

A. Hahahahhahahahahahaha.

Q. How long's it been?

A. A million years.

Q. No, seriously, how long?

A. Best part of three weeks.

Q. Could be worse though, couldn't it?

A. Not much. After all, it's been fixed twice.

Q. Twice?

A. Yeah, first time it got repaired, came back and stopped working after two hours. It’s now had two new CPU’s and two new Motherboards. Most computers only need one of each.

Q. Oh.

A. So then it went back so they could repair the repair, and it was returned today.

Q. So that's good, right?

A. No.

Q. Why not?

A. It was returned to the wrong address.

Q. What?! Where is it now?

A. Krypton.

Q. That's just silly.

A. Yeah, Krypton exploded, it can't really be there.

Q. So what happens now?

A. Well, it either gets returned to work on Monday, returned to my house tomorrow (and subsequently taken away because I'm not in), or ends up on Mars. I know what my money's on.

Q. Don’t you KNOW?

A. No. Because customer service in this country is legendary. Much like Bigfoot.

Q. So how are you writing this?

A. Work lunch breaks and a clunky old computer that, bless it, allows me to post, run and make sure no-one’s done anything stupid on Facebook. Just don’t ask it to do more than one thing at once – it struggles with Web 2.0, as it was a Web 1.0 world when I originally bought it.

Q. How did the scrambled eggs in tortilla wraps go?

A. My house now smells of onions.

Q. You’re not a happy bunny are you?

A. No. I am, in fact, a RAGE BUNNY!

Q. Who’s responsible for this litany of disaster?

A. I’m not saying, at least not until I get my computer back.

Q. Coward.

A. I don’t care, I want my computer back.

Q. Hmmm. You know who we need to put on this computer repair thing?

A. Batman?

Q. Darn tootin’.

A. You think everything’s better with Batman.

Q. Hh.

Today is the 70th anniversary of Britain, France, New Zealand and Australia declaring war on Germany, thus launching World War II, an anniversary that seems to have made less of a public impact than I thought it might. Coincidentally I stumbled across this article from the Independent commemorating Nicholas Winton, a stockbroker who succeeded in evacuating over 600 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. It's a moving story, and one that reminds us that, when remembering events all those years ago, candles in the darkness can still burn brightly. I think that's something to hold on to, especially now that era seems to be mutating into a cartoonish, Hollywood version of history. Nicholas Winton, the children he saved, those he couldn't save, the untold numbers of those killed during the War, all deserve to be remembered as living breathing people, but that's becoming increasingly difficult as time goes on. History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce (as attempts to Godwin political debate and Tarantino's new film demonstrate) - so what do we do about it?

I've been flipflopping on whether or not to blog about the US healthcare reform debate, and I'd pretty much decided to leave it alone until Gallifrey Base (I love Doctor Who!) linked to a College Republican National Committee blog calling for people to post public healthcare horror stories from the UK, Canada and other countries with 'socialist' healthcare systems. This is a concern, mainly because it's asking for examples of the bad rather than trying to make a balanced contribution to the debate - you can disagree with President Obama all you want, that doesn't mean you have to seek out NHS horror stories to make your point. However, in all fairness to the CRNC, they've kept the comments page up despite most of them not exactly being on message - that at least shows some integrity.

So, I guess if you have an NHS horror story you can go there and post it, but if you have a positive experience of public healthcare, then I'd encourage you to also post that. I love America, and I love most of the Americans I've met, from online friends to that crazy taxi driver in San Francisco, and it's starting to annoy me just how badly the UK and the healthcare debate are being misrepresented, from calls for horror stories to the exclusion of the positive stories, to the whole Stephen Hawking debacle. It's down to the Democrats and President Obama to defend their healthcare reforms, that's nothing to do with me (and frankly, if they're letting the debate sink to this level already, they politically deserve all they get, although my heart breaks for anyone pinning their hopes on this reform), but this whole mess has made me feel a degree of national pride and defensiveness. I'm a Brit, that doesn't happen often; we only break out the patriotism for wars and football...



For the record, this is my post to the CRNC blog:

I'm somewhat concerned that, in the interests of political debate, the original blog only requested stories that would support a pre-existing point of view, which smacks of an attempt to generate propaganda rather than fairly assess the relative merits of healthcare systems. However, I'd like to echo the poster who thanked the blog for keeping the comments, despite a majority of them not supporting the original premise.

As a British citizen, I'm happy to admit the NHS has problems - of course it does. I would, however, say that it serves the needs of the majority of people in an effective and caring way, and that any horror stories are more likely to be isolated incidents rather than evidence of wholesale disaster. On a personal note, I have nothing but praise and respect for the NHS staff who nursed my father through his terminal illness. My grandmother receives homecare through the NHS. On another note that doesn't seem to have been raised much, I have friends who work for the NHS, and I find the current slandering of them and thousands like them to be infuriating. I hope that the responses to this blog will inform the debate and, while not necessarily changing anyone's mind, will at least prompt a discussion based on the merits or failings of President Obama's healthcare plan rather than seeking horror stories from Europe or Canada.

I hope this blog and its comments section remains open, and that it helps open the eyes of some in the US who need to see that the real debate over healthcare remains in the US, rather than in searching out horror stories from other countries. It's really not helping perceptions over here, and as UK and US forces are serving alongside each other in Afghanistan and Iraq, I'd hope our nations could have a more mature relationship than becoming each others' bogeyman...