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Friday, November 26, 2004

I feel compelled to write an entry, as my list of links is now almost too large for any mortal (wombat or otherwise) to read at one sitting and remain sane. Sooooo, what's been happening? Well, we had our first 'taste of winter' (as they say in weatherspeak) last week, meaning that temperatures dropped below freezing (-2.9° at the coldest on Sat night), and we had a bit of snow. [Mental note to blog about weatherspeak.] Hurrah for snow! Pretty unusual (in recent years) to have snow in November, so perhaps that was a harbinger of a decent winter. Well, we can hope... L and I went to stay with my mate Rob and his fiancée, Clare. They live on the edge of Bourneville, just over the canal from the Cadbury's factory. Rob's my oldest friend (we've been mates from about 14); I'm going to be Best Man at their wedding in August, so I'll be seeing a fair bit more of them over the coming months. On Sunday morning we took a trip round Cadbury World. The whole tour is perhaps a bit over-long, and it doesn't always get the balance right between keeping kids and adults entertained, but overall it's good fun, and you come away with a bit of swag. Since then I've had a bit of a cold, but presumably the reason it hasn't given me a cough is all the chocolate I've been eating! Oh, and I should mention The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, a book Rob recommended, which I'm really enjoying.

Bleurgh. I'm too knackered to try to include all these links in any kind of witty stream of narrative [unarch those eyebrows, please!], so here they are:

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

This would be hilarious, if it wasn't true. Oh wait, it is hilarious, and it is (almost) true.

So, what's been happenin'? Umm, I actually went to the pub for a bit on Friday (a rare occurrence). Went to see Lisa getting her PhD at the Senate House on Saturday. I'm so, so pleased for her—she wrote a brilliant thesis, and kept her own witty, sparkly style, despite her fears of being crushed by the weight of previous leaden scholarship. Was great to see her parents again too. We went to the Riverside Restaurant at the grad pad afterwards—very impressive (the food is a lot better than the webpage)! Sunday, I finished off the gardening for the winter (although there might be a little bit still to do in the front) by planting a whole load of bulbs. TheSims2 is going very well. L is planting new families in posh houses all over the neighbourhood (where does she get the money? ) while I'm concentrating on just the one family. Seamus and Trixie are now happily settling into their dotage, happy in the knowledge that their little ones, Clydog and Tallulah, are growing into a fine pair of young people.

Happened across this entertaining Icelander's site yesterday, while looking into his Platypus software for work.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

This afternoon's report from a BBC reporter in Fallujah.

So, Evil Chimp Boy won, and we have four more years of government-inspired terror. Perhaps any gods that can be bothered will deliver us from evil... The BBC showed a great documentary last week, which had a central thesis that world leaders have discovered that fear is a far easier means to power than hope. It's hard to convince people that you can improve their wellbeing, but relatively simple (once you're in power) to persuade them that they're under threat from 'extremists' and that only a strong leader can hold the forces of evil at bay. The programme demonstrated that al-Quaeda doesn't really exist as a coherent organisation, and that that image of it is a creation of the US government. Sure, there is a man called Osama Bin Laden; sure, he has lots of money; sure, he wants to restore the Caliphate and is willing to use terrorism as a means to this end; and, sure, he had a training camp in Afghanistan, and a group of like-minded supporters; but, no, he doesn't sit in a vast computerised bunker in the Tora Bora mountains, sending out commands to highly-trained sleeper cells around the world. Bin Laden has been raised as an icon by the US government and its skivvies, who have an interest in maintaining the image of themselves battling against sinister, centrally-controlled forces. The more civilians are killed in Iraq and Palestine, the more resentment of, and resistance to, the US grows. These 'insurgents' and 'terrorists' naturally rally around the flag of al-Quaeda (despite the fact that they might never have had any contact whatsoever with Bin Laden), thereby providing Bush and co. with more 'evidence' in their campaign of fear. Extremists on both sides are locked in a bizarre symbiotic relationship—each making the other stronger.

Still, there are plenty of decent people out there.

Other stuff... My brother came to visit over the weekend. Hadn't seen him in ages, so it was good to have some time together. We didn't do anything spectacular, just ate well, looked round the Fitzwilliam (particularly the new Lucian Freud exhibition), and played backgammon.

Computer's still running well, and TheSims2 being great fun. I didn't mention that I had no problems at all with Linux and the new mobo—I booted into it and watched in amazement as it detected new hardware bit by bit, installed drivers and started up without a hitch. I really ought to do more with my Linux installation...

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

On the offchance that any Americans happen to read my blog today, please, please, please, please vote Kerry. Bush is mocked, despised, or hated in varying proportions around pretty much the entire world—if he's re-elected those attitudes will attach themselves increasingly to America as a nation. Why would anyone vote for a man who'll make his country more hated and more prone to attack?