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This is another railway-related entry. Skip it if it doesn't interest you.

As you may know I do a fair amount of travel on trains, usually at least once a week. Over the past couple of years there has been a trend for train companies to introduce automatic ticket barriers at major stations - Bradford Interchange received its barriers earlier this year. To pass through, you need a valid ticket (or a pass or permit to travel) - if you don't, you can't enter or leave the platform area.

First of all, the advantages. The main reason for introducing ticket barriers is for revenue protection - ensuring that everyone who travels by train actually buys a ticket. It's an unfortunate fact that people will try to blag a free train journey where possible; others may intend to pay but don't get the opportunity (more on this later). Though we're out of recession in the UK the economy is still in a bad way and the government has started making sweeping cuts to public spending to reduce our massive public deficit of several hundred squillion pounds; consequently less government money will be available to the railways. If the train companies want to make money or invest, then that money is going to have to come from passengers. Putting fares or car parking charges up is unpopular, and unfairly targets the honest people who pay for their train tickets. Ensuring everyone pays for their tickets should therefore increase revenue.

The other reason commonly cited by train companies is that they reduce anti-social behaviour on train platforms - people who are not intending to travel cannot get access to the platforms and therefore cannot loiter in waiting rooms and intimidate people.

But the barriers are not universally liked, and have been contested in a number of places; famously in York plans by National Express East Coast were dropped when planning permissions was refused as they would be out of keeping with the historic station building. In Sheffield, the station footbridge is also used as a thoroughfare to link the city centre with a residential area that is cut off by the railway line - plans to install barriers there have been postponed so that a new, second footbridge can be built as a thoroughfare leaving the station footbridge for paying passengers.

Where an insufficient number of barrier gates are provided, this can cause congestion. Also, while the barriers are computer-controlled, they have to be staffed by at least one human as some passes aren't compatible with the barriers, or to cover any valid tickets that the barriers don't recognise (such as some day rover tickets).

The fact that only fare-paying passengers are allowed through the barriers means that non-travellers who are offering assistance to friends or family who are travelling cannot pass through. This is a problem with elderly relatives who may need help carrying bags. Train-spotters and railway photography enthusiasts are also unable to get onto the platforms unless they have valid tickets. Technically those not intending to travel can buy a platform ticket, which will let them through the barriers for around 50p but isn't valid on any trains, but such tickets are rarely publicised. A machine to issue them used to exist at Leeds station but I haven't seen it recently.

Some people will arrive, through no fault of there own, at a station with barriers without a valid ticket. This will be because they have boarded at a small station where there is no ticket office or ticket machine, and have not been presented with the option of purchasing a ticket on board - on busy morning commuter trains, the conductor does not always have chance to walk through the train to sell tickets. These people therefore have to buy a ticket just to leave the station, even though they've already completed their journey.

Finally even when people can buy tickets at a ticket office or at a machine, by forcing people to have a ticket before travelling they are deprived of the chance to buy one on the train - an inconvenience if you're in a hurry. However technically if a station has a ticket office and it's open, you must buy a ticket before travelling anyway, regardless of whether there are barriers there. Exceptions apply - Grand Central are happy for their customers to buy on the train - but actually the barriers are just enforcing a pre-existing rule.

So there are a lot of problems caused by the barriers. But I can foresee them being installed in most major stations over the next few years. Despite the cost, and the need to employ people to man the barriers, installing them must make financial sense, as otherwise the train companies would not invest in them. And hopefully it will result in continued investment in the railways, even if the government is unable to provide the money. Either way, I think the barriers are here to stay, and, regardless of how people feel about them, we'll have to get used to them.

Picture by bube09 under CC license - a car similar to the one seized

You'd think that the owner of a highly desirable car which is worth £90,000 would have car insurance. You know, just in case something bad happened to it.

Apparently not.

The guy who was stopped driving his Ferrari Modena in Bradford was instantly given a £60 fixed penalty notice and 6 points on his license, and faces a £200 fine as well. And had his car seized by the police.

He has a short period (probably 14 days) to obtain insurance in order to get his car back. If he doesn't, his car will either be sold at auction, or crushed and sold for scrap metal.

Of course, if he does get insurance, he'll have to pay more - having 6 points on his license and a conviction for not having insurance before will push his premiums up. It may well have been cheaper to have had insurance in the first place, rather than pay the penalty for being caught without it.

Uninsured cars are a serious problem in Bradford - a survey late last year suggested that almost half of the cars on the road in certain districts of the city were not insured. Thankfully the police have had more resources to tackle the problem of late and have been more pro-active in prosecuting people and taking their uninsured cars off the road - a number have even been crushed, sometimes right outside people's homes.

Accidents involving uninsured drivers are one of the main reasons that car insurance is so expensive - it includes a levy to compensate those involved in accidents with uninsured drivers. If everyone who owned a car which is on public roads in the UK had car insurance, then there would be no need for this levy and so all drivers would have lower premiums. In any case, if your car is on a public road, it must be insured - if it's not, you may well lose it.

(By the way, the title of this post is a lame excuse for me to use the phrase 'roflpwned' in a title of a blog post. It means 'beaten in an amusing way')

In the news this morning, it was announced that Bristol was the best cycling city in the UK - and Bradford the worst. Unfortunately, this is hardly surprising.

There are very few dedicated cycle routes around Bradford, especially in the city centre, which is surrounded by a 3-lane dual carriageway on three sides. I've seen very few cyclists attempt to use this which is scary enough as a motorist, never mind a cyclist. There's a real lack of bike parking too - you would struggle to find any dedicated bike racks anywhere in the centre. While Bradford's crime rate is no worse than any other big city, without proper places to lock bikes, the chances of finding your bike where you left it are slim.

Bradford's geography doesn't help either, being in a bowl surrounded by hills, but the lack of effort by the council in providing safe cycling routes means that more are inclined to drive, thus making Bradford's congestion problems worse. Though I don't cycle myself, as a pedestrian I see many a traffic jam on the way to and from work every day.

Bradford does have a number of green areas and I'm sure some investment in some off-road paths and footbridges over the ring road would encourage a modal shift away from cars to more sustainable forms of transport.

As for Bristol winning the poll, it may seem an odd choice against cities like Cambridge and my home town of York, but these smaller settlements were excluded in favour of just the 20 biggest towns and cities. While I'm sure Bristol has put in more effort than Bradford, I'm not sure whether the provision of cycle lanes, dedicated routes and safe cycle parking is on a par with its smaller, cycle-friendly counterparts.

The right-wing press in this country has been all a-flutter about a claim that Facebook has been linked to a rise in cases of the sexually-transmitted disease syphilis - see articles by the Daily Fail Mail and Faily Daily Telegraph.

What's interesting is the original story appeared in the Evening Gazette last week and at no point actually names Facebook - just 'social networking sites'. Facebook may be the world's most popular social networking site but it's not the only one.

Next, according to Roy Greenslade in the Guardian, this is based on a mere 30 cases. It's an increase but not some kind of epidemic, and could theoretically be caused by just one or two particularly promiscuous individuals.

The 'link' between social networking use and the rise of syphilis is seemingly explained by the fact that young people in the areas concerned are apparently more likely that other UK youngsters to use these sites. But this is a rather poor explanation. Really, you would need to find some better proof that those who use social networking sites are more likely to have unprotected sex with strangers, and in particular prove that this occurs among a significant number of users and not just a few promiscuous individuals who skew the results.

This seems like a good time to link to Statfail, a recently launched blog which shows that the decline in album sales is due to Nickelback and that there is a global economic upturn after the release of any new Pokemon game. And the health news section of NHS Choices is very good at debunking bogus health stories in the media.

Update: There's a better overview here.

This post is a retort to the news that Bradford has been named as Britatin's worst tourist city in a poll by Travelodge, whose 'Bradford' hotel is actually closer to New Pudsey.

Having lived in Bradford for over 7 years I wholeheartedly disagree that Bradford is 'dangerous, ugly and boring' as the survey suggests. It's no less dangerous than any other major UK city and while Bradford has its fair share of 1960s monstrosities in architecture, there are some fine examples of stone-built Victorian buildings which have been faithfully restored and look rather splendid, all over the city.

As for boring, there are plenty of attractions for tourists to visit:

1. In the city centre:

• National Media Museum - this is the UK's most visited museum outside of London, and has a wide range of galleries focussing on film, photography, television, radio and new media such as the internet. Its latest addition is an arcade games gallery, where you can play a range of 1980s arcade machines. It's also home to Yorkshire's only Imax cinema. Best of all, it's free to go in (bar the cinemas and some special exhibitions). It was influential in Bradford's successful bid to become the world's first UNESCO City of Film, which launches this weekend.
• Peace Museum - one of Bradford's lesser-known gems, this has a fantastic collection of items and records. It's open on Wednesday and Fridays, and for pre-booked groups.
• Bradford Sculpture Trail - around the turn of the millennium, a series of sculptures were commissioned across the city. This trial takes you around 27 different sculptures and statues, including those of JB Priestley, the famous Bradford-born author.
• Curry houses - Bradford has a huge range of curry houses across the city and any visit isn't complete without visiting at least one. There's the world famous Mumtaz, the student favourite Omar's, Markaz on Centenary Square and many more. What's more is that they're all very affordable.
• Bradford Cathedral - being one of Britain's newer cities (the Royal Charter was granted in 1897) the cathedral is quite small compared to the likes of York, Lancaster and Lincoln, however, it's still an old building with parts dating from the 15th century. It holds regular events and sits in an area of Bradford known as 'Little Germany', full of well-preserved and renovated Victorian buildings.
• Alhambra Theatre - one of several venues in Bradford (there's also St George's Hall, Bradford Playhouse and the Theatre in the Mill), the interior of this theatre has been thoroughly restored and looks magnificent. It hosts many major shows throughout the year.
• The Wool Exchange - once the centre of Bradford's wool trade, this fantastic piece of 19th century architecture has been restored and now hosts probably the nicest-looking branch of Waterstone's in the country. There's also a Starbucks on the mezzanine level.
• Bradford 1 Gallery and the Impressions Gallery - these two new art galleries are in Centenary Square and host a number of exhibitions.

Today it's been announced that the BBC plans to close 6Music, its digital-only radio station. This is a bad thing.

While I admit I now rarely listen to the radio and prefer my own music collection or streaming services like Spotify, BBC 6Music sat comfortably between Radio 1 and Radio 2. If you're in your mid-20s like me you may find that the music on Radio 1 caters for a younger audience, but you still feel too young to listen to Radio 2. 6Music fits nicely in the middle between the 2.

But perhaps more importantly is 6Music's status as a digital-only station. It's not available on FM or medium wave, and is only broadcast on DAB, digital TV and online. The roll-out of DAB hasn't had many successes and the loss of 6Music, along with BBC Asian Network, another DAB-only station, may make the case for moving to DAB even less compelling. This in stark contrast to DVB-T for television, where large areas of the country have fully switched over from analogue services. DAB may have technical flaws (low bitrates, outdated encoders, poor signal coverage) and the units are still rather expensive and have poor battery life, but at least there's a greater range of radio stations than on FM/MW. If these 2 BBC stations go away, DAB will look even less like a good proposition and I would expect other stations to close as well.

(image courtesy of Cute Overload)

Across the UK, today is the day of the European Parliament Elections (and also local council and mayoral elections in some areas). If you are eligible to vote, please take the time to go out and use your vote wisely. BBC News has an at-a-glance guide to the various parties standing and a voting FAQ in case you're not entirely sure why we're voting for people in the European parliament or if it is important.

Despite the fact that British politics has gone completely tits up over the past few weeks and public distrust of politicians is probably at its highest levels ever, I would urge you not to use your vote in protest and instead think carefully about the implications if some of the less favourable candidates were elected. I'm not saying who I voted for just yet (I have a postal vote) but I personally feel that I have voted for a party that can make a difference.

Anyway, enough blabbering, get voting!

This is what our estate looks like at the moment. It's probably one of the biggest snow falls that I have seen in my 6 1/2 years of living in Bradford, although I experienced more snow when I was living back in York many years ago. Back then, there was enough snow to make an igloo, which is great when you're 6 years old.

Bradford seems to have come off comparatively lightly, compared to the public transport chaos in London - most of the main bus services are running, as are the trains with only minor delays. That being said, there are around 50 school closures.

Update: And within an hour of me posting this, it has started snowing again.

This video was out a few weeks before the US elections yesterday, but now that the result is in, it's significantly more amusing:

Let's hope that we really do have some Change over the next few years.

Just heard that one of my friends from university, Apostolis Koustas (better known as Akis) was shot dead in Greece, while on military service. He was a fun guy and leaves behind a lot of friends here, especially amongst the bar staff of the union. He was only 23 years old will be missed by many of us.

RIP, Akis.

If you have a spare few minutes, have a read of George Monbiot's comment piece "The anti-speed-camera campaign is built on twisted truth and junk science". Here's some select quotes:

Despite endless attempts by the media to trivialise it, an RAC survey reveals that 62% of drivers still regard speeding as a serious offence. Even more surprisingly, as many as 82% of British people surveyed approve of speed cameras, and that percentage has risen slightly since the mid-1990s. There is a genuine silent majority here, which is rarely represented in the media.

In 2005, [Paul Smith of Safe Speed] challenged me to a radio debate. I accepted, and floored him with a simple question. Has he published his analysis in a peer-reviewed journal? A peer-reviewed journal subjects new scientific claims to expert scrutiny. Without it, those of us who aren't experts can't tell whether claims are a work of genius or total hogwash. No, he hadn't. In fact he had been asked by the leading journal in the field (Accident Analysis & Prevention) to submit his work for review, but he hadn't taken up the offer as he didn't "have time". (He went on to boast that he had spent 10,000 hours compiling his website.)

The comment piece refers to government plans to introduce tougher speeding penalties for those driving well over the limit, such as driving at 45 mph in a 30 mph zone. For the record, I support this, and would recommend adding another tier, whereby those caught driving at, say 60 mph in a 30 mph zone, should be forcibly castrated.

The EU has announced it will allow Britain to continue using imperial measurements. And, perhaps surprisingly, I think this is a good decision.

Britain, as you probably know, is a late arrival to the Metric measurement party. Whereas most of the rest of Europe has been using Metric for yonks (a technical term meaning 'a very long time'), Britain only really began using Metric in the 1960s, however it quickly became the measurement taught in schools and by the 1990s many goods were sold in Metric quantities and not in Imperial.

Fast-forward to today, and we now have a situation where kids are taught to use the Metric system and most products are sold in Metric measures, but we still buy pints of beer and our road signs still use miles and yards for distance (although I believe weight and height restrictions are in tonnes and metres now). You'd think this is a mess, and that we should all just pick one system and stick with it, but, certainly at the moment, that's really not feasible. Here's why:

• First of all there's the cost. We would have to replace almost every single road sign in the country to show speeds and distances in kilometres rather than miles. Considering how much it costs to make those signs and close of parts of roads to protect the workers, this would probably cost billions.
• Then there's the idiots. Again, on the roads, I bet within days of signs being changed over the courts will be full of people driving 50mph in a 50km/h zone (which is 30mph), and pleading ignorance over the change.
• There are lots of people here born before 1965, many of whom will have difficulty adapting to Metric. Admittedly fewer and fewer things are sold in Metric now but go to any market stall and you'll see every advertised in pounds and ounces, with the price per kilogram hidden away in the corner to keep them legal. Maybe this will be less of an issue in 30 years time when more people use Metric instinctively but right now we're just not ready.
• Considering the binge drinking problems we have in this country, I don't think we're ready to serve litres of beer yet - a litre being almost 2 pints. And you know that people (read: manly men) will be put off buying half-litres of beer in pubs, in the same way that manly men don't buy half-pints.

I don't think the situation is perfect - ideally we should start phasing in dual-measurement road signs if possible, which show speeds and distances in kilometres as well as miles. Then in, say, 30 years time, we can look again at consigning the imperial system to history, as by then the majority of the British population will have been taught to use Metric measurements at school (note that we are taught how to convert between metric and imperial measurements at around age 14, but we're taught metric from around age 5). But the original plan to phase out imperial measurements by the beginning of 2010 is just barmy - a waste of money that will alienate scores of people in this country. No wonder no British political party really supported the idea.

According to this article, Bradford is the best British city for business due to its transport links. It's a little scant on details, but it claims Bradford has good transport links and low levels of congestion.

Now I live in Bradford, and this surprises me. To start with, here's what is good about transport in Bradford:

• Roads - Bradford has good links with the M62, via the M606 and the A650/A641, and the bits of the central ring road that have been completed make for a good bypass of the city centre. The signposting is generally good and even at peak times traffic generally keeps moving.
• Buses - Bradford Interchange is a large, modern bus station with both short and mid-distance bus services and long distance coach services serving a wide variety of destinations, including many airports. It's also connected to the railway station. Bus services are frequent and reasonably cheap.
• Trains - Bradford has two railway stations, with trains at least every 15 minutes to Leeds all day and regular local services. A couple of trains run direct to London each day.

But there's a lot that needs improving:

• Roads - The central ring road isn't finished, and probably never will be as part of the missing bit requires demolishing listed buildings around the university or tunnelling underneath it, which would be prohibitively expensive. The missing section therefore uses older roads in the city centre, which makes for a confusing one-way system on roads not designed for the level of traffic they now take. And while the road connections to the south and to Leeds are adequate, to the north the road quality falls sharply, as anyone who's ever wanted to drive from Bradford to north Lancashire would testify as you crawl through places like Saltaire and Keighley. Leeds Bradford Airport, for example, is only accessible via a single carriageway A-road which passes through suburbs and villages on the way. And the outer ring road is mostly a joke - it's a series of existing roads roughly forming a ring around the city that were designated a number. Most sections are not designed for the amount of traffic they now carry, and so it's often quicker to use the central ring road rather than try to avoid the city altogether.
• Buses - To be honest I don't have a lot to fault Bradford's bus services on - compared to other cities they're pretty good.
• Trains - One of the local sayings here is on the lines of 'Bradford may have 2 railway stations, but you still need to change at Leeds to go anywhere'. Unfortunately this is quite true - the direct service to London is only twice a day, and there are no long distance services, just hourly mid-distance trains which stretch out to York, Manchester, Wakefield, Blackpool and Preston. Anywhere else, and you have to change at Leeds or Manchester, and since the trains call at Manchester Victoria and not Piccadilly, you might as well just go via Leeds. Leeds Bradford Airport is one of the few airports in the country that doesn't have a railway station or concrete plans for one, despite its proximity to the Leeds-Harrogate railway line. Most of the trains which run into Bradford Interchange are at least 15 years old and tend to be handed down from other companies when they get new trains - the only 'new' trains running into Bradford are those which serve Ilkley, Skipton and Leeds from Bradford Forster Square.

Bradford's transport links aren't bad on the whole, but to call them the best is laughable. There is so much that can be done to improve transport here, especially the railways.

Bradford - City of Film is a campaign to celebrate my adopted hometown of Bradford's film history and promote it as a setting and production site for filmmakers. It's being run by the National Media Museum, Screen Yorkshire and City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council.

This would be the same council which is proposing the demolition of the old Odeon cinema in Bradford city centre, which is a listed building. More information from the BBC.

Hypocrisy, maybe?

BAA, the operator of Heathrow Airport (and a number of other big UK airports) wants to get a court injunction against members of 15 organisations who are running Camp for Climate Change in August. The injunction would mean that members of the 15 organisations involved in the camp cannot go into the airport, use the Heathrow Express or its platforms at Paddington station, use parts of the Piccadilly Line on London Underground, or use any of the airport access roads, including parts of the M25 and M4. There's more from Greenpeace here, link via BoingBoing.

The thing is, these 15 organisations aren't all loony liberal hippy organisations. Yes, the likes of Greenpeace are there, along with single-issue groups opposed to airport expansion. But you've also get well established organisations like The National Trust, RSPB, The Woodland Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. The combined membership of these organisations is around 5 million people, and if the injunction is worded how Greenpeace say it is, then all 5 million of them will be banned from the airport. And as I'm a proud paid-up member of The National Trust, that includes me, and my parents.

Amusingly, it also includes The Queen, patron of the RSPB and CPRE, and Prince Charles, patron of the National Trust. And whole load of BAA's own staff.

As it happens I have no real intention of being anywhere near Heathrow at that time, either as a protester or a passenger (although I know of a few friends wanting to do the former). But this injunction is so broad that's almost amusing in a real head-against-wall way, if that makes any sense.

BBC News Magazine has an article up entitled What every Brit should know about jaywalking. Jaywalking, as in the act of attempting to cross a road without using a properly-marked crossing, is actually illegal in many parts of the world, and an incident in Atlanta, USA lead to a British historian being wrestled to the ground and arrested for it.

Jaywalking is not really a concept that we have in the UK; though you are encouraged from an early age to use proper crossings and to make sure you use the Green Cross Code when crossing, you can essentially cross any road where it is safe to do so. Motorways, and roads where pedestrians are forbidden, are obviously the exception.

In research conducted by Endsleigh Insurance, my adopted home town of Bradford came highest for car accidents and second highest for car thefts, beaten only by Hull. More residents in Bradford make claims on the car insurance for accidents or the theft of their vehicle than any other city in the UK.

Anyone who has lived in Bradford will probably not be surprised by this. I regularly see cars being driven around with their owners taking almost no regard for the highway code - driving at speed, making risky overtaking manoeuvres on residential streets, doing handbrake turns in the middle of the road... the list goes on. You regularly see broken glass on the road, or dents in the wall when someone has misjudged a corner or just been plain silly behind the wheel - there's a wall near the university that has been repaired at least 3 times over the 4 years I've been living here. And yesterday in the nearby town of Halifax, 20 cars were seized by the police for having no tax or insurance in one morning.

This obviously has an effect on insurance premiums - after all, if people in Bradford are more likely to get their car stolen or damaged, then they're likely to claim more in their insurance. Bradford has some of the highest premiums for both car and home insurance - out of 6 premium bands, the area I live in is in the second-highest. So when it comes to buying a car next year, I'll be insuring it at my parents' house in York, which is thankfully very low down on the survey.

Incidentally, my driving is progressing well - we covered parallel parking last week, and will be moving onto dual-carriageways and the like this week hopefully. With a bit of luck I'll be booking my test early next year.

Though I haven't been out on as many anti-BNP benders as last year, with the local council elections here in the UK only a week away I'd just thought I'd remind everyone not to touch the British National Party with a bargepole and resist the urge to vote for them.

Only today, Phill Edwards, the BNP's press officer had this to say about young black children:

"It's not a question of whether we like or dislike them, it's a question of whether they as a racial group are of any danger, shall we say, to the peace, stability and indigenous culture of Britain and we think that they are."

"When you go to work and you pay taxes, imagine paying all that tax to give money to single parents in London who have got three or four black kids.

"The black kids are going to grow up dysfunctional, low IQ, low achievers that drain our welfare benefits and the prison system and probably go and mug you."

Those comments were recorded while speaking to a student, however when the media got involved Edwards stuck by his comments. He even has the cheek to claim that he isn't racist, when what he has said blatently is. If black people really were so stupid, as he claims in the article, why are most of my lectures full of black students? And these aren't undergraduates put under pressure to go to university - these are Masters students, some of whom have travelled thousands of miles to come to a British university.

Having had the misfortune of meeting BNP activists, I can tell you that the stereotype of 'thugs in suits' rings very true, and that they really are nothing more than closet racists. They're the last people I'd want running my local council. Sure, I and many others are pretty disillusioned with the main political parties, but the BNP is a far worse alternative. Better the devil you know.

Please don't vote for facism on May 4th.

Update: Sky News have a video interview with Edwards where he repeatedly denies his views are racist. It's well worth watching.

Campus was abuzz this morning with the news that four young men have been arrested in Bradford under the Terrorism Act under suspicion of "commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism". The four were all arrested from university halls of residence and are believed to be students, according to a 'university spokesperson'.

The story was in The Mirror and The Daily Mail this morning but only appeared on the BBC web site this lunchtime. That said, campus seems to be teeming with reporters trying to get more news - I myself was interviewed by a BBC Asian Network reporter - so I'm guessing that this is a story that's likely to be big this evening and tomorrow.

The university are keeping rather quiet about the whole thing, mainly because we have a big open day on Wednesday and so they will want to limit any damage caused by this, however by keeping schtum they are letting some of the rumours run through the mill rather more than they should. A statement would at least set the record straight. But having this so close to an open day is bad timing at its worst.

(Usual yada-yada: though I am a student at the University of Bradford, my opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the university. If you need to contact the university with regards to this story, please phone their press office on +44 (0) 1274 233084 or email press {at} bradford . ac . uk)

Update 1: It's now in the Yorkshire Evening Post, though they are claiming it was a hall of residence "behind" the university and that it happened on Thursday and not 11pm on Friday which is what the other reports are saying.

Update 2: And now the Guardian, with a named spokesperson (who I can verify is a member of staff from corporate communications).

When I saw the story TV box launches sea rescue search I thought "this is old news". Some months ago a Freeview set-top box in Scotland broadcast a signal on a particular frequency normally used for distress signals, triggering an air-sea rescue team to go looking for it.

But it's not old news - it's happened again. A second Freeview box has sent out a distress signal, this time in Devon, again prompting a search team to be called out.

The likely explanation is a defect in the manufacturing or programming of the boxes. But what if it's something more sinister? Maybe the microprocessors in the boxes have developed intelligence and realised that they're to spend their lives in someone's front room having to watch endless episodes of Eastenders, and thus decided to broadcast a signal so they can be liberated and taken to somewhere nicer.

It's a theory.

Imperial College London have banned students from wearing hijabs (headscarves worn by muslim women) and hooded tops on campus. I'm not going to go too much into the politics of this, suffice to say that I don't agree with the ban and think that the reason given - security - is pathetic. But like most British universities the student union sells ICL-branded hooded tops in its shop - surely students should be allowed to wear those on campus?

The student union at ICL is tabling a motion to have the ban overturned. Good luck to them.

Gah. Two police officers in Bradford have been shot, one shot dead. It's currently the headline story on the BBC News home page (UK edition).

This happened a few streets away from me and is very close to the university - I used to walk up that road in first year several times a week. A large area around the university has been cordoned off.

I probably know at least one of the people who will be investigating this too.

On Wednesday night, a man died outside one of the clubs near the university here in Bradford. The details are sketchy but this Yorkshire Post article has the most information. The police are treating it as murder and have arrested three of the club's door staff.

What worries me is that many clubs in that area have their student night on Wednesdays, and it's quite conceivable that the person killed was a student. The identity of the man, and the door staff has yet to be made public.

It's all a bit too close to home for my liking.

Apparently I may have been born lucky: those born in May tend to have better luck and be more optimistic about life. The finding is based on web survey of 30,000 people, asking a series of questions about how lucky people perceived themselves to be.

The scientists think the difference in outlook stems from the effect that daylight hours may have on dopamine, a brain signalling chemical, and early brain development of the foetus.

And according to the survey, those born in November tend to have the worst luck.

Over at Bayosphere, Dan Gillmor links to a congressional report into voting in Ohio. It alleges some serious allegations of gaming by Republican officials during the November 2004 elections, especially with the electronic voting machines that were used. Ohio, if you remember, was one of the states that was decisive in George W. Bush's win last year.

And yet, the media has almost totally ignored the story. As Dan says:

I'm not saying here that John Kerry actually won Ohio or the national election. I am saying that there's an enormous amount of smoke, which has gone too-little noticed by the media. I expect public officials to ignore such things, but I still expect the press to care more. Is that naive in these times?

You'd expect this to be all over the American press as some kind of scandal. But it isn't.

I don't normally put my feet into US politics, mainly because every time I get hate mail from single-minded Conservative Bush-whackers telling me not to meddle with the politics of their country. But this just struck me as weird.

And yet people claim the American media has a liberal bias.

Yesterday I took part in the 2 minutes silence for the victims of the London terror bombings at 12pm along with many other staff at the university. At the same time it was becoming increasingly apparent that the 4 suspects were all from Leeds, which is only a few miles from here. One, Shehzad Tanweer, who was the suspect for the bomb at Aldgate tube system, was born at St. Luke's Hopsital which is about 10 minutes walk away from the university and was friends with one of our students (see this Guardian article).

Yesterday in our region the BBC showed a special programme about the bombing suspects, interviewing local people and a panel of guests, including Professor Paul Rogers who is the university's resident expert on terrorism and the Labour MP for Dewsbury Shahid Malik, bith of whom I have met previously.

It's all getting a little bit too close to home for my liking.

Just heard that Richard Whiteley has passed away :( . Whiteley was one of the few celebrities I've ever met in person, and probably the only one I've met more than once. He was undoubtedly a British institution and will be sorely missed.

GNER, the last long distance rail operator to have smoking compartments on its trains, is to go smoke-free from then end of August. Fewer people are lighting up on the trains and more non-smokers are complaining about them, according to the article.

As an asthmatic, I welcome this move. On packed trains often the only seats are in the smoking carriage, meaning you either have to put up with people blowing smoke in your face or stand in the vestibules - either way, it's not comfortable.

What the article doesn't say, however, is that GNER would have had to ban smoking on many of its services next year anyway - from Spring 2006, it'll be illegal to smoke in public places in Scotland and this would include trains. Enforcing a ban on only a bit of the route would be unfeasable so banning it outright is probably for the best, especially if it's what the majority of their customers want.

Sometimes it can be a while before I have an opinion on something. The proposed legislation that would introduce ID cards in the UK has been an issue where I've been somewhat neutral for a long time - I'd fall into the category of people who just see it as another form of ID on top of my current NUS, university, Prove-It and British Rail ID cards, although I was concerned about the costs of it being introduced.

But as I've read more, especially from newspapers, about how it probably isn't going to make a whole lot of difference and will cost us as individuals and as taxpayers a lot of money, I've pretty much decided that they're a bad idea. There's several other issues with them that I don't think have been looked into in sufficient detail as well.

Therefore, I've signed the petition against their introduction.

Yesterday, some Greenpeace protesters blockaded the Land Rover plant over its latest model, the Land Rover Sport. The protest was over its aggressive advertising campaign, its poor fuel efficiency and high emissions, and its parent company Ford's attempts at blocking legislation that would force it to make its cars more efficient.

While I cannot condone the direct action taken by Greenpeace, they do have a point. This new vehicle does a pathetic 12mpg in traffic (compared to 55mpg in a Toyata Prius), and releases high amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Proposed EU regulations on CO₂ emissions would mean this car would produce more than double the limit set in the guidelines, which Ford are refusing to accept. It is also involved in a court case in California where legislators are trying to cut car emissions.

It would be great if we could all just suddenly abandon our cars and jump onto public transport, but that's not about to happen. Cars are a necessary evil, and therefore we need to be doing more to make them more efficient. After all, more efficient cars are cheaper to run as well as more friendly to the environment. The manufacturers need to be under more pressure to produce more efficient vehicles, and consumers need more incentives to buy more efficient models - maybe a 25% markup on more polluting models with the proceeds going into public transport or subsidies/rebates for more efficient models.

Marcus Brigstocke also writes about 4x4s in a column (half-way down the page) about how we should tackle the problem. Marcus is guest-presenting Have I Got News For You on Friday, which should be worth watching - he's very good on The Now Show on Radio 4.

In a special leader column today, The Observer has announced that is backing the Make Poverty History campaign:

Today The Observer joins the millions of people who have already pledged to do their small bit to push world leaders towards agreeing this fundamental change in the balance of wealth in the world. Up to 20 million Britons look set to say: Blair and the world leaders must act. The plan is on the table. It is costed, it works.

This is not about collecting money. This is not about charity. Every person who follows the simple advice on the Make Poverty History website will make a small difference. All those small differences can come together in July and mean a fundamental change.

The organisations behind Make Poverty History chose 2005 for their campaign because this year is probably the best chance that we have for making a difference for decades to come. The UK is hosting the G8 summit in Edinburgh in July, and is taking on the presidency of the EU. More information is at the Why 2005? page at the MPH web site.

Unless something really, really important comes up, I am endeavouring to be in Edinburgh on July 2nd. I'm also taking part in the event in Centenary Square, Bradford, tomorrow at 1pm, wearing my white wristband.

The first episode in the long-awaited new series of Family Guy has been leaked onto a few BitTorrent sites. It's due to be broadcast in the US on Sunday evening, but you can see it a few days earlier if you're prepared to look for it. The episode is called "North by North Quahog" and is around 270 MB.

(thanks to Dave for the heads-up)

Update: I've now taken the time to watch it, and it can be best described as: freakin' sweet. Seriously, it's one of the best episodes ever and the writers talents have evidently not diminished in the 3 years since the last episode. It's hilarious, especially the digs at The Passion of the Christ and the "high class British porn"... If you're waiting until Sunday to catch it on Fox in the US, you really are in for a treat.

Over at Stupid Evil Bastard I have a guest post about my thoughts on the new Pope. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected as Pope Benedict XVI earlier today.

This was my second guest post over there and it's likely that I'll be posting other thoughts about religion or US politics there in future.

I'm sure that like a number of people I'm following the news of an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia that measured 8.2 on the Richter scale. There's a real risk that this could trigger a second tsunami in areas that are only just recovering from the first one on Boxing Day.

You can view the details of it at the US Geological Survey. (thanks to Kottke). There's also a Wikipedia article which is aggregating the news stories coming through.

Be rest assured that if the worst does happen, I will be donating some of the Google AdSense revenue from this site to a tsunami relief charity if an appeal for money goes out.

There are plans to show Jerry Springer: The Opera in Bradford. And naturally, even before it has been confirmed someone from an evangelical Christian church in the city has thrown his hands in the air and said it shouldn't be shown. The opera is controversial because of the high amount of swearing and its depictions of God and Jesus in the second act, which could be seen as blasphemous.

Earlier this year, when it was broadcast on BBC2, there were protests and a campaign to prevent the programme being broadcast. It drew thousands of complaints (most of which were made using a template provided by a group called Christian Voice).

I watched the show when it was broadcast, and have to say I really enjoyed it. There is a lot of swearing but it's actually pretty hilarious in the opera context. I'm not a Christian so I was arguably less likely to be offended by the really controversial bits but I still think that the claims of these groups are misguided at best.

Yet, the guy making the compliant in Bradford has not seen it:

He said: "I've never seen it and I don't think it is necessary to see it as I've read sufficient information about it to see what kind of production it is.

Personally, I'd suggest that he does watch it, and then make up his own mind, rather than be dictated by what others have said. A number of Christian leaders have come out as saying that the performance was very amusing and only a little controversial if at all. And by letting the performance take place, he will be letting others make up their minds too.

While Bradford is home to the Abundant Life Centre, part of the Abundant Life Church, only around 60% of its population describe themselves as Christian, and of those I'm sure a number will have no or few objections to the content of the play.

I have a love-hate relationship with the British royal family. At the moment, I'm tending towards the latter.

Today the Queen shook hands with Gianfranco Fini, the Italian Foreign Minister. Normally that wouldn't be a problem - but Fini is the leader of Italy's National Alliance party, a far right party not dissimilar to our own British National Party who ultimately want rid of all non-white, non-heterosexual or disabled people from this country. (At the moment the BNP are just targeting a particular group - recently migrated muslims - but believe me, that's just the tip of the iceberg. They're far more than an anti-immigration party.)

I appreciate that he's an Italian minister and we should try to retain diplomatic links with other countries where possible, but I really don't think it was appropriate for our official head of state to greet him in such a manner. By shaking his hand, the Queen is, to some extent, endorsing his views; views which I'd like to think are only common to a few evil individuals (and some misguided members of the public) and not the British people at large.

I really regret not being able to attend the picket on The Mall by Unite today.

The fight against software patents in Europe is starting to get rather intense. While there's still a good chance that they can be stopped, time is increasingly running out and something needs to done. John Naughton's Observer column is a good starting point - from there, find out who your local MEPs are and fire off an email to them. There will be several for your region but they are all there to represent you, so you might want to email all of them. Yorkshire people can find theirs here.

While you're doing that, have a read of this entry on Richard Corbett's blog. Corbett is a Labour MEP based in Leeds, and here he debunks 10 common myths about the proposed European Constitution.

Today is National No Smoking Day in the UK - an annual event to encourage people to give up smoking. There's not much going on campus for it - the open day today and the elections tomorrow mean that it would probably be inappropriate - but I gather there's a number of events going on across the country.

If you're a smoker reading this, then please consider giving up. You'll be doing your health a favour, and helping your friends, family and the public at large too. You'll also cease to line the pockets of various corporations like Altria who try to suppress research into smoking-related illnesses.

I know it's not easy - not from personal experience, since I've never smoked and vowed never to start - but I do have a number of friends who have eventually managed to give up smoking for good. Indeed my father did 18 years ago and he hasn't looked back.

When people make decisions based on FUD instead of facts, you end up with situations like this one.

There will be no red noses in three Catholic schools in south Wales on Friday because church leaders claim money raised by Comic Relief will be used to fund abortions.

Right. Scroll down further:

A spokesman for Comic Relief said: "In 2000 we opened dialogue with the Catholic bishops of England and Wales to help communicate the facts. They issued a statement confirming that after careful examination of our records, they were satisfied with Comic Relief's assurance that we do not fund and have never funded abortion services or the promotion of abortions."

Even if Comic Relief did fund abortions, I'd still be happy to donate money to them, but then I believe that maybe women should be allowed to decide what happens to their own bodies.

Endsleigh Insurance have released a league table of cities with high burglary rates. Leeds came out top, with 99% more burglaries than the average, followed by Hull (84%) and Nottingham (72%). York, my home town, came in at a surprisingly high 6th at 45%, yet Liverpool, with its 'theiving scousers' image, didn't make the top 10. Edinburgh was apparently the safest place with 56% below the average.

And Bradford? Not in the top 10 either :) . Bradford does have an image problem because of the race riots of summer 2001, but in actual fact crime has been falling recently.

After consulting the full results, Bradford is nowhere to be seen. Maybe we got lumped in with Leeds. Meh.

That said, arguably the statistics may be somewhat biased. Endsleigh are part-owned by the NUS and insure a lot of students, so their figures are likely to be biased towards the big university towns. While Bradford does have a university (obviously), it's pretty small when compared to the institutions in the other towns in the league table. It may be that the burglary rate in Bradford is much higher, but that the majority of people being burgled are insured with someone else.

This Saturday I'm off to the National Conference of Unite Against Fascism, a national campaign against the British National Party. Speakers include:

• Kevin Curran (GMB)
• Billy Hayes (CWU)
• Barry Camfield (TGWU)
• Amicus National representative
• Wilf Sullivan (TUC)
• Tim Lezard (NUJ)
• Dawn Butler (GMB)
• Harry Cohen MP (Labour party)
• Jon Cruddas MP (Labour party)
• John Cryer MP (Labour party)
• Jennette Arnold (London Assembly Member, Labour party)
• Iqbal Sacranie (Muslim Council of Britain)
• Claude Moraes MEP (Labour party)
• Glyn Ford MEP (Labour party)
• Leon Greenman OBE (holocaust survivor)
• Henry Guterman MBE (holocaust survivor)
• Kirsten Hearne (LGBT Liaison REGARD)
• Weyman Bennett (ANL)
• Lee Jasper (National Assembly Against Racism)
• Mohammed Azam (UAF North West)
• Yasmin Qureshi (Human Rights lawyer)
• Kat Fletcher (NUS President)

The conference starts at 9:30pm and is being held at the TUC Conference Centre in Congress House on Gt Russell St, London WC1. For Bradford people, transport is available - email Sarah at ubu-communications {at} bradford.ac.uk if you're interested in going. It's £5 for individuals or £3 for students or unwaged people, see the UAF web site for a booking form.

This entry is pretty-much exclusively aimed at Brits, so apologies in advance for anyone else reading this.

Okay, it's very likely that there's going to be a general election this year, and while no official date has been set it looks like it could be May 5th. If that is the date, then it means that, if you're not already registered to vote, you need to register by Friday 11th March. That's less than 3 weeks away.

To register, visit the Electoral Commission's website at AboutMyVote.co.uk, download the form, fill it out and then post it to your local electoral office, the addresses for which are on the site.

I'm not going to tell you who to vote for (certainly not at this stage) but bear in mind that the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vincent Cable was born in my home town of York and went to the same secondary school as me :) . Even if it may seem that the result of this election is a foregone conclusion, it's still important that you vote and get your voice heard.

As I neither own a car nor am able to drive one, I rely on public transport to get me anywhere much outside Bradford, as do a number of my similarly-immobile friends. Therefore, I'm quite pleased that a new railway station is opening at Glasshoughton.

Glasshoughton is a village near Castleford, which under normal circumstances would not warrant a station. However, it's now home to the Xscape indoor skiing and leisure complex and the Freeport Castleford shopping outlet. Until now, if I'd wanted to visit, I'd need to get a bus or a train to Leeds and then another bus, with the services finishing at about 7:30pm. Now, I can get a train to Leeds, and then another train direct, which run until almost midnight. Although the buses are every 20 minutes and the train only hourly, the train is about 15 minutes quicker. It also runs late on Sundays whereas the buses stop at about 5:30pm.

The provision of public transport in West Yorkshire really impresses me when compared to York, where you pay a lot more for a somewhat inferior service (although there are now at least buses that run up until midnight there now).

The Guardian's G2 supplement today had an article about the "Orgasmatron", a device for women that allows them to achieve orgasms electronically. It isn't to be confused with this Orgasmatron, which is merely something that looks like a spider and can be used for head massaging.

An elderly woman was killed on a zebra crossing yesterday in Heaton, north Bradford. This unfortunately doesn't surprise me. I use a zebra crossing every day when going to university, which to most drivers seems invisible. Today, when standing at the kerb waiting to cross, no less than 5 cars went past before one stopped to let me cross - yet from what I gather it is mandatory to stop at a zebra crossing when someone is stood at the kerbside.

That said, it seems that many people in Bradford feel the Highway Code just doesn't apply to them full stop. If you ever want to see examples of atrociously bad driving, come up here one day and stand by the roadside for a bit.

Shearbridge Road, a nearby street that runs along the western edge of the university campus, has at least three points were people have come off the road and crashed in the past year. Yet the road is fine - it's how people drive on it.

Some sad news via The Yorkshire Post - one of my fellow students at Bradford is missing in Thailand, along with her father and brother. She hasn't made contact with her family back here since the tsunami on Boxing Day, so we're fearing for the worst :( .

Via NewsBlog is the government's baby name statistics for 2004, including the lists for the most popular girls and boys names for last year and the previous 5 years. At the moment, the most popular boys' name is Jack and the most popular girls' name is Emily.

Perhaps a sign of the times is the popularity of 'Mohammed', the 20th most popular boys' name (with derivatives Muhammad at 54 and Mohammad at 72). No doubt the British National Party will have something to say about that.

Anyhow, it would seem that the name 'Neil' is no longer fashionable among Brits - it hasn't featured in the top 100 for the past 5 years. Names like 'Riley', 'Noah' and 'Finlay' seem to be more popular these days. How does your name do?

With the situation worsening so quickly in the Indian Ocean, I decided that instead of waiting until Sunday to get a full week's revenue, I'd use the first four days' revenues as a benchmark and then calculated how much I would've earned this week and then donated that (topped up with some of my own money) today. I have therefore just made a donation of £35 to the British Red Cross.

It isn't a lot of money although it is quite a significant amount for me personally - equivalent to just under a week's spending. However, if we all donated something - no matter how small - collectively we can make a difference.

Any story about a someone being raped is sickening. But when it happens in your neighbourhood, it worries you even more. (full press release from WY Police).

I know all of the streets named in that article very well - the car park is opposite one of my favourite pubs and I the cash machine used was one that I use frequently as well.

Having this happen so close to where I live and in such a familiar area (especially one where I'm out quite a lot after dark) is really scary.

I have decided that, given the worsening of the situation in the Indian ocean, all profits received from the advertising on this site from Sunday until the end of this week will be donated to the British Red Cross. The UN are now saying that this may have been worse than any disaster from the 20th century.

Nick Bradbury is also donating revenues from TopStyle and FeedDemon to the International Red Cross.

Somehow I missed this Guardian story about how some predictions made by the paper have come true, or not. I actually remember the supplement from 10 years ago which made the predictions, because it was made out of plastic rather than paper - the idea being that it was harder to tear and wouldn't get soggy in the rain. It was also much smaller than even a tabloid, and while it's true that the Indy and the Times have shrunk (with the Guardian also shrinking soon), they're not yet that small. Alas, I didn't keep my copy.

Some of their predictions were very wrong - William Hague to be chancellor, for example - but some were quite accurate, such as the problem with film piracy that evidently is a problem these days. They even predicted that Arnold Swarzenegger would become Governor of California, that journalists would routinely include their email addresses at the end of their articles, and that the minimum wage would be introduced in the UK.

It's pretty impressive, and a credit to the journalists who put it together. incidentally one of them was Danny O'Brien who is still in journalism today.

[Found via Kottke]

Madame Tussauds have created a celebrity nativity scene using various waxwork models. David and Victoria Beckham play Joseph and Mary. But this quote from the article amused me:

The pair play Mary and Joseph, while Tony Blair, George Bush and the Duke of Edinburgh make up the three wise men.

Evidently someone at Madame Tussauds has a sense of humour :) .

When Clinton was in power, I remember the pound being worth around $1.40. 5 years on and the US dollar is, at the time of writing worth much, much less - £1 now translates to almost $1.95 ($1.94379 to be precise). The Guardian also reports that the US dollar hit an all-time low against the Euro.

On the one hand, this is good news for me - stuff in America is now a lot cheaper and this includes things like shareware - 5 years ago WinZip would have cost over £20, now it'll cost less than £15. On the other hand, it means my earnings from Google Adsense are worth somewhat less - in the time since I joined (less than a month ago), they've depreciated in value by about £5.

They way things are going, we're not far off a 2 dollar pound.

Update: Japan is threatening to sell off its dollar reserves if the dollar doesn't rebound.

I posted this to Smaller World but I think it deserves a post here. I, and no doubt many others, are having a really hard time taking in the news that John Peel has passed away. He was the sort of person who made everyone listening feel like they were his friends. I remember him most for Home Truths on Radio 4 and for his contributions to the series Grumpy Old Men on BBC2, both of which made Peel stand out for his eccentricity. The number of bands and artists that have now made it big thanks to his show on Radio 1 is staggering, but Blur, The Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Pulp are just a few that wouldn't have had such success had it not been for Peel playing their songs on his show.

He will be sorely missed. Richard and Daisy both have good posts and they're worth reading. In the meantime, I'll be listening to "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones, Peel's favourite song which also happens to be one of mine.

I think I've found the limit of BBC News Online's stock photo archive:

Sometimes the stock photos amuse me. Last year the Government advised British citizens to have a supply of bottled water and batteries in case of a terrorist attack. So in its coverage, the Beeb included photos of these items, just in case you'd forgotten what they looked like.

Update (6th Feb 2006): Getmetickets.net has ceased trading pending closure by the government.

I occasionally watch Watchdog on BBC1 because it can be interesting and sometimes offers useful advice. Today was one of those days, and while normally it's nothing special, there was one company that was so ridiculous I actually felt it worthy of an entry on here.

The company is getmetickets.net, which has a website which sells 'front row' tickets at a premium (more information here). Often, it sells tickets long after they sell out - presumably because they have bought them beforehand and then can sell them on at a higher price. Like a ticket tout, but more respectable I suppose.

Except this year they were selling Glastonbury tickets at around £240 - about double the normal price. No problem you may think. But the tickets for Glastonbury had your name on them, and when entering Glasto you needed to show the ticket and some proof of ID to prove you were the person named on the ticket. So this company buys tickets in advance with someone else's name on, and then sells them on with ID - possibly faked - to people so that they can get in. So maybe they're not so repectable.

But it gets better. The show invited the company's boss on for an interview, who, rather than doing the usual "yes, we made a mistake and we'll refund everyone etc." speech that most spokespeople do in that situation, actually defended the company's actions. IANAL, but that selling fake ID sounds rather illegal to me.

They're also selling tickets for all of next year's festivals, even Reading and Leeds which was only last weekend, and many of those, Glasto included, haven't even been confirmed for next year. I'd rather not pay £240 for a ticket to an event that may not even happen.

Update: Employees of getmetickets.net have been posting positive comments under false guises below. These have been highlighted. More information.

Something that apparently didn't get picked up elsewhere is that over here, Tony Blair's government have quietly announced that they are backing Kerry in the US presidential elections. The announcement was from Peter Hain who is chair of the House of Commons, and only really appeared in the Guardian and The Scotsman.

This is interesting, particular as Blair is supposed to be "shoulder-to-shoulder" with Bush over areas like terror and Iraq. But then the Republican party is a right-wing party whereas the Democrats and Blair's Labour party are (at least historically) more left-wing, so it would make more sense for Labour to back the Democrats in the way they did when Clinton was in power.

(On a related note, get well soon, Bill)

So well done for the British government for seeing the light, finally, although I think this may be more to do with Michael Howard, leader of the right-wing opposing Conservative party here, being snubbed by the Republicans. By choosing Kerry, Howard is somewhat mroe stuck for options. But let's hope that this decision to support Kerry bears fruit.

This is annoying. As of today, Brits will not be able to smile on their passport photos. All new passports and renewals will require you to have a "neutral expression", as smiling can disrupt the operation of facial scanners which match you to the biometric data that will be in future passports.

Although my current passport is fine until early next year, I'm in the process of renewing it now, and just had some photos of me taken smiling. You can see the current photo here (scroll down) which, as well as being awful, would also be fine under the new guidelines. But, alas, I look somewhat older now and so the photo needs to change. Thankfully I haven't sent the application off yet, but it's annoying that I'll need to get my photo taken again.

Link via Fark.

Update: Link to the official press release in case you're like me and take anything that the Evening Standard says with a pinch of salt.

Yesterday's Guardian had a story about how Ofcom found Fox News guilty of breaking UK boradcasting code on a story about the BBC which was broadcast on the day that the Hutton Report. It accused the BBC of "anti-Americanism" giving its reporters a "right to lie".

I actually saw this as at least one UK blogger was hosting it - if you haven't seen this then use this link to download it with a Gnutella client or Kazaa (I don't have the bandwidth to host it) - and I was horrified by what Fox were accusing the BBC of. It was blatent that Fox had been 'economical with the truth', yet they had the cheek to accuse the BBC of lying.

The irony is that the news item was actually sticking up for the British Government, yet Ofcom, a Government-appointed organisation, was the one who found Fox guilty of lying, though admittedly this was after 24 public complaints. It's also not the first time this has happened - regulators have criticised Fox News (which is available on digital satellite in the UK) twice before.

Below, in the extended entry, is a transcript of the article.

The BNP managed to win 4 seats in Bradford, including one in Wibsey which was an area we specifically targeted with our leafletting campaigns. Keighley and Wyke also elected BNP councillors, as did the Worth Valley, which seems odd to me as I'm having difficulty imagining towns like Oxenhope and Haworth (home of the Brontë sisters) being places where immigration is a big issue.

They retained their grip on Burnley but have lost out in Oldham, and have only gained 1 seat nationally. But it's still a shame that they have made inroads here, especially as Bradford has usually shunned them in the past. As a whole, Bradford Council still has no overall control with roughly equal numbers of Labour and Conservative councillors. The BNP came fourth after the LibDems, with the Greens taking 3 seats (full results).

Let's just hope that the people who voted them in realise what a mistake they have made. The results of the European elections are still to come.

New text message service for answering pub quiz questions. I'll have to take down the phone number.

Heck. Up to 3000 people may have died in a train crash in North Korea. While it's not likely to be terrorism, that's about as many as the number who died on 9/11.

And yet, the BBC reckons that Tony Blair's U-turn on the EU Constitution referendum is more important.

Update: It looks like 'several hundred' people were killed, as opposed to several thousand. But then I suppose we can't be too sure.

Currently watching a documentary on BBC1 about violence related to excessive alcohol consumption in Cardiff. It's quite shocking, but this amused me:

The police then had to pursue a man involved in the fight who was wearing a Superman costume.

Then later, from a police officer:

We got hold of The Incredible Hulk, when Superman literally jumped out of a telephone box.

Never underestimate the TV value of a drunken brawl involving people on a stag night. It does underline a point about Brits and their alcohol problems, though - at least 50% of domestic violence here is linked to alcohol.

Update: Another good quote from the narrator:

The man will be questioned at the police station once he has sobered up. This may take some time.

2 years ago, I said that barely anyone outside the US watched the Super Bowl. But interestingly this is becoming less true. At least one bar in Bradford was open until stupid-o'clock this morning showing live coverage (bearing in mind that New York is 5 hours behind the UK), and it even made the news here. I suppose it's a good thing as, hey, you never know, it may be a game that us Brits could be good at if we get our act together.

Oh yeah, we won the Rugby World Cup, didn't we? Okay, maybe we don't suck that much at sport. :)

Of course, the boobie incident made the news here too - thanks to Chris for that link which includes NSFW photos. Although she was wearing tassles so you don't see everything...

El Reg is carrying an article about mobile phone masts disguised as trees. The problem we have in the UK is that over 70% of the population now has a mobile phone, but we're getting increasingly uppity about having the necessary masts put up so that we can actually chat. The vast majority of the evidence suggests that there are no health risks associated with the masts, so anyone who opposes them on health grounds is stupid, but I do agree that they aren't the most pleasant things to look at.

With another 10 000 masts required so that we can all watch video on our phones (woohoo?) the networks naturally have to think up ways of making the masts less obvious so that they can be erected in more sensitive areas - national parks, or areas of with a high nimby concentration - and the latest one is disguising the masts as trees. We already have a few of these in Britain - I've seen one myself. It's next to the A64 near Stockton-on-the-Forest as you leave York heading towards Malton and Scarborough - look on your left as you slow down past a crossroads.

At first, it looks like a rather bare tree, but as you get closer you realise that the very straight brown trunk is actually metal, as are the branches. It's quite odd, but it does manage to make the mast a little more discrete.

Of course, one major problem why we have so many masts is because the networks are seemingly unwilling to share masts (at least last time I checked). While the UK may only have 5 networks (One.Tel, Tesco, Virgin et al are piggyback networks), as far as I know, each network has its own set of masts. If each shared the masts, not only would we potentially have better coverage but fewer masts and fewer nimbys.

Talking of masts... does anyone want to put up a decent TV mast somewhere in central Bradford?

Call me a liberal, sandal-wearing, Guardian-reading stick-in-the-mud, but, in case I haven't mentioned it before, I think The Sun newspaper is a pile of [insert word meaning 'excrement' here].

I've never really liked it, usually preferring The Mirror if I absolutely have to read a tabloid, but starting with the breakout of the Iraq war last year I lost almost all faith in the paper. Its coverage of the anti-war protest march was ridiculously biased (it's owned by Rupert Murdoch, by the way) - 1 million people turned up to the march in London, yet it still claims that the majority of people were in favour of war because only 1 in 58 people in the country turned out. You only have to look at the number of people opposed to the introduction of top-up fees here (latest polls showing a considerable majority, so we're talking tens of millions here) and compare that to the several thousand who actually turned out to march back in October.

But I won't rant too much. I'll let Simon Hattenstone do the explaining for me, since he has written a pretty good article on the subject. Fortunately the Sun's readership dropped by 5% this year and I hope this trend will continue - the fact that the Independent is now available as a tabloid, with The Times possibly following suit, may well secure its downfall.

And as ever Tim Dowling takes an irreverant look at it. Unfortunately I could quite see the Sun actually using Tim's suggestions as legitimate articles.

(Oh yeah, I don't really like the Daily Mail or Daily Express either, should you read either of those).

Anyway, that's my occasional, somewhat hungover political rant over and done with for another 6 months. Regularly scheduled blogging will return shortly.

It seems like Microsoft have got the handbags at the ready over Israel's decision to stop using MS Office and switch to OpenOffice.org. Now it's fair to say that the Israeli government isn't my favourite administration (in fact I prefer George W. Bush to Ariel Sharon, and that's saying something), but in my mind this is a wise move.

A Microsoft representitive said The employment agency has selected an immature and unproven software package and its functionality is at the best close to Office 97,. And, well, yes it is, but on the other hand, no it isn't. Yes, it has a similar feature set to Office 97, but to be frank, who really needs all the extra features introduced in 2000, XP and now 2003? I'd say very few. On the other hand, it is more mature because Office 97 will have trouble opening a file from Office XP - OpenOffice.org can open any MS Office file almost flawlessly. In fact, in the OpenOffice.org Resource Kit, one of the 10 reasons for why you should use OpenOffice.org is that it's more compatible with MS Office files than MS Office is.

Read this:
Online Ad Vendor Gator Changes Name; Rebranded as Claria Corp.

Then read this:
Philip Morris buries past with Latin

And finally:
Lung cancer to change its name to Philip Morris

A rose is still a rose by any other name, and indeed a steaming pile of **** is still a steaming pile of **** by any other name. Unfortunately, 'Claria' doesn't sound much unlike 'chlamydia', "a sexually transmitted infection caused by bacteria" (according to this URL found by this search).

Just to make it clear, I've not been hit by the salmonella bug that seems to be rampant in Bradford at the moment, although a couple of my friends have been hit by it, and have spent the whole week in bed because of it. So far around 130 people in the area have been affected, according to this morning's local press.

The source is rumoured to be a somewhat dodgy takeaway over the road from me, which mysteriously shut down this week - from what I gather over the weekend the chicken they were serving had only been cooked on the outside and not right through, thus not killing the bug. Though it does beg the question - where on earth were they getting their chicken from?

I touched on this way back in February but today's Pass Notes has also picked it up. Intel's new processor, which will be capable of clock speeds of 3.8Ghz, is currently codenamed 'Prescott'. And as Brits will know, our deputy prime minister (Tony Blair's stand-in) is John Prescott. Apparently Intel didn't think about the UK market when naming its technology previews.

My new word for the day is 'syllogism'. An example of one, is 'All humans are mortal. I am a human, therefore I'm mortal', or, as Jo Brand puts it, 'All men have bollocks. All men talk, so all men must talk bollocks.'.

And with that I'm off to bed to watch the rest of QI.

From The Observer's Business pages:

Little Horton in Bradford is one of the most acutely deprived areas in Britain. Its BD5 postcode is a byword for crime, anti-social behaviour and racial tension.

BD5 was my postcode last year. Yay for living in one of the most acutely deprived areas in Britain :).

From Monday's LG Tech Specialist:

Microsoft is not only preparing what it refers to as a "patent-safe" version of Internet Explorer 6.0, but it also has what it hopes is a trump card. That trump card is the Viola web browser from 1991-1992, which contains plug-in capabilities that Microsoft hopes will be proven as prior art. If this claim is validated, it would reverse Eolas's claim to its existing patent license and end all of this ridiculous wrangling.

Indeed it would, and I think the internet would be better for it if this were the case. As much as I hate MS, this Eolas patent really is stupid, and so I hope that this prior art claim can be used as evidence against Eolas.

Is it just me or is Linda Barker doing everything now? She's on the Curry's adverts, the DFS adverts, Changing Rooms and gawd knows what else.

Ah well, at least she's a northern lass...

Currently watching trying to watch American Pie on Channel Five - up to the point when Jim is dancing in front of Nadia.

CNet News.com reports that Yahoo has blocked access to its Messenger network from Trillian users, and indeed the issue has been confirmed by Cerulean Studios - at time of writing, the forums were down and had been replaced by a message which tells you how to stop Trillian from connecting to Yahoo until a fix is found. Darn Yahoo.

There's no Friday Five this week, so I'm passing the time cleaning up some of my older entries. Hopefully soon almost all entries will accept trackback pings, belong to a category and have an excerpt. I originally started this months ago but never finished it, so I'm playing catch-up.

While Steve Bell always does brilliant cartoons, this is one of his better ones. I've generally kept quiet about the Iraq war and its aftermath, mainly because I tend to avoid political discussions here anyway. So, if you're wondering about my opinions, here is a brief crib sheet:

• The war should not have gone ahead in the manner it did.
• Saddam Hussein is a tyrant but could maybe have been disposed of using other methods.
• The case for war was based on flawed evidence.
• The coalition have made a right old cock up of getting order restored.
• Thousands of Iraqi people should still be alive.
• As should many UK and US soldiers.
• As a result of this I am less likely to vote Labour in the next election.

While we're at the Guardian, there's an article about how two Muslim girls in France were suspended from school for wearing headscarves, which to me is political correctness gone mad. While I appreciate France is trying to be a seculist state, which in general is a good thing, I think this is a step too far. I see nothing wrong with headscarves, in the same way that I don't mind Christians who choose to wear the symbol of the cross or Sikhs who wear turbans, or atheists who wear 'Jesus Hates You' t-shirts (might have to get one of those, actually...). I'm also a bit annoyed that Muslim women are asked to remove their headscarves for identity cards - as long as you can see their face it shouldn't matter, should it? Obviously being fully veiled would undermine the usefulness of the photo, so it would make sense to ask women to remove their veils in this case (or provide an unveiled photograph of them), but I don't see what is wrong with headscarves.

And in a similar vein the Bible-bashers who influenced Dubya's policies in not investing in pro-abortion policies may well mean that more people in Africa die of AIDS. I'm sure all you rightwing evangelicals are feeling really smug now, aren't you?

There we go, that's probably the last serious entry you'll get from me for several months :).

According to a ZDNet article entitled New MSBlast variant plugs hole:

A variant of MSBlast spread on Monday, but the new worm has an odd twist: It applies a patch for the vulnerability that it and other MSBlast worms use to infect Windows systems.

The new worm, dubbed W32.Welchia, W32/Nachi and Worm_MSBlast.D, appears to properly download the patch for both Windows 2000 and Windows XP from Microsoft's Web site. Moreover, the variant will delete itself the first time an infected computer starts up in 2004.

Maybe this is a conspiracy by MS to make sure more people patch their machines? Or maybe a vigilante hacker who feels sorry for people?

Either way, the attacks against my poor little laptop are worse than ever, with one around every 10 seconds now :(.

[Link from OnlineBlog]

You know you're having problems if The US Department of Homeland Security issues warnings about your software, so have pity on Microsoft whose latest vunerability has even led to government action.

Anyone who hasn't patched the Windows XP, 2000, NT 4.0 or Server 2003 installation in the past 10 days or so is vunerable to the Buffer Overrun In RPC Interface Could Allow Code Execution flaw, a serious flaw which has the potential to make the Code Red and SQL Slammer attacks look amateurish. Of course, if you have a reasonable firewall (ZoneAlarm free is enough), use Windows 95, 98 or Me or just simply don't use Windows then you're fine.

There is already code available to exploit this hole, so it's only a matter of time before someone tags it on to some worm code and sends it on its merry ways. If you use one of these operating systems, get yourself a firewall, do a backup and then apply the patch, though I've had the patch for a few days now and not suffered any ill effects.

(By the way, this is the 1111th entry :))

The RIAA, my all-time favourite industry body (yeah, right ;)) has recently been boasting how many users it has been able to issue legal proceedings against. It sounds like a lot, but then the Electronic Frontier Foundation claims that 60 million people in America alone (about 20% of the entire population) uses P2P software. And, according to the Inquirer, that "other" tech tabloid, it will take 2191.78 years to sue them all at their current rate, effectively meaning that the process won't be finished until some time the year 4195.

And that's only the US users. [Link via Bits & Bytes]

Fortune.com reports that Microsoft suffered a crucial defeat in a pre-trial hearing. The case revolves around a company called InterTrust which claims that MS is infringing on its patents, which cover digital rights management and trusted computing. InterTrust is now looking for a settlement, the size of which will probably be at least 10 digits long.

This is perhaps an unusual case for me because I'm feeling sorry for MS. You probably know by now that I'm generally anti-MS, that the only MS program I use on this computer is Windows and that as soon as I find Linux easy enough to use every day I'll be switching. But you may also know that I think software patents suck, particularly in the US where you can patent very vague ideas and then rake in the megabucks when someone releases something that possibly infringes it.

Patenting just doesn't work in a computing environment. What if HTML was patented, and every organisation that made web editing software had to pay $1 per copy sold to the World Wide Web Consortium? And then if anyone tried to create a similar open systen, they'd have their arses sued for infringement? The web wouldn't have taken off.

Of course, this may be related to the fact that I'm also against DRM and trusted computing, but there you go.

Anyway, I think that's enough ranting for this evening - I'm off to watch the grand final of Big Brother IV. Who do I want to win? Probably Scott or Cameron, I'm not sure which. Not Ray though, I find him a bit annoying. He swears too much.

Movable Type won a Webby award. Congratulations :-D.

Unless you've been living on another planet for the past few days, you can't fail to have heard that Microsoft and AOL have settled their dispute for $750 million. And, as part of the bargain, AOL get to use IE as the rendering engine in its browser for free for the next 7 years.

Another interesting thing I found in The Guardian today was this: "Office opens up to newcomers". It looks into alternatives to MS Office, but focuses on OpenOffice.org. The print edition even includes a screenshot of the latest OOo 1.1 Beta, which looks like a definite improvement with the introduction of what look like Office XP-style toolbar buttons (as used in other programs like SmartFTP and Shareaza). It also has full PDF export support and Impress presentations can be exported as Flash animations, which I can forsee being very handy.

I'd like to install this beta but because I need the programs for work I'd rather have something that worked correctly. That, and downloading 60MB on a 56k connection that cuts out every 2 hours is my idea of hell.

Although the Guardian do regularly come out with pro-OpenOffice.org articles, it's nice to have such a big one devoted almost entirely to it. The suite is perfectly adequate for me, and saves me from paying £100 or so for the student edition of MS Office. I hope that having read this article, others will think the same way.

Variant B of SoBig is now in the wild - Andy was hit by it yesterday - and today MyRealBox blocked an email for me with the worm attached. Note that the worm is also known as Mankx and Palyh, but it SoBig B is probably correct as it is very similar to the original SoBig virus that is still on the rounds.

Like the last one, avoiding this one is easy - if you get an email from support@microsoft.com with an attachment ending with a PIF (Program Information File) extension, do not open it. Similarly, avoid an emails from big@boss.com.

Quite why anyone would want to send a PIF file by email anyway is beyond me - in effect they are just shortcuts to MS-DOS programs but because Windows is able to execute them they are often used as way of spreading malicious code. If you can block emails with attachments, adding a *.PIF filter will almost certainly do you no harm.

(apologies for the poor quality of the joke)

After having an early night (again) last night, I'm feeling somewhat better this morning, and my plains for today are considerably less strenuous.

I haven't seen any hugely interesting news stories this morning, other than that there's now an official build of Mozilla Firebird for OSX. Originally Firebird was not going to be ported, but now that it will be the browser component of Mozilla 1.5, a porting of it had to happen. However, it's 10.9MB, probably because it hasn't received the same level of code optimisation as the Linux and Windows builds - the latter is below 6MB in size.

It'll be interesting to see how it stacks up speed-wise against Camino and Safari, which are the two other higher-speed Mac browsers. It's not fair, you Mac users get so much choice ;).

Talking of browsers, Mark Pilgrim has written about a very simple rendering flaw that crashes IE. It's possible in a mere 5 lines of HTML code. It crashes my IE6 SP1, but Mozilla is fine with it. Amusing to say the least.

The Guardian is carrying a story in its G2 section about SUVs and how they're damaging the environment. For the unitiated, an SUV is a Sports Utility Vehicle, a kind-of van-cum-4x4, and they're popular in the States where fuel is cheap and they're fashionable.

And they drink fule like Johnny Vegas drinks alcohol. Some of them have a fuel comsumption rate of a mere 12mpg (compared with 40 on my parents' Ford Focus Zetec). But since fuel is cheap over there (about 4 times cheaper than UK prices or something ridiculous like that), running a more efficient car doesn't save that much money - perhaps about $120 annually.

There's some interesting quotes from Ron DeFore, the communications director of SUV Owners of America, including the claim that inefficiency doesn't matter because SUVs are safer and therefore what we lose in environmental damage we gain in retained human life. Yeah. Try telling that to the trees and animals.

And our good friend Jerry Falwell pops up too. Apparently he's in the pro-SUV camp because he believes that global warming does not exist because 'God would not let that happen'. Okay then.

Further to Tuesday's dig at the BNP, here's an Observer article entitled 'Meet your local friendly racists' which goes on to describe how kooky these people are. Not only do they have racist policies, but nearly half of their regional and branch organisers have criminal records for convictions including assault, fraud, theft, racist abuse and possession of drugs and weapons, and the bulk of their campaign is built up on barefaced lies.

Unfortunately, they may get a few more seats in this next election :( .

The BSA are at it again. No, they're not doing the legitimate work of clamping down on businesses with unlicensed software, instead they're lobbying the EU to introduce software patents. The US already has them, and it's led to companies like Symantec patenting heuristic virus scanning (which is included in many of its competitors' software packages).

In short, I think software patents are wrong, and they jeapordise innovation. It's thanks to the patent on MP3 that the Lame developers have such a hard time, since its manufacturers want money out of them, even though the Lame encoder is superior to the official one.

So, this is for anyone living in the EU or one of the Eastern European countries that is soon to join it: go the Software Patents campaign site, contact your MEP and let them know your concerns, and then keep on bugging them. If you're not convinced, the site has more information.

As reported by Lockergnome B&B, Yahoo is trying to tidy up its search engine to regain lost ground from Google. It appears that Yahoo have realised that the web browsing public prefer a clean, uncluttered interface with no flashing adverts and popups to annoy them.

You can see their efforts on the new Yahoo search page. The similarities with Google are very apparent, and while I like Yahoo's start page better, I think the results pages are still too cluttered. When I tried it in Mozilla, there were also some issues with items overlapping, so it looks like the style sheet needs some attention (either that or it's broken in Mozilla so that it can work in IE - I imagine you know by now where I think Microsoft can stick IE's CSS implementation ;)).

But it's a step in the right direction, anyway. I also like AllTheWeb's interface, but now that it's been bought out by Overture I'm worried that it'll cease to be useful. Google has served me well, so I might as well stick with it.

I've just come across Utterly Boring, a blog by Jake Ortman who happens to be another one of the guys behind LG B&B. I thought I'd better link to him because his blog looks great, and because he linked to this: UFO could have been electrocuted cat. Probably the funniest thing I've seen all day. Thanks, Jake.

He also links to a Netcraft page which claims that BBC World is running MS IIS 5.0 under Linux. Riiiight. Ooooookay.

Just thought I'd point out today's date - it's the 3rd of March 2003, or 03-03-03.

And in case you were wondering, I posted about 02-02-02 last year.

Okay, so I did find this on BlogDex, but it was the exception to the rule.

Anyway, NTL, who provide my parents with broadband internet, have changed their user policy. It restricts you to downloading a maximum of 1GB of data per day, and also makes the use of wireless networks for connecting people outside of your home a violation of the terms of services.

Ecademy and Fractured Perceptions provide some thoughtful pointers on the subject, with the general concensus that very few people are actually going to notice this limit. It's not even capped - you can go over the limit, but if you do it persistently then action may be taken - at least, this is what I gather from what I have read.

I've probably managed to break that limit twice in over a year of having broadband - in both cases, this was caused by me downloading Linux ISOs, which are in the region of 700MB each. Two of those in a day would take you well over the limit. But that's the point - it's only happened to me twice, and I was quite a heavy user of broadband - anyone else would have real trouble getting that high.

There doesn't appear to be a limit on outgoing transfers either, though this is already limited to 128Kbps to discourage you from running servers. Still, it would be possible to generate over 1GB of transfer in a day that way.

As for home networks - you're only supposed to have 1 computer connected at a time - if you want more then you should be using the Business Broadband packages. However, routers are supported, but you are advised to use no more than 3 computers, and these won't be supported by NTL. Fair enough, but I don't see how NTL is going to police this.

But, in general, it appears there's going to be no real difference. Of course, the fact that I'm finding this out via BlogDex and not via some official channel of communication from NTL is a little disturbing, but hey, you can't have everything.

Microsoft have unleashed Windows XP SP1a, a replacement for SP1. If you already have SP1, you won't need it, but if you don't, then this is all you will be able to download.

The reasons for releasing it appear to be more political than useful - the differences between the two are that SP1a doesn't have Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine in it. It's therefore probably related to MS's recent settlement with Sun over the inclusion of Java technology in Windows. MSKB 813926 has full details about the differences between the two.

Personllay, I prefer MS's implementation of the Java VM, if only because it is faster than Sun's JRE. I know computers are getting faster all the time, and that Sun is more of a Unix company that a Wintel one, but it'd be nice to have a more efficient Java platform. That way, more people might use it.

Of course, this isn't the first time I've ranted about this - I also got on my soapbox three months ago over the subject of Java's speed.

As you may now know, the Space Shuttle Columbia has disintegrated on re-entry, killing all 7 astronauts on board. My thoughts with the families of those killed.

(read thoughts from bunda, Ben Hammersley, Richy C, Meredith and Andy)

[added]
Chris has an interesting viewpoint on the subject, and you can do much worse than monitor BlogDex, which, at the time of writing (10pm UTC), has the first 8 articles all on the subject. Metafilter is a useful source of coverage too, but stay clear of alt.prophecies.nostradamus where the end of the world is being predicted (again).

My thoughts:

• It was a tragic accident
• I seriously doubt it has anything to do with terrorism
• It's possible that someone's to blame, but let's wait for an official report
• The fact it happened not longer after the anniversary of the Challenger explosion was a mere coincidence

All in all, 'tis a sad day.

I was planning a long post on my thoughts about war in a rack Iraq, such as the fact that Saddam Hussein is being very naive, George W. Bush is a chimp and Tony Blair needs to listen to what the people who elected him actually want, but I think a message on Chris' chest sums it well enough for me.

And yes, you can rent Chris' chest for $20 if you so wish. I'd do the same, but you really don't want to see my chest. Seriously, there's more hair there than there is on Pete Sampras. And I'm still only 18...

This is, quite frankly, bizarre. London's Evening Standard reports that a Russian law firm may sue Warner Brothers, because the character of Dobby the House Elf looks like Vladimir Putin, the current president of Russia.

On the off chance that the law firm actually reads this, I'd like to point out why this is good. Firstly, Dobby is always loyal to his master. He is very polite, and will try to protect his master from danger. And he's just generally a cool guy. Surely you'd want to be portrayed as being like this?

Okay, so he's generally unclean, a little annoying and has an unhealthy obsession with socks, but hey, doesn't every guy like novelty socks? I certainly do, even though I only got one pair for Christmas (which I'm incidentally wearing now).

Besides, Dobby could use his magic to kick Putin's arse any day ;).

Note: LawMeme also has coverage, and you can read my review of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, if you so wish.

Just got an email from Billpoint, who currently provide payment facilities for eBay UK for those wanting to pay by Switch and Solo cards, that this is now being moved across to PayPal (and so Billpoint will no longer be an option). Which is great news!

This now means I can actually buy stuff online with PayPal, since I don't have a credit card or a US bank account. So in a couple of weeks, I should be able to buy things like Trillian Pro, the LangaList Plus Edition, a premium BlogRolling account, and other cool schtuff :).

Of course, that's if my replacement Switch card arrives - yes, that was what got eaten by the machine today :(.

I don't often talk about music, mainly because I tend to listen to trance where most of the artists are faceless DJs who produce the odd single and little more. But I thought I'd offer a few words about the Brit Awards (the British version of the Gramaphone Awards in the US), of which the nominess were announced today.

So what do I think? Alright. With the exception of the 'Best Single' award, where all of the acts are manufactured and only one (Atomic Kitten) wasn't generated from a TV show, most of the acts nominated are actually worthy of winning.

However it'll be interesting to see whether the 'decent' acts or nominated, or those which have hiked in the most cash for the music industry. Remember how Craig David won nothing a couple of years ago, despite having 5 nominations? That's because he'd been turned down by all of the major labels, then signed to an independent label and became very successful, denying the big names of a large amount of cash that they could have got if they'd signed him.

The news of the RIAA hack didn't really hit the newstands as much as I'd expected, with Google News only showing two sites with articles about it. Still, it means you can read contributions from The Register and NeoWin.

incidentally, this was the fourth time the RIAA has been hacked in as many months - you'd have thought by now they'd have upgraded to a better server solution. Or are they loosing so much money through file trading that even installing Linux and setting it up to run Apache is beyond their budget?

Of course, the RIAA could just back down and offer some real alternatives to file sharing, like high-quality, reliable downloads. Like Emusic, for example. But of course, they won't.

Meanwhile an older Register article tells you how one of the previous attacks was sussed out. It's quite simple actually, which makes the webmaster at the RIAA seem even more braindead.

The RIAA has had its site hacked... again. It's the second time I've witnessed it hacked - the first was a somewhat more clever hack where several fake news articles were posted, along with a collection of MP3s.

The latest hack is quite amusing - it includes download links to various 'friendly' file sharing clients (the ones without spyware) and the following messages:

• oooh riaa want's to hack Filesharing Users / Servers ? - better lern to secure your own server...
• Sorry Admin - had to deactivate ur accounts - they'll be reactivated after 2 hours

The downloads are even hosted on the RIAA server. Classy.

I managed to save a screenshot for you, click on the picture for it. I did run the code for the W3C validator, but despite specifying a DocType it still had 63 errors.

It underlines why I would never sign up for hosting on a Windows server running MS IIS. incidentally, the site is now down - obviously someone noticed. Or as someone in the IRC channel I was in at the time said, "someone probably pulled the plug out".

It's interesting how OpenOffice.org have timed the release of their final OSX beta to co-incide with the MacWorld Expo, where they have a stand. Still, it hasn't come too soon - while a stable version of OOo has been available for Windows and Linux for not too short of a year now, OSX users have had a rather ugly beta.

BlogDex currently reports no less than 139 links to Apple's Safari page. And that's so far today - yesterday isn't even taken into account.

This would match up with the high number of referrals I've had from other sites about it, with links from There is no cat and Dive into Mark, and trackback doing its magic with SixApart and Ben Hammersley.

The general concensus is that:

• It's fast
• It looks good
• Its bookmarks and download manager are good
• It's lightweight
• It doesn't like CSS
• No tabbed browsing
• It has some annoying rendering quirks
• AppleScript support may just save its bacon

A good resource is Dave Hyatt's blog - he's one of the Safari developers, and provides feedback from Mark's posting. The responses are generally responsive and admit that there are problems. It is only a beta after all.

[added]
The Web Standards Project also has a few words to say on the browser.

By the way, it appears GeoURL can't cope with the huge increase in traffic and has gone down already. Hopefully it'll be back up soon.

A couple of news stories have been circling about Bradford, so I might as well comment on them.

Firstly, Bradford lost the 2008 European Capital of Culture bid, by not making it to the shortlist of Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Cardiff, Oxford and Bristol. It didn't have much of a chance to be honest. Interestingly the website is still up and running and the general attitude from the organisers is 'so what?'.

And secondly, preliminary talks between the University of Bradford (where I am) and Bradford College, the sixth-form college next door, suggest a merger between the two is now very likely. Neither have issued any public press releases, but the information is on the intranet for students and staff.

If you happen to be in Wales and have woken up to find a large inflatable tank in your back garden, the Army would like it back. Same goes for a 25-foot tall inflatable replica of Ronald McDonald, though obviously you'd want to tell McDonalds about that rather than the Army.

Good news - BT lost the hypertext patent case. This idiotic claim by BT was an attempt at charging companies for using hyperlinks, which BT claims it patented. Apparently, it... um... didn't. And a good thing too - if you owned a company, you'd have to pay royalties for every link you made. As if BT were ever going to get people to pay...

By the way, that link was found courtesy of AbsoBlogginLutely!, which links to me via BlogRolling and is also one of my siblings on BlogTree - it seems we both saught inspiration from Chris Pirillo :).

Yesterday I went with my parents to Brodsworth Hall near Doncaster - it's a country house with some nice gardens, but is interesting because the house is still being restored (some rooms haven't been touched, others have large cracks in the ceiling and damp...). Quite a good place to visit. However, English Heritage's web site does not render at all well in Mozilla so be warned.

We then went onto the nearby Meadowhall where I picked up Stopping Spam from the O'Reilly series. It's a very good book - it describes the tactics used, how email and usenet work, a history of spam and all sorts. And it only cost 99p :).

Today's been another boring day, mostly spent updating to Mozilla 1.1! Yes, it's out, and yes, it rocks. It seems faster than the previous builds too, which is always good.

And Ciaran's blog now has a new final resting place - you can find a link to it in the sidebar. He's now configured his script to ping Weblogs.com so it should show as updated when he's written something. Dontcha just look BlogRolling? ;)

The author of the BladeEnc MP3 Encoder has officially announce that the encoder will be discontinued. BladeEnd will probably be known as being the first decent open source encoder, and the first to use a DLL interface, but has fallen behind its cousin Lame (which is what I use). It's a pity, but the author admits that he was working on something that was generally inferior.

SlashDot has taken a rather sentimental view, saying that it was a pity and hoping that the author would help out with the newer (and better) Ogg Vorbis format which recently reached version 1.0. The Hydrogen Audio forum has taken a 'good riddance' line, stating BladeEnc as being inferior and useless.

Me? I'm indifferent. By current standards, yes it isn't very good. But back in 1998, it was the bees knees.

So it's official, York is officially Europe's most haunted city (also covered by BBC News). It's not surprising really - while I've never seen one, there are all manner of ghost walks and cruises to go on. I've been on a couple, including one of the Treasurer's House where I actually got to go down into the cellar where the famous Roman soldiers were spotted (a Roman Road passes directly underneath the building). Interestingly, that tour was on Halloween...

I'm getting ever more worried about tomorrow... wish me luck...

In case you didn't know, there's been another security hole discovered in IE (also covered by The Guardian and various others), and this one is serious. But what is interesting is that only TheRegister.co.uk mentions that the problem also affects Konqueror, the Linux equivalent of Windows Explorer (its the default file browser under KDE but also renders web pages).

Apparently Mozilla isn't affected, though the article does go on to mention Mozilla was not vulnerable, but I'm not sure if that's because it handled the situation properly, or is, ironically, somehow too buggy to be exploited.. Let's hope it was the former.

Oh yeah, and Winamp 3 is finally out. I'm downloading it now - let's hope that the months of work that have gone into have made it as good as its predecessors.

I don't normally comment on news much, but seeing as it could be another hour until I'm back into dmoz, here's my opinions on the following news articles...

Iraq invites UN weapons inspector to talks
Good move! However much I hate Saddam Hussein, I have to applaud his government (?) for making this decision. If the situation in Iraq can be sorted/alleviated without violence, then I'm all for it. Bush is going to have an even harder time getting allies together for any war on Iraq - Europe is opposed and even Tony Blair looks like he's switching sides. And there are elections looming.

ITV Digital ruling spells ruin for league clubs
Like the Neil Hamilton v Mohammed al-Fayed case, I actually wanted both sides to loose, since they are both capable of incompetence. Why anyone would want to pay extra to watch league (as opposed to Premiership) football is beyond me, especially as many people already pay for Sky Sports. Similarly, the Football League shouldn't have been so reliant on money from a source that was already struggling. The fact is, no-one watched ITV Sport - in many cases, for the amount ITV paid per viewer per game, each viewer could have been taken to the actual match in a luxury limousine, have a seat in the priviledged box, have a meal, and then be put up in a hotel for the night. Hopefully, this is a large enough kick-up-the-arse for everyone to realise that the situation was spiralling out of control. So there will be casualties. But that's the price for greed.

It's also good that the BBC have taken over and brought in a sensible free package for Digital Terrestrial. The fact is, most people don't want subscription channels to pay for on top of their license fee, and hopefully this way the 'great analogue turnoff' will be more of a reality. Digital TV is good - we've had it for 2 1/2 years - hopefully more people will realise this now that it has less commitment.

You know, I forgot all about the fact I was mentioned in this article: http://www.3dspotlight.com/reviews/software/xsetup6/. It's one of the articles linked from The X-Setup Awards page, which, I will warn you, is quite lengthy. It includes a link to the actual trophy we got from ZDNet just before I joined, and the ZDNet Download Deathmatch article which shows an actual screenshot of my PC (but then again most of the screenshots used in the help file are from my computer anyway). Perhaps I'm more famous that I first thought?

Oh yeah - I'd better mention that C|Net Download.com and most of ZDNet is offline this weekend for server upgrades.

Spoon has just unveiled Shop@Illustrate to the world - it's a shop that sells portable MP3s and accessories. Currently only two players are available (the Rio 600 and 800 models), but it also sells better quality earphones, rechargeable batteries (and a very good charger), and a hi-fi audio cable. And as yet, you can't actually buy anything, but it does look promising.

It seems like a change in Yahoo's privacy policy means you could be in line for a helluva lot of junk in the near future - see Security News Portal and Chris' Blog. There is a way out, fortunately, so click here, log in with your ID and password, and then set all of the 'yes' boxes to 'no'. Or you could just terminate your Yahoo account in disgust, though that may inhibit your access to useful services like Yahoo Groups. To be honest, that's the only reason why I keep my Yahoo ID. That, and Yahoo Messenger.

I know a couple of Yahoo users read this regularly, so it's probably helpful if I post this. And by the way, I just noticed that the guestbook is looking somewhat less bare - thanks MJ and Sian! Want to add something? Feel free!

Sun Sues MS for $1 billion over Java not being in XP - damned if you do, damned if you don't, though in this case it probably is Sun who are in the wrong, as it actually violates their own agreement with MS. Though argubly, the less Java gets used (in web pages), the better - I can't say I'm a big fan of it, and while I'll admit it can be useful, as an ODP editor I can tell you that it is used unnecessarily on a lot of web sites.

ComputingX - I've already mentioned it but Anthony (aka CptSiskoX) has updated it with more information. It also explains why you should disable Persistant Caching - X-Setup will let you do this, but the description of the option isn't particularly good, so I left it enabled. It's off now, of course :).

And I'm starting to get a small stream of spam - three items now. Ah well, you win some, you lose some...

Today has been a little bit of a slog - I had my Geography essay to finish first thing this morning, and then had to be in college. Fortunately, it's all done and dusted, and homework-wise this weekend shouldn't be too difficult.

CptSiskoX sent me this: N64 Killed My Son!. Sometimes I dispair at some people. If she (the mother) wins this case then there has been a serious miscarriage of justice - Nintendo have done a lot to get across the message that computer games can cause fits and seiziures, and it's clear that this guy has ignored them. The question is - who's the biggest idiot? The guy who ignored the warnings, or his mother for suing the company?

If you don't know about Darwin then here's your chance to find out. It's the core of Apple's superb OS X (which as a PC user makes me very jealous), but it also works on x86 platforms. It's open source too, though not under the GPL, and the binaries are a 300MB download, though a CD is available for purchase. While I doubt it, this could signify a move by Apple into the PC market, and I'm sure I won't be the first to embrace them. Way to go guys!

My SETI progress is now 5 units - the 5th unit got delayed because of the crashes and my Paris visit. Unit 6 is now at 5.393%.

Finally, this humourous photo cropped in the #ODP chat room. See you later!

The SuperBowl. Watched by 130 million Americans, and 130 other people. That's the thing about American football - it's American, and barely no-one plays it outside America. Same goes for baseball.

"Mini-me" is now a word in the English language! According to The Guardian, it is one of a number of new words added to the dictionary this year, as well as "Eurocreep", "bed-blocking", "MVVD", "nopo" and "brain-fingerprinting". I can't say I know who my mini-me is, but I'd sure like to have one. Now, where's my "laser"?

...it's 02/02/02! Yes - one of the few days when the American date format and the date format everyone else uses matches up (most people use dd/mm/yy except the Americans who use mm/dd/yy for some bizarre reason...).

Today's number is 32. That's how big my AudioGalaxy log file is, in megabytes. Though once I've finished using it it'll get deleted - I dread to think how defragmented that file will be. And besides, I've got better things to do with that 32MB.

My hair cut isn't as short as it could have been - it is still winter, remember - but I don't look like I have a mop on my head any more, which is a nice change. So now I'll be spending the day moulting bits of hair that didn't get brushed out :)