pootling

And, while we’re talking about the war in Iraq, and a few posts back, on people who’ve made a fool of themselves on Big Brother, here is a speech by George Galloway made during the discussion on Iraq that Tony Blair couldn’t be bothered to turn up to. He probably didn’t want to hear the truth, since he’s managed to keep himself pretty well divorced from it of late:

At least one person has redeemed themselves after a diabilical performance on Big Brother, and it sure as hell ain’t Jade Goody.

(vid via Lenin’s Tomb)

Please, I beg you, whoever you are go and watch Rob Newman’s History of Oil on Google Video. It’s hilariously funny, but more the point, you’ll learn more about UK and US foreign policy in those 46 minutes than you’ll be able to gather from 5 years of the mainstream media (yes, that includes the “Orwellian” BBC for all you Daily Mail readers out there). (via LMG)

Guillemots made what was probably my favourite album of last year, Through The Windowpane. And, as with Arcade Fire, I’ve recently managed to get tickets to see them at Brixton Academy, so they were on my mind. They also have cool names, from left to right: Aristazabal Hawke, Greig Stewart, Fyfe Dangerfield and MC Lord Magrão.

The outfits kind of come from a variety of photoshoots, which I suppose is cheating a tiny little bit, but I’m pretty happy nevertheless.

From a terrorist’s point of view, the pistol of Jack Bauer (ooh er missus). More minifig characters here.

My minifig blogger series continues at long last with Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing, next to a pile of his Creative Commons books. Send them to your friends with impunity.

Always open to suggestions for my next creation in the comments.

I was going to write a post about Jade “fish and chips” Goody and her pathetic racism, that she continued even through well-deserved eviction show last night, but there’s a far better explanation of what I wanted to say from Martin Jacques on the Guardian site:

“There seems to be some idea in the mind of Andy Duncan and the rest of the denial brigade that racism comes in a pure and quintessential form: the use of the word “nigger”, perhaps, or a blatant derogatory reference to someone’s colour. But that is never the main form.

“Racism always exists cheek by jowl with, inside and alongside culture and class. As a rule it is inseparable from them. That is why, for example, food, language and names assume such importance in racial prejudice. And that has certainly been the case in Big Brother. Food is a signifier of difference: so are names, so is language. So Jade and her sidekicks homed in on Shilpa’s cooking and choice of food, made fun of her name and refused to learn it. And with food came the suggestion that Shilpa’s hygiene left something to be desired, that she was unclean (she had touched the food, it was claimed, and “you don’t know where her hands have been”). In other words, not only was she different, but she came from an inferior civilisation. Her colour too - the most obvious manifestation of racial difference - was tangentially drawn into the equation through the comment about make-up and the Indian desire to be white.”

That said, there are still a few things that I’d like to add.

What got to me last night was how little of what was going on Jade actually managed to pick up. When told that calling Shilpa “poppadom” was raised, she assumed that this was the only thing that she’d done wrong. Presumably, Channel 4 were too scared of being called racist themselves to even use the word “fuckawallah” in an explanation to her of her behaviour. Throughout the interview, and previously in the diary room, she constantly referred to this. To the extent that a member of the audience (who, since none were invited from outside, was presumably a crew member) had to tell her to stop using it.

When Jade made an attempt to make it up with Shilpa, the best that she could say about it was that she (Jade) felt better after talking to her. Well, if you’ll pardon the pun, bully for you. Watching her wretched, pathetic snivelling in the diary room when it occurred to her that being looked at in this way might damage her “career” was almost as foul to see as the bullying itself had been.

I can forgive the fact that she couldn’t understand the effect on world politics that she has, surprisingly, had. When shown the news reports, I doubt she would even have recognised the programmes, let alone known who the Chancellor of the Exchequer was, and why it might have been unusual for him to have been commenting on a “reality” TV show.

What I can’t forgive, however, is the fact that she still doesn’t think that she’s a racist, and therefore, that she hasn’t really done anything wrong. She, as usual, merely thinks that she’s been misunderstood, and that her clear bullying of Shilpa is fine so long as one can understand that her intentions were not racially motivated.

Well, in the event that a) you can read and b) you happen to be reading this, let me tell you - it’s not OK. None of it. Not the racism, not the bullying, not the pathetic whinging that you aren’t really like that. As Shilpa herself pointed out to Jade - there are some words that can’t be taken back. Your mildly amusing faux thick-as-pigshit personality isn’t going to save you now.

Update: Things really aren’t looking good for Jade. In this article from the BBC, Max Clifford thinks that “Ironically, the programme that made her could be the programme that breaks her.”. Even Lorraine Kelly, writing in, of all places, The Sun, said that she hoped Jade would “now disappear into obscurity”. When you lose the support of Lorraine Kelly, the death knell really has sounded.

I don’t like to give away to much information here about where I work. For this reason, there’s something in the national press that I’d love to talk about. But won’t. On the other hand, I was at an awayday today at a certain London hotel. There too was Condoleeza Rice. I can’t say I saw her, but her security people were clearing a path for her right left and centre to make sure that she didn’t have to come in to contact with:

a) People who may want to kill her
b) People who may ask her unscreened questions

I may, or may not have fallen into the second category. I’d love to hear from any of you with questions that I should have asked, had her security people given me the chance.

Over to you.

So shoot me: I gave in to the inevitable and signed up for facebook. My it’s a depressing experience looking through reams of people that you vaguely remember, and seeing how successful they’ve been at everything. Loads of them are now Oxbridge graduates, or working in ridiculously paid jobs, and although neither of those things are things I would be capable of, or want, looking through all their smiling faces and achievements is not one of the cheeriest things to do in the world.

On the other hand, it does make me realise that I’m in contact with pretty much all of the people I want to be from school or uni. None of the ones that I would like to regain contact with, however, are on there. They’ve probably got better things to do with their time.

That said, it’s a nice site, and I’ve already got a couple of friends (I almost put that in inverted commas, but I do consider both of the people I’ve added friends, so that seemed rather mean). Much better than the evil myspace, which I have dabbled with without telling anyone. I still steer pretty clear of that particular godforsaken hell-hole though.

Still, if any of you out there in blogland are on there and want me to add you, drop me a line at pootling [at] gmail [dot] com and I shall consider your application You may even get to find out my real name and lots of deep dark secrets. Lucky you.

This was a suggestion from Matt from On Grub Street, and a good suggestion it was too. Evens out the Labour/Tory split a little, and I do find the weirdo rather entertaining. See him on Flickr here.

Foul man though he is, he still gets the Lego treatment. Although I’ve done a few Labour party people, I haven’t done any Tories or Lib Dems yet - any suggestions?

Flickr link, other Minifig Famous People.

I’ve been reading the news over the last few weeks, and I’ve noticed a worrying trend. I’m beginning to think that there’s some sort of animal revolution going on.

Firstly, as if testing the water, a pack of squirrels attacked a stray dog in Russia, killing it. A little before that, a boy in Delhi was eaten by a pack of pigs: “When his mother went to look for him, she found the pigs chewing something and spotted bits of her son’s clothing.”. These aren’t the only pigs that have been busy though. This week, there was another story of a man in Norfolk being attacked by a herd of pigs, although at least this guy escaped with his life, although he did need hospital treatment. Also, on Dartmoor, “The village of Buckland Monachorum in Devon, on the edge of Dartmoor is being terrorised by a pack of wild boar.” (BBC Audio link).

It’s not just the pigs though. In Middlesborough, a giant owl has been attacking drinkers. Does this suggest that the animals are even slightly prudish and judgemental? I think this needs to be investigated.

Finally, I read today that some raccoons, who had a bad start in life, being bred by Herman Göring are ravaging the German countryside.

I think our days are numbered. Stock up on water and tinned food, and don’t leave the house. The revolution starts here. I hope I can plead for my life with the fact that I’m vegetarian. I doubt it’ll help though. It’s been nice knowing you all.

And to commemorate their loveliness, I decided to make my favourite band of the moment in Lego. Link to Flickr, other bands here.

I got Arcade Fire tickets this morning, following the normal Friday morning collapse of all the ticket sites. I was preparing, as the sites went down, to write a snotty post about how they don’t come to the UK often enough, but since I’ve got tickets they’re my favourite people in the world again.

So, we’ll be there on 15th March. If you’re still trying to get tickets, it was Ticketweb that worked for me (for once). Checking back at the site, the 14th and 15th are both sold out and they’ve added another date on 16th, so move fast in you’re living in London and you’re interested. Looks like they’re going to add the 17th too at some point.

This isn’t an exciting post for most of you, but I’m still so full of nervous energy, I had to get it out somehow.

Considerably more important than Macworld is the march that happened today by various religious groups protesting that they want to be able to discriminate against gay people in the ways to which they’ve become accustomed.

All day long, BBC News 24 have been interviewing a Christian guy who runs a guest house who’s up in arms that the new laws will force him to serve gay couples who wish to use his business services. “It’s my home” he kept on saying. No. It’s your business - that means that the rules are different. Imagine if he was saying that he didn’t want Muslims in his guest house, because their praying to a different god was making him uncomfortable. He’d be (rightly) prosecuted. As he should be here.

Religious people are entitled to their (crackpot, outdated) opinions, but the moment you run a business, it’s for the public, and you can’t just pick and choose whether you want to serve black people, or women, or gay people. You serve everyone.

I think this is my number one problem with religion - the way that people use it to back up their bigotries. However, to give a more balanced account of religious people, here’s a quote from Neil Partridge, a “gay Christian” (something many people would see as an oxymoron):

“Everyone has a right to their faith but is it fair to say to someone ‘you can’t share a bed in our hotel because you are gay’.

“A hotel is a business, surely. I just think some of the people at this demonstration need to listen to the other side of the argument.”

He added: “Recently British Airways was criticised for not allowing staff to wear crucifixes and now some Christians are advocating this policy. I think the recent law is a good thing.”

Exactly.

Our country needs to be careful. America seems to have fallen to Christian far right. Make sure the UK isn’t the next target.

So, I got home and got refreshing web pages to see what all of the Mac Worshippers (such as myself) are going to be going on about this year. Frankly, it was a bit of a disappointment. AppleTV looks nice, and is available in the UK, but with the UK iTunes store still not stocking TV shows and movies, it’s nowhere near as nice a product (although £200 still ain’t bad). Also, none of the cables that plug into it work with my current TV, and buying a new one jumps up the price somewhat.

The iPhone looks absolutely gorgeous, but of course, it’s not going to be available in the UK until Q4, when I have no money, and everyone’s shopping. Then comes Christmas and the following rush, so I’d be lucky to have one by March next year. Pretty though:
What I was really hoping for was the release of Leopard, or at least some cool update to something like iTunes. Ho hum. The anticipation and excitement was nice though, and I guess I knew that at heart I wasn’t going to be able to afford, or obtain, whatever Lord Jobs announced. Such is iLife.