big bother II

Well, clearly I stand corrected about Big Brother, and how! It's currently reigning supreme as lead story on BBC News. Of all the interesting things happening in the world, the cultural compass of the UK has decided that Big Brother is the most significant. The moment I give up watching, and suddenly there are early day motions in the commons, riots in India (including burning effigies of the programme makers!), Newsnight is at the ready with a feature (probably too far down the bill to feature on scottish newsnight, annoyingly) and David Cameron (the man is always primed with a soundbite) is urging people to use that 'great regulator called the off button', and switch off.

The problem is that rascism is very hard to define. In parts of rural Dorset, for instance, people from non anglo-saxon backgrounds might be subject to polite curiosity, which doesn't count. Still, I'm happy with the broadest line of rascism as using someone's ethnicity as a vehicle to treat them unkindly or unfairly. Is that different from bullying? I think bullying could be defined using any characteristic about a person as said vehicle, so perhaps rascism is a subset of bullying.

If that is the case then Big Brother, (although alleged in previous years to have deliberately create an atmosphere of bullying in the house), is actually providing a public service by provoking some much needed public soul searching about the definition of bullying, rascism and solutions thereof. So David, I shall not be switching off, but tuning in, to see for myself exactly what form this rascism takes and how it is resolved. I suspect many other people will do likewise. And it's now a foregone conclusion that Shilpa will win, which is good news as I wanted this to happen from the first day, but neglected to place a bet on it.

skype shmipe

I notice that, according to Skype's website, I cannot use their internet calling service to contact the emergency services. Well that is just as well - I can picture the scene:

1. I notice that the building in which I live is burning down.
2. Seeking refuge in my room, on the top floor, I boot up my PC, enter the password.
3. I wait for a few minutes whilst the harddrive whirrs around and the virus checker turns itself on and off.
4. I reinstall the wireless network, which is always down.
5. I double click the skype button.
6. I enter the number on the keypad.
7. I plug myself in to the adjustable headset
   
8. 'hello, which service do you require?' hello? is this a prank call?

Please note I'm not yet burnt to a crisp yet, just immensely frustrated and confused because it's impossible to tell if the person on the other end of the line can hear you or not. When I try to sort it out using their help system they say that my new microphone must be faulty. Oh yeah, then how come I can make a ten minute perfect quality sounding recording using it to an mp3 file, but just not down the phone, you drongos????? Me, I can hear them fine. I think it must be to do with the way 'broadband' or ASDL works, in that you can download much more than you can upload at any time. I'm just fed up that I've invested 20 pounds in more useless technology. But at least this time it was only 20 pounds.

edbo running part two

But if you're going to take in a dormant volano, then this is a possible route. 5 miles door to door. Though I've just realised that there is a whole extra section of Holyrood park that I hadn't noticed. It's easy to get lost up there... I wasn't even sure if I'd reached the top the first time

edbo running part one

This is the best non-arthur's seat off-road route starting from my house (well not exactly from my house, in case any would-be burglars are reading). Having gone to the trouble of mapping it all out on Gmaps, I was more than a little disappointed to find that it was only a seven mile round trip. What you can't see are that there are some fairly steep slopes in there, plus the bit round the golf course is muddy and churned from horses plodding up and down it, which is extra challenging

Exhausting

Well, I'm only 1% of the way through the new year and already I'm behind on all my important objectives. And I can only spend a fixed number of hours per day staring at a computer screen before I start to feel ill so the daily blogposts will have to give. Either that or the e-mail... still at least if I post only once a week I will still have more than doubled my post count from last year.

Anyway, Celebrity Big Brother. Hmmm.... as the contestants were introduced I was patiently waiting for David Hasselhoff and Robert Kilroy-Silk to show up, as expected. But neither of them did. Unlike the 2006 version, I don't think that they will be discussing the series on Newsnight or the Today Programme (Today Program - spelling?), nor in the House of Commons. The easy criticism to make is that they are scraping the bottom of the barrell this year but it is normal for only a small selection of the participants to be familiar faces. The rest work their way into public consciousness as the series progrosses. The whole spectacle involves the extent to which these people will go to improve their career prospects. Except for Ken Russell - I am unsure as to his agenda, unless a new box set of his DVDs is coming out. Nevertheless his inclusion guarentees good coverage for the series in the Guardian, at least.

Plus these people at Endemol haven't conquered the world of television by chance - they have deftly addressed practically all viewing demographics in choosing the housemates. I would nominally support Shilpa Shetty to win, though I think that it is inevitable that Jo and H-from-Steps will contest the final. Still there is the much publicised surprise for Friday night... I shan't be watching this series regularly but it will doubtless permeate my consciousness by osmosis. I think it's likely that the people from Endemol will soon graduate to politics - actually when you look at the likes of the WebCameron site maybe they already have!

Take five

Good ol' lastminute.com:

Did you know that taking at least 5 holidays a year is essential for a happy soul? Well, if your New Year's resolution is to have a happy, healthy 2007, lastminute.com is at hand to help. Check out some of our great deals, and remember, long weekends make for longer lives.

Well, that's 5 holidays less than I'm going to get - I wonder if I can sell my carbon budget yet?

Extra resolution

Sort my life out with Thinking Rock. It is very good and also free (which is just as well considering my trip to Borders today).

Full circle

The wheel has turned, and Celebrity Big Brother is here again!!

I'm not enticed by celebrity shows on the whole, and the bad publicity received by George Galloway last time out means that there are unlikely to be any famous politions this time round. Rumours abound that Robert Kilroy-Silk MEP will be taking part, but he lost his credentials long, long ago. He was elected to the European Parliament as a member of UKIP, vowing to wreck the place. Shortly afterwards he quit UKIP to form Veritas, his own party, but ended up walking out of this as well. I'm not sure he has much of a cause left to fight for, other than maybe to ressurect (sp?) his chat show.

Compared to last year I have a lot less time to spare so if I haven't heard of at least three of the contestants I don't think I shall bother watching.

We shall see...

Resolutions

1. Communicate more with my MP - instead of signing useless petitions and attending occasional protests I've decided to channel more of my many views and opinions through the official channels, if only to confirm my belief that this will prove just as ineffective. Regardless, my first letter to Nigel Griffiths about the Trident program is in the post, and he can expect one about data protection next week. And science funding the week after that. Maybe the local council would also like a letter about the cancelled Hogmaney (sp?) celebrations. It honestly wasn't that windy.
   
2. Go running at least three days out of seven
3. Quit taking the bus (always full of scottish schoolchildren) and start cycling instead
4. Write more blog posts (not many more), but write some of these posts on the subject of science, comeserate with my NERC responsibilites to 'promote science through non-tradiational public forums' (it says here)

Reflections

The new version of blogger.com, coupled with the New Year, causes me to evaluate my weblog (I hate the word blog) so far. A whole year, and about 20 posts to show for it. I really should be better at this.

It's not like I'm new to the net. I remember way back in the day, when Hotmail was an independent company, before Microsoft bought it. And before that, before Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, when there was nothing on the web but some pages about physics and some pictures of a dinosaur. And before the web, when the future was called Prestel, and it had a multi-user dungeon called SHADES, that was a bit like Second Life, but with text entry. With all my knowledge, I should be a multi-million earning web entrepreneur by now.

I suppose that, although I do get very excited about these developments, I've never really had the resources or the inclination to fully exploit them. I mean, I only acquired a broadband connection a month or two ago, and haven't used it so much. I enjoy reading weblogs, but am too busy/lazy to write in mine all that often. Plus I was influenced by books such as Silicon Snake Oil, by Clifford Stoll. I wonder if any of the civil servants about to spend so much tax payer's money on e-initiatives or the National Identity Register have read that. I suppose that I wouldn't like to invest too much of my free time in something that could still collapse in on itself.

Still, I still enjoying using my blog as a means to occasionally go off on a rant, and there's also the diary aspect that I enjoy. It should be helping my writing technique, even though I know it comes across as very pompous when I read it back. But that's just my style :-)