December 2003 Archives

Some of you may have seen this anyway, but BBC News Online (not that we're allowed to call it that,) has started to use blogging like technology on the BBCi site.

I've only found three occasions to date, but it's an interesting use of the technology...

The first was during the "Will He - Wont He" saga of IDS' vote of confidence, the second was during Bush's visit to the UK, with the third being the other week following the spectacular capture of Saddam - either way both worth looking at from both a technical and editorial perspective.

Will we see more of this type of information collation in 2004?

... was on Friday. Still recovering. Pics here.

The Media Guardian ran a very good caption competition the other day - asking for the best comments to be put against this picture.

Some quality answers here - including I'm delighted to say one of mine - small compensation for my not being short-listed in the blogging awards (not that I'm bitter or anything!)....

Well actually he already has...

The New Statesman has an interesting item in the current publication on the origins of Christmas traditions, one of which reveals that Father Christmas didn't wear red and white until the 1930s.

It was then that the marketing people at Coca Cola decided to use this character in their advertising, and so dressed him in their corporate colours of, yes you've guessed it, red and white.

Fascinating - can anybody think of any other good examples where traditions have been established from such overtly commercial origins...

I originally posted this up over at Mr Damian the other day, but it actually sits better here. The comments still remain prescient...

I was somewhat struck by the irony of Bush's flag-waving, gallery playing, comments on Monday - when he effectively called Saddam a coward for running away when the going got tough.

Is this the same President Bush who did much the same thing following 9/11?

Whilst the attack on the WTO was clearly horrific, it's not quite the same as an illegal insurgence into a foreign country with thousands of troops, tanks, Cruise missiles etc.

Yet the fact remains that when 9/11 happened Bush ran - not showing his face in NY for several days and being kept under cover by the Secret Service at undisclosed locations across the US. Despite the fact that this was just 4 planes (including the Pentagon one and the other that crashed nr Camp David,) not a whole army from two NATO countries...

So, was Bush's rhetoric the other day a little hypocritical then?

What do you think?

I’ve spent the last couple of night staying up past my bed time reading this weighty tome. A giant thriller book of about 450 pages it’s a reasonably engrossing and suitably workman like novel which knows what buttons to hit and how to hit them.

I picked it up precisely for this reason. It’s had good reviews and sold lots of copies, but the Guardian slated it for using every cliché under the book. That’s true it does, but the story is good enough to just about get away with it. By creating a story focussed on the search for the Holy Grail, Dan Brown writes on a subject that’s always going to suck a lot of people in. The Grail’s an ideal subject to base a story around – it’s legend imbued as it is with plenty of intrigue and double crossing. In many respects, this is the author’s strongest suit, peppering the book with interesting stories and anecdotes about the Grail’s past as well as informing us about religious symbolism and early Christianity.

I find this sort of subject matter fascinating, and Brown is keen to stress in his preface the accuracy of his source material – so much so that I’m really surprised he didn’t add a bibliography at the end of the book, it would have been a good (and interesting) touch.

Unfortunately what lets the book down is his characterisation – or more specifically the dialogue which he gives the protagonists. It’s not that it’s bad, just that everybody sounds the same – seems to speak in the same style and with the same sentence structure etc. No more is this clear in the conclusion, when one character – the English historian – who to date has only spoken in pretty short sentences, has some very long ones which doesn’t sit at all with your image of him, and indeed feel like they could have been said by anyone. It’s a shame really, because Brown’s powers of description are good enough – you get a good picture of what these people look like, but the fact that they all sound the same whether their the grumpy French policeman, American scholar, or Papal aide – dents his effectiveness a little.

That minor gripe aside – you can gloss over the cliché (viz. the grumpy French policeman,) and enjoy how Brown uses every device in the book to take you on his Grail journey…

Went to the Tate Modern on Sunday morning to try and buy some Christmas presents, as well as check out the giant sunset they have created in the Turbine Hall. You can see some of the pics from the Tate Modern that I took here.

My favourite one is probably the one below.

It's very spectacular - but it made me feel ill too - just as it has some Tate staff... the BBC has the details...

It was also interesting to see what they've done to the front of St Paul's Cathedral. It's being cleaned and renovated right now, so instead they've attached a picture of what it should look like to the scaffolding. How very thoughtful!

I don’t know any of their songs and I’ve no idea which one is Belle, nor indeed which one is Sebastian (if either,) so it seemed like a good idea at the time to wanter down to the Astoria last night to see Belle & Sebastian in concert.

I love the Astoria – because it’s a decent size venue, but one that still remains fairly intimate.

B&S played well – very mellow with their 60s Californian influences worn very much on their sleeves – with a little Elvis Costello and late 70s / early 80s punk and electronica thrown in for good measure. It felt like ideal music for a balmy summer festival rather than a cold December night…

The band was huge – numerically at least. At one point 12 people on stage playing, including a string quartet.

Top prize for the most bizarre moment came when midway through the lead singer intorduced the drum technician who proceeded to tie balloons into the shape of different animals – accompanied throughout by the music from ‘The Gallery’ on one of those Tony Hart programmes we grew up with.

I still don’t know any of their songs, and I still don’t know which one is Bell and if there’s another called Sebastian, but I do no I quite liked them!

3/5.

Be sure to set aside 60 mins in order to listen to the first part of Radio 4's classic serial from last Sunday - a superb adaptation of John Wyndam's 'The Midwich Cuckoos'. You can find it by going to Radio 4 or Drama, on the BBC Radio Player.

It stars man of the moment Bill Nighy, and Sarah Parish as well as radio acting God; Clive Merrison.

The second part goes out on R4 next Sunday at 3pm - and will then be available for the next week on the Radio Player.

Be sure to listen - it's the best thing I have heard on the radio in a very long time!

I loved Michael Moore's book Stupid White Men - if I had my way I'd make everyone read that book - goodbye Hardy, welcome Mikey!

Sure, not everything hit the mark, but the chapters on how the book was published, how Bush won Florida (and with it the Presidency,) as well as the title chapter, were totally spot on - giving a frightening insight into the side of America you don't see in the movies or on your average Stateside City jaunt.

So my expectations of his new book were very high. Probably too high. The book feels like it has been written in a hurry. There's still some big punches, and a few good laughs, but they don't come as often as before, nor as big.

The first chapter - which focusses on 9/11 and the US response to it - is suitably revelatory, asking lots of v. uncomfortable questions about what Bush did and how he did it. It certainly makes you suspicious of his links to the Saudi's...

The Guardian circulated this - in a G2 section, so if you read that, you could probably live without the rest of this book. It's good, very pamphleteering in style, but it's not as good as it's predecessor.

(Actually some reviewers have got very snobby about this - commenting that all Moore does is collate facts discovered by others and then share them with a wider audience, making lots of money in the process. Sounded like sour grapes to me...)

Sorry Mikey, but I think it's better to save you pennies and look at Moore's website - which also includes some good stuff that his publishers were too scared to put into print.

That’s the question on my lips, if not everyone elses after seeing the Oxford band play Earl’s Court last week.

They’ve got the light show, and great guitar riffs and solos (e.g. on High and Dry,) and then several awkward albums (like Kid A) which they and the die hard fans clearly like, but of which everyone else is not quite so sure.

The band played for just over two hours and put on a good show. The older music from the mid 90s is superb – Creep certainly one of the finest records of that decade, and other songs such as Paranoid Android just sound better now thatn they ever did when they were first released.

The newer stuff is interesting – but more Underworld than Britpop. Lots of 10 minute long records with little or no vocals, clashing chords and John Simm lookalike Tom Yorke dancing like he’s having a mild seizure, were perfectly fun, but I for one thought they sat a little uneasily with tracks from The Bends…

Make no mistake though – they look good, sound good, and have a great back catalogue, but the sooner Radiohead ditch the dance act and get back to pulling out the riffs that made the famous in the first place, the better.