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Oh crap. I was really hoping Constantine might be the one comic book movie adaptation which my son and I might both enjoy, but apparently it’s not to be:
Constantine: “Constantine preview last night, another film which seems to be obeying the Alan Moore great comic/crap film rule (League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell)”
(Via The Guide.)
Via Warren Ellis and from the BBC:
“Indian divers have found more evidence of an ancient port city, apparently revealed by December’s tsunami.
Stone structures that are ‘clearly man-made’ were seen on the seabed off the south coast, archaeologists say.
They could be part of the mythical city of Mahabalipuram, which legend says was so beautiful that the gods sent a flood that engulfed six of its seven temples.
The new finds were made close to the 7th Century beachfront Mahabalipuram temple, which some say is the structure that survived the wrath of the gods.
The myths of Mahabalipuram were first written down by British traveller J Goldingham who was told of the ‘Seven Pagodas’ when he visited in 1798….
(Via Warrenellis.com.)
My son reads this blog occasionally, so I won’t be linking to the other thing Warren wrote about today. You have been warned.
Digital radios outstrip analogue: “Sales of digital radios outstrip the demand for traditional sets for the first time, high street store Dixons says.”
Sometimes you need an outsider to remind you just how loathsome your house has become, so thanks for Cory Doctorow and Boing for quoting Brian Sedgemore’s Commons statement on house arrest for terrorists:
How on earth did a Labour Government get to the point of creating what was described in the House of Lords hearing as a ‘gulag’ at Belmarsh? I remind my hon. Friends that a gulag is a black hole into which people are forcibly directed without hope of ever getting out. Despite savage criticisms by nine Law Lords in 250 paragraphs, all of which I have read and understood, about the creation of the gulag, I have heard not one word of apology from the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary. Worse, I have heard no word of apology from those Back Benchers who voted to establish the gulag.
Have we all, individually and collectively, no shame? I suppose that once one has shown contempt for liberty by voting against it in the Lobby, it becomes easier to do it a second time and after that, a third time. Thus even Members of Parliament who claim to believe in human rights vote to destroy them.
Many Members have gone nap on the matter. They voted: first, to abolish trial by jury in less serious cases; secondly, to abolish trial by jury in more serious cases; thirdly, to approve an unlawful war; fourthly, to create a gulag at Belmarsh; and fifthly, to lock up innocent people in their homes. It is truly terrifying to imagine what those Members of Parliament will vote for next.I can describe all that only as new Labour’s descent into hell, which is not a place where I want to be.
link to the transcript on Hansard. And give thanks for at least one MP with balls.
(Via Boing Boing.)
Kitchen stressing you out? Feel like venting your rage against Nigella? Try out this delicious knife-holder from Italy.
(Via MetaFilter.)
My wife’s brother is marrying an Australian, lives in Australia and now has an Australian son. For my wife’s birthday he sent a DVD of something called The Castle which I had never heard of and which we watched last night for the first time.
It’s an absolute blast, telling the story of a fairly down-at-heel family living at the arse-end of Melbourne next to an airport, whose relentless cheeriness and refusal to countenance that there could be anything better than their over-large TV aerial is rocked when their house is compulsorily acquired to make way for an airport expansion.
It’s filmed in a weird grainy TV documentary style, it’s got Eric Bana in it playing a kickboxing Greek bridegroom, it’s got a guy in it who was in The Sullivans and Home and Away, it’s very, very funny, and I’m glad we watched it before going out there for the wedding in a month’s time. If nothing else, it reminded me that “salt of the earth” Australians are preferable to “salt of the earth” British chavs any day of the week, Julie Burchill or no Julie Burchill.
The DVD’s going straight in the poolroom.
We’ve moved office today (Guardian Unlimited is now officially in the main Guardian building, which feels like a watershed or something), so I’ve had to reload my realworld desktop. And I’ve noticed that my phone has now been shoved to the back corner of my desk, unwanted and most definitely unloved. With a desktop and a laptop at the front of the desk, armed to the teeth with email and IM and Skype, my poor phone has been banished to the outer reaches of my personal space. Now, if I can only work out how to turn the ringer off, no-one need ever speak to me again…
Got a Nectar card? Then read this:
Tukwila, Washington firefighter, Philip Scott Lyons found out the hard way that supermarket loyalty cards can come with a huge price. Lyons was arrested last August and charged with attempted arson. Police alleged at the time that Lyons tried to set fire to his own house while his wife and children were inside. According to the KOMO-TV and the Seattle Times, a major piece of evidence used against Lyons in his arrest was the record of his supermarket purchases that he made with his Safeway Club Card. Police investigators had discovered that his Club Card was used to buy fire starters of the same type used in the arson attempt.
For Lyons, the story did have a happy ending. All charges were dropped against him in January 2005 because another person stepped forward saying he or she set the fire and not Lyons. Lyons is now back at work after more than 5 months of being on administrative leave from his firefighter job.
The moral of this story is that even the most innocent database can be used against a person in a criminal investigation turning their lives completely upside down.
This is a great idea:
I was recently inspired by a post that Merlin Mann had created on 43 Folders about using a web based mail account as a “punching bag“. Remembering an old skool Gmail tip about keeping notes in your mail account, I thought these two ideas could combine nicely to allow you to use Gmail as a personal journal
Two nice ideas in there - sending a flamemail to yourself rather than the person you were going to (stolen from 43folders but gratefully acknowledged), and forward “complimentary” emails to yourself as a thing to make you feel positive on those down days, like today when I’ve got a cold….
It’s easy to slag off Jamie Oliver. If I’m a lazy journalist in for a quick laugh, I’ll slag him off. If I can be really offensive while doing it, all the better. He’s there, he’s moderately annoying, he’s successful in what he does, and he makes odd choices (like advertising Sainsbury’s salmon when he really shouldn’t be). In Britain, he’s the template for the celebrity that lazy journalists can knock down.
Yet he keeps bouncing back and now, for me, he’s gone for something really interesting: school meals. He’s basically transformed the school meals system in Greenwich:
But gradually everything fell into place. The menus worked out, and the processed food was consigned to history - “You’ll never sell a single decent meal if you still have chips”. A contract for proper meat was negotiated with Harvey Nichols, retailer to the rich and famous, which worked out cheaper than the previous one for processed chunks with a wholesaler and, biggest achievement of all, the kids started eating Jamie’s food. “It was a close-run thing,” he says. “When we first abandoned the processed food, most of the kids abandoned us. The dining-room was almost empty for days, and it was only when we had a spell of really nasty weather and the kids couldn’t be bothered to go elsewhere that they started coming back. Still, every sucker deserves an even break.”
And the kids have stayed back. Roughly 600 kids now use the canteen regularly, with another 100 buying Oliver’s healthy packed lunches, and the two-week cycle of menus - shortly to be extended to a three-week cycle - are in place in 25 Greenwich schools and by the end of the summer the fig ure will have risen to nearly 80.
Yes, he’s doing it for a television show. Yes, it all just adds to the cult of his celebrity. Yes, councils are still only spending 37 pence a head on school meals (the price of a bag of crisps at retail), which is the real national scandal. Yes, Ruth Kelly only met him because he’s Jamie Oliver.
But think of it like this. If we can harness the power of celebrity like we can harness the power of the atom, we could change the world. Or blow it up. One or the other.
