Archive:
January 2007

More iPlayer insanity

Good news — the BBC Trust has thrown its weight behind iPlayer. But every silver lining has a cloud, as Ryan Morrison points out. The iPlayer that has been given the go-ahead will have a few changes to what has been proposed before. The changes are quite minor really. Infact, one of them — about […]

The perfect cup of 3103

I came across ISO 3103 when I was taking a look at Wikipedia’s Unusual articles at the weekend. ISO 3103 is ISO’s standardised method for brewing tea. There could hardly be a more inappropriate thing to standardise. Because no matter what, only you can make the perfect cup of tea. Invariably, if somebody else makes […]

Cats should all be killed (ten times just to make sure)

It was Doctor Violet in the blogosphere with the curiosity Shuggy poses one of his Higher Modern Studies horror questions: “There are too many cat-lovers in the blogosphere.” Not just the blogosphere. Everywhere. I know this is a controversial issue. But I really don’t understand why so many people like cats. They are pure evil. […]

Visiting Guardian Unlimited

Has anybody else been having major problems accessing The Guardian‘s website? For the past couple of days now I’ve not been able to get it to load. Update: Managed to get it fixed now, whatever the problem was…

What sickens me about Labour

Back in September, one of the reasons I gave for wanting to re-start the Scottish Blogging Roundup was the fact that it was difficult to find any SNP supporters. Of course, since then I’ve discovered absolutely loads, and I’ve been more aware of the fact that there are hardly any Labour supporting blogs. So I […]

Queer-like spelling

Tonight is Burns Night — a fact that my dangerously nationalist self keeps on forgetting. I had forgotten once again until James Higham left this in a comment: Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the Puddin-race! Aboon them a’ ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy of […]

The greatest argument in favour of the license fee

Yesterday Ofcom criticised the BBC’s hugely promising project to get its content online and accessible on demand for free. According to Ofcom, project like BBC iPlayer “would not be in the long-term public interest”. Not too long ago a similar attack was made against the BBC’s use of podcasts. This is the BBC using modern […]

Jonny Greenwood and Radio 3

Radio 3’s Late Junction had a Jonny Greenwood special last night (you can listen to it here). I think Jonny Greenwood is probably one of the very best musicians around at the moment. He is currently the BBC’s ‘composer in residence’. He was recently voted composer of the year by Radio 3 listeners. But he’s […]

Moan, whine, isn’t that what a LiveJournal is for?

You might have noticed that I haven’t posted for a few days. I shouldn’t even have written that post about Celebrity Big Brother, but I couldn’t really stop myself. I didn’t proofread it properly which is why it came complete with a glaring error in the post title for five whole days. It’s been crazy […]

Guardian oldie

My nosy self spotted somebody reading the Guardian Weekly in the train today. I noticed that it hasn’t been updated to the current design of The Guardian which must be well over a year old now. How come?