Link example

I've got a bundle of links on my site just now, i just thought i'd post a sample of each over the course. To possibly tempt people into looking at some or all of them if they happen to chance upon this site.

Starting with the current top story on Indy media. An article on state sponsored repression in Mexico. And for a contrast piece, something a bit closer to home in sunny Scotland.

Suicide bombers

Just a short note to pass on something i just discovered about suicide bombers. Just now it's muslims that are the current focus and islamic fundamentalism that is blamed. I was picking out highlights from the radio station i mentioned below and it had the author of this book on.

Now i've not read the book and i don't know if it's good, bad or indifferent but it clearly makes some interesting points, just from what i read from the book description. Now i'm not saying these recent bombers wern't Islamic fundamentalist's or that their religious believes wern't part of the reason behind their actions however this guy has made efforts to study suicide bombings the world over and has come to the conclusion that a great many suicide bombers were secular, that "Ninety-five per cent of suicide terrorist attacts occur as part of coherent campaigns organized by large militant organisations with significant public support," and that "Suicide terrorism is not primarily a product of Islamic Fundamentalism."

I've got a big of a backlog of books leftover from being on holiday but their is a good chance i might invest in this book in due course, i should probably have checked the UK amazon site to see if they had it but i'm not changing the link now.

Anyone ever listened to.....

....this? I'm aware that this is supposed to be an alternative to the plethora of right wing radio talk show stations. Is it an intelligent alternative, i listened for a couple of minutes the other day but Jerry Springer was on and i was thinking "yeeeeah, hmmmm ok." Al Franken appears to be the main man, i did read his Lying Liars book and it was quite enjoyable and i thought it was fairly sound and this is a great title for a book if nothing else!

Listening to a bit of the highlights reel just now and well it's not a bit involving the public but seems ok so far. It would be nice if it turns out to be a genuinely good station as i find it hilarious when your right wing lunatics slate the liberal bias of the media, the media in the US could do with any sort of decent liberal honest analytical media. Not that our own media in the UK is much better certainly the mainstream.

Short Serious type post

Basicaly this is a kinda short aside on the London bombing. There was a report in the Metro paper that quoted the Brazilian guys brother or some other family member. I left the paper on the bus unfortunately and i don't have it next to me to be 100% accurate about it but the gist of it was that there were claims that the police originaly told them that Jean Charles de Meneze didn't jump the barrier at the train station and that he wasn't wearing a bulky jacket.

The CCTV footage of him entering the station needs to be released to confirm or dispel these claims. This incident has been unfortunate enough without more doubts and rumours hanging over it.

It must be bad enough living in London fearing a potential terrorist attact without worrying about whether the police are going to shoot you dead because you've been mistaken for someone else.

It's petty i know but....

....chortle! I know i should support Scottish teams in europe, not least out of enlightened self interest as the more succesful any Scottish team is the more likely the SPL can get extra european places and increase the small chance my own team has of qualification. The thing is Celtic are about as Scottish as a team as a Haggis is a real animal and they have so many arrogant and annoying fans that i loathe them and their bigoted brothers across the other side of the divide with a passion.

So i do try to wish them well in Europe but there came a point watching last nights game where you just sensed a humping was on the cards and it was so good to watch. Although not remotely as entertainly as watching the shellshocked fans interviewed after the match. It's good to see them brought down a peg or two.

Felt a little bit sorry for Gordan Strachan as i've always had time for him, but he's made his bed and he can lie in it. I reckon he'll turn it around and it'll be back to business as usual soon enough, hopefully after this coming saturday when we play them mind you, i'd love it, i'd love it as Kevin Keegan might say if we pumped them again! Pile on the misery, pile it on and have a bit more, is this much schadenfreude healthy? :-)

Guaranteed to get my goat!

Stupid petty hypocricy and moral indignation over computer games. I stumbled across this story last night as i was heading to my bed but i was just to tired to write about it, but don't get me wrong it annoyed me immensely.

Fair enough the GTA series does stretch the boundaries of taste and decency a bit. It's violent and what not, it is however a computer game aimed at adults. It gets an 18 rating in this country and as the article states it got an M for mature rating in the US, 17 and over. Not for young children then, although countless parents will let their children play anyway.

Apparantly though sexually explicit scenes within the game "can be unlocked with software created by a fan." Ok so the scenes were in there but they are hardly easily accessable and again so what, the game already had a mature rating so that it wasn't to be sold to be anyone younger than 17. Sure in this country you need to be 18 to buy pornography and maybe i can only presume it's 18 in the USA but say some 17 year gets to see some animated porno scenes in a computer game, oh no they'll be scarred for life! I've not witnessed the scenes myself but the'd have to be pretty hardcore to top what i watched in an episode of Sex and the City the other week. That Samantha character took it all ways and it was pretty graphic, although still considered softcore i imagine because there were no close ups of penetration and yer man boffing her, well his knob wasn't shown to be blunt.

It is hardly worthy of the indignation in some the quotes. Congressman Fred Upton suggest that they are trying to, "peddle sexually explicit material to our youth, and they should be held accountable. A company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit." Well i've news for you Congressman it's a computer game and it is highly anticipated and wanted enough for its qualities as a game that a little bit of extra code that sees some animated characters shagging is not going to increase its huge profits one little bit. Also making profit from deceit is par for the course in the business world, companies advertise and spend untold millions to get us to buy their products and by god they don't spend all that money just to tell us all nice factual statements about their products. Advertising and marketing is the foremost practice of making profit from deceit and it is warmly approved of by the likes of yourself!

Quite frankly it disgust me when people take the moral highground over things like this, particularly politicians linked to as much sleaze as Hilary Clinton and i don't just mean her husbands way of smoking his cigars! Let me repeat the game is aimed at a mature or adult audience, last i heard 17 year olds are allowed to have sex so stop wasting peoples time and time that your congress or senate could be better served questioning your glorious leaders actions!

Music ramblings

As i mentioned earlier one of the few bands i've liked in recent times were the Libertines. Now anyone with just slightly more than a passing interest in music will be more or less aware of their rise and fall. However it appears that the band led by erstwhile Libertine Pete Doherty has also bitten the dust, Babyshambles by name and by nature it seems are if not in pieces very much a vase teetering over a precipice ready to shatter.

It would seem that anything Pete Doherty touches while blessed with at least a smattering of talent is destined to self destruct. The man himself is more well known for his drug problems than his music and will do well not end up either on the scrapheap or in an early grave.

Given the lack of album emanating from the Bayshambles camp thank you to the Killers for providing possibly the best album i've heard in last couple of years!

The pain of Football Manager

It had to happen sooner or later, a post about the legendary football management sim once known as Championship Manager. The only reason i'm posting this is because it's a howl at the moon moment, i'm up late, just about to go to my bed myself and there is no one on my msn list to moan about it.

Just lost in a cup final with my current team St.Johnstone, was good even to get there as i know myself that although i got a decent team doing well in my first season in the top division there not many in it that will be there much longer if i can get in the players to take them one step further and get as good a team as i'd like. However the way it was lost, it wasn't so much that it felt like the real thing, it was more i could empathise with just how painful it would be to lose as i did if it had been real.

Lost 2-0 to Rangers, no big suprise but my team only went and missed 2 penalties at 0-0. To make it worse the same player missed twice! I should maybe have went and changed pen taking priority after 1st miss, but what were the chances of getting a 2nd especially against Rangers! Just goes to show that it's a game there rather than reality! I'll wake up in a cold sweat tonight if i dream about Motherwell losing in a similar manner in a cup final i can quite safely say.

Poker highs and lows

Following on from the earlier post about poker i've got a few highs and lows to comment on. As i think i said earlier i was sitting about $16 dollars up, so i went in to see if i couldn't continue on from there. Played for a bit and added another $7 or so, feeling very pleased with myself at being now up to a roll of $53. I wouldn't say i was getting cocky but i was feeling quite confident that i had enough skills to keep coming out ahead at this low limit stuff. I was due for a bit of a humbling.

With the day still quite young i thought i'd head back in for some more action. I started off steadily enough hovering around what i took into the game or marginaly ahead, fairly sure that a reasonably big hand would come along and get me a few dollars more. It didn't quite work out that way, a bad beat and a misjudgement or two later and i was down the $7 i'd won earlier. I steadied the boat slightly and left the room glad only to have lost $5 or so. Took a moment and went into another room to see if i couldn't recoup my losses, i could feel that i was playing to loose and playing to much from hope than judgement and i was soon down again. I left to go to the football only $7.50 ahead on my original stake and $15.55 down on my high point of the day.

I wasn't quite devastated but i was kicking myself for not sticking the with simple rules that had got me so far ahead. Sure maybe a combination of the cards and luck meant i wasn't going to make anything over the previous two sessions but i should have maintained the discipline and patience to see it out. I was staying in a hand that bit to long before folding or finding myself pot committed with fairly weak cards.

So i went off to play football and put it to the back of my mind, when i got home however i thought i need to get back on the horse. I'll either win some back or lose. No point putting it off until later, still feeling quite fresh lets see if we can't learn our lesson and lets face it i still need the practice. I got back in the game and despite being over $5 down again at one stage and being perilously close to dipping into a deficit i maintained my composure, waited for the right cards and stormed back to add another $10 onto my winnings. So i'm back on $47.75 and still up for the day if down from that high point. So a valuable lesson learned and still a little bit ahead, lets hope it's a lesson that doesn't need repeating.

Change is definately essential

It's the first league game of the season on saturday, i've not made it to any of the friendlies. Something of a mixed blessing, the games are usually dull but sometimes the day out can be fun. I should be writing about how i can't wait for the big kick off but i just not got any enthusiasm for it. We're at home to Celtic who we stuffed in the dying minutes of the last game of the season to ruin their title party and even better than in 95 i think, when we won at Ibrox, we cost them the title rather than merely delaying it for another week.

The club however has started this season the same way it finished last, by pissing of the fans. I had sympathy the first time because they did ask the fans opinion and stuck by it. Well they didn't move the fans but then had absolutely no restrictions in place for the sale of home end tickets and profited on a situation that could have turned ugly allowing away fans to purchase home end tickets in the hundreds. This time however they have just decided to move the fans despite it being made clear they wern't keen on it. I can see the business sense behind the decision but they handled it so badly and it's been another PR bungle. Anything to do with running of Motherwell Football Club outside of the playing side is an utter shambles!

The biggest problem is that we had a susccessful season, we got to a cup final generating a substantial unexpected bit of income. The sell out on the last day of the season will have added a little bit more than expected, and even the 6000 or so that paid to get in for the Everton friendly is money that wasn't in last years budget. Yet the club still insists we're struggling financially. Now maybe we are but to the fan in the street we've been told that we're now getting run at no or a minimal loss and we then go and generate significant extra revenue and it is apparantly spent already.

We've also just sold a player for £150k, not a huge sum of money but we have yet to see any new faces come in. We got a decent squad but already injuries and suspension has ruled out most of our potential strikforce. 2 suspensions and 2 players carrying injuries, even if it isn't much you need new faces every year to keep things fresh and generate that bit extra interest in the new campaign. To be fair there is time yet and noises have been made that we can expect a signing or two this week. However whoever comes in now has missed pre-season training and is likely to be off the pace for a few weeks.

Added to the fact that i've not got the money for a season ticket this year and i just feeling quite down about the whole thing. The club treats fans really badly, struggling for players, seems like no real ambition from the board to build on success and the stable squad we have. Don't get me wrong i appreciate the fact we're not blowing money like we did a few years back but it's an old adage you bring players in while your doing well, don't wait until things start slipping. 2 new faces in a few weeks ago would make a big difference. It's been commented on before but as a club we seem to wait as long as possible before signing players as there is no point paying over the summer?

Almost forgot....

....my tuesday rant about something fundamentally trivial! I have to admit i'm struggling, i'd moan about my back being sore but i consider that quite serious and not in the least bit trivial. Ah i know what i have to moan about. Mobile phones! Or to be more specific the fact that when one breaks on you for no apparent reason you can lose all your phone numbers. Then you have to re enter them all and it's really rather laborious.

Firstly you have to make sure the numbers you enter are still up to date. I have numerous bits of paper with peoples numbers written down but i know so many of them are years old and now obsolete. Theres numbers from people i havn't even spoken to in years, the only reason to put their numbers back in, presuming they even work, is to make it look like you've got more friends than is actually the case should someone else happen to be footering with your phone.

I know i can save phone numbers to sim card, but not that many from what i can remember and if you put your important numbers on there, well they generally are the easiest to get hold off if lost anyway. So mobile phones can go bugger off until there is an easier way of entering all your numbers at one go!

New found respect for...

...Rory Bremner. Why? Well i've never found him that funny, the other two guys John Bird and John Fortune were always the funniest part of his show. You could describe him as satire lite. So why do i have a new found respect for him? Well he seemingly agrees 100%. While possibly just a bit of false modesty in the interview i just read with him, he's got a new column in New Statesmen, he is possibly effusive in his self criticism as well as praise for his colleagues.

So fair play to the fellow for having a decent sense of perspective about what he does. He's not entirely my cup of tea but he far from the worst thing on the television. And maybe his new column will be better than his TV show.

Online Poker

I've been flirting with this for a while now, i'm not by nature a big gambler. I've only rarely ever put a bet on the football over the years, i've never bet on the horses not even the Grand National.

However i did play a wee bit of poker back in university, just among friends and for small stakes but we took the trouble of customising our flat. What had been the dinner table got a layer of green felt put on top of it and even more worryingly one of the lads messed about with the overhead light so that we could raise and lower it above the table for added atmosphere. Added to the conveinent wall mounted optic it made for some fun poker evenings before we'd go out on the town.

Poker has increasingly being coming into the mainstream in this country and you can now quite easily watch the World Poker Tour, the World Series of Poker, and various other events on television. It's been watching these over the last year or so that has slowly but surely rekindled my interest in the game.

So seeing that many of the people on these shows qualified from online tournaments i thought i'd have a look. I checked out a few and found one that seems coshure and easy to use and started off using their play money tournaments. Designed to encourage those nervous to part with their cash it's a free way of praticing against real opponents. Lost all my chips a few times before started doing a little better and after taking my $1000 starting bankroll to over £26000 i thought maybe i should start playing for real cash.

I was well aware however that playing for kiddy on money and playing for real money was two entirely different things. People will play a lot looser than when it isn't their money their losing and i'd certainly be a lot warier playing No limits Texas hold em with my own cash. So i took a bit of time to think about it, being naturally quite cautious. Eventually however i succumbed to temptation and signed up for $30 worth of chips. Just enough to have a decent stab at the low limit games. If i can keep my money and build on it then i can think of tournaments and bigger prizes.

So how is going so far? Not to bad as it happens, i registered back on the 6th of June or something and even with the holiday break in the middle i've not played a great deal. I'd find it hard to justify putting in more money if i lose my stake so i've only really played a few times and for an hour or so at most. I got about $5 up after my first sitting, not much but i was happy with that. After my second sitting though i had lost that and about $5 more. I was annoyed with myself because i knew that after losing a few hands i'd played some bad poker and just exacerbated my orignal mistakes. So i stayed away for a bit, read up a bit on strategy and came back to the tables just the other day.

So i know i got quite lucky with the first few hands i got dealt but i played much better over two sittings and i found myself almost $25 up for the day and $16 up from where i started. If i can consolidate that and slowly but surely get up to about $100 i shall think about entering a tournament and maybe go all the way to the World Series of Poker?

Tribute to a bloke i'd never even heard of....

...but who certainly deserves to be recognised. I may just be ignorant, so i'll list the achievements this man had before he died at the age of 92 and perhaps some of you might be able to tell who it is from them. Along with Austin Bradford Hill he was the first leading authority to prove a link between smoking and lung cancer. Co-authoring a paper in 1951 that suggested the link and 3 years later co-authering another which confirmed it. He continued to work until this year, he demonstrated that all radiation was potentially harmful, that aspirin could protect against heart disease and also found evidence that alcohol increase the risk of breast cancer.

Added to all that he received 13 honory degrees from various universities and won many an award including the UN Award for Cancer Research in 1962. Knighted in 1971 he is Sir Richard Doll.

When you consider that in 1954 80% of british adults smoked comparted to the current figure of 26 per cent that is a legacy to be proud of.

Based on article by Genevieve roberts in the Independent.

Good timing

There i was rambling on about suicide bombers and what not, struggling to put my thoughts into words about how in particular young british muslims could be motivated to commit acts like suicide bombings and i find in today(mondays) paper an interview with a Swiss Muslim academic who can add a level of insight a smidgen greater than my own.

Tariq Ramadan has already been attacked by the sun newspaper for being "more dangerous" than Abu Hamza or Omar Bakiri. That should probably all one needs to know given the journalistic integrity of the sun. In reality he is a philosophy lecturer at the University of Geneva and president of the Swiss Muslim Association and has had no hesitation in denouncing the suicide bombings.

In case you were in any doubt as to how radical he is considered the police did want to have a word with him upon entering the country, although that would be because he was a keynote speaker at a conference sponsored by the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Metropolitan Police.

Possibly key to why young Muslim men are attracted to the words of radical clerics could well be a guilt, feelings of inadequacy and alienation. "Young people are told: everything you do is wrong- you don't pray, you drink, you arn't modest, you don't behave. They are told that the only way to be a good Muslim is to live in an Islamic society, Since they can't do that, this magnifies their sense of inadequacy and creates an identity crisis. Such young people are easy pray for someone who comes along and says, 'there is a way to purify yourself'. Some of these figures even keep the young people drinking to increase their sense of guilt and make them easier to manipulate."

An interesting theory as to why perhaps those first steps are taken on a path that can lead to infamy. He does however have an altenrative, this is not some hopeless situation. The alternative is to teach them to develop a critical mind. "On the arts, literature, the way we eat, our sense of humour, the second generation feel close to the non-Muslims they went to school with. That's right. That's the Islamic way. The universlity of Islam is shown by the way you integrate into the local culture. Our young people need to be told, you can dress in European clothes - so long as you respect the principle of modesty. Democracy and pluralism arn't against your Islamic principles. Anything in Western culture that does not contradict the message of Islam can be accepted and integrated."

Is this guy talking of a 3rd way that isn't a total nonsense, whenever i hear that phrase i can't help think of Tony Blair and John Boyle. The interview is well worth reading in it's original form, it the kind of piece where i half bother why i'm summarising it, i'd be as well just putting in and a link and saying read this. To be honest all the things he has to say makes a lot of sense, and i'm trying to think of an exception i can make. He is willing to critisize Muslim societies, western governments, even muslims in the west for how they integrate with western society, not enough seems to be the judgement rather than to much.

Basicaly the guy talks sense and if what he said in this interview is representative of his opinions in general i can't think of a better person for the police associations to have invited. If only mainstream rags like the sun would sensibly and accurately put his opinion across as unfortunatley they have the largest readership in the country and hard as i credit it to believe are responsible for forming many peoples opinions.

Oh aye, there is one thing i guess i can say about this guy, he's clearly still religious despite his forward thinking views, i'd say i was an athiest but i'm not prejudice against religious folks when they are willing to show they are that erudite and intelligent. Who am i to critisise? :-)

A whiff of the rediculous

Blog is slow to update today, certainly when i've went to look for my last post it hasn't been up yet. So i thought i better try posting something else incase it's this slow later and it looks like i not posted at all today.

1st thing that popped into my head might seem a touch sick. You just cannot miss a headline that says, "Police believe two cells of bombers met up at white-water rafting centre." I await further developments that they also took part in paintballing and go-karting excursions as part of a weekend away for some management training bonding/group work scheme. Possibly encouraging if that were the case, east meets west, a sign that even suicide bombers can engage in western culture?

Ok a bit off colour, but you should see the picture showing them rafting, they look like any bunch of randoms having a good time with cheesy grins, thumbs up and one of the alleged attempted bombers making a peace V sign. Given how close it was to the bombing attempts, presumably they were discussing plans it raise questions to how much we can write them off as evil/insane/mad or any other conveinent labels that makes them wrong and us safely on the moral high ground.

It would be easier for all of us if that was the case, though however removed from reality these people may be they are clearly able to make rational decisions and however much what they are doing is wrong they can clearly rationalise it to themselves. Given the fact that they are british and brought up here it wouldn't suprise me if while clearly committed to their cause that they wern't entirely free from feelings of guilt over what they attempted to do. They at an educated guess rationalised it to themselves as the lesser evil in relation to what motivated them.

Also having read over that i feel i should clarify the british born and bred comment. I don't mean to suggest that other people that have done the same are any more or less human/inhuman. As british muslims i am assuming that these people have been motivated by the suffering caused by UK/US foreign policy to many in muslim lands.

Personaly i can understand that as a motivating factor to reject the UK government. However at the same time i think, muslim you maybe and presumably the impact is more passionately felt by british muslims than the average citizen but lets face it british muslims arn't suffering the way those in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan are. It is harder to understand a young british muslim resorting to such desparate measures. But then i am not a muslim of any persuasion and can only guess at how they feel when they see what happens in the middle east.

Maybe i'm being to generous but motivated to do what they did i can't help but attribute them human feelings to the people they thought they were about to kill. As they must well have known they were not the ones responsible for their grievances. I can only suppose the resolution to kill innocent british citizens was due to the increased impact that would have. It is all to easy to ignore the death and destruction that has went on in the Middle East, only when it is on our own door step does it get our full attention.

Either way, as i said ealsewhere no matter how wrong the actions of terrorists are we mustn't allow that from stopping us looking past the action to the motivation behind it and see if there isn't something in that and examining our own actions to see if they are as moral as we'd like them to be.

More later but....

Generally i prefer to have a good read of the paper and then post my thoughts on the stories of the day. I'll do that on the way to and from playing football tonight and will therefore post more later. I have been skimming through my paper though and i chose to read a column by a guy called Bruce Anderson. He clearly a bright chap, and he makes a good case for why the police were right to shoot the innocent Brazilai Jean Charles de Meneze despite hindsight showing him to be innocent. There is a degree of giving the police the benefit of the doubt, in particular the police most directly involved as they were probably relying on the intelligence provided by others. They it appears with no little bravery chased down someone they believed was a suicide bomber and dealt with them.

Tragicaly the dead man turned out to be completely innocent of what he was suspected of, though he may have been working illegaly here providing a possible reason why he ran when challenged by the police, there are still to many unknowns to make definative judgements just yet.

He goes onto defend MI5 and state his believe that we need to remove the Human Rights Act to improve security, he may be right on the former but i'm less sure on the latter. It's the last point he makes where i just thought to myself, "that is bollox."

"But as soon as science stops one up one rat hole, the fanatics will find another. To defeat them, we will have to summon up our stoicism, and hope for good luck."

If we want to stop terrorism we need to do a lot more than summon up stoicism and hope for the best. I maintain that people do not become suicide bombers without reason. No matter how horrific the results of their actions are and how hard it is to empthaisize with people that are willing to take innocent lifes we have the capability to get to the cause of this problem.

To address the given reasons behind the suicide bombings is not giving in to terrorism, it is to take a long hard look at policies which were clearly wrong before 7/7, before 9/11 and beyond to i'm not quite sure how far back.

To shamelessly steal some examples from someone elses blog, Native American's committed terrorist acts, black slaves committed terrorist acts, black South Africans committed terrorist acts. While their actions caused the deaths of innocents and were just as horrific as the recent spate of suicide and attempted suicide bombings it no more made the genocide of Native Americans right, nor did it make slavery any less wrong, nor were the Apartheid policies of the white South African government justified.

So as i feel i'm rather clumsily putting this, stop with the tough rhetoric, look at the real problem and then we can all live in a better world.

Terrible movies i've loved 1

Talking about Batman Begins there gave me an idea, i love movies from big budget hollywood fluff to independent cinema and subtitled french and japanese stuff that most people avoid like the plague. About the only genre i don't like are John Wayne westerns, most musicals and weepies.

However i thought i'd reserve a slot for a special category of films, films that are truly awful yet i loved them none the less. Either i think they are terrible and still liked them or just plain disagreed with the rest of the world.

The first one that comes to mind is Maximum Overdrive. Any sentence that starts with, "Directed by Stephen King and starring Emelio Estevez," would be enough to send most people running screaming but this 1986 so called horror film had me in stitches. It is in that so bad it's good category. The basic plot is that some mysterious comet swings past the earth causing machines to come alive and go on a murderous rampage. Emilio Estevez leads a group of survivors trying to stay alive in a truck stop surrounded by killer trucks. The highlight of the film for me was the killer vending machine. A young teenage lad goes to buy a soft drink and the machine machine gun fires cans of juice at him doubling him over and killing him, it was even funnier than the killer lawnmowers.

So i salute you Maximum Overdrive, i can't think why it was King's first and last directorial effort?

Film Review 1

Despite my moaning about the Batman Begins behind the scenes style 30 minute excuse for an advert programme just before i went on holiday i decided it was still worth seeing. I'd have to go along with the concensus of opinion that has described it as the best Batman movie yet.

It wouldn't have been hard being better than either Batman Forever or Batman and Robin. I however did quite like Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. More grounded in reality, albeit tenuously as it still a superhero flick, the patient build up is worth the wait, we get to see some character's that are largely believable if for the most part still slightly shallow. Only Bruce Wayne understandly gets the time on screen to give us insight into why he is what he is. Michael Caine is his usual excellent self as butler Alfred and only the Katie Holmes character jars somewhat. She seems just a bit to young for her role as assistant DA, i may have got it wrong but she already appeared to be a qualified lawyer while Bruce Wayne was years shy of taking up the Batcape.

A minor quibble in an otherwise very good summer movie, with a sequel clearly intended it's good to see a healthy US box office take already. If Christopher Nolan can build on some solid foundations we might have a series worth following.

Not much done today blogwise

I bought both a trashy Sun newspaper that will no doubt have me in stitches over the nonsense it spouts, even better if Richard Littlejohn has a column in it, that guy is such caricature of a right wing frothing at the mouth lunatic he's great fun to read.

I also been writing a short report on FPC FC's Leeds weekend for the official match programme. Quite pleased about that, the editor had told me he would be happy for me to contribute this season and i thought i'd been getting the rubber ear lately, so hopefully it will lead to contributing a bit more.

I had also better get round to putting numbers in my new mobile phone, my old one died while i was on holiday inexplicably. The shop told me it was water damage but it had been sitting lying inside on a table as far as i was aware dry as a bone. I didn't argue as i was due an upgrade anyway so no big deal other than the inconveinence. It is a rather tedious task.

Although i was in Argos about 9am the day i got it as the damn phone shop didn't open until half 9 and looking at cheap mp3 players i promised myself that if i spent less than £30 on my new phone i'd treat myself to the el cheapo alba mp3 player to listen to in the gym. It's no i-pod but it's smaller and does the job, so i bought it when i got my new upgrade for only £10. I have next to no sense with money.

Book Review 1 - The Corporation

I'll start by saying that if i am actually taking the trouble to write about a book i've read it will mean there is a 99% probability i liked it and would reccomend it or would like people to read it. What i mean is even if i wouldn't reccomend it as such because it might not be to everyones taste i think they should damn well read it anyway. The odd exception to this might be if i read a book so virulently bad i feel the need to tear into it and say just how awful it is, say if i ever read anything by Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh.

This first review is of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan, a companion piece to the documentary of the same name. Before i even read this i was really pleased to stumble across it as i'd been aware of the documentary and had been meaning to look out for its UK release. However it not being a hugely advertised hollywood film i managed to miss it, it was probably only on in places like the GFT and i'm terrible at checking listings for films i might like to see. Mostly because no other bugger is ever willing to watch 75% of the films i'd go to see.

The basic contention of the book is that the modern day corporation is psychopathic in it's nature and will lie, steal and kill without hesitation if it serves the interests of its shareholders. That it will obey the law only when the cost of the crime exceeds the profits and any nods towards social responsibility are impossible except when they are insincere.

To make the point about the corporation being literaly psychopathic the author sought the opinion of renowned psychologist Dr Robert Hare, who applied his diagnostic checklist of psychopathic traits. Needless to they matched up rather well, "The corporation is irresponsible, Dr. Hare said, because "in an attempt to satisfy the corporate goal, everybody else is put at risk." Corporations try to "manipulate everything, including public opinion," and they are grandiose, always insisting "that we're number one, we're the best." A lack of empathy and asocial tendencies are also key characteristics of the corporation, says Hare-"their behaviour indicates they don't really concern themselves with their victims"; and corporations often refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions and are unable to feel remorse:"if [corporations] get caught [breaking the law], they pay big fines and they... continue doinf what they did before anyway. And in fact in many cases the fines and penalties paid by the organisation are trivial compared to the profits that they rake in."

This well researched book speaks to big business figures, prominent critics of the corporate world we live in, as well as Milton Friedman possibly the foremost exponent of neo-liberal economics. Bakan describes the origins of the corporation and and gives a good account of the history of the corporation, from being banned in England in 1720 to their current powerful position in society where they see themselves as in partnership with government.

If you are even vaguely interested in the wider world that we live in then you will find this an easy book to read. It's concise and well argued and well there is always the film if you feeling lazy.

unusual phrases of our time 1

Gay Reachie - If you don't know, i don't think i can explain on a family friendly blog. The film Full Metal Jacket can probably help.

Tour de France

I've been a fan of this event since for as long as i can remember, i grew up watching the highlights on channel 4 and i was raging when they either lost the rights or dropped it. Now it's easy to watch live on Eurosport or theres a longer highlight programme on ITV2.

Sure it's had it's drug problems like every other sport and indeed seems even more an accepted part of the culture, but you'd need to be on drugs of some sort to do what these guys do. The only downside to it in recent years for me is that it's been a bit like Formula 1 in that Lance Armstrong seems unstoppable and has rarely even been challenged during his soon to be 7 year reign. I remember finding Miguel Indurain's 5 year winning streak tiresome towards the end, i'm glad Armstrong is retiring after this one. I'd love to tune in next year and see 2 or more guys really slug it out, and even take it to the very last stage with only seconds between them.

Pedro Delgado, Greg Lemond(x2), Miguel Indurain(x5), Brjarne Riise, Jan Ullrich, Lance Armstrong(x6), hopefully after Armstrong makes it 7 this year i can add a new name to list of people i've watched win. If i forgotten anyone please add them via comment box.

Living in Scotland....

...it's really difficult to identify with hosepipe bans and water shortages. We could all have sprinklers on all day and all night and we'd still never run short of water. It just doesn't stop raining long enough.

So i was initaly underwhelmed by the front page article in yesterdays Independent, hosepipe pans and so on just seem par for the course for people down south, hardly news. Anyway i read on and eventually something did strike a chord. Thames water loses 915 million litres of water a day from old and crumbling pipes. If i was living in that region i'd be asking why i'm supposed to only flush my toilet when absolutely essential when the amount of water they leak away could probably knock over my house if it was caught up in a wave of this lost water.

What balls, "please overcharged customers of water don't use a hose, we don't have enough water to spare, well apart from the 333,975,000,000 litres of water we let go to waste each year."

Confront Extremists?

Tony Blair has told the muslim community to confront extremists according to reports in yesterdays papers. Seems only fair then than Tony does the same, confront the perversion of democracy that fuels Geroge Bush and his cronies.

"What he was talking about was that there are extremists who have a perverse view of Islam, who tried to use that perverse view to justify events, such as the London bombings."

Hmm, i think i could change a couple of words there....

"What he was talking about was that there are extremists who have a perverse view of democracy, who tried to use that perverse view to justify events, such as invading Iraq."

Seeing as i'm in a relative posting frenzy today....

....i thought i'd link to this. Just an article i enjoyed reading, i like sport and it's good when it can occasionaly increase it's relavence beyond it's own run of the mill spectacle. To use a bit of cliche bingo here, at the end of the day sportsmen and women are hugely public figures and if they choose to highlight an issue then it will in all liklihood be highlighted, even if only for a moment. It was good to see someone write about sports folks that have done that and expanded on the basic knowledge of what they really did.

Only downside is it always seems easier to find american examples. Anyone think of non US based sports stars doing something to stand up for a cause/belief? I'm sure they are out there and i might well kick myself if someone posts obvious ones but it's late and i had a long day and can't think of anyone just now.

Football, why do we bother?

Why do we enjoy watching it at all in the first place? Personally there are 2 reasons for me. One is that it is part of my identity and has been since i was very young. Brought up as a Motherwell fan, although the identity part is more defined by what that doesn't make me than what it does. In the context of Scottish football it means i'm not a supporter of Rangers and Celtic and involved in all the religious baggage tied up with those to clubs. I'm a football fan and follow my team because they are my local professional club.

Secondly i enjoy playing football, i have done since i was small and although i'm not very good at it i persist and enjoy playing it still. So i appreciate watching people that can really play, so that rules out Motherwell players then(joke, kinda) but i certainly look forward to big events like the World Cup.

So why am i currently disillusioned with the sport. I'm aware that my love of my club is a slightly obsessive love and that it doesn't really stand up to close scrutiny. Especially when you are at a big game and the adrenaline and emotions are hyper, some of the abuse given out to opposition players and fans doesn't bear repeating and the sheer emotional high that winning a big game can bring is almost obscene when compared to how relavent the game is compared to events outside football.

I've been well aware of that for quite sometime though and that doesn't quite explain it away, maturity and new found perspective on how trivial sport is can go play chicken with a train.

I guess the two things that get to me at times are the lack of a level playing field and the money in the game. They are kind of related, but there is a distinction in my eyes in context of Scottish football at least.

It only takes a cursory glance at the history of Scottish football to see that it is dominated by two teams and given ther size of them and their current relative financial clout it does not look like changing anytime ever. I was fortunate or unfortunate enough depending how you look at it to have been brought up in an era where the likes of Aberdeen, Dundee Utd and Hearts gave Rangers and Celtic a proper challenge. Even my own team Motherwell had a moment in the sun from 93-95, finishing 3rd and 2nd. But even as we finished 2nd the writing was on the wall that at that time Rangers in particular were just cantering off into the distance and Celtic also were getting their act together again after years of mismanagement almost killed their club.

So basicaly you can't help wondering just what is the point when only 2 teams have a realisitc chance of winning the league and everyone else is fighting over best of the rest and the occasional cup upset?

The other thing is the money and this is less relavent in Scotland where we don't have the population base that encourages Sky TV and advertisers to plough money into the game. However even here players can earn rediculous amounts that make them little more than merceneries. Fans like to think that players play for the jersey and that the club means something to them as it means a lot to us. But theres plenty that seem just happy to pick up a wage and at the end of the day it's their job, but it's a job you assume they got into because they loved the game, were good at it and wanted to win. Not just collect the fattest wage they can pocket even if it means sitting in Rangers or Celtics reserve team most weeks.

Then you see the silly money of Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona's alleged contract offer to Ronaldinho of £300k a week basic and surely the world has gone mad. How can you justify people earning over a £1m pounds a month just for kicking a ball about no matter how good they are. I don't think you can justify even a fraction of it. Ok they give enjoyment and entertainment to a lot of people, they have a short career and they have to be dedicated to it. I'm not saying i wouldn't begrudge them a good wage for what they do, but currently we are making millionaires of some very average football talents and making super rich those at the very top.

Fed up with Harry Potter?

I can quite easily ignore it, but if you do have friends thats annoy the life out of you with their love of the young wizard then just direct their attention to this excellent review of the world of Potter and friends.

Certainly a perspective upon it i hadn't thought about, wonder if i can find one about Star Wars?

Spurious rant 6*

*if you include the one in one of my holiday posts.

Cat fur, i hate cat fur. I like cats, hell i love the little buggers. They are cute as hell and the friendlier ones are just great. Grown up with them all my life and they are all round great pets. Easy to feed, little grooming(most of them) and fire them out the door and they will conveinently do their business in the garden, or more frequently someone elses. Low maintenence essentialy but with a good affection return.

The only thing is, the more you have the more cat fur gets everywhere, forget wearing black clothes around the house, or even any clothes you might want to wear in public without risking having people who suffer allergic reactions dying in your presence. Thank god for those sticky clothes brushes that lift the fur off a treat or there would be more than a few cats in this household walking down the street with napsacks over their shoulders.

Elections and mandate to govern

If in the UK Tony Blair wins the election and in the US George Bush wins his election,which did happen(unfortunately), is it then the case that they have a mandate to go ahead with whatever laws and policies they choose to implement?

I ask as this was part of an argument i was involved in recently. It was to do with terrorism lately etc. My contention was that the US goverment, with recent UK support, is the biggest cause of the problems we face today. Most recently the wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and the continuing conflict in Palestine. It seems to me that these are the biggest things causing problems between the Arab and Islamic parts of the world and the western world.

Anyway my friend was of the opinion that the suicide bombers and islamic extremists hate us and our freedoms. Which to an extent might be true, interpretation seems to be one BIG part of religion, but i am sure there are some people in the islamic world that look upon the west and think it is a den of sin and iniquity. However if the they didn't see the likes of the US and the UK influencing their own countries would they be motivated to lash out against them? I would reckon not. Either way i don't think incompatible believe systems are the problem. Getting back to Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and other US/UK involvement in the middle east and there are much more plausible reasons for resentment/anger/hate, combined with a sense of helplessness at the threatment from the hands of the worlds only superpower that might have inspired terrorist acts.

Which just to remind anyone reading i do not in anyway condone, it is just that i am of the opinion if you don't properly understand why something is happening you cannot effectively deal with it. If our reaction to terrorist attacks is based on misconceptions then are we not doomed to only make matters worse than they were before?

Anyway as this somewhat incoherant argument went here and there it was his assessment that irrespective of our personal opinions, they were duly elected governments and therefore serving the will of the people or alternately if the people that voted them in wern't clever enough to see what was coming then hell mend them. He also dismissed anti war marches as being utterly insignficant, if only 1 million people out of a nation of near 60m can be bothered to march against it then they are a pitiful minority that should be ignored.

This annoyed me greatly and the discussion didn't last much longer as we were diametricaly opposed and neither one nor the other was going to change their opinion. I was mostly frustrated at my own lack of ability to explain the thinking behind my viewpoint better but we were in a car and i couldn't really point to sources outside of what i could remember off the top of my head. Also the friend i was arguing is a politics student and a bit of a smug git on those kind of topics(i daresay this could be a pot calling kettle situation).

I think it's that he seemed to need to have an easy answer, or for want of a better phrase a soundbite answer for the problems with our own democratic regimes and their relations with the particularly at this moment the Islamic community worldwide.

In neither the UK or the US is the will of the people perfectly reflected in their governments and neither does the existence of suicide bombers make Islamic fundamentalist based terrorism something that can only be dealt with by more violence. While one day the solutions may appear simple in retrospect and i can certainly think of some ways to make a start just now, there are no easy answers to these problems and maybe we need to take a chance with a change in the paramaters of perceived wisdom and allowable discussion.

This would involve the biggest amount of backtracking and dropping of hypocrisy by the US government, who in reality are the biggest sponsor of state terrorism in my lifetime. There are example more aplenty if you are willing to look. It's not even hidden, just generally under reported to a scandelous degree. By the standards set by the Nuremburg trials Bush and Blair would be facing potential execution for their actions.

The following link is to my mind relavent to the discussion, although i'm getting hungry and impatient and am willing just to tack it on at the end rather than more smoothly intigrate it into the discussion. If someone would like to pay me for doing this kind of thing i'd be more than happy to take more time to add a veneer of professional slickness :-)

Anyone want a Cat?

I know only about 2 people and a dog read this thing but on the off chance your a cat lover and you live in central scotland area we have one going spare. A friendly wee stray cat that has just turned up at our house. Something that seems to happen quite frequently, if we can't find this a home, or if the cat and dog home can't take it then we'll have 7 of the things and thats more than just getting a bit out of hand.

It is black and white and in need off a good feed by the look of it but otherwise healthy, possibly gotten lost as it not to scruffy. Leave a comment if you would like it, good home only, none of your medical experiment nonsense!

Was going to edit last post when....

...i found this. I read something similar tagged on the end of the terrorism law article but in less detail. The government trying to censor a former ambassador to the UN, it's good to know that we live in a democracy where dissenting voices can be heard.

new terrorism laws

Again even on first glance a law that can make an offence from, "indirect incitement to commit terrorist acts," is almost carte blanche for banging people up. That could be almost anything, apparantly examples of what it will cover will be given, but unless it's more pinned down could i possibly get done for describing the US government as the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. It happens to be true, but while i settle for banging on about it here and to long suffering friends, could it not indirectly inspire a less stable mind to do something of a terrorist nature. Would i have indirectly incited a terrorist act by writing about say what the US government(note government any US readers please don't think i'm automaticaly anti american, america has much to be proud of, just your government is less that squeaky clean) has done over the years in Cuba, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua etc?

Something thats been bugging me....

...and maybe other people can judge this better than i as i've not been totally up to date with the news etc and yes there are far more important things also related to this particulat recent news event. It's just that when i've been looking at coverage of the London bombings since i got back home and they have discovered that 2 or 3 of them i think were British, other born in Jamaica i think. It's just that every reference that i've noticed and that has stuck in my memory is that they are "British-born" rather than British.

It seems that since they have become associated with such a horrible event and caused the deaths of so many innocent people and who knows what sort of effect on the survivors that they cannot be described as British, as if no one British could have done such a thing. It smacks of a kind of latent racism to me and irrespective of ones opinion of what they have done why shouldn't the facts of the case just be presented as they are.

A small disclaimer here, i am assuming that they are British citizens as i havn't read anywhere that said they wern't, indeed there is a scan of one of thems very British looking passport in todays Independent.

Any other examples of this kind of reporting in different stories i'd be interested to hear about them.

Holiday Summary pt2(Leeds)

I can't say that i remember a great deal of the friday night, indeed i couldn't even remember what i had for dinner until i asked someone, a bad sign when the memory gaps start that early. I do remember getting a taxi back with 3 other team mates. 1 of whom will wish he had went straight to bed as he ended up passing out and being stripped naked from the waste down and displayed upon a snooker table. The photos that were taken must be worth a fortune in blackmail material, especialy that one with the snooker cue. I hasten to add i was sensible enough to head straight to bed and only heard about those disgraceful antics the next day.

Anyway on the football side of things we did quite well and were unlucky not to do a whole lot better. Missed chances were what cost us dearly. We finished 3rd in our group behind Hearts and Millwall teams and above Ayr. 2nd and 1st place even might have been ours if it wasn't for a series of missed chances against a Millwall team we battered for most of the 30 minutes and an own goal that had to be seen to be believed against Hearts. A more glorious lob of a keeper i have not seen.

Anyway we wern't to distraught finishing 3rd, it had been our target for the saturday getting seeded for Sundays Plate competition. Getting into the cup knockout would have been a good achievement but the Plate offered a better chance of a good run of games and possibly silverware?

Well that wasn't quite to be, we gave a good account of ourselves beating a better than anticipated Welling 2-0, scraping past Everton 2-1 with a golden goal before going out at the 1/4 final stage for a second time in 4 efforts(full record in plate been finalist, 1/4 final, 1st round, 1/4 final) on penalties to Stockport. They packed the defence and apart from a short spell near end of regulation time caused us no problems but a missed penalty in golden goal extra time was an ominous sign. We missed 3 pens in the shoot out and lost 4-3 in sudden death. Missing out on a chance of a rematch with Inter Milan.

Holiday Summary pt1(Kalkan)

Had a very good time, got through a decent amount of my reading list, it is better to take more than you can manage than run short and find yourself borrowing some piffle you're not really interested in reading and in 45 degree heat you really don't have the energy to do much more than relax and read.

Although i did do a few other things, there were a couple of cool boat trips, picturesque bays and getting to dive of the top deck of the boat into the cool water. I discovered that i am the least buoyant person in the world, i can float on my back with ears underwater but thats it. Most other people it seems can bob up and down with their heads above water but not i, i float with nose and mouth just below the waters surface. Also tried jet skiing and silly banana boat type nonsense and it was all fun, although i refused to have anything to do with a rather out of place kareoke event.

Got to watch the Scottish Masters tourney on Sky Sports, however during Motherwells 2nd game the proprieter of the bar began getting his Sky digital upgraded and by no means smoothly. This meant we missed the Motherwell team getting to the final where there unfortunately lost, largely due to injuries i'm assured.

I must also point out that the food was immense, you could gorge yourself silly and vegetarians could feast their also there was so much fresh produce around. Grilled or fried haloumi cheese was my favourite starter and couldn't possibly choose from the main courses.

Only slight disappointment was that didn't have time to see the Camels in Fethiye market.

Normal Service Resumed....

....almost. I'll post more tomorrow but i am back from holiday and Leeds trip. More on both tomorrow i imagine. Successful ventures all round, although while i managed to avoid getting sun burnt in 45 degree heat in Turkey i did manage it in low to mid twenties tops in Leeds.

Thats all for now.

Superficial Musings

Very little thought is going into this post, it is nearly 40 degrees for one thing and that is not condusive to concentrating on big issues. So this a post that will be more of an indicator as to what i'll maybe write about when i get back to cooler climes.

G8 summit has came and went, unfortunately overshadowed by London bombings. Some progress made on the surface, i am sceptical over how much political will there is to get to the root of the problem.

The initial reaction i've saw to the London attacks is depressingly familiar. People understandably get caught up in the emotion of such awful events and look for simplistic responces like 'nuke them' and other nonsence.

Just finished the Corporation book i mentioned recently. Bloody good and deserves my full attention later to write about. Essentialy the corporation in its current form is psychopathic and the evidence is pretty conclusive, more later.

i wasn't online on tuesday or i forgot my spurious rant, i had a good one to but i've forgotten it. So in honour of that forgotten rant i'll just say it is Fu****g annoying as hell forgetting something and sometimes even more so when it is relatively insignificant and you know you arn't likely to remember it!

Sitting by the pool there....

....when someone i didn't know came out to tell us that there had been bombs going off in London. Without meaning to sound flippant about a serious incident that has already cost some people their lives it does go to show how no news travels faster than bad news. İ find it hard to connect with the logic of the woman who came out to tell us about it. I personaly wouldn't have been wanting to go out and tell a bunch of strangers about what had just happened. I would like to think she did it for altruistic reasons, knowing that there was a group of other british tourists outside we may have been from the affected area or have family/friends there and have a personal connection to this event and really want to be informed.

It has yet to become clear who is responsible for the attacks, Al Quaeda has been mentioned and will no doubt be the focus of speculation and investigation. Almost four years on from the destruction of the World Trade Centre it would for me show how much smoke and mirrors this so called war on terror is. We will all remain to a greater or lesser degree vulnerable to terrorist attacks until we deal with the root causes. Although there has been no mention of suicide bombers on this occasion, at least not yet, the very existence of such a thing shows how big a problem we face and no amount of hardline tough talking about defeating terrorists is going to fix the underlying cause.

İ also dispute the claims that the attacks are aimed at destroying our way of life. No doubt many fundamentalist mueslims(and one would assume fundamentalists of many other religions) find many aspects of life in the west incompatable with their religious believes but i think that is not really something in itself that is going to create an atmosphere where terrorism blooms.

İt is far more likely that foreign policy of the US and UK governments(possibly others i am speaking from my own limited pool of knowledge) has created a far more fertile fıeld. The unresolved situation in Palestine, the support of oppresive regimes around the world for political and economic expediency. These things are completely at odds with what we espouse as our values that 'these terrorists hate'. İ think one would find on more thorough research that people in the arab world(that al jahzeera book i just read influence here) would love that freedom. The problem is the divergence in our stated values and apparant morals and what is done in our name and what people over the world experience at the end of immoral foriegn policy.

Holiday post 2

İt is still bloody hot, although it did rain yesterday morning. That was a quite unexpected development, but it didn't last very long and any evidence that it had happened was sooned burned away by the scorching sun that had been lying in wait behind the clouds.

Taking it all very easy, there are plans for a boat trip and other excursions but so far it's been a lot of chilling in the shade, some roasting in the sun and lots more splashing about in the pool losing various balls and inflatable pool objects over the apartment complex fence and into neighbouring gardens. That and scoffing the seriously good food you can get here, it really is rather special. Especially if you like lamb! İ am trying to stay a bit active so i'm in prime condition for Leeds trip, but it's a bit of a challenge in this heat.

İ finished reading my book on Al-Jazeera, it was quite an eye opener. They really do appear to have pissed off everyone, which in my mind backs up their claims that they are a balanced and fair news network Unlike the network whose slogan is 'fair and balanced'. Arab and Western government's hate them, it is hugely popular in the arab world. While largely having great credibility in the Arab world it's been accused of being part of a Zionist plot by some. I personaly hope it success keeps going(there are plans for a english language version) and it doesn't succumb to commercial or governmental pressure to change it's editorial policy.

Certainly after reading it i felt and this might sound a bit presumptious that i understood the people and the situation in the middle east a bit better. They certainly seemed more humanised, i certainly think that the media over here has to a large extent, intentionaly or otherwise dehumanised them as an unintelligable alien people, just not remotely like us. I certainly never believed that to be the case and even less so now.

Holiday post number 1

İt's somethıng like 40 degrees outside here and i've managed not to get burnt to a crisp so far. Update post on my holiday reading. Firstly the original list was suprisingly accurate. The only book i forgot was The Trials of Lenny Bruce. İ was also correct in my prediction that i'd succumb to temptation and buy more books at the airport. İ added a book called Reefer Madness by Erıc Schlosser. He also wrote the excellent Fast Food Natıon. Which i've just notıced has a kids version, hopefully as successful as the adult one.

I should probably point out that the keyboard is slightly alien and that i still havn't been able to make what looks like the comma button work nor the at symbol required for email addresses and like the true man that i am far to proud to ask the internet cafe staff for help. İ'll either figure it out for myself or damn well do without. I can live without comma's damn their insolence for thwarting me. On the other symbol i had better succeed or i'll not get into my email for a fortnight! Excellent i just found a comma button that works, see, excellent! A complete accident caused by a typo!

Anyway the other book i bought was The Corporation by Joel Bakan, which is a companion to the movie documentary of the same name. So far i've enjoyed readıng Reefer Madness, the fırst volume of The Earthsea Quadology and i've started on the Al-Jahseera book. It's just to damn hot to give any sort of critical analysis but i can safely say that Reefer Madness is every bit as good as Fast Food Nation, broader in scope but no worse for it.

So far i've just been catching up on the sports news, nothing of real interest to myself but i like to keep up. Think i'll stay out of the sun for a bit and maybe go watch the French GP and then watch the Motherwell Old boys ın Sky's Master football tournament. As much as i'm interested in the G8 summit and the issues that revolve about it i'm not really fussed by the details of the Live 8 concert which was the front page headline on the BBC website.