On a slightly lighter note, this article amused me if only for the quality of the picture used to represent Mr Dacre. Clearly upset at the Mail editor lashing out at the BBC, the editors of the news website have chosen a particularly flattering picture of him to illustrate their story. A delightful little dig...

Big Brother Racism
Normally I wouldn't comment on any issues that I view as inflammatory, and as regular readers will know I've only broken this self-imposed rule a couple of times in the past. I'm worried, though, about the recent turn of events in the Celebrity Big Brother house, where one of the contestants (in case you missed it, or aren't living in the UK or India) was accused of racially abusing another, the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.
My reaction to the number of complaints, and the way that some of the comments have been singled out, swings between two extremes, and can settle on neither because I don't think that I have a full understanding of the accused's character. On the one hand, I think the complaints are fully justified. The massive street protests in India (including the od favourite of effigy burning) are another thing, but then that's simply because we wouldn't be doing it that way here, so it's unusual to me - we're just too damn polite to actually stand up for ourselves most of the time. But on the whole, when I hear the comments and see the way Shilpa has been treated, I'm pretty disgusted (though not wholly surprised, a view which has developed over my years in the wider world - more on this below).
The other extreme is concern. That sounds a little mild-mannered to be an 'extreme', but it is. I'm worried that this is going to become another bandwagon, that the issue will be hijacked by those wishing to make a point not central to the issue. The discussion of racism and the underlying current of this social problem is all good and well, and if this situation brings the issue to the forefront and forces us to confront the ignorance and bigotry in this country, then all the better. The problem comes when this issue is used as a stick with which to beat the UK, for other perceived crimes (and real ones). The crime, of course, is the nature of our foreign policy, which is imperialistic and out of line with the general wishes of the public. We have had a chance to fix this, but because it was more comfortable to do so, the majority left Labour in power. Ever since we invaded Afghanistan, and then went after Iraq in the name of freedom (a pen-name for the otherwise anonymous 'Mr Oil Greed'), the UK has been a target of hatred. Believe me the hatred existed before Tony Blair gave extremists an excuse to vent it (and a direction, by aligning ourselves with the beligerently stupid American George W), but since it has become normal to hate the UK and America, and the reasons have become more and more mudied by politics, any excuse to have a go at the British is seized upon.
I don't mean to sound like we should be feeling sorry for ourselves. We have no-one to blame but our own voting public. But I am concerned that this stance seems to have risen to the level of international politics, with India seeking to question the UK about the Shilpa issue. Racism happens every day, in practically every country (with the possible exception of Iceland), and governments don't get involved. India's excuse this time is that the racism is being given an airing, and that the goverment has a responsibility to step in and halt it. This is, in the case of, say, holocaust denial, perfectly reasonable - not every viewpoint deserves a view, because not every viewpoint is based on an intellectual decision. The idea that a citizen of the UK automatically deserves the right to spread hatred under the banner of freedom of speech demeans the very basis of the concept, which is nothing like 'freedom of hatred'. However, in this case, I rather think the comments need to be aired so that the likes of middle England, peaceful in its ignorance of these issues, can be made aware that they exist, and can be disgusted enough to try to make things better. My point here is elucidated by the case of a Shipwrecked (another Channel 4 program) contestant, who was heard to utter racist remarks in the first few days of the show. Channel 4 claims it wants to continue airing the series on the basis that later on this contestant's views change. I agree, therefore, with their decision, because it's worthwhile showing that the ignorant can be educated, that those who hold these views are not entirely beyond hope, and not entirely acting out of malice.
Before I went to university, I never really encountered racism. To me, a comfortably-off, white, middle-class male, it was a historic thing. The N-word was banned quite publicly from the playground when I was a kid, and although the war wasn't quite done, we all knew at some level that the fight had gone out of the fascists. It was a false view of the world, but it was comfortable. I attended a private all-boys school for my secondary level education, and it was a fairly well-mixed place culturally (even including kids from across the financial spectrum due to a thorough scholarship scheme). I wouldn't say it was a perfect mix, because we didn't have stupid people there, but the racial mix was pretty healthy. I left this environment firmly believing that racism was dead as a concept, because there really wasn't any at school. Yes, there were cultural divides, but that's just tribality - skin colour didn't matter. But when I left that little bubble and experienced the outside world for the first time, I was shocked to discover that it's full of bigotry and racism. It still disturbs me now.
I'm not entirely sure what my point is here. I think I wanted to say that I'm still unsure whether the way in which this issue has been dealt with really is right. Jade is ignorant, as is this girl on Shipwrecked, and they're not alone. Social education is the only cure, and ignoring the issue by shutting down Big Brother isn't going to help.
Having said that, I still can't stand that bloody program...

They (the ubiquitous 'they') say that everyone has one good book inside them. Everyone. Who am I to argue with a universal rule like that? It does raise some interesting issues, though...

For instance, putting aside the kind of accident that Bill Bailey's character Manny had in episode one of Black Books, this means that in effect I should be able to produce one decent manuscript. I feel this may be a problem, since I do not, in fact, have one decent book inside me.

I wonder, therefore, if I could strike some sort of deal to keep my end of the bargain. You see, I have many books in me. They spill out of my brain and through both pen and keyboard to be recorded for as long as the media on which they are written will last (saying 'for all eternity' there would be a blatant lie).

Could I, lacking a certain amount of quality (and therefore unable to tick the box marked 'good'), make this up with sheer quantity? Could I produce 100 books, all only 1% good? What if it was discovered that I had produced a book which exceeded the quality of its siblings, and was in fact 2% good - could I cut the number of required manuscripts to merely 99?

Such thoughts trouble me as I shower.

The nice thing about Blogger is that you can always edit posts if you don't like what you said, or if it makes you feel silly. Just an observation, nothing more...
I reached a milestone today at work - the first Post-It note tacked to the bottom of my monitor reminding me action is needed on one of the spreadsheets. Time to get out...

Having recently ranted about the way in which shirts I bought from Marks and Spencer were packaged (private rant, not blogged), it pleases me to note that they are at least making the effort to go carbon neutral. Reminds me that I need to sort out neutralising the car and our flights this year.

Ok, I'm not the most politically correct person in the entire world, but as I sat watching The Simpsons this evening, I was rather shocked to see that they'd shown the episode including the attempted assassination of Saddam Hussein. Now, normally this wouldn't be anything to worry about, but if you have a look at the dateline on this post and check out the news for the week (assuming you're not reading this this week), you'll find out that the man himself was executed for crimes against humanity only a few days ago. For some reason, it just doesn't seem right.

Now I really have something to rant about... Picked up my shiny new car yesterday, had it crashed into today. Marvellous. Here's the lovely front of the car:
















And here's what the back now looks like:
















Considering the force of the impact, it's surprisingly intact. It'll need a new bumper, though, which isn't a good thing. His fault, and now his car looks like this:

I've decided you have to be careful about how you treat the 'Random' button on your mp3 player. Of course it depends on how receptive you are to changes in mood brought about by music, and upon what mood you start in, but it can be an emotional rollercoaster if you're not careful. I have a wide variety of songs on my Zen, and hitting the random button can take me from the semi-comic guitar thrashing of Tenacious D's 'Tribute', through the sublime tunefulness of Jack Johnson's 'Mudfootball', into the mellow, so-slow-you-might-just-stop-breathing electronica of Quincy Jones' Summer in the City. And now Porcelain, the most beautiful of all the Chili's many tracks. Up next? Who knows, but it's sure to mess with my head. I advise caution...

Haven't done this in a while, so thought it was about time I did something.

Went to see Muse on Saturday night. It doesn't take a genius to work out that they were going to rock. As much as they did? A little unexpected. Personal highlights include the mad mechanical housing thing the drummer lived in, covered by a thousand lights, and the renditions of New Born and Plug In Baby from Origin of Symmetry, and Invincible and Knights of Cydonia from the latest album, the latter of which was the finale. The older stuff was especially good - they've always been favourites of mine, and to finally hear them (and feel them) played with such passion and skill was worth every penny of the ticket price alone.

I might have a job soon, and I'm getting excited about the prospect. After three and a bit years of a PhD which I've come to loathe with all my heart, the idea of something new, with structure and realisable targets, and decent pay, has got me all hot under the collar. Obviously it's too early to tell if either of the interview processes I'm involved in will actually be successful, but hopefully one or both of the two will actually be offered to me.

Final bit of news - a new blog. Well, not yet, but in a little bit when I get it sorted out. I need a place to write random stuff about the model aircraft, and this isn't it. Went to a show type thing on Saturday (before Muse - I'm so schizophrenic), and was disappointed to find that many of the stereotypes of modellers do hold true. I won't say too much more than that, as I'm sure you can fill in the blanks for yourself. I know there are modellers out there who don't fit in to the traditional stereotypes, but they seem to be few and far between judging by Saturday's evidence.

One last thing (sorry!) - got an e-mail this morning about a seminar given by one of the departments here at the university. Part of it reads (and this is copied and pasted from the e-mail, a direct quote): " SKA is expected to be operational with a severe cost constraint of one billion Euros". SKA stands for Square Kilometre Array, and it's basically a large radio telescope. What bothers me about this, and one of the things that I've never managed to square away about the whole research thing, is the concept that a billion Euros is a 'severe cost constraint'. That's more than the GDP of the entire African state of Lesotho. Or, alternatively, more than the combined GDP of the six poorest nations in the IMF. On a bloody great telescope. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for progress, but surely this money would be better spent elsewhere, such as in the hunt for decent, sustainable energy sources, or the search for a cure for AIDS or cancer. Complaining that you 'only' have a billion Euros for your big telescope is childish and shortsighted, which pretty much sums up a lot of scientific endeavour these days...

New word for you: imperiment. Meaning an experiment designed to test an empirical relationship. This probably doesn't mean a lot to anyone outside the scientific community. Still, maybe it'll catch on and I'll get credited for it. Though I should point out that if you Google 'imperiment', lots of rather stupid people have used the word where they meant to say 'impairment'. You know, I have this idea that perhaps it should be compulsory to attain a certain level of English language ability before being allowed to publish (in English, obviously) anything on the net. I'm not talking about typos here (and yes, 'typos' is correct, not 'typoes', nor indeed 'typo's'), I'm talking about a basic misunderstanding of the mechanics of the language. Come on, people, get a clue...