Fiddling with Blogger in an attempt to get a backup of all my postings. Panic! when I find switching back from FTP to Blogger publishing doesn't work. email to Blogger help line. Response irrelevant. Try again later. Relief - its working again. Panic over.

What's an occasional table? And what does it do when its not being a table?

Northampton loose 0-1 to visiting Grimsby Town. Didn't go to the game though - had a cold.

Quirky comedy drama Doc Martin ended its first run of six episodes this evening on ITV. Whilst it took an episode or two to get into, it soon became obvious that they'd found themselves a little jem and their casting choices (Martin Clunes, Stephanie Cole, Caroline Catz) were spot on. I do hope they see fit to commission another series.

And now for something (almost) completely different. Never one to miss an chance to shoot something, this evening I went to my first gig in years and took the opportunity of taking a bunch of photos.

The band were the rather excellent Soul Fever - more info on their website.

Congratulatios to pilot Brian Binnie and the crew behind SpaceShipOne on their historic achievement of winning the US$10m Ansari X-Prize. I would guess Richard Branson is feeling mighty relieved!

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | SpaceShipOne rockets to success

How come vacuum cleaners never sneeze?

Covered another TBEC enduro motorcross event today at Whaddon, west of Milton Keynes. The weather just about behaved itself, but I did have to use a bit of fill flash.

Click for full gallery

"Ugly, grey and depressing" - the town I was born (Luton, Bedfordshire) has just been voted Britains worst town. Pretty much the conclusion I came to as I was last passing through by bus on the way from Luton Airport. £78 million is to be spent on leisure and transport in an attempt to brighten the place up.

Northampton played Bristol Rovers at Sixfields today and scored twice in the first fifteen minutes (both from Scott McGleish, his second from an overhead kick). Unfortunately they then went to sleep for the rest of the game (the second half was dire) otherwise it could have been a much bigger margin.

Northampton Town's official website

Canon have launched a new range of inkjet printers called PIXMA, including this stunning model that offers Ethernet and WiFi connectivity, printing on CD/DVD and duplex - all for under 190 UKP. Availability is a bit limited in the UK at the moment - should start to reach dealers properly in October.

Canon Europe - PIXMA iP4000R

Just what we all need - a fridge connected to the Internet.

LG : Internet Products

Just discovered an interesting article regarding photographic coverage of the dramatic 'Todd Bertuzzi incident' that happened towards the end of the NHL's last season (and you can take that two ways!). Note the control the NHL has over its coverage in the media - the EIHL hasn't quite reached that stage - at least not yet...

Suppressed Hockey Photos, And Why You Should Stay Till The Bitter End

I see the new just-announced Nikon top-of-the-range film SLR the F6 uses DuPont™ KEVLAR^® in its construction - are they perhaps considering press photographers based in Iraq...?

Nikon Imaging | Global Site | News

Returned from Italy (via Nice again) on EasyJet this morning. Complete turn around for the weather which was raining all along the coast. Very windy in Luton, making the landing, er, entertaining. I hate flying. The EasyJet experience was somewhat ruined by having to wait half an hour to collect my single item of checked luggage. That and the bus journey from Luton to home must have taken longer than the flight.

Did some work on the photo gallery in the evening, but its not live yet as they're mostly uncaptioned - I need Lorenzo's local knowledge for the place names.

Headed into the mountains near the French/Italian border today to try out the easiest of the walks Lorenzo has chosen for his guided adventures. On the way back we visited a couple of the region's most famous landmarks.

In the evening we visited the 'agriturismo' (a sort of bed and breakfast-type accomodation) in Poggi itself which Lorenzo will be using for his guests. These are an excellent and low-cost place to say and are ideal as a base for exploring the area.

Unexpected rain overnight, plus fairly close thunder in the morning, had a noticeable effect on the temperature and cleared the air. Host Lorenzo went for a cycle ride as part of his training for an upcoming marathon (rather him than me). Went to see the family's land where they grow grapes, tomatos, etc for their own consumption (growing your own food is very common in this area).

Took some more shots around Poggi in the afternoon and then headed up into the hills again for an evening meal at an excellent local family pizza restaurant. I chose swordfish and rocket - just try getting that in Pizza Hut.

Managed to grab some shots of the boats in sail this morning. One leg of their course took them close to shore and a 70-200 zoom was just enough for the larger boats to fill the frame.

Recollection of the evening is somewhat clouded due to the consumption of a quantity of alcohol but it involved a substantial meal (of which we were only served part - just three starters, one of the main courses and a dessert) at a rather remote but nonetheless impressive restaurant up in the hills, together with my host's brother Luigi. Glad I wasn't driving. Temperature had dropped to 16deg.C on my return - quite how I was able to read the small writing on the thermometer, I don't know.

Slept in late and decided to take today as a rest day having overheated in the sun yesterday. Glad to have taken three novels with me, including 'The Hijack' by Duncan Falconer.


Had a tour around my guest's little village Poggi up in the hills above Imperia. Temperature's dropped to a more acceptable 26 but still hot in the sun. Glad I brought sunblock given I burn so easily.

Dinner in a nice, harbour-side restaurant in Imperia - one of the boat crews took the table behind us and we laughed quietly to ourselves at their interpretation of the all-Italian menu. Took some night shots of the boats all tied up in the harbour.

Waking from a very poor first night's sleep in Poggi (despite sleeping pill). I wasn't used to hearing two church clocks chiming on the hour. Breakfast delayed until 12:30. Went down into Imperia having seen the sail boats were already out to sea. Got some shots from high up, but the heat is making it too hazy. Very hot (at least for me) - a somewhat unseasonable 30deg.C. Toured the harbour and went aboard Palinuro, a big three-master that's used as a training ship by the Italian Navy.


Late lunch/early dinner was a tasty toasty pannini and ice cream - they certainly make decent ice cream here. Must admit the heat is getting to me - hope it cools down later.

Set off yesterday by Easyjet to Nice for the start of a short holiday in the Liguria region of Italy. Good flight (I'm not at all fond of flying) but a bouncy night landing. EasyJet service is pretty good - certainly cheap! In-flight scoff is extra, which is one of they ways they cut costs. Had a job finding my friend Lorenzo at Nice as they have been adding to the airport a lot recently, and it had changed a lot since his last visit there.

Amazed that my old, steam-powered (first generation digital) mobile phone worked - although it did take its time connecting to a local network. We then used the motorway to head towards Imperia, stopping off for a very late night pizza near Sanremo on the way. Finally got to bed in the little town of Poggi at 01:00 - even at that late hour, the outside temperature was 20deg.C. So it wasn't a good idea to rely on weather forcasts for Nice to see what its was going to be like!

Went for a short walk yesterday evening and at a quiet meadow, I sat and watched a pair of kestrels hunting together, which I've never seen before. I stood very still, then sat down, and they got quite close. Wish I'd have taken a video camera. Shortly after they flew off, a big rabbit came out of the hedge less than 20ft from me and started eating.

Well done Kelly for your outstanding achievement of double golds at this year's Olympics. You made it look so easy.

BBC SPORT | Olympics 2004 | Athletics | Golden double for Holmes

The BBC have featured one of the Northamptonshire villages that took part in the the CLUTCH project in a page on English village life.

BBC NEWS | In pictures: Village life

I can't miss the opportunity to blog 'The Online Magazine for Yorkshire'. "We're [not] living a black and white, film noir steel town existence, scraping a living stripping in Working Men's Clubs, or we're glowering down on some Technicolor landscape from a huge black horse, trying not to fall for Helena Bonham Carter and swearing at the mill workers."

Here's an chance for all to bury their false impressions of 'The Third World' (as Pyton named the county in 'The Life of Brian'). "Our celebrities are perfect; blowing up huge cigar smokescreens of bluff, straight talking no-nonsense Cro-Magnon man. There's Boycott, Parky, Jimmy Saville, Prince Naz, Arthur Scargill and John Prescott (honorary Yorkie) all scaring the crap out of pesky southerners who drift up the A-1 looking for culture."

The magazine for Yorkshire, England - West, North, South, Dales, Terrier, Pudding! Whatever Yorks yer looking for...

"No, you can't hold a rally against Bush in Central Park" - so says New York State's Supreme Court. Might damage the grass, apparently. So a risk of damage to grass can overrule the Constitution now?

BBC NEWS | Americas | New York bans rally against Bush

Never thought I'd find myself agreeing with Conservative leader Michael Howard, but with his comments today on Britain's spreading culture of political correctness, he does have a point. Don't get too excited, though, Michael - still can't see myself voting for you. But then I'm not going to be voting for Blair and his cronies either.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Tory leader attacks 'PC culture'

Newest DVD aquisition is the stunning Bourne Identity, with Matt Damon bringing to the silver screen Robert Ludlam's amnesiac contract killer Jason Bourne. Very stylish and thoroughly recommended. I've watched it twice already.

Superb gold for Kelly Holmes in the 800m in Athens today.

Hardly surprising that Google shares did well on their first trading day - closing 18% up on their opening price of $85.

Google's public offering website

My heart goes out to 14-year-old Maxine Gentle whose brother was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq back in June. Her and her mother went to 10 Downing Street but stormed out of a meeting with John Prescott having concluded, not surprisingly, that he was talking "rubbish". Below is a link to her open letter to Prime Minister Blair.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Text of Maxine Gentle to Tony Blair

Whilst hunting down the Bond theme 'Living Daylights' on the iTunes music store (from one of, IMHO, the best of the Bond series with arguably its best actor, Timmy Dalton - now why did he only do two? - I digress) I come across the names of the members of A-Ha, one of the 80's better (almost) one-hit-wonders, memorable if only by the video that accompanied their hit single 'Take On Me', including guitarist Pal Waaktaar.

Now imagine the poor wee chappy, on his eighth birthday as recipient of a John Bull Printing Kit (remember those?), in desparate search for sufficient vowels to be able to print his very first business cards. However, revenge was to be had in later years when, in placing a selection of those little cream tiles, he lands himself a pretty respectable Scrabble score.

Minor panic at work today when Sophos popped up an alert message to tell me I had a virus, or more specifically a trojan that was trying to replicate itself. Must have got it via a web site as all my email is scanned before I even get it. Just did a full scan and got it to shred the suspect file.

Whatever you do, never have a computer connect to the Internet without good, up-to-date anti virus software installed.

Attended the last day of this year's National Polocrosse Championships at nearby Liscombe Park, Bucks, today and shot just shy of 400 frames.

Click for the full gallery.

Today's Northampton Town home game, against relegate Wycombe Wonderers, looked like going the visitors' way until Cobblers' player Fred Murrey was sent off for a 'professional foul' in the second half. With only 10 men, NTFC played so much better. Final score a quite respectable 1-1.

'Our' cat Charlie sadly had to put to sleep today when the vet found he had cancer. I say 'our' in quotes because he actually belonged to next door, but he visited us quite often and we always gave him a lot of fuss. We're going to miss the old guy.

Went totally over the top taking photos at this weekend's motocross event in Toddington - over 640 in total. Just as well I'm shooting digital.

Click for full galleries

Just back from my first Northampton Town home game as a season ticket holder. They played local, just-promoted rivals Rushden and Diamonds and although they managed to win 1-0, it was a pretty unimpressive game. Must do better, guys.

I was pretty impressed by I,Robot on Saturday - perhaps never having read the book(s) helped. Worth seeing and will probably buy the DVD too when it comes out in December.

Here's a site listing some interesting sustainable housing projects in Australia. Milton Keynes, the city where I work, was built with an estate of 'energy efficient' houses, some of which have solar panels (they were featured in the film 'The Fourth Protocol' with Michael Caine), but I don't think any of them quite achieve this standard.

ABC Radio National - Earthbeat handouts

Actually played in a departmental football game this evening - must be the first time I've played since school (a good 22 years ago). Fortunately no one was taking photos...

On a lighter note - there's nothing like a little reminiscing - in this case, of the wonderful late-1960s television programme 'The Clangers':

The Clangers are small, pink mouselike persons who live under their planet's surface in caves protected by saucepan lids. The noise of the lids being closed (to protect their home from falling space debris) gave the Clangers their name. The series told of their encounters with iron chickens, seeds, and sentient musical instruments.

And yes, I did have my own, knitted Clanger.

The BBC carry a nice trivia site of their own but Nigel Baker's official Smallfilms site is more in-depth and is approved by original animator Oliver Postgate.

What makes me think my old Mum's getting a bit eccentric in her old age? Well, she's just called to me to help her to find some earthworms with which to feed a rather skinny frog, in the garden, in the pooring rain. And you think I'm making this up...?

Land of the free, eh?

President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney ... a spokesman for the president's re-election campaign, said the information was needed for security purposes.

Bush camp solicits race of Star staffer | The Arizona Daily Star

I've recently received Roxio's Easy CD & DVD Creator 6 from Amazon and am not impressed. So far I've only looked at the CD writing, DVD player and label printing sections. The label printer is still useless when it comes to listing CD contents. The DVD player won't play copy protected DVDs. And the CD writer is worse than 5, especially when it comes to adding a session.

Conclusion: waste of money.

Hidden costs of PC ownership (prices as of July 2004, including VAT):

Windows XP Professional - £240
OS X 10.3 - £89

Windows 2003 Server 10 user - £974
OS X 10.3 server 10 user - £393

I guess you do get all those lovely viruses to play with, though...

You can listen to Mark's recent interview with Radio 2's Janice Long here.

GPS has been crying out for decent recreational uses since its invention - now its here (or should that be 'everywhere'?).

"A GPS device and a hunger for adventure are all you need for high tech treasure hunting. Here you can find the latest caches ind in this fun and exciting sport."

Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site

Mark Jospeh will be playing a live set on Richard Allinson's program on Radio 2 next Saturday afternoon (15:30 to 18:30 BST). Do tune in.

Just as I recommend Canon's Powershot A80 digital compact camera, it looks like Canon have discontinued it (my guess is that an A85 will be along soon). However, if you still want one, Argos are doing a fantastic deal on it:

Canon A80

Local rock star Mark Joseph played an acoustic set at nearby primary school Heathwood's annual fete today.
 
Click for full gallery

More on Moore's Bush-bashing documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, quoting Betty DeRamus of Detroit, "for people inclined to distrust or dislike Bush, attending Moore's film is sort of like going to church.

You already know the basic text - the gospel according to baseball-cap-wearing St Michael - but you want to see how the minister will package and deliver it.

BBC NEWS Programmes State of the Union: The movie is the message

Neighbour Mark Joseph has reissued his album 'Scream' in remixed form with the help of his new record label 14th Floor Records. A 'particularly appetising cache of Oasis-indebted rock tunes' quotes Amazon.

Congrats to Michael Moore on the success of his documentary film 'Fahrenheit 9/11'. Revenue has now passed the $60 million mark in the USA and is now on show here in the UK.

Sadly our department's 6-a-side cricket team lost their game to qualify for the semifinals. With no still camera available at the short notice we were given, I shot video instead - here's the results (requires QuickTime):

KMi Roses vs Fallen Stars, 6 July 2004

Currently listening to David Bowie's 'Never Let Me Down' having finally got my hifi sorted out with some replacement Marantz kit from StudioSpares. That really is a top album.

Just been playing with the Canon PowerShot A80 that I recommended to a friend. Lovely little camera, nice and solid, easy to handle and not too fiddly like the majority of the smaller cameras. Shooting modes range from 'complete beginner' to full manual, so the control is there if you need it. Storage is on Compact Flash (the most common, therefore easiest to obtain and cheapest) and the batteries are 4 x AA, meaning that if they conk out in the middle of nowhere you stand a much better chance of finding replacements.

Conclusion: thoroughly recommended.

It may soon be possible to carry around an AK-47 assault rifle and an iPod with you down the street - and be arrested for carrying the iPod. quips The Register reporter Andrew Orlowski from San Francisco, as the US Senate continue to come under pressure from the RIAA. Echos of the Sony vs. Betamax case in 1984, in which the entertainment industry failed to prevent the video recorder being sold, the articles continues.

Dirty rotten inducers - the law the IT world deserves? | The Register

England currently leading Portugal 1-0 but its quite the worst game I can ever remember seeing England play.

Don't want it - don't need it. Sorry, Music Industry, but you can shove your new pocket-sized CDs in your, er, pocket. Thinly disguised attempt to revive the music industry? Could be...

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | Pocket CD format to trial in UK

Rooney scores again to put England at 2-1 against Croatia at the end of the first half. But BBC TV pundit Alan Hanson says England outclassed their opponents - I have to wonder if he was watching the same game, to be honest, as I didn't see any evidence of classy play in that half. Congrats, though, to Scholes for his first international goal. Don't go to sleep now, England, coz I can't see Croatia giving up.

Congratulations to the team behind the first privately-funded trip to space by Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites whose tiny craft SpaceShipOne flew into the history books .

The craft has to repeat the flight, to the same altitude or higher, in the space of a fortnight to claim the $10m Ansari X-prize.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Private craft makes space history

Rooster tails were the order of the day at Sunday's motocross event at Toddington, Beds.

Click here to view the full gallery of exclusive photos from this LDMCC event.

"I think we will in time come to be very ashamed of this period in history," said Chas Freeman, one of a group of retired US diplomats and generals who have stuck their collective heads above the parapit to denounce Bush's foreign policy.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Ex-officials lash Bush policies

England 1 - France 2 - what can I say, except "England - learn how to pass!". Top quality save by French keeper Barthez of Beckham's penalty kept them in the game, but it was all down hill for England from there.

Motorcross photos from a Mid Beds MCC enduro event at the Whaddon course, west of Milton Keynes. Very sunny - and very dusty.

View the complete gallery with rider names and numbers.

Favourite British artist of mine Jack Vettirano received an honorary degree from my employers, the Open University, on Saturday.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Vettriano awarded honorary degree

AOL have added a web meeting ability to their AIM instant messenger, probably in response to Microsoft's withdrawal of their NetMeeting product. You need to donwload version 5.5 of the client, but video conferencing is not free - there's a $0.33 a minute charge.

AIM@Work: AIM Web Meetings

A business trip to Austria's capital city Vienna provided a four-hour slot for a quick tour and a bunch of photos. Its a lovely city with lots to see and I would recommend it as a short holiday destination.

View the full gallery

An excellent quote from an excellent article on the forthcoming D-Day memorial:

This weekend, a wartime president will stand where a peacetime president stood a decade ago. Perhaps he will rise to a little humility in the face of 80-year-olds who learned the hard way what war is and what it is not. But don't count on it. Bush is unlikely to ask the veterans what they did right and he did wrong.

Read the full MoD Oracle

Good news for digital photographers - the basic memory type (NAND) used in almost all flash storage devices is plummeting in price. This kind of memory is also used in those keychain USB thingies. Although Samsung and Toshiba together control around 90% of the market, at least three other makers in three different countries are coming on stream.

Yahoo! News - Flash Memory Prices Slump as Market Showdown Looms

A US analysts group is warning that the cost of ownership of MS Windows systems is rising do to the extra amount of time that must be spent securing (and disinfecting) them from viruses, worms and trojans. "Many of the vulnerabilities that continue to be identified in Windows ... are easily exploitable".

Sasser ups cost of Windows - Gartner | The Register

London Mayor Ken Livingstone again shows he's not afraid to speak his mind with his recent brandishment of 4x4 urban drivers as 'idiots'. "Such cars had no place in the city" he says - IMHO they have no place on the majority of this country's roads. Their continual use indicates that petrol cannot possibly be too expensive - if it were, why would people be willing drive these 20 miles-to-the-gallon monsters? Even more sickening is when you see one, dropping kids off at school, with a World Wildlife Fund sticker in the window.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Ken brands 4x4 drivers 'idiotic'

Managed to get a little sunburnt at the motocross at Toddington on Sunday. Whilst not a great course for shots of riders caked in mud, there are a couple of jumps you can get shots like this from - providing you have a long lens and can get into the right position.

Covered my first cricket game of the season on Saturday - the OU team weren't doing a very good job and one of our best players managed to get run out. Still - early days.

Just found out that not only is X-Men 3 in casting, but also that the fabulous Halle Berry is set to return as 'Storm'. Chuffed to bits about that!

Using a demo copy of Macromedia's FlashCom Server, combined with a demo copy of Flash MX 2004, I've recorded a very short movie that demonstrates the Logitech QuickCam Sphere in action (requires the Flash plugin to your browser). The noise you will hear is from the camera's built-in microphone - which as you will find is essentially useless if you intend to pan or tilt the camera whilst broadcasting or recording! Note that the poor quality of the video is down to the heavy compression, not the camera.

Good news for British Michael Moore fans who don't appreciate Disney's attempt to stifle the comedian's latest Bush-bashing movie Fahrenheit 911. Distributor Optimum Releasing will make the movie available some time this summer for a TV premiere.

Moore said Disney was "afraid of losing millions of tax breaks in penance for angering [state governor] Jeb Bush in Florida, where Disney have a lot of their investment".

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | UK will screen blocked Moore film

Version 4.5 of Apple's excellent iTunes is now available for download. I can't help thinking that if the music industry would have embraced the Internet years ago, they wouldn't be having all the 'problems' they are (allegedly) having with illegal downloads.

Apple | iTunes

In an unprescedented move, a group of more than fifty ambassadors have jointly signed a letter condeming President Blair's Middle East policy, saying it was time for the prime minister to start influencing America's "doomed" policy in the Middle East or to stop backing it. So, Tony, if you won't take notice of the British public, perhaps you'll take notice of these chaps?

BBC NEWS | Politics | Diplomats slam Blair on Mid-East

Absolute leading edge technology is now being used by some NHL coaches on the bench to help analyse play actually during the game:

A digital video recorder hooked up to a server records the game and then wirelessly transmits the data to a tablet PC. Hunter [San Jose's coach] can then use a stylus or a remote to mark key moments in the game - like a goal for, goal against, power play or penalty kill - so that he can return to them with a quick click. He can diagram over the video as well.

Wired News | With a DVR, the Puck Stops Here

BT plans to test a longer range option for ADSL broadband in Milton Keynes. The previous limit was 6km - you had to be within a 6km length of wire from the exchange for ADSL to be available and in MK that meant large chunks of the city couldn't get it.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Broadband to reach million more

Proof, if it were needed, that art critics are out of touch with the rest of us, are their continued shunning of popular Scottish artist Jack Vettriano, whose famous image 'The Singing Butler' goes on sale at Sotheby's today. Of course, the rest of the proof is the annual farce known as the Turner Prize...

"I think the public turn to him with relief, thinking here's something they can understand, that they can take in almost at a glance," says Veteran London critic Richard Cork. Relief indeed from the utter crap that sometimes passes as 'art' today.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Vettriano: The people's artist

You can see, and judge, some of Jack's excellent work for yourself at the Portland Gallery from 19th June to 31st July 2004.

As an update on the padding I gave the Logitech Sphere, I have since found a better-spec product for little more cost - its called SmileCam

Cost of printer ink under fire

"Consumers are at risk of being ripped off, said editor Dylan Armbrust." No kidding Dylan - its got to the stage that a new printer, with a pair of cartridges, is just a quid more than a pair of replacement cartidges. Isn't printer ink now the most expensive liquid in the world?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Cost of printer ink under fire

Finally received my Logitech Sphere webcam from Amazon after around a month's wait. Whilst looking impressive, its not a very impressive performer. Pan and tilt is very jerky and prone to jamming; there is no limit sensing and so, according to the readme text, its possible to damage the mechanism - not the sort of thing you'd want people having full access to over the Internet. The zoom is not optical and hence quality quickly drops as soon as you zoom in more than 100%.

Compatability proved to be a problem too. The first machine I tried it with has USB 1.1 ports but the Windows 2000 driver would not see the camera until I'd enabled 'legacy USB support' in the BIOS. Next to try was an old Notino notebook also running Windows 2000 - this was the machine it was intended for. Whilst the drivers installed OK, plugging the camera in resulted in an immediate 'blue screen of death'. Last machine to try was a Macintosh G3 Powerbook. The driver software is currently more limited under OS-X but the essentials are there. Once installed, the camera worked fine on this machine.

Once operational, you find that there is currently no webcam software that will allow remote control of the camera, although I guess that will come along eventually.

Conclusion: the camera is a bit of a disappointment, especially compared to their excellent Quickcam Pro 4000 which we use at work on a wide variety of hardware. Unless you desparately want to play with the motor control, skip this product.

Just in, and watched the same evening I received it, the single-disc DVD release of Master and Commander. If you've not seen it yet, this is a fantastic movie and is apparently quite true to the original novel by Patrick O'Brian. A great deal of work was put into the visual authenticity, including the building of various models and replicas. The story is good too with excellent character development.

Here's an update on my friend Stuart Hughes, who lost an arguement with an Iraqi landmine a year ago. His cameraman sadly died in the same incident. Stuart is once again covering stories around the world as a BBC producer.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | 'Life has been enriched beyond measure'

This story is kinda like those you hear where some guy has built a big yacht from a kit in his back garden without realising it won't fit through the garage door. Only this thing weighs 200 tonnes. And without it, the first Airbus A380 won't fly.

BBC NEWS | Wales | North East Wales | Jumbo wing starts marathon trek

Superb:

...a report by researchers at Harvard and North Carolina Universities has suggested that swapping songs online has had no negative effect on music sales. The report said high levels of file-swapping had an effect on CD sales that was "indistinguishable from zero". The research, conducted over 17 weeks in 2002, blamed "a reduction in music variety" and "a consumer backlash" for declining sales.

But official music industry bodies have branded the study "skewed".

Surprise, surprise. If the music industry had woken up and realised the potential of the Internet years ago, there wouldn't have been an issue with illegal file-swapping in the first place. But no, they persisted in pushing their absurdly-over-priced shiny little discs.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | Legal song downloads rise tenfold

Ha - music industry lawyers get their noses bloodied in Canada:

CTV.ca - Music industry loses in downloading case- CTV News, Shows and Sports -- Canadian Television

Support your local pop star. Here's the brilliant new single from Mark Joseph, who lives three doors away from me. This is his third top 40 single and the album's due later this year.

More information on this and his previous singles are on Mark's website

Whilst you might not have rated him as a comedian, in my opinion he was one of the funniest men to have ever appeared in film.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | Actor Sir Peter Ustinov dies

More on the sorry state of the once-great Russian Navy.

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Russian flagship 'could explode'

Nice article on web security - I particularly like this quote:

...relying on robots.txt to protect sensitive content is a bit like putting a sign up saying "Please ignore the expensive jewels hidden inside this shack"

SecurityFocus HOME Columnists: Googling Up Passwords

So, we can't afford books, we can't afford to repair the hole in the roof, and sometimes we can't even afford teachers, but apparently we can afford 200,000 (yes, that's two hundred thousand) laptops.

The Register | 200,000 Wi-Fi laptops up for grabs

The newly elected Spanish Prime Minister has stated his intention to withdraw his country's troups from Iraq, describing the war as 'a disaster'. One can only wonder what the result of the forthcoming British election will be in the light of this...

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Spain 'to withdraw Iraq troops'

It gets worse for famous Canucks forward Todd Bertuzzi:

Todd Bertuzzi of the Vancouver Canucks has been hit with one of the most severe suspensions in NHL history. Bertuzzi will not play for the remainder of this season, including the entire Stanley Cup playoffs. The suspension remains open-ended, with his return to the NHL to be determined prior to training camp next season. In addition, the Canucks have been fined $250,000.

Bertuzzi's Season Is Over

As the giants battle it out on the leading edge of the digital camera world, Kodak go after Sony for patent infringement, after negotiations between the companies get nowhere.

BBC NEWS | Business | Kodak sues Sony in patent row

Not good news for the Canucks playoff season:

BBC SPORT | Other Sport | US Sport | Bertuzzi faces police probe

and:

Steve Moore Suffers Concussion, Lacerations, and Neck Fracture