"Honey - where's my super suit?"
"Why do you need to know"


...my favourite lines from The Incredibles, which I saw at the cinema last night. Very taken by Syndrome's gorgeous henchwoman 'Mirage' (left). Outstanding animation, but the film is over long at 120 minutes; cinematic experience ruined by having to sit through 20 minutes of adverts and the sound being out of sync. Will probably buy on DVD.

One of the UK's most senior lawyers has quit his job in protest over the Blair Government's draconian internment law. Recently ruled as 'unlawful' by the House of Lords, Ian MacDonald QC described the detention without trial of foreigners suspected (but not necessarily proven) to be terrorists as a "blot on the legal landscape".

BBC NEWS | UK | Lawyer resigns over terror laws

Installing PERL on my home server last night and ran into the old 'Error 500' problem which can basically mean all sorts of things. In this instance, after an hour's fiddling, I found it was down to the shebang line in my script only pointing to the folder perl.exe was in and not to the program itself. Once I'd changed it to:

#!C:/Appserv/PERL/bin/perl.exe

...the script worked.

The Longer Range Impact of November 2nd Vote

With the Blue States in hand, the Democrats have firm control of 80% of the world's fresh water, over 90% of our pineapple and lettuce, 93% of the artichoke production, 95% of America's export quality wines, 90% of all cheese production, most of the US low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, CalTech and MIT. We can live simply but well.

The Red States, on the other hand, now have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care cost spike), 92% of all US mosquitoes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, 100% of all Televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

A high price to pay for controlling the presidency. Unattributed.

The UK is not going to be able to meet its own targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - 20% of 1990 levels by 2010 - but will probably match its Kyoto commitment. But at least we're doing something: the US government still thinks the whole global warming problem doesn't exist, stating today that its based on 'bad science'. Perhaps when Florida disappears under the ocean they'll start to listen - by which time it will probably be too late.

BBC NEWS | Politics | UK 'failing on greenhouse gases'

That's not to say the British government shouldn't do more. Car engine sizes are getting bigger and more powerful and yet nothing has been done to try to limit this, or a least further penalise drivers who choose to purchase these vehicles.

Apple are in trouble with the European Commission for charging us Brits too much for single music downloads. We cough up 79p but the French and Germans only have to pay the equivalent of 68p. In the USA its a mere 51p a track. I guess its in line with the rip off prices were are expected to pay for music CDs (not that I buy many of those these days).

BBC NEWS | Business | Apple iTunes 'overcharging in UK'

Considerable 'aaah' factor in this evening's BBC TV program 'Bears: Spy in the Woods' which featured a mother spectacled bear careing ever-so-gently for her young cub. Bet there'll be more teddy bears sold this Christmas as a result!

Blasted HP PSC 2510 playing up again. Its been turned off since late last night. Switch it on again this evening and its refusing to see the network. When it was working, I gave it a static IP plus set the router to issue that IP to the printer's MAC address. But now I've got the same problem as before: the port light on the hub is on, the LED next to the ethernet socket on the printer is on, but the big blue light on the top of the printer just won't come on. And in that state you can't even print out a network settings page. What a pain-in-the-backside this thing has been since day one - a complete waste of time and money.

This just caught my eye. "Generations of directors and stars learned their craft in advertisements" it says. Is this an explaination of where 'reality TV' programme makers come from I wonder...?
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Archive saves film and TV adverts

Visited Dirt Bike Rider Expo at Stoneleigh just south of Coventry today. Not being a biker, I wasn't that interested in the trade show side of things, but they did have some demonstrations of stunt bike riding. Full gallery here.

Saw (admittedly only part of) the trailer for the upcoming film version of The Magic Roundabout. CGI sacrilege. For the nostalgic amongst us, here's a nice page about the original.

I do have to question the decision made today by high street retail chain Dixons to stop selling VCRs by this Christmas. Whilst they are correct that DVDs have taken off due to their superior image quality, etc. how many of us actually have the ability to record TV programs onto DVD? Not many, I suspect. OK, so VHS itself is pretty long-in-the-tooth, but this appears to a cynical attempt to drive consumers away from a still 'adequate' technology.


BBC NEWS | Business | Death of video recorder in sight

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy hits the nail on the head in his response to Home Secretary Blunket's latest 'big idea' for tackling 'terrorism', that being jury-less trials. Blunket, now further right wing than yer average Tory, continues his 'climate of fear'; the introduction of ID cards by force and his continuing erosion of our civil liberties. Sounds to me like he's been paying too much attention to George Bush.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Kennedy attacks 'climate of fear'

Yesterday's foul weather didn't put me off attending a new (to me) motocross event in Northamptonshire. Pity the riders' 'other halves' having to clean their kit afterwards.

Not at all happy at the idiot who decided that Friday night was a good time to hold a Northampton Town home match. Took me 35 minutes to get half way across Milton Keynes. Never even saw the motorway, but glad I gave up before I got to it as it was solid traffic both ways at the Northampton junction. 14 quid down the drain. Thanks.

The Cobblers managed a 1-1 draw against visitors Chester even though they were down to ten men for most of the match. Not good enough - can't see us getting promoted this season either after performances like that.

Finally got around to scanning some black and while shots of the group Soul Fever I took a little while back. I was using my Canon EOS 1D digital camera at 1600 for colour stuff and had a roll of black and white film in my backup EOS 1n.



The film is Kodak's somewhat specialised very high speed T-Max P3200 and was printed by Ilford using one of their pre-pay mailing envelopes. The HP PSC 2510 did a reasonable job of the scanning but I don't think the quailty is as good as you'd get from a 'proper' (stand alone) scanner. This film is incredible, though. I had used a roll of Ilford's Delta 3200 a few years back, but it was much grainier than this stuff. Film emulsions have gotten so good now that if you actually want grain, you have to go to extremes.

I've now switched both home and work machines to have FireFox as the default web browser. Its faster than IE for almost everything (in fact the only thing I have found to be slower with are pages with immense tables). It takes a little while to fire up but once launched, its quicker and the tab browsing saves screen space.

Suspect cab fare dodger bites police dog. Well, it was America...

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Man bites dog (and a policeman)

Massive relief this morning as the blue network LED on my new HP PSC 2510 printer decides to come on, for almost no apparent reason. I'd plugged a phone into the same socket as the fax connection, then turned the printer and one of my computers on and was calling HP's UK technical support line when suddenly the light came on. Put the phone down in a hurry to avoid wasting anyone's time and it stayed on. In fact it has stayed on all day, even after disconnecting the fax/phone completely.

So far I've managed to scan some photos and print a contact sheet off a Compact Flash card, which is a nice feature. Had to disable the fax cos it answered the phone for me at one point.

Looks like its a keeper.

My experiences with my new HP PSC 2510 multifunction inkjet printer so far have been less than stunning. The thing completely refuses to see my network - the little blue LED on the top remains stubbornly off regardless of what its plugged into or what cable I use. And I cannot print the 'network status' page until it can see the network. I have no idea if its getting an IP address, I don't know what its MAC address is and I don't know what the address of its in-built webserver is. Searches for help on Google have been a waste of time because the results consist almost entirely of shops selling the thing. I can see no solution save what will no doubt turn out a costly and fruitless phone call to HP's telephone support. Should have bought the Canon instead.

My copy of Five Thousdand Days - Press Photography in a Changing World arrived today, courtesy of the BPPA. No shots of mine in it but I do get a mention in the back - which was nice.

Just wondering how many more of us would be vegitarians if cows could talk. Image if, while you're out for a walk in the country, instead of just moo, or more likely no sound at all, you suddenly hear:
"Morning"
"Hello there"
"Nice day for it"
"Sorry about the smell, only this silage gives me gas"

Equally chuffed to have found this site, dedicated to the 1981 Radio series 'Tales From The Crypt', which I first heard whilst at Warwick University in 1982 (probably from old recordings 'borrowed' from Radio W963). Penned by Rory McGrath and read by the likes of Andrew Sachs, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, the series contained typical radio humour, along the lines of:

"...I think he died of Dutch Elm Disease"
"Why sargeant?"
"Well, look sir, he's go no leaves"

The website contains MP3s of nearly all of the 15 short episodes originally broadcast (I think) on Radio 4, but there was also a record (which I've never seen).

Tales from The Crypt

Very chuffed to have found this website (via The Hockey Forum, of all places). Our local corner shop used to sell sweets from the jar just like this. Certainly brings back memories (and goes some way to explaining why I have so many fillings).

Traditional, old fashioned sweets from A Quarter Of - the online sweetshop

In London, armed police officers are protesting at the suspension of two of their colleages for killing an unarmed man in 1999. "Glen Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said the case had thrown into doubt all training and guidance given to firearms officers." Perhaps now they should ask questions before pulling the trigger?

BBC NEWS | England | London | More police join firearms protest

Neighbourhood rock star Mark Joseph is supporting the (beautiful) Corrs on tour at the moment. Here's the dates:

04-Nov-04 | Sheffield Arena | Sheffield
05-Nov-04 | NEC | Birmingham
07-Nov-04 | Manchester | ENA Manchester
08-Nov-04 | Wembly Arena | London

I was very saddened to hear today of the untimely death of legendary British radio broadcaster John Peel, who suffered a heart attack whilst on a working holiday with his wife. I used to listen to his late night Radio 1 programme at University, over 20 years ago. I can hardly believe he's gone.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Legendary radio DJ John Peel dies

Part of Amazon's review of John Kampfner new book Blair's Wars reads "No Prime Minister in modern times has led Britain into as many wars as Tony Blair [... who] until he won the 1997 General Election, showed only a rudimentary understanding of the workings of foreign policy." No change there, then.

Quite frankly I think both author and publisher are merely cashing in with this book - how can it be taken seriously, writing about a war that is nowhere near 'finished'. "Now updated with two new chapters on the Hutton Report and the latest developments in Iraq" states the publisher. Is there going to be another update in six month's time?

Discovered, quite by chance this interesting Amazon UK web page on Dystopian Vision - basically cinematic representations of a desolate future. Well worth a read for film fans of the genre.

Very tempted to say, in a loud steady voice, "Mister Anderson", as I sit half-watching Matrix Revolutions. The movie got slagged as the poorest of the trilogy when released, but you can't deny they went to town on the special effects.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the squeek, squeek, squeek of a slowly back-peddling Tony Blair as his tissue-thin excuse for going to war starts to tear under the strain (I can mix my metaphors with the best of 'em).

Michael Howard looses much of his credibility in the argument though as, whilst attacking Blair, he says he still backs the war. Can't have it both ways, matey.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Blair under fire on Iraq claims

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.