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

Now there's a(nother) boxed set I'll definately be buying...

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | DVD release for Star Wars trilogy

Warmonger Bush nails his colours firmly to the mast with his "war president" announcement. Threat to world peace? - you bet.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Bush sets case as 'war president'

Glad to discover that there others who share my opinion of Bush's recent absurd decision to abandon the Hubble Space Telescope:

Save the Hubble

Our first Apple G5 turned up today (already out of date since they speed bumped the range since we ordered it in December). Started up OK but the optical media drive would not open to accept the system install DVD - had to take the thing apart to get it to work. Not good enough, Apple. One thing that I was pleasantly surprised at, however, was how quiet it was. Even in a pretty warm room (probably getting on for 80 deg.F) the fans seemed to be hardly ticking over.

G5 range

"I'm not from these parts... I'm from a little place called England. We used to run the world before you," quipped Ricky Gervais, the first UK actor to win a TV comedy acting award at the Golden Globes. His series 'The Office' became the first UK sitcom to win the best comedy prize.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | The Office claims surprise Globes

BBC NEWS | UK | Microsoft creator to be knighted

"The king of computer software Bill Gates is to receive an honorary knighthood from the Queen for his contribution to enterprise in the UK."

Contribution - so that's what its called...

Went to see the movie Paycheck Saturday evening. Based on a story by Philip K.Dick, the author behind the book behind Blade Runner, therefore an excellent story even if you don't like Ben Affleck, who I reckon did a pretty good job (as he did as Jack Ryan in Sum Of All Fears). Director is John Woo (who you might have heard of) but I thought the camera work was a little dodgy in parts.

Overall rating 8/10

Official Paycheck website

Another edition of BBC2's outstanding military history/technology programme Crafty Tricks of War on this evening, showing the sort of quality the BBC are still (just) capable of producing. What a contrast to all the drivel that tends to be on these days.

Even managed to learn something - before the introduction of rader, big concrete acoustic reflectors were built on Canvey Island to hear approaching enemy aircraft.

I've decided I HATE OS-X.

I used to be a big Mac fan - they were easier to use and easier to network. Then, for no sensible reason, Apple decided that the Mac OS should be based around Unix. And Unix means permissions. Now,even if you are the only user on the system, it still asks you for permission do do things (like update the system - which is frighteningly often).

And doing something simple, like connecting to a shared volume on a server, by whatever means, is a right royal pain in the backside. I wanted to copy a folder of JPGs over my home network from a Windows 2000 machine to a G3 Powerbook running OS-X. I don't use Windows Networking (aware that its a security risk) so I used an FTP server instead. Uploaded the images to the server then managed to log from the Mac. Can just about see the files and folders in a Finder window on the Mac but it won't let me copy the files. It won't even let me copy anything to the server - permissions again!

Sorry, Apple, but you've managed to put me right off the Mac.

So the Hubble Space Telescope is to be abandoned because of Bush's aburd, election-winning dream of returning to the Moon? I hope someone at NASA realises just how daft this is - we know there's nothing on the moon, there's no point in returning and to do so, we have to abandon the single most successful space project of the last decade.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Death knell for space telescope

Ah - what a lovely story!

Yahoo! Travel - Cat and bear reunited in Berlin Zoo