I just received some Truly Excellent News.

I. Am. A. Googlewhack!

Fan-bloody-tastic. Does this mean I now have to create a googlewhack chain of 10 people? Ooh, I have to go find some myself, now.

UPDATE: As a Joinee has kindly pointed out, both words have to be underlined for it to be a proper googlewhack. I’m now a sad person, and shall go sob in a corner.

I’m back.

I’m not taking this lying down. I’m going to campaign for the addition of ‘muppetry’ to dictionary.com.

UPDATE 2: Here’s a screenshot, just to save it for posterity:

The Make Poverty History campaign is extremely important. Poverty isn’t necessary. We have enough food and drugs to go around. People needn’t starve to death any more. It’s fixable, and this year we can do a huge amount to achieve its eradication. Gordon Brown is working on removing the debts third-world countries are paying, the UK is hosting the G8 summit this July and Tony Blair has been seen wearing a Make Poverty History white band. If enough people make their voices heard than something can genuinely be done, and that’s what the Make Poverty History campaign is all about. I know you’ve heard it all before, but a campaign of this magnitude is almost unprecedented. This is the text of the latest mailing list email:

Hi,

Tonight Make Poverty History is going to make television history.

At 19.58, across almost every TV channel, a short film featuring Brad Pitt, Bono, Cameron Diaz and many more famous faces, will show exactly why the opportunity we have this year to bring an end to poverty shouldn’t be wasted.

It’s called “Click” because in about the time it takes for you to click your fingers a person dies of extreme poverty. Dies, often, for want of medicine that you or I could buy over a counter at any chemist.

Do tell everyone you can to watch the launch of “Click” tonight - it’s a really remarkable film. If you can’t get to a TV you will be able to see it here after 20.00. Please forward this mail on to a group of your friends, and ask them to join us at www.makepovertyhistory.org too.

Thanks for your support. Together we really can make poverty history.

Bob

Please ask people to watch. If they haven’t heard of the campaign, this will tell them what they need to know. Also visit the website where you can email Tony Blair and your local MP directly. Please help jump-start what would be humanity’s most extraordinary achievement. Thank you.

Didn’t want to go to bed without a short news wrapup, as there are a good few interesting items today. Firstly, bloody brilliant work by Jamie Oliver has resulted in huge amounts of government money. Yeah, it shouldn’t take a tv show, but hey, it’s happened, and that’s cool.

Also, the BBC today commissioned a new series of Doctor Who, after only one episode of the show. Great! Oh, but breaking news is that Christopher Eccleston is to step down as the Doctor! That’s only been announced in the last minute, and I don’t know what’s going on as yet…

The BBC also today rejected complaints about the Jerry Springer Opera, which regular readers will know I entirely support

We’re trying to save SciScoop, and I think we may just manage it. All we need are volunteers who are willing to submit one science related story per week. It’s easy to do; it can be as simple as paraphrasing a press release in a couple of paragraphs. I’m in, as are a few others. If we can get enough people so that there are two stories per day, we think the site can only go from strength to strength. So please, if you think you fit the bill, do head over there. Thanks.

According to “Alastair Campbell” this weekend’s Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway will feature Little Ant and Dec interviewing Tony Blair. Should be quite interesting…Pity it clashes with Doctor Who, though.

I had a rather fraught day yesterday, in hindsight. Here’re the various states I went through:

• I was very happy when something rather pleasant happened. Don’t want to put it on the internet quite yet, but hopefully next week (nothing romantic, in case you were wondering )
• Cross when somebody was snotty with me for no good reason.
• Lonely in the afternoon.
• Sad when I found out SciScoop was shutting down.
• Reminiscent when I was browsing Friends Reunited
• Disappointed when I wasted an hour I could have spent working on Maths
• Excited while watching 24. It was so nerve wracking I had to stand up and walk around the room!
• Quizzical and surprised while watching CSI.
• Worried about finishing work off today (went ok in the end)

So, yes. That was a busy day.

Oh. Oh dear. Now I have to think for a bit. It’s a nice thing to think about, but oh. Oh dear. How am I going to concentrate on mechanics now? Oh dear.

I’ve only ventured onto FriendsReunited a couple of times before, and I don’t really know what drew me there today. I have no interest at all in letting most people from school have my contact details in an easily accessible place! Still, I found myself looking around the site, and it turned out that they list colleges as well as schools. I enjoyed college very much, so created an account and added myself to the SSFC list. Twas most interesting looking at everybody else’s profiles. People I knew are engaged to people with strange names, married, studying, working in far-flung locations…They’re all so grown up!

Now that I’ve got to the end of that paragraph, I realise that I have no point to make. So I shall fallacially (bloody well should be a word) conclude with:

And so, I’ll give her the biscuits back on the condition she never speaks of this again.

One of my favourite science news websites, SciScoop, is for sale. It’s a community-run site (I’ve had a couple of articles published) but by far the major contributor is the site owner, rickyjames. He unfortunately no longer has the time to continue contributing, and has decided to move on. It’s sad If anybody knows anyone they think could be interested in taking over, please do let them know.

Fyi, the Ice Age 2 teaser trailer is now online…

While things have changed, this morning news was apparently fairly light. Hence the 10 o’clock news on radio 2 contained the following item:

A bird-loving couple in [somewhere] are raising money for the RSPB by auctioning their number plate. Keen bird-watchers, they’re putting the rare ‘BIRD1′ number plate onto eBay. They hope to raise

I’ve never had the alarm go off while alone in the house before. Handling it ok, I think. It helped that it was only in the hallway, which has a 10 second warning before waking the street. I’m pretty sure there weren’t any burglars in there. There was a moth, but I don’t think he’d moved all day. So i’m cowering in my room now, hoping it doesn’t go off in the conservatory op something…Question is, do I take my contacts out? Hmmm.

So it ended up being a 24, a Desperate Housewives and then another 24.

I’d just like to say to whoever wrote the scene from last week’s DH with Susan and Edie in the boat…Inspired. Absolutely inspired. I laughed so very, very much.

I really am going to bed now.

Ever have one of those days where you get lots done, but it’s just not very interesting? You’ve managed to do everything you planned. And, that’s it. Useful, but dull. Today’s been rather like that.

Has anybody else seen this infamous cinema advert? (warning,not a terribly work friendly clip or website). Despite the infamy, I hadn’t heard of it at all. The website where I found the link was rather scathing, but it seems harmless enough to me. Quite funny, actually
A bit more wittering from me follows. You don’t have to read it; it’s not all that interesting More for catharsis than anything useful.

Continue reading ‘Sunday Evening Mullings’

I’ve been looking forward to the new series of Doctor Who for weeks, and I wasn’t disappointed. The story was great fun, and there was some excellent dialogue:

Rose: If you’re an alien, why do you sound like you’re from the north?
Doctor: Lots of planets have a north.

I laughed out loud a good few times Can’t wait for next week.