Charlie Brooker is one of the few television critics I have time for because a) he’s very funny b) he doesn’t take it seriously c) he doesn’t spend the whole time hinting he’d rather be bathing in Camembert while deconstructing Derrida and d) he’s very funny. Here he is on Apple’s new and increasingly ubiquitous ad campaign:

The ads are adapted from a near-identical American campaign - the only difference is the use of Mitchell and Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show - probably the best sitcom of the past five years - in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, “PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers.” In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.

Which leads into a glorious diatribe against Macs:

I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don’t use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.

PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC). PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension. When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, “I hate Macs”, and then I think, “Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?” Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot.

Obviously, he is not entirely serious. A possibility lost on most of the commenters, but then this is Comment is Free where if you don’t disagree you simply aren’t trying hard enough. It’s worth reading the first, though:

Hello. Charlie Brooker here.

I wrote this piffle. Then it was subbed. And whoever subbed it decided to add a bit describing Doom as “the first shoot-em-up game”.

Words fail me.

They also changed every abbreviation -– so “they’re” becomes “they are” and “it’s” becomes “it is”, and so on — presumably in an attempt to inject a bit more plodding, impersonal joylessness to the whole thing.

Bet they did it on a Mac, too.

I’ve never used Macs much, so don’t have an opinion one way or another. I am entertained by Apple’s telling people not to upgrade to Vista because iTunes isn’t ready yet, mind. It’s a bit like me saying ‘I know there were nine months of betas and release candidates, but my website doesn’t work with Internet Explorer 7 and it’s your own fault if you have any problems - you should wait until I’m ready’.

Hell of a shot on today’s Astronomy Photo of the Day:

The white dot between the fireworks and the lightning is Comet McNaught. Original image here.

‘Intelligent design’ is to be taught in RE classes:

In a move that is likely to spark controversy, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has for the first time recommended that pupils be taught about atheism and creationism in RE classes.

Sounds like a reasonable idea. RE lessons are where you’re supposed to discuss this kind of thing, after all. Having said that, the only two RE teachers I ever had were both devout Christians, and it was far from an unbiased education. I don’t think either was deliberately trying to evangelise, but (with one particularly) there was little doubt that Christianity was the ‘proper’ religion. I remember being told that I should wake up on Christmas morning and shout ‘Happy Birthday Jesus’. Didn’t do it. I don’t remember any mention of non-belief other than the time we were split into believers, agnostics and atheists. I got away lightly after putting myself into the agnostics (I remember telling my friend Ben that “a god wouldn’t have to experience time in the same way as us” - *cringes*) but I’d like to know what memories the atheists have of the experience.

On my desk I have a small magnetic chair that keeps hold of paper clips / screws / pins etc., and a few days ago I knocked it off the edge while playing with iDog cleaning. It landed on top of the printer, sending assorted tiny bits of metal down the paper feeder. The printer is now rather broken. Bugger. Epsons aren’t really designed to be taken apart (it’s not responding to the turn-it-upside-down-and-shake-it technique, sadly), but it’s either that or buy a new one. Bad Rowdy.

Plus, Windows just let me know that it restarted itself due to a ‘hard drive read error’. Urgh. Oh well, my computer’s been circling the drain of b0rk for a while now, what with being scared of USB devices and all, so this is probably a good early warning that it needs scrapping. Extra hard work for a while, I think.

Last night I went to a friend’s birthday party at a Chinese restaurant, tonight I was in a Harvester for pre-dance socialising and eats, and tomorrow I’m going to my grandparents’ for a meal. It’s almost like I have a social life, sometimes.

Sorry it’s a little quiet around here at the moment. I’m fairly busy, but it’s not just that. When your blog is an outlet for whatever’s going through your head, it becomes tricky during times when your thoughts are revolving around things you can’t really blog about. Good grief that was a badly composed sentence. I apologise unreservedly for that sentence. There’s not much I don’t blog about, one way or another. Is nothing bad. Apologies, this is uncomfortably close to being a tease, which wasn’t the intention. I shall stop.

Things that need mentioning, in greater detail than this:

• I have now read Scepticism Inc. and The Great Gatsby.
• I finally entered a whole bunch of my books into LibraryThing (I have a lot of Michael Connelly). I feel like it’s not a very deep collection, and I am in a battle with the part of my brain that is worried people will laugh at the lack of serious / classic tomes. I will not start thinking like that. A random selection should appear on the front page’s blogroll.
• Match.com asked me to complete an insane survey that was obsessed with sex, for example ‘[i]f you were to sleep with someone before you were ready, what would be the reason you would do that?’. Answers included “[i]f I felt I was losing interest in them so they no longer ‘counted’ as a potential soul-mate”, which took me about five minutes to even understand. I like questions that create hypothetical situations then ask how I got into them.
• I bought a red nose! It is made of foam. I want to do something for Red Nose Day. Two years ago was the beard incident. Hmmm.
• I don’t really know who Russell Brand is. I’ve come across many thirty-second clips, but have never seen him present/appear in anything, and have no idea what he’s like. Apparently I’m the only person in the country for whom this is true.
• The writer of Severance has a good blog.
• As does the editor of New Humanist magazine.
• This afternoon I realised that floating swans look a bit like dead cows if you turn your head sideways:
  
• Running From Camera is great. Put camera on tripod. Set timer. Run like hell.
• Darwin Day is coming up.
• I missed National Gorilla Suit Day.
• I should also mention the holiday for people with not enough problems.

Plenty for me to catch up on, there.

I finally managed to fix my parents’ network this evening. A few days ago I’d replaced their original router, which was starting to play up after 15 months of heavy use, at which point everything went crazy and putting the original router in place didn’t solve the problem. If there is a time in an accountant’s year that you don’t want this to happen, it’s the end of January when all the tax returns are due in. I shored up their six computer network so that it mostly worked, albeit very slowly, and they had to jump through a few hoops to read and send emails for a couple of days. I couldn’t find any kind of software explanation, so resolved to start replacing hardware until it started working again. It turned out that the replacement router was broken on arrival. This was always a possibility, but had seemed unlikely enough that I checked everything else first. A shiny new Netgear is now sitting in its place, and everything (as of this evening, anyway) is going swimmingly. Phew.

Just back from dancing, where the teachers were working on my posture. Good grief. I had to start taking notes in the end, there was so much to remember. I must not lead with my arm. I must keep my ribcage up. I must move forward with the body rather than the feet. I must rise and fall less in the foxtrot. I can make outside steps easier using ‘contrary body movement’, where the left shoulder comes forward with the right foot and vice versa. And this is all walking in a straight line! I’m glad they’re getting more picky with me, but it’s difficult to concentrate on all of it at once. It feels great when I get it right, but that didn’t happen often this evening. Hopefully I’ll get there with practice.

Speaking of dancing¹ here is a Cockatoo named Macky doing the Makarena:

and speaking of things…that…are…er…something to do with the sky²…I like this picture of Comet McNaught too:

Time for bed, I think.

1. bow to my segue awesomeness [↩]
2. lost it [↩]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will apparently be released on 21st July this year - the tenth anniversary of the first’s release. What do you think the odds are of reading it before hearing what does / doesn’t happen? I’m looking forward to it. People complain all the time, but I think it’s been a great story so far. And in May there’s also this:

Getting good at the trailers, aren’t they?

For anybody confused by Wordpress’ clever new autosave system, apparently it only works if the title is filled in. Makes sense - I couldn’t work out why it was so intermittent.