The weekend was groovy, moseying up the canal from Northampton to Birmingham. Haircut from one of the shipmates, and I got to try most of The Mega Ultra Quiz before the contestants got *too* drunk. Should be a hit over New Year.

Cory confirms that this will be happening around Tucson. It'll be fab, meeting my spirit guide and lots of virtual friends into the bargain. A real lift to the day.

Warning. This post will probably be filed under Too Much Information. Those of a squeamish disposition may wish to move on to the next message, where we discuss Verdi's use of minor 7th chord cadences.

Tom:I think that's because the average masturbation attention span of the American male is 10 seconds (see my comments below).
What? They whip it out, shake it for one sixth of a minute, and then it's done? Blinkin' heck, I don't think I've ever lasted less than ten times that.

After that, porn just gets really boring.
Gets?

Ah yes, that would be all well and good, but then you run into the classic moral argument with sex ed.
Mmm. "We have morals. Our morals say it is acceptable to impose those morals on other people. Our morals are screwed up about sex. We see no pun in the last sentence." There is no moral argument with sex ed per se, it's an argument with moral imposition.

It's like the old condoms in schools argument: "Put condoms in schools and kids are going to have more sex."
Nope. Put condoms in schools and they will walk. Some of them will be used correctly. There may well be one fewer pregnancy. Or one fewer STD. And this is A Good Thing.

People are still having sex.
It's been going on for quite a while.

And don't get me started on the way schools handle masturbation.
[titter]
Nope, mine didn't mention the issue.

It's just masturbation and it can be helpful in ... endurance? Think of it as a time trial ;)
Erm, quite. Actually, quite a good analogy, riding the bike for hours and hours...

People around me are dropping like flies. Half the next door department was off yesterday. Today we lose one member to a planned visit. Another is on leave. Another goes mid-afternoon to the doc. And another falls to a cold around the same time. Not nice. It all leaves me on my tod.

Simon Chatterton:
>80 Radio Active is the funniest comedy ever made. This does tally with #42.
LOL
As I did. *Very* often.

I found an old tape with a clip of this pre-Day Today pre-Angus Deayton
Useless fact #1: Angus Deayton has always been Angus Deayton.

Useless fact #2: Angus never appeared on TDT. My honourable friend may mean Have I Got News For You.

it was a great pastiche of "that brilliant Italian-American singer, Billy K Joel",
Philip Pope (who did all the musical spoofs) is a genius. He recorded, along with Deayton and other colleagues, as the Heebeegeebees, performing "Meaningless Songs In Very High Voices."

sample lyric: "I send you flowers just to bring you joy, but you just made out with the delivery boy".
#These open marriages can be sheer hell
#I'm kinda glad your husband takes it so well
#But don't ever change your ways.#

I don't know if constant exposure to bad local commercial radio stations helps the understanding of this...
Ah, Radio Active, Britain's first national local radio station. I really hope the BBC gets the go-ahead for its new national digital comedy station, as this show is going to feature heavily.

Finish work preparing labels to send new anti-virus software to our folk in the field. We know that the software doesn't really work, that many of the worst infections sail straight past the detectors in an SEP field, and that they won't bother to update the software no matter what we tell them. Still, it keeps the bean-counters happy, and gives the impression of work. Bit of a pointless exercise, all told.

Speaking of pointless exercises, this from our paranoid web meister:
The popular PDF file format developed by Adobe could become a carrier for viruses.
Note the use of "could." Not "has," not even "is likely to," but "could." Conceivably. In a month of Sundays. If hell freezes over.

Malicious code can be hidden in PDF files. The virus poses no danger to users who simply view a PDF file. It's only those using Adobe's Acrobat software to create documents who are open to attack.
So, this isn't something that needs to concern you, unless you use Adobe software to *create* PDF files. Not read them, *create* them.

This code does diminish the PDF format's reputation as a safe way of distributing documents via email and should Adobe choose to alter Reader so that attachments can be opened through it, then users could well become vulnerable to attack. So, code that "could" be a carrier of viruses "might" be spread "if" Adobe alters its product. That Adobe seems perfectly happy to retain the same functionality in its system - viewing, printing, crappy password protection, calling the Feds over perfectly legal activities - is by the bye.

Once in the system, the code spreads itself by exploiting the email address book in Microsoft Outlook. Ah! Now we come to the nitty-gritty. It's another way of hijacking Microsoft's legendary security weaknesses.

To avoid these exploits, I recommend Ghostgum, a GPL viewer for PDFs that has two advantages over Acrobat Reader. 1) It accepts sensible keyboard commands. 2) It won't go squealing to law enforcement officers if you do something legal in your country but illegal in another. (Windows download: 7.5MB over two files) And Pegasus Mail or Pine, two jolly decent and extremely powerful email clients.

Eric Geyer:
While Lixz is completely correct about the amount of food in the world being sufficient for all people to have enough, the comsumption of meat does indeed have an impact on world hunger. Meat is an incredibly inneficient way to raise food, particularly the way that beef is raised in the United States.
A vegetarian propaganda group suggests that meat is about 1/20th as efficient at transferring nutrients as plants. How they work this out, what their research is, I don't know. As any energy transfer involves wasted energy (0th law of thermodynamics, I think) it seems the claim has some basis in fact.

Add into that problems of waste disposal and the accompanying pollution from feed lots and slaughterhouses, meat is bad food policy and bad environmental policy.
As readers may be aware, the UK has recently suffered from an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, a minor infection that scares the living bejesus out of all farmers. As a result, the farmers get their animals killed, and the government pays out huge sums in compensation. The government then tries to turn the public opprobrium on farmers, who have been accused of a) infecting themselves and b) making huge profits from the compensation.

There may be an inquiry into the government's handling of the situation, and the response of the various pressure groups. There is no danger of an inquiry into the *real* scandal, the inefficient way that meat is manufactured. Or the way it's transported around the country in search of slightly bigger profits. Or even the massive subsidies paid from taxpayers to farmers in normal circumstances.

The best solution is to have people raise foods near them that they want to eat, doing the best to protect the local environment while doing so. This is why so many third world countries are in favor of new crops that are genetically modified to be more disease and pest resistant,
Is it this, or is it because the manufacturers are giving backhanders and cheap seed to establish the principle, then jacking up the prices? Biotech firms are patenting reproduction, and monopolising the food chain.

GM foods become a much more complex question when you are talking about (for a real world example) sweet potatoes that resist a common fungus that reduces yield by 60%
True, but is the alternative really starvation? The root cause of many recent famines isn't a shortage of food per se, but war.

Another cause is the war against the small farmer. Both state communists and corporate capitalists claim that centralising production will lead to the land of milk and honey. This has not happened - the cows are weak and sickly, and the bees buzzed off. A wide variety of crops gives the best results, so let's all grow vast expanses of the same one.

I'm far from convinced that genetically altered foods will resolve the food shortage problem at all. Leaving alone appears a better option.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field:
I just wanted to announce to everyone that the Kent Greene memorial site Cory and I run is up and running again. Paulo has made a *wonderful* new HTML design, and we have added some content (and plan on adding much more over the coming weeks). Your feedback, to us individually or to kentpride@yahoo.com, is more than welcome; it is appreciated.
I've only had time to take a brief look so far, and I like what I see.

Cory
no one from the list had said anything about our site
Er, hello, some of us are still working through one brief dial-up connection per day, and slightly resent the inaction of BT that has prevented better access.

and it occured to me that so few people here knew him.
I had the fortune to get to know Kent, just a little. Sometimes he would strike nerves in a way that made him seem unfriendly, perhaps a little arrogant. More often, he would raise a point through his own life that had resonance for my experience. Once in a while, he'd write something that really moved me.

he was an amazing man who was on our List for a long time, and contributed to it immensely.
I may not have appreciated - or read - his "It's Your Birthday, Whoever" posts from many years ago. But they were a sign that he cared for his art, and wanted to use it to benefit others.

Kent was passionate about black rights, about the insidious racism that is still present in American life. He was passionate about gay rights, a subject that caused more heat than light. And he was passionate about film, sharing his loves and raves with us all.

He changed my life, and the lives of quite a few listees, in *so* many wonderful ways
For instance, Kent came back to the list after some months away, and in almost his first post picked up that I was really suffering. The perspective of friends who have been with you is different from friends who have been away.

For instance, when I came out early last year, Kent was amongst the first to know. We never discussed it further, but he was an example.

even if you never knew Kent, chances are he would have touched you, and you would have loved him.
I have a lot of respect for Kent. The sort of person who makes you think about what he's saying, even if you really disagree with him.

That URL again - http://geocities.datacellar.net/kentpride/

Emily:
In the Pilot, when Patty offers cheese, how does it fit with the food as love metaphor that she later resents that Rayanne ate the cheese?
Expand the metaphor to consider maternal love. Patty probably doesn't mind Angela seeing more of Rickie, but Rayanne is a culture shock too far. Doesn't want to give affection...doesn't want to give food.

If Brian and Jordan are both representations of the mainstream (as Angela's World argues), then what does it mean that they have opposite reactions to Vic Racine, who, as a white male, can also be fit into the "mainstream" category?
In every analysis, there's something new. I never thought of Vic as a white male. He's way too much of an eccentric to fit any definition of "mainstream."

(Incidentally, I don't agree with the argument that Brian and Jordan are mainstream characters. There isn't a single one in the show, with the possible exception of Danielle.)

Also, the general theme of lying -- I think its interesting that from the start, Angela is the only character who really lies a lot. And in pressure, Jordan points out that however much he acted like a jerk, at least he doesn't lie. But by In Dreams, he does lie. I think it points out a negative aspect of Angela's affect on Jordan.
Or Jordan's beating Angela at her own game, gaining credit in a way that Angela can see and possibly respect.

---

paulo:
Well, that's what happens when you try to analyze works of art using a politically-correct cookie cutter.
Well, yes.

in some episodes (specially "Life of Brian") it sounded a bit as if MSCL was a sort of statement about something, which is exactly what it wasn't, IMO (and that's one of the reasons why it's so great).
Funny you should mention that. I've been debating why Big Brother worked, and caught the public imagination; and Survivor fluffed and got totally ignored. It eventually dawned that BB was a show about nothing, with characters that don't change quickly. Survivor was a show about the challenges and the voting, and allegiances changed with the weather.

Then someone else mentioned Seinfeld. A show about nothing, with characters that don't change - quickly or at all, yet says a lot.

Now Paulo suggests that MSCL is a show about very little. While there are big lessons for the audience, they're invisible to the players on screen. Characters change in a credible way, just as they do on BB.

Life of Brian is a perfect example of this. Sharon has a plan, it comes to fruition in a way she doesn't expect. Angela and Brian have conflicting plans, and there's a lot of comic potential in their situation. Jordan and Rickie are to hand, Rayanne is AWOL at the denoument. It's almost an episode of Seinfeld, or maybe Friends.

If only ABC had made this jump seven years ago, figured they had Seinfeld Without The Jokes...

The fact that Brian, Jordan, Racine, etc. fit into the sociological description of "white male" and yet don't feel mainstream to us just shows that the world is more complex than that.
Brian isn't mainstream. He's Jewish.
Jordan isn't mainstream. He's low literacy skills.
Racine isn't mainstream. He's a) European and b) eccentric.

Then again, it might be argued that we both (Iain and I) are white males, so we're just being defensive... [snicker]
Paulo, you're not mainstream, you've Chinese heritage.
I'm not mainstream, not chasing other blokes.

I don't think there is actually any character in the show who belongs to the "in crowd", which IMO was a deliberate decision... but I disgress.
Actually, this is a valid point in itself. Every leading character is somewhere on the margins. They're not cheerleaders. They're not jocks. Miss Popularity might be dating a jock, and running the yearbook, but there's a heck of a lot going on under the surface. Mr Geeky might have straight As and the Chess Club plan of the school, but he's a vicious independent streak that annoys the principal. (A running feud between a star student and the head could have made compelling television. See other shows.)

Gets of the day start at the reduced book store, who are selling "We Interrupt This Programme...," a history of the most dramatic newsflashes of the last century. It's really a CD with added book, as the memorable stuff - Chamberlain's declaration of war, Armstrong's one small step, Hanrahan's counting of jets - are on the disk, with the book as added backup. Well worth a fiver.

Also get the Idiot's Guide to Witchcraft. One has to start focussing somewhere, and this seems as good a place as any.

Heavily reduced CDs from Chantal Krevizauk and Leigh Nash, plus a whole cartload of chilled stuff from the store.

Also go to the nascent New Age store, in search of supplies and candles. Mainly looking for a candle-holder, finally finding a blue one with imitation jewels in the base - it looks right. As I'm in, the store is invaded by about 20 French students, attracted because it is something different from the usual run of store. They appear to be unsupervised, but a quick call of "Non!" and "Monsieurdames, une moment, s'il vous plait" calms them down. Partly because they were threatening to run amock, but mainly because someone addressing them in their own language, in the middle of England, scares the daylights out of them.

Emily-and-Liz:
In the boiler room, when Angela and Jordan are kissing, you see the fence in the background, but they're in it together. When they're fighting (the last boiler room scene), the camera keeps switching back and forth so that each appears to be in a prison by themself. When Angela's leaves, she's not in a prison anymore (camerawise), but Jordan still is.
ISTR spotting this first time round, and it is a masterful piece of production.

a) When Graham comes home after the first cooking class, he asks Patty if there's any more spicy mustard. She finds it and gives it to him. Implications: Graham needs something more, but Patty will, eventually, be able to provide it for him. (see Angela's World for excellent spicy mustard analysis)
While it's always dangerous to dismiss anything as trivial, I think this is assigning a little too much importance to a small event.

b) In bed, after that same class, Graham fiddles with his wedding ring when he tells her that the teacher never showed, but then stops when Patty turns on the light to talk to him. Does he stop b/c he's comforted by Patty's attention, or b/c she's turning to look at him, and he doesn't want her to see?
This does strike me as significant trivia. My suspicion is that he's idly playing with the ring, a sort of fidgeting.

a) Patty makes a reference to Graham not working for her anymore which struck Liz as the only time in the whole show that she's bitter about that. She didn't seem bitter to Emily -- what's your take?
There's a hint of something beneath the surface, and Patty is good at concealing her emotions.

1. Angela and Jordan have their Life of Brian exchange in reverse: "Why are you like this?" "Like what?" "like how you are." In LoB, Angela asks (desperately), "How am I?" In Self Esteem, Jordan says "So leave." Compare.
It pays to watch each episode. I think Dogbert picked this up on the original run.

1. Angela immediately recognizes that Rickie is in Brian's clothes -- "you're Brian" -- not in "everybody else" clothes, as Rickie puts it to Rayanne. Clearly she is comfortable with Rayanne and with Rickie--even dressed as Brian. Does this indicate she would be comfortable with Brian himself?
I wouldn't make that leap. Angela knows it's Rickie, even beneath the borrowed clothes. It's not Brian.

2. When Rayanne asks Brian, "Were you looking at me?" right after they get locked in, she's *really* upset. This lends potential support to two theories: a) she's not as sexually experienced as she pretends to be -- Liz has always believed, with others, that Jordan is the only person she ever actually has complete sex with
Very possible. Very possible indeed.

b) she understands that a relationship with Brian would involve her emotions (even, perhaps, if only based in his lust), and that makes her really uncomfortable.
Rayanne wants to be in control. She's not had that much guidance from her mother, and is seeking a mother figure - witness the way she almost dotes on Patty through the episodes. Rayanne has also learned to be self- reliant, and that makes things easiest when she's in control.

5. Brian really likes being with Rayanne, so much so that (maybe the only time ever) he says they can't find Angela when Rayanne suggests they try. His immediate lust for Rayanne appears to be stronger than even his ongoing 'love' for Angela is at that moment. Even as Rayanne is telling her bogus story for why she's afraid of the dark, Brian is carefully putting his arm around her shoulder with a look that seems surprisingly undisturbed by her story, although he appears to believe it. Is he being more than comforting? Is Brian about to make his move? When they stand looking at each other (earlier, we think), they really look like they're going to kiss.
I really thought *something* was going to happen. And not that Rayanne would destroy the premise of the situation.

A good thought, please, for Victoria and Brendan, who are having a bit of a tricky time at the moment.

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE EDINBURGH had a great run in 1995, defeating UMIST, Keble Oxford, and Robinson Cambridge before falling to New Oxford in the semis. The uni returned in 98, taking easy victories over Jesus Cambridge and Newnham Cambridge, but surprisingly fell to Birkbeck in the quarters. They lost their 2000 opener to Peterhouse Cambridge. Lost the 2001 opener to Hull, and a repechage to St John's Oxford.
It's the first appearance for CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE in the Paxman era.

Christ's get off to a good lead, but Edinburgh's picture round on pigs, some buzzer errors, and Edinburgh have a small lead. Christ's regains the lead during the third quarter, pulling away on the bonuses (rivers in New South Wales.) Edinburgh comes back, Christ's (Chris Martin, to be exact) incurs a lot of penalties, but it's not enough, Christ's wins 190-150.

I don't share Paxman's optimism about the losers coming back in the repechage. Note that Ian Griffith of Edinburgh didn't buzz once; also that Oliver Lee of Christ's got seven of the team's 12 starters, and I credit him with 97 of the team's points.

THE PEOPLE VERSUS

Paul Healy debuts on Tuesday's show. He returns on Wednesday. And Thursday. Eventually takes £9,502, the biggest jackpot on the show so far.

"Paedophiles will be free to hunt vulnerable victims on the internet if a new European directive is passed. Detectives tracking child abusers will see their powers "completely emasculated" if the directive is passed, it was claimed. The directive is aimed at protecting the individual freedom of computer users.

"A spokesman for the National Crime Intelligence Service warned of 'catastrophic consequences' if internet service providers (ISPs) are forced to delete details of customers using chatrooms _ including those frequented by paedophiles. Currently ISPs retain information for several weeks, giving police vital time to track abusers.

"The spokesman for NCIS, speaking at the launch of its report on organised crime, said: 'With paedophile crime on the internet there are no eye witnesses. All we have to go on being records kept by the Internet Service Provider.'"

We wonder what use it would be to log every visit by every PC to the Frisky Watchers' Chat Room. And whether the police are going to pay for the terabytes of data that need to be stored. We contacted a small ISP, who provided useful information on pain of anonymity.

CD_ROMs are 45p per 1GB, our small ISP is going to fill 35 of those per day. That's £110 per week, £5733 each year. Without regard to the storage and filing required. For a big ISP, the bill will run close to a million. Less that 0.001% of that data will ever be analysed, reckons our ISP. Less than 0.1% of the data analysed will be connected to any crime. For our ISP, that's perhaps eight useful data each year, extracted at a cost of almost £700 each.

The ISPs don't want to foot this bill _ this would make the difference between profit and loss for our friendly provider. They'll have to increase their prices, a move that doesn't square with the government's much_vaunted promise to bring Britain online. Or the police will pay, squandering taxpayers' money on a wild goose hunt, diverting officers from other duties because they can't understand the server logs.

This is a darned preposterous scheme, and the police's shills cannot come up with a single cogent reason why it should go ahead. There is no cogent reason.

Animals are good We love to look after them We honestly do.

A pair of scientists reignited the debate over human cloning this week when they announced plans to begin cloning humans within a matter of weeks. Panayiotis Zavos, who runs a Kentucky fertility clinic, and Dr. Severino Antinori, of Rome, said they will use the same techniques used to create the cloned sheep Dolly for a set of screened couples who cannot conceive children by standard means.

Home Rule is on ice Politicians still bicker Normal service, then.

The move follows a statement from the Arms Decomissioning Commission that the IRA has put forward a decent proposal to put its weapons completely and verifiably beyond use. Unionists are reluctant to accept this, saying that they've seen it all before. Republicans warn that they expect real power when things return to abnormal.

THIS WEEK'S TOP FIVE
Queries less submitted to Google. Week ending August 6.
1. big brother (Brian's won. No other nation has an interesting show.)
2. george harrison (Not dead. Not nearly dead.)
3. sircam (Virus du jour of a prior jour.)
4. estella warren (Who? Exactly.)
5. howard stern (Falling almost as fast as his career.)