Well, I've been fairly serious here lately, so here's some plain weird stuff I picked up on today's trawl through the internet:
"In that language, if you don't say how you know things, they think you are a liar. This is a very nice and useful tool. Imagine if, in the argument about weapons of mass destruction, people had had to say how they knew about whatever they said. That would have saved us quite a lot of breath..."
The value of exotic languages - From the New Scientist via die puny humans.
Vixen Love is a bot programmed to have conversations with people (well, guys) looking for er, conversations with girls on AIM. Here's some logs of her conversations with innocent, er, conversationalists ...
Sent - America's first phonecam art show.
Duh.
One of my favourite online journal writers, Rob Rummel-Hudson, got fired yesterday. By a computer.
I've been really irritated by an advertisement at the moment.
There's one for Orbit chewing gum which shows a young woman who is bothered by her teeth. Instead of cleaning her teeth, she chews gum.
Now, this is of course ridiculous, but that's not what bothers me.
What bothers me is that the gum is described as 'Orbit Professional'.
Professional? Excuse me?
In what sense is this chewing gum professional? Are there people who chew gum professionally? Are other gums formulated for amateurs?
I could just about see how, say, a shaving cream or a razor blade might be described as professional, since there are actually people who shave others for a living and for all I know they may have specially formulated or designed materials. But gum?
Sadly, I can see this catching on. Every new product is going to be called 'professional' until eventually the word loses any meaning whatever. I really resent this misuse of language in the service of advertising.
By the way, have I mentioned that this blog is 97% bullshit free? Because it is, you know.
I'm sad to see Greg Dyke resign as director general of the BBC, because quite apart from any political issues, he was an excellent manager. I used to work in the BBC and I still remember the dark pall that hung over the Corporation in the previous Birt regime.
When Greg Dyke came in, he was genuinely and deservedly popular. He really loved television - and broadcasting - and made the BBC a good place to work in again. I can well understand the spontaneous enthusiasm for him which staff showed when he told them he was going.
The BBC can be very grey and dull and serious at times - Greg Dyke was a powerful antidote to that. I do hope they do not fall back into being dull and safe.
Also, is it just me or does Lord Hutton sound disturbingly like Victor Meldrew? I watched him read his report and I kept expecting him to say "I don't believe it!".
Which he didn't. Obviously.
South East London, 28 January, 5.36pm.
Ten minutes earlier, nothing.
Then, snow. Snow!
Philipp's delighted of course. "It's the best day ever!"
On days like this, I'm glad I work from home. I can see the flakes falling outside as I write. And yes, I know for some people that's nothing special. But here in London it's not very common. And it's lovely to look at.
I was down in Surrey doing some filming for a client on Wednesday. We were filming a woman and her daughter, who was studying in the local Sixth Form college.
We had to wait for her to finish her classes, so we went and had a drink in the local pub. When we got there, we discovered that a lot of the kids from the college were there already. In fact, most of the clientele seemed to be from the college. We were surrounded by fresh-faced young people drinking and snogging.
I felt as if we had stumbled into the local school pub. In my day, we had to be content with a bag of Tayto Crisps and a bottle of Cidona...
Damn. Damn international telly.
I've been watching lots of German TV lately. Kids television is especially good for having a limited vocabulary - ie words I actually understand. (Admittedly they tend to be ones like Pokemon and Pikachu, but whatever)
However, thanks to satellite channel KIKA I now have the music of the song "Gib mir bitte einen kuss" (please give me a kiss) by girl band Lollipops running through my head.
Unfortunately, you probably will shortly as well. Because the tune is that of the Birdy Song. And now that I've mentioned it, the tune will probably run through your head for the rest of the day.
Sorry about that.