Clearly there are too many people sympathetic to Christians in Cambridge, because some enlightened church leaders have found a novel way to diminish the number.
Sigh. I think I know people who attended at least one of those churches as undergraduates, but they’d probably find it as laughable as I do. Mind you, we should probably face facts and rename Christmas to Big Winter Self-Fest, but that’s another argument …
After some careful thought, I’ve just got a refund on my MP3-CD copy of the first two Hitchhiker series. It’s a shame, because I hadn’t actually listened to them all, and haven’t actually (somewhat shamefully) listened to them ever before, but the damn thing had pops and clicks on the recording, so it wasn’t very enjoyable anyway.
And the shop I returned it to didn’t have the CD versions, so I couldn’t replace it straight away with something that might work. Instead I’m listening to La Bohème, which while all very good wasn’t actually written by Douglas Adams.
I have, over the last few days, watched a number of films. They all seemed to contain people who have since gone on to be rather well known indeed, although for one of them this was no surprise because he was always a prolific bugger when it came to small roles.
Pump Up The Volume is great fun, even more so than I remembered. It’s kind of like Heathers, with fewer jokes, and if you prefer Samantha Mathis over Winona Ryder (which is a difficult call) then you’ll probably like it. Is has the afore-hinted Seth Green in a minor role; he also turns up in things like the pilot of The X Files, a film about skateboarders that I can’t remember the name of, and as an FBI geek in Enemy of the State.
Last night, I watched Candyman, which I’d never actually seen before. It’s got Xander Berkeley in it, who has gone on to be in 24 amongst other things; but more interestingly it has Kasi Lemmons, who had previously been in Vampire’s Kiss – check out the poster. It’s Nic Cage looking scared!
While we’re talking about Candyman, Urban Legend is of course fairly straightforwardly derivative of it in some ways, and today it’s Tara Reid’s birthday.
Dare I join them all together? Urban Legend stars Alicia Witt, who was in Four Rooms with Jennifer Beals, also in Vampire’s Kiss. Christian Slater has been in the West Wing, as has Michael O’Neill, also in 24.
IMDb is way too much fun. It’s like an encyclopedia on acid.
We should all thank John Kerry for being prepared to lose. Bravo.
Incidentally, to anyone worried about the spectre of a perpetual Bush, don’t forget that the President of the United States is term limited. Unlike members of the Supreme Court, some of whom are likely to be replaced in Bush’s second term.
Earlier, they were consistently one electoral college vote ahead for Bush compared to the other charts – now they’re five. Given both they and C-SPAN are using AP, I can’t see how this works. The numbers don’t even add up in some places – BBC was quoting more votes for Bush in New Hampshire, from fewer precincts, than C-SPAN. Weird …
Seems to have settled down a little now, though. Hmm.
Just got back from the Footlights Virgin Smoker (as expected – some very promising performers, some very promising writers, some very surreal ideas, and some utter rubbish), which managed to contain no jokes about the US elections at all. Not one, unless somehow I missed them. I feel cheated.
I also missed the virtual reality helicopter landing on Peter Snow (as reported by Guardian Unlimited), and am close to my threshold of tolerance for the phrase “too close to call”. The TV is downstairs, the web is upstairs – and the web, of course, has more details. The BBC hasn’t yet mentioned, for instance, that no states have been officially called yet – just called by the networks. Although then they’d waste Peter Snow for the first few hours, which would be awful.
I have four different maps open – LA Times, BBC News and C-SPAN are pretty much tracking the same data, it seems, but the Guardian’s, although lacking in any calls whatsoever, has the best interface, and gives juicy infobits like how rich the state is.
We’re gonna be up all night with these – it’s gonna be fun.
Stumbled across “Ban This Filth” last night, on Channel 4: pensioners finding filthy things in the media and showing clips so we know just how filthy they are. Whoever commissioned this should get a medal, because it’s absolutely hilarious.
Gosh – just discovered this, kicking around in the archives. Cast your mind back to early February, and remember that Hutton had just announced his “whitewash”, and the Butler enquiry had been set up but not yet started, let alone finished. And I was a bit pissed off with waffle. There is a serious point, hidden at the end, about letting politicians, as with any professional, do their fucking jobs. But it’s not as good as the hyperbole about world disaster, so I guess no one will notice …
The Hutton inquiry is now over, but around the corner comes the Butler inquiry, and then of course there’s Hutton’s inquiry into the leak of the Hutton inquiry, the coroner’s inquiry into the death of David Kelly, and then perhaps an inquiry into why the Hutton inquiry transferred away responsibility from the coroner’s inquiry in the first place. And, for good measure, an inquiry into why we sold arms to Iraq in the first place, because we haven’t had one of those for a while.
However the real question is: why are we bothering having all these inquiries anyway? This morning, Michael Howard said quite clearly that if you don’t agree with the findings of an inquiry, you don’t have to accept it. So what is the point of having an independent inquiry at all? With that kind of attitude, we start running down a slippery slope that allows anyone – and particularly the government – to ignore any independent or expert pronouncement it chooses. Worse, by encouraging people to have opinions about everything, how are we ever going to get any real work done?
At a somewhat cynical level, you could consider all public inquiries to achieve little more than closure on an issue. The country pays for a feeling of catharsis, and moves on. It’s even possible to argue that this is the principle reason for having them, and that even if they achieve only that much, it was still money well spent. A report is issued, perhaps some recommendations are made, and everyone feels that something has been done. But when we are encouraged to disagree with the findings, there can be no closure: the end of the inquiry is merely the middle of the process of getting over the problem. Something has to mark an end, because otherwise the debate will drag on. A good inquiry calms the emotions, but a good debate can keep them running high for ever.
In the case of Hutton, we’ve thrown a couple of million and a judge at a contentious issue, and come away with less agreement than we started – mostly because in the course of the inquiry we gained such a huge amount of public information that now everyone has their own opinion. Can we really hope that any future inquiry will provide anything more useful? And if they keep on being run like this, isn’t there a concern that the country will start drowning under completely unnecessary levels of detail? If the Hutton inquiry, by its narrow bounds and disputed findings, spawns a whole series of other inquiries, we may be risking not only the credibility of the government and the BBC, but also our ability to function as a country. “I’m sorry, I can’t possibly work today; I have to read through evidence from Philip Stevens.” But he’s a typist at the Department of Agriculture – and you’re a cardiovascular surgeon. “Yes, but this concerns us all.”
No, it really doesn’t. We have inquiries to look through mind-numbing levels of detail for much the same reason we have scientists to build huge telescopes, peer through them, and tell us what it all means. We can’t be experts in everything: there’s just too much of everything out there. Plus most things, to most people, are incredibly dull. I don’t want to spend ten years watching wasps in a laboratory somewhere in the south of England, and the scientists who do probably don’t want to do my job either. And neither of us wants to wade through thousands of pages of testimony looking for the interesting bits – so we have judges, and clerks, and journalists to do it for us. The same basis allows our democracy to work – the electorate can’t be expected to form a useful opinion on every issue of government, so we elect representatives to do it for us. Anything else and our entire way of life would grind to a halt.
So yes, by all means let us have another inquiry. But, with the aim of still having a functioning economy in the summer, let’s get it right this time. Make sure all parties are happy with who is running it. Make sure all parties are happy with its scope. Make sure there is the time to do it properly. And then until it’s finished, please, for the love of God, let’s talk about something else.
L Hendy has written a letter to Metro. L Hendy says:
We have to understand that Tony Blair cannot let the Iraqi women out of prison, as they know how to make bombs.
Presumably the hundreds of arsonists in our prisons should similarly never be let free. Or any financial fraudsters who happen to know some interesting uses of nitrates.
Idiot.
With having babies now being a patriotic duty for women, and in light of the news that many women earning over £50,000 are single (according to the Evening Standard, who aren’t citable online, bastards that they are), are we going to see a change in the rape laws to legalise bands of horny men gang banging their way around St Katharine Docks? Juicy accountants, broadcasters and deputy policy commissioners, David – you know you want to.
Talk To Rex 