The Daily Grind

If anyone reading this happens to be in supermarket stock control, this may save you some time: you’ll notice a distinct spike in sales of Pringles in Leeds. If you trace through your records, you’ll find it’s an annual phenomenon.

It’s a kids’ make&do TV thing. Richard and Rachel just walked into the office with what appears to be Morrison’s entire stock. It’s not enough; we’ll need more. We’re also worried that cardboard drums of Mini Chedders might have been a seasonal line, which would be catastrophic at this stage.

In related news: if you fancy any Pringles, let me know. Especially curry flavour. We don’t like the curry flavour ones.

A couple of noteworthy happenings of late:

My mum registered with a local doctor, a simple process. In her case, it involved six stitches to her eyebrow and substantial bruising. She’s fine, in a ‘you should see the other guy’ kind of way, but one has to suspect she got something slightly wrong somewhere. Perhaps stepping on the slithery paving slab was a mistake, do you think?

Meanwhile, my chum Vinay, inexplicably still in the US, is writing a report on sustainable development for the Danish government. Given that he’s a web developer and general geekboy, this is mildly surprising. At least, until one remembers that he could turn his mind to pretty much anything that (a.) interests him and (b.) continues to do so for long enough. This used to describe a rather small union on the great Venn diagram of life. However, of late it’s been inflating in a manner that’s somewhat alarming. Not to mention spikey and blue.

Oh, and now I’ve just noticed that the BBC’s Talking Movies uses the David Holmes-sourced title theme I was dead keen on for proto-project Envelope. Dang.

From the BBC, referring to bits of the net gumming up:

The malicious code exploits a vulnerability in database software from Microsoft, called the SQL Server, which was first identified in July 2002.

July 2002. Uh-huh. Funnily enough, the most-used piece of software on my WinXP box is… Windows Update. I’m not kidding. I’m averaging one new security fix or patch per boot. It’s simply dull.

Actually Zoe, I’m (technically) (still) writing a novel, and when I’m not at work I quite often go to the cinema on a Monday afternoon. Oh, and pensioners’ fish&chip deals are on Mondays because, traditionally, fish is rubbish on a Monday, there not having been a landing over the weekend.

Great column, by the way. I don’t miss Mil Millington at all.

Gee, that’s some puff piece. I bet Damien’s really pleased with:

Damien Wasylkiw is 25 and comes from Leeds. He has worked as a journalist for Swapitshop.com and was an unpaid presenter on student station SURE FM. He has a thirst for new and innovative music and loves making compilation tapes for his friends.

Oh, how we love those compilation tapes. [snigger]

But… I never worked on The Scoop, let alone as a Director. Weird.

I phoned in to the office the other day, and had the following exchange:

Colin: …oh, and Nikki’s very upset, because you haven’t seen her zombie skin.
[pause]
Jonathan: Is that an item, or an ailment?

We get paid to do this. Really.

France and Germany might be making softly-softly noises, but reading around the US weblog community, I keep stumbling across posts that are either blatantly belligerent, or implicitly so. I don’t know how indicative this is of American public opinion, but the blog world is not known for being dramatically right-wing. Combine that with the impending spring/summer (when weapons designed for the European theatre can reasonably be expected to pack up in the desert), and one suspects the trigger in Bush’s finger is of the hair variety. How nice.

One of the things that interests me is just why we Europeans are (a.) more circumspect about the whole affair / (b.) yellow-bellied shirkers (delete depending on your point of view). Perhaps it’s because most of our countries have done the imperial thing, we’ve had our empires rise and fall, and we’ve seen just how easy it is to utterly screw it all up. Crucially, we’ve seen the mess that’s left behind. Iraq being, of course, a case in point. Former imperial power? Britain. Oops. Sorry about that.

So call me old-fashioned, but I do think it would be somewhat good form to produce a little actual evidence, before attempting to drive tanks into Baghdad. Whether I trust Bush or not is surprisingly irrelevant – thus far, there are only assertions of guilt, and assertions do not constitute evidence. Is that too much to ask?

Meanwhile, I can only hope that the whole thing is a huge great bluff-call – ship enough materiel and troops out there and the guy has to cave, right? Please?

Actually, Sherlock is pretty handy for searching the AppleCare KnowledgeBase, but in the UK that’s about it. Until now.

Search a whole raft of UK online suppliers for DVDs. Click this Sherlock link, and subscribe when prompted. Windows users: forget it.

Two things have caught my eye today. The first is an article in the Telegraph about a company in Russia selling corporate entertainment packages with a difference (free registration required). The clients are Moscow’s super-rich elite, bored of the excess. The packages include a monthly begging trip, complete with radish-stained clothing; another shindig saw the clients playing soldier with army tanks. The latter is more like the sort of thing that goes on in the West, but in a peculiarly Russian twist the day included (a.) live firing, and (b.) caviar for the squaddies, but combat rations for the clients to ‘add to the authenticity.’

The second piece is this parent’s perspective on anorexia from Salon. A decade ago, I saw freshers torn apart by the pressure and unfamiliarity of Cambridge, unable to cope with (comprehend?) all that goes along with the transition from being the brightest kid in the neighbourhood, to being a below-average student. Chuck in social pressures they’ve no framework for understanding, and you’ve a recipe for disaster.

I saw peers reduced to gibbering wrecks, and while I helped when I could, I had no perspective myself that allowed me to judge where the firmer ground was, that I could stand on. One very close friend changed so much, I essentially never saw her again. However, Cambridge’s dropout rate is reassuringly low, and indeed most students eventually regain an even keel, chalk one up to experience, and get on with their lives. The article’s quoted 15% mortality for anorexia patients is far more terrifying.

I never saw anorexia, but I’m unlikely to have understood it then and am barely more likely to do so now. I hope everything works out for the writer of the Salon piece, and particularly for his daughter. Meanwhile, this is simple but very personal journalism of the highest order, for which I’m eternally grateful.