3.1.04

Have you ever noticed in the modern film: 1 if anyone ever does any typing on screen, they can type at least at 50 words a minute. The best was "Scotty" in a Start Trek film who typed at 200+ words a minute on a keyboard that must have been seriously unfamiliar to him as he did this by travelling back from the future to the present day. Surely, the keyboard will evolve. If you are a computer hacker in a film, you sweat a bit, swivel in your obligatory swivel chair and crack every single code known to man within minutes ... even Fermat's Last Theorem is well within your grasp. 2 if anyone ever does any packing, they never fold anything as packing only ever follows an argument, an ultimatum and running away or a threat thereof. This means that the world's most expensive dress, shirt or suit can be flung on top of the world's least expensive dish cloth but no one seems to care. No one ever says, "Do you realise that your blouse will need ironing when you get to your hotel?" or "Come on, love, that's no way to treat a D&G LBD now is it? Here, let me fold it for you." 3 if anyone has a bad dream they always suddenly sit bolt upright absolutely dripping with sweat and then sit glassy eyed for as long as necessary whilst hyperventilating. If they are sharing their bed with someone they only ever wake up slowly and lie propped up on one elbow and say something like, "Something the matter, darling". I think I would say "What the @!$*** has happened. J*sus!". This applies to adults who have seen the devil incarnate and taken tea with him only to find the secrets of the dark side now reside in their shirt. This also applies to children whose Harry Potter books have may have been mislaid for a second or two. Any offers of more? Although I am aware that there are entire lists of these things but these are my three of the moment. DW
I have just finished reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and over the next few days I will post and you will be able to read my review of it. In general it's a good book and it's both detective story and religio historical mystical cryptographical ... well done! A lot of hearts do a lot of pounding, which seems to be very common in the modern novel and in the modern film. There's an online cryptography game on Dan Brown's website that provides a reasonably tricky set of questions to solve. One lucky winner will be drawn from the hat on Good Morning America on 12 January 2004 and will be whisked off to Paris. I cracked all the codes and entered my details to find ... you have to be American to enter. I left my details and put my friend's Californian Zip code instead of my UK Post Code. If I win, I will apologise but I didn't see any disclaimers anywhere and I felt they ought to know that I cracked all of their codes. By the way, if you have a go and want some help and you are American, I will help you for a mutually agreeable fee. Can't say fairer than that can I? DW
Following on from my New Year's Day computer tosh, I had another two hour stint yesterday. The day before, I found that despite being protected against viruses, I had acquired two of the barstewards. I got rid of them but then in the middle of my latest two hour session, I found that I had another bleeding virus. Time to act: I upgraded my anti virus software from freeby to a paid for service. I did that, ran it and it gave me the all clear. When I logged on this morning I let it run again and it didn't report any problems. Moreover, I opened up Outlook and switched on to Braodband and IE and all worked well enough: first time for ages and I hope I haven't spoken too soon! Also during the two hour session I deleted all of the software that either I don't use much and/or that I don't really know where it came from. They all went, although I do have the *.exe files to reinstall them if I want to. I still have the shutdown problem with Windows, however, that seems to be well known and that has my computer saving my settings, closing down and then just hanging with a blue screen and a movable mouse cursor ... nothing else can work and a manual switch off seems to solve the problem. Still, I have to hang around to flick the switch. I'm told it's due to a driver conflict somewhere on my system and I did install some software that Microsoft recommended but it only solved the problem once. Ah, Gates! DW
Here's a bit of a whinge. Have you seen that programme on British television called Room 101 ... very George Orwell but the idea is that a "celebrity" goes on the telly and moans about his or her pet likes and dislikes. These objects of hatred are then consigned to a dustbin and we all live happily ever after. Well, here are my four items, people in fact. Dale Winton Graham Norton Charles Ingram Chris Tarrant Dale Winton has been reviled on this blog before: I find him odious and talentless yet he adorns the television screen ad nauseam. He appeared on prime time Christmas Day television on BBC1 and again later that day; but he came in the top three of a poll recently as one of the three people that viewers most want to be thrown off the telly. I would have voted for him to be thrown off too. Sorry to be so negative but I don't like his lack of personality wafting across my screen. Moreover, he published an autobiography a while ago in which he came out as Gay. Then beggar me, two or three months later he married a young lady. @rse! Graham Norton is one of those wild people whose real persona is probably 180 degrees removed from their public persona. I don't like his antics, his effeminacy, his loud jackets. He was also in the top three of the poll that wanted rid of Winton. @rse! Michael Barrymore was the other top three candidate for being chucked off the telly but I am indifferent to him as he as almost sunk for the moment. If he came back I would still be indifferent. Major Charles Ingram is the man who was found guilty of having cheated on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?: having taken along a knowledgeable man to sit in the audience and who coughed at the right and wrong answers. As Ingram thought about his answers, his friend would cough to say yes or no ... absolutely blatant and absolutely bang to rights. They were taken to court and lost. Ingram maintains his innocence. Then he was found guilty of attempting to defraud an insurance company ... all told a bad lot. Then lo and behold I saw that he was on the telly as a "celebrity" taking part in some kind of poxy reality TV programme. Needless to say I didn't watch it but if reminded me of Christine and Neil Hamilton, that reviled couple who are making a very handsome living out of being both bankrupt and odious. @rses! Chris Tarrant hosts Who wants to be a Millionaire? and had I been writing this rant last year or the year before or the year before ... he would have been on my list of get rids. For what it's worth, he got onto children's television in the 1970s I think it was on the strength of his having applied and having been a school teacher. I always felt he had no depth to his character, his sense of humour is immature and his ability to carry on a decent dialogue is woeful. I heard a review of his morning radio programme on Capital Radio recently and he was generally slated for that by all and sundry: ratings and quality couldn't go much lower than he has taken them was the general concensus. Still, three out of four of these men are doing very well for themselves and the fourth one probably will become a millionaire now that he has become a "celebrity". The word celebrity has become a misnomer now. In the old days we had stars then we needed a superlative, superstar, then we needed megastar ... now they are all celebrities. To be a celebrity means that one is celebrated, surely. Who celbrates the people discussed here I wonder? DW

1.1.04

Heard of Bollinger Champagne? It's the one that James Bond and I both drink. Anyway, I realised last night that BOLLINGER is an anagram of an L of a Bog Liner. Don't know why! DW
Happy New Year to all our readers! Christmas came and went and I got a few books to read and set up the family with some playing cards, dominoes and a solitaire game ... for those long winter nights in front of the radiator panel: well, who has a fire these days? OK, so we have but that wouldn't be funny and post modernistic would it? An American friend has suggested that I turn my talents to writing smutty stories and selling them. How does this sound? As he looked tenderly towards the object of his desires, he licked his lips as his heart pounded and he dreamed of sliding his hand gingerly down her upper torso towards her little crock of gold! Drove down to Portsmouth the other day and having missed my final turn off from the motorway last time, I felt that it was my duty to take the turn off immediately BEFORE the correct one this time. Tried to retrieve the situation and missed the oportunity to get back on track but only because of my innate ineptitude, otherwise it would have been fine. Anyway, I drove along cursing and swearing at myself (I've got this down to a fine art now as I know exactly what to say, how to say it and in what order!) trying too look as if I knew how to get to Southsea. After 15 - 20 minutes of dodging and diving I came to the Marriott Hotel and, you've guessed it, the slip road back on to the motorway at the junction I just left ... in other words, dear reader, my navigational sense of beggar all took me in a complete circle! That was OK then and I arrived at my destination at exactly the same time as my visitees ... they had been delayed by about 40 minutes as he was taken by something in a shop. I said that God must have taken hold of my steering wheel and taken me on a tour of the nethers of outer Portsmouth while they meandered through a logistical retail experience. Then I spent around 8 hours successfully working on setting up and fettling a new laptop computer. Here's the ultimate irony, of course: the following day, yesterday, I got up to do my business and then had to spend almost SEVEN BLOODY HOURS trying to get my own laptop working properly. Unknowingly a virus had got into my system and it took me a while to realise that, cos I'm protected (sounds as if I'm protected by a condom with a tiny prick in it!!!); and then it was downhill all the way. I logged on late last night and it was playing up again so in my sleep I decided that I would do a RESTORE. "Oh no thou shall not" sayeth Bill Gates III "thy RESTORE function hast been RESET so that thou hast only one RESTORE point and that be the point at which thou hast fiddled a bit yesterday morning. Go back to thy old ways and repent. The way of the lord thy Gates is good!" So I took a more pragmatic approach. I did what I normally do and then left it to go and have breakfast. Sort yourself out I mind read at it: I couldn't do the usual verbal shout, rant and rave since others were still sleeping chez moi. It did sort itself out too ... so far anyway: otherwise you wouldn't be reading this! Happy new year anyway; and that's how mine has started. DW