Torchwood and Top Gear

Torchwood … now what is that all about?

I get the impression it’s a very popular programme on British television. I have seen one episode on BBC World and some trailers and documentaries telling us how the special effects work. In my opinion it’s probably only second to Top Gear in its crassness.

Tell me you disagree but it’s pretty amateur to me.

Top Gear! Today I happened to see that long haired girl flying a barrage balloon with a caravan strapped to it. It was flying out of control and when it floated across Norwich Airport’s live runways and air space I felt the time had come to close that stupid programme. As the girly presenter was imploring them not to scramble the police helicopter, he crashed into a wood and the shame of it is that he wasn’t even hurt a little bit.

Call it nonsense entertainment with cars and a girly presenter, a small unfunny man and Jeremy “Jemima Puddleduck” Clarkson the utterly untalented and that’s fine. To pretend that Top Gear is anything else is an insult.

DW

Air Con: give it a swerve

Following that bad touch of bronchitis I had at the start of this year, brought on by thinking having a room heater on 24 hours a day was a good idea, I said to myself … never again.

It’s hot here now so I put the air conditioning unit on for just five or so minutes a time three or four times a day. Guess what? I’ve got the sniffles!

First time I switched it on, a load of fine dust came flying out. Since then, no dust and I really have had the thing on for no more than five minutes or so.

These things are so unhealthy and should be avoided at all costs. However, I am fighting the sniffles.

DW

Moscow Snippets

The trouble with Facebook is that it is keeping me away from here. I am posting photos there and bits of what I am up to. The photos: well, I wouldn’t post so many here anyway.

I recently spent a fantastic week in Moscow and have uploaded a lot of photos to Facebook. Here are just a few with a tiny commentary.

Firstly, my favourite painting from the Tretyakovsky Gallery

This is a portrait of VA Perovsky and I love his individuality. If you go to the gallery, just compare this portrait with the portraits of just about everyone else there!

Also from the Tretyakovsky Gallery but I was tired by this time so I took long range photos as I sat on a bench and zoomed in using the camera. Lazy way but smart and not an especially important painting!

Statue of Peter I: this is a MUST SEE statue. The Soviets and now the Russians have a monopoly on the world’s best statues, on average. Here’s one of their newest, on a bend in the Moscow River. It’s huge but I love it although most Muscovites don’t, apparently:

From the Polytechnicheski Museum … Felix the Cat?

Anyone know what this is? Answers on a postcard.

Metro sign:

From Moscow Zoo: my favourite bird photo

Another major statute, also at Moscow Zoo: Pushkin’s tales or something!

Well, there you are … some of what I did and where I went in Moscow. Fabulous weather, by the way, all week!

DW

Fran for London 2012

Time to help to publicise Fran.

Daughter Fran is well on the road to the London Paralympics in 2012, next year.

The Olympics organising committee has just announced that they are looking for 8,000 Olympic torch bearers and Fran has let it be known that she’d like to be one of them! I agree. So, take a look at this:

http://www.fran-williamson.co.uk/latest-news.html

Where you will find a lot of information about Fran and the link to nominate her as torch bearer. It doesn’t say so and in case you don’t know, Fran lives in Cambridgeshire … it’s a question on the nomination form!

Take a look at this, too: http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/news/countdown_to_2012_paralympics.html

Fran’s new publicist Chris is doing a good job for her!

DW

You know you’ve a good idea when …

… someone steals it and claims it as their own.

It happens now and again and happened yesterday.

I am strong!

DW

Beatification of Someone

Please stop this nonsense. Someone is going through the process of beatification in Rome. The miracle that is supposed to have started this is far from confirmed: what is worse is that the supposed miracle comes from a Nun … someone whose psychology is probably already suspect in terms of something like this.

Still, they have done it now and the world will shortly see its first celebrity Saint, thus opening the door to the ghastly spectre of future Vatican TV showing programmes such as

• Big Saint
• Come Sainting
• SingalongaSaint
• The Saint Factor

All future Popes can probably expect to be elevated from now on.

Mugabe was invited and went to the ceremony too and that can’t be right can it?

The is perfect Church politics and nothing less. It has nothing to do with reality let alone spirituality.

DW

It’s Official: it’s amazing!

It’s official: the wedding yesterday was amazing … the Queen said so as she arrived back at Buckingham Palace.

Let it be said that I have not watched a Royal Wedding since I have no idea when! Charles, no; Anne, never; Andrew, as if; Edward, pshaw … any others?

On behalf of a friend in a country far away who was trapped in an office without access to a television, I turned official wedding photographer. OK so snaps using a 3Mp camera in a BlackBerry Bold is hardly the stuff of photographic heaven. However, I provided a running commentary on colours of outfits and then the first official photos of the bride’s dress. Within a minute or so, my photo had gone around the world and people in that office were delighted.

The IMOM strikes again! Glad to be of service ma’am!

As to the wedding: imagine being the woman, much more than the man, who has such a superb choice of venue, order of service, dress, reception, palace, soldiers. For Britain, this is a magnificent contribution to the marketing of the country. No one on the planet who loves a parade and some ceremony can deny that yesterday’s spectacle was magnificent.

Hundreds of millions of Pounds will pour into Britain as a direct result of this ceremony: it wasn’t even a State event!

As for the drivel spoken by so called commentators and people in the crowds … they’re such nice people, he’s really down to earth … tripe. All tripe and really uncalled for. The Royal Family is among the world’s most privileged group of people: not just for inherited wealth but for access and isolation. They can really go where and do what they want, when they want and hang the consequences. Just look at the behaviour of the Duke of York: lambasted for his behaviour in his roving business ambassador role.

Then the people highlighted by the BBC as they entered the Abbey. The Beckhams and Elton John: the zenith of British society? I think not! And that Tara Palmer Blah Ma … hardly the epitome of role models for young girls.

Overall, a fabulous day out for Britain shared by the world and it’s something we do well in the UK. Would I sack the palaces today and disband the royalty, though? Yes!

I chatted to people throughout the day from half a dozen countries around the world and they ALL watched the wedding and loved it: or they looked in awe at my photographs and my mini commentary and loved it.

Crack on with normal life now!

DW

That Middleton Girl

A wedding is taking place tomorrow in London as the world knows. By ACCIDENT, I have been caught by the odd programme on the BBC as it whirs away in the background. How they can drag out people like Piers Morgan to provide an “insight” into these people is a mystery: what we get from the likes of him is sycophancy and nothing less. Oh! He (Bill) is so funny, he is so charming, he is so clever … She (Cate) is charming, she is so beautiful …

They show Cate growing up and when they show a photo and say she was the most beautiful girl in her year, her school, her village, the world, I find myself looking round to see if another, parallel universe, has opened up around me.

She was ordinary, she is not far from ordinary. There are already deeply chiselled lines down her cheeks. Yes, she is fine but let’s agree on that.

Tomorrow there will be a fantastic touristic spectacle that is good for Britain but can we leave the crap in the crappery?

DW

Telephone Time bomb?

I am sitting here knowing that my mobile phone may well have been ruined.

I was happy to see that BlackBerry have made their OS version 6 available for my phone so I was installing it. There is a warning that says

During these steps do not disconnect your device or interrupt this process as it could make your device unusable.

So, there was a power cut and the wifi connection was lost. The downloading of files seems to have stopped now.

Can’t blame Gates for this one.

DW

Microsoft Comes … second

You can’t say I didn’t give them a fair crack of the whip because I did.

I downloaded and installed IE9 in spite of major problems with getting it done. It looks alright and I have used it and then given it a test: after all, it claims to be slick, fast …

I asked IE9 to go to my own web site www.duncanwil.co.uk … I counted to 9 then my home page loaded. I then asked it to find www.bbc.co.uk and counted to 15 this time before it opened.

Then I used Chrome for the same tasks:

• my site opened within a count of 3
• the BBC site opened on the count of 7

Any more need to be said Mr Gates III?

DW

These 1,000 People who Rule the World

Anyone who comes here and to my Facebook page knows that I think the British Foreign Secretary, a certain W (Billy the Beer) Gaygue is less than a full shilling. I was astounded to see in a poll in the Economist that more people think that he would be a good replacement for Faux PM Cameron if Cameron were to step down than any other senior Tory politician. This is astounding because Gaygue is a serial nonentity albeit one who has done very well for himself.

Gaygue’s track record includes wandering around his home town at the age of 14 telling people how he was going to be prime minister; his time at the Oxford Union in which he incompetently mismanaged a simple ballot; his far right leaning tendencies in Europe; his “gay incidents” during the last election campaign; his schoolboy style announcement that he and his equivalents around the world set world foreign policy by text message (lol); his claim that Gaddafi had fled to Venezuela; the SAS debacle in Libya … and on and on.

Yet on the news this morning, there he was spouting some nonsense analysis about the UN Libya no fly zone pronouncement that a 16 year old studying politics would have been ashamed of.

Then again, have you seen that Clinton woman recently? Wild eyes, hair a complete mess, clothes looking like Bill has slept in them.

These two people are unfit to lead yet look at the positions they are in.

Eeesshh!

DW

It’s in the Stars

On my iPod I installed an app called APOD: astronomy picture of the day. Go to apod.nasa.gov to sign up for this free service. Every day, almost anyway, I receive a new photo from space. Many of these photos are outrageously fabulous. Here are links to just three of them.

Two of the photos I have chosen appeal to me as much from a photographer’s point of view as an astronomer’s point of view. The third photo is not new but it’s just such a nice image of the moon.

Time Lapse Photographs

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap110314.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap110310.html

The Moon

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap110303.html

DW

Fatties … not only Wal Mart

No sooner had I uploaded my previous post than I followed the reference and found the following, less surprising I think but still useful lessons for us all … including policymakers.

The connection between petrol prices and obesity

I find evidence of a negative association between gasoline prices and body weight using a fixed effects model with several robustness checks. I also show that increases in gas prices are associated with additional walking and a reduction in the frequency with which people eat at restaurants, explaining their effect on weight. My estimates imply that 8% of the rise in obesity between 1979 and 2004 can be attributed to the concurrent drop in real gas prices, and that a permanent $1 increase in gasoline prices would reduce overweight and obesity in the US by 7% and 10%.

Citation

Charles Courtemanche. "A Silver Lining? The Connection Between Gasoline Prices and Obesity" Economic Inquiry (2010).

I am not sure the following is as clear cut as anyone who has stopped smoking knows, an increase in weight usually follows. I present here anyway since the author has done the research and I have not!

Rising Cigarette Prices and Rising Obesity

Economists have begun to debate if the rise in cigarette prices in the US in recent decades has contributed to the nation's rise in obesity, reaching conclusions that are surprisingly sensitive to specification. I show that allowing for the effect to occur gradually over several years leads to the conclusion that a rise in cigarette prices is actually associated with a long-run reduction in body mass index and obesity. This result is robust to the different methodologies used in the literature. I also provide evidence that indirect effects on exercise and food consumption may explain the counterintuitive result.

Citation

Charles Courtemanche. "Rising Cigarette Prices and Rising Obesity: Coincidence or Unintended Consequence?" Journal of Health Economics(2009).

DW

Fatties … not only Fast Food “Restaurants”

The following summary speaks for itself and I have to say I was surprised at the extent of the ruination of modern supermarkets.

Spread of Wal-Mart Supercenters Linked to Obesity

Research suggests that one additional Wal-Mart Supercenter per 100,000 residents increases individuals' probability of being obese by 2.3 percentage points, say Charles Courtemanche of the University of North Carolina and Art Carden of Rhodes College. The researchers, publishing in the Journal of Urban Economics, say their study implies that proliferation of Wal-Mart Supercenters, which offer food at highly discounted prices, explains 10.5% of the U.S. rise in obesity since the late 1980s.

Source: the daily stat from the Harvard Business Review 9th March 2011

DW

Offensive? Then don’t include it

I know it’s not the first time it’s happened but I have just seen the start of a programme on BBC Entertainment and the announcer said:

the following programme contains offensive language and parental guidance is advised

Excuse me, but if they have to warn us all that there is OFFENSIVE language and parents have to be careful then that suggests something is wrong. So here is my solution: STOP including offensive language in your programmes, it really is NOT necessary.

I can imagine bad words without hearing them. I can imagine frustrations from a gangster or someone trying to be funny on a chat show.

Dear BBC: I DO NOT NEED TO HEAR ANYONE EFFING AND BLINDING MORNING NOON AND NIGHT.

DW

Arabs’ Got Talent

Britain’s got Talent … not compared to this it hasn’t.

Whilst it seems that a quarter of the UK population is glued to their television sets every time some untalented amateurs slither onto their screens, they ought to take a look at something better.

I have just seen a young lady on Arabs’ Got Talent and she wasn’t a scruffy or obese and untalented warbler, she was young and fit and slim and she did an excerpt from Swan Lake … ballet dancer. Nice music and nice dancing.

Of course, I couldn’t understand anything the judges were saying but they were following the usual formula of having two kind judges and one loopy judge. How do I know that if I don’t understand the language? The audience’s reaction told me.

Take a break from the dross and do something better.

DW

Take the Chargers

When you go on holiday or on a business trip or even just to stay with your relatives, don’t forget to take the battery chargers for your camera and video camera.

Just a thought: not that I just did that and have had all batteries die on me! Another top tip from yours truly!

DW

Jack Straw: yet another pile of utter nonsense

Jack Straw was a student’s union activist and became a high level member of Government.

A couple of years or so ago he created a storm when he let it be known that he asks Muslim women who went to visit him for advice at his MP’s surgery to remove their veils. That give rise to a lot of irrelevant and racist comments from around the country.

He’s done it again today with an announcement that the reason that some men rape and abuse women is because they are from the Indian sub continent and don’t respect our non Muslim women. What makes me cringe is that this man is taken seriously and he is allowed a lot of air time and printing space to vent his bile.

Put me in charge of British media and he wouldn’t get a look in.

Clown.

DW

You can’t beat that Gates

This is a winner … after the usual Windows Vista nonsense has unfolded over the last fortnight or so, Windows has decided it’s time to reveal that is knows all about my problems and the solutions available to me.

I spotted the notification and clicked to open it, only to see this:

Problem Reports and Solutions (NOT RESPONDING)

I think it’s an absolute hoot Gates!

DW

Matt Frei: biased or just stupid?

I don't have much time for BBC journalist Matt Frei: he ranks along with Andrew Harding as a clown.

This morning, Frei introduced an item on the idea the Chinese are considering a law to make sure that children look after their aged parents to ensure any problems are minimised.

Frei asked the BBC Beijing correspondent, who clearly had very little understanding of the proposals, "Just how unpopular is this proposal?"

Who said it was unpopular? Yes, they quoted some people who highlighted some concerns; but who is Frei to say ergo it is an unpopular measure?

Clown.


DW
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device