Hutton Inquiry

While Lord Hutton delivers a summary of his report today, I am amazed that about a fifth of Freeview’s TV channels are showing exactly the same picture. Spoilt for choice?

Google redesign

Nick has spotted that Google appear to be sporting a new design. I can’t see it myself yet – although I’ve read before that Google tend to roll out new designs fairly slowly. Looks quite tidy!

Byu Vigara Onlnie

Anybody noticed the sudden surge of emails obviously creating by people with dire spelling skills? “Buy vigara online, pruchase levtia”. Verity Stob shed some light onto it. Apparantly narcoleptics are to blame.

Of course it’s a desperate attempt to thwart those pesky spam filters. Unfortunately for us (or me at least), it appears to be working. The number of spam emails I get has shot up in the last few weeks. While I previously (and naïvely?) relied on spam filters to remove the crap – avoiding the need to employ obscure methods to show my email address to humans only – I’m now having to go back to the good old Delete key. While at the moment it’s manageable (only 50 unfiltered spam emails a day is ‘fine’), one can only imagine how much the traffic will escalate in coming months and years. Whoever figures out a complete solution for the utter riddance of these damned emails will be a very popular person.

Postmonkey

OMG, I haven’t posted since Wednesday? Well I’m beat. New Years’ Resolutions suck.

In all seriousness now, I’ve been tip-of-forehead deep in coursework. One thing I won’t miss about university is writing. I’m not sure I can’t stand it, I’m just not used to writing so much. Yes – I know that when you do Ph.D.s and become a journalist you have to write an awful lot more, but it’s a ladder thing!

What happened lately? Project progress report done. (One kind of) management coursework done. (The other kind of) management coursework is due Friday. I am going swimming tomorrow in another effort to lose my nicely rounded belly…. or something like that. I’m also getting that digital TV card I mentioned the other day. Review imminent. I’m also convinced Gary Coleman is stalking me. I was going to take photos of the Queen Mary II leaving Southampton tomorrow, but heavy rain and gale force winds are expected. Rain kills, apparantly – or at least that’s what they said on the radio. Also, I’ve started watching Gilmore Girls which is a great laugh. Alexis Bledel, co-star of the show, shares my birthday. I thought I’d share that nougat of information with you in case it comes up at a dinner party…. What else? Simon has put up some fab photos after getting some nice cameras from eBay. I wish I had more of a chance to take photos too but I’m a lazy git. Plus, Gosport’s not very photogenic. Woodge is braving -1°F temperatures in the States at the moment. I’m trying to learn French online. Je ne parlez française bonne…. or something. Next weekend I’m going to Swansea, then Cardiff. Hope it doesn’t snow. And now I need to go to sleep…

This is what writing does to me. I lose the power of paragraph.

Cold Mountain

I watched Cold Mountain tonight at Portsmouth. Jude Law plays a Confederate soldier ‘Inman’ sent to fight in the American Civil war. As the movie begins we learn through a series of flashbacks that Inman has rapidly fallen in love with the town’s Reverend’s daughter, Ada (Nicole Kidman). Ada has recently settled in Cold Mountain with her father at a farm on the outskirts of the town. Any chance of romance between the two is broken rather hastily as war breaks out and Inman is called to service. The movie progresses to follow both Ada and Inman’s struggles through life as various events lead them in all sorts of directions. Can they finally meet up, be happy, get married and have kids? Who knows. I know. I’m not telling you though.

The movie is rather long (155 min) but there’s rarely a dull moment. It’s interesting, compelling and sometimes quite amusing. The flashbacks were a bit confusing at first but this settled down later in the movie to give an overall quite enjoyable piece.

I give it 8/10