Attention American Readers

There is a 33 year old man in West Palm Beach Florida named Nicholas Atwood.

Here's an article about him.

Here are edited highlights:

The Sunday Times, February 19, 2006

Unmasked: animal extremist waging war on Oxford

Insight

THE mastermind behind an animal rights campaign inciting violent attacks against Oxford University academics is revealed today as a 33-year-old former arts promoter based in Florida.

From his detached home in West Palm Beach, Nicolas Atwood runs a website which last month urged violence on all staff and students at Oxford over plans for an animal research laboratory.

Last week the site circulated a list of 40 named academics and their home addresses, saying that they were “legitimate targets”."

Let me put that last line up again:

"Last week the site circulated a list of 40 named academics and their home addresses, saying that they were "legitimate targets".

Just thought you'd want to know.

Increase use, increase commitment

From www.cynopsis.com:

According to a new study by TNS Media & Entertainment conducted in 2005, DVRs and VOD effectively reduce subscriber churn when operators can correctly market and program VOD services, because DVRs can increase the number of channels watched in a household each month by nearly 50%. DVR by itself stimulates the viewing of four additional channels per month, and VOD adds seven channels. The number of channels used by subscribers direct impacts their commitment and loyalty, and while TNS says pay channels benefit most, many basic channels also increased their audience among DVR and VOD users.

It's all a matter of perspective

This kind of thing puts any little kerfuffle I experience into perspective (via Norm's blog):

"Iran once again upset Jewish organizations and raised Western ire by questioning the Holocaust. This time, Iran proposed sending a team of investigators to conduct on-site inspections of Nazi concentration camps, in advance of a Tehran-sponsored conference to debate the "real scale of the Holocaust."

Norm's take? Brilliant as always:

"If there were a genuine interest in historical research on the Iranians' part, then that should obviously be encouraged. It would help to counter the lies currently being sponsored by President Ahmadinejad."

"But there are reasons for thinking that the team to be sent to Europe 'to investigate the true scale of the Holocaust' is not a serious proposition. If they really want to investigate the matter they could start by examining the voluminous extant scholarship and take it from there. A visit to Auschwitz undertaken in bad faith is not likely to produce robust research findings. In circumstances suggesting that this is an ideologically-driven move, one can see why the authorities might want to deny the Iranian team access."

"The Poles, after all, have some basis for knowing what happened on Polish soil during the war: not only Auschwitz-Birkenau, but also Chelmno, Maidanek, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were located there. And as Auschwitz is a memorial site, its custodians are not bound to allow access to those they have grounds for thinking want this only to abuse it - to mock the dead by denying what befell them."

Yesterday at Speaker's Corner, there was a muslim guy, up on his ladder, and as we got into earshot I heard him respond sharply to a man in the crowd near him - "that's typical Jewish thinking, typically Jewish thinking". I felt sordid, was relieved to agree to "ah, let's go".

Forewarning

The Sunday Times publishes a ten year old interview with the bin liner himself:

"We want to bring the Americans to fight us on Muslim land," he said as we walked through the woods in the high mountains at Tora Bora. "If we can fight them on our own territory we will beat them, because the battle will be on our terms in a land they neither know nor understand."

Fact: The coalition forces have fought and thrown his lot out of power there.

Fact: His followers' battles nowadays revolve around terrorising the common folk, always the way with minority groups who combine violence with inhumanity to get their way.

Hey, it's a good plan! Lots of people give up in the face of outrageous inhumanity, from the Holocaust to the present day. The nazis were masters at putting down resistance groups, razing the villages of Czechoslovakia, killing the people of Oradour-sur-Glane four days after D-Day. It was standard operating procedure, worked a treat and is still in operation today wheresoever evil men congregate.

The article continues:

"We are witnessing part of that plan now, in the battlefields of Iraq, which has become a breeding ground for the most ruthless and militant Al-Qaeda fighters we have seen."

What rubbish. The breeding ground is not on any battlefield. That cruel and squalid mentality exists before any battle takes place. The plotting and planning goes on far away from battlefield distractions.

They have chosen their battlefields carefully, for full affect - the holy places of worship, child filled schools, blossoming markets, funerals, public transport, training grounds of the fledging security services - all of these are the key sites of what appalls Al-Qaeda most - people trying to live in peace and harmony and safety.

What kind of mentality wants to obliterate that? Understand it for the human mentality it is.

"In the process we are discovering the new face of Al-Qaeda, as a movement involved in bloody sectarian strife against fellow Muslims. "

New face? New face? For thousands of years evil men have fought inhumanely for power. Every corner of Europe has its battlefields. The British Isles have recent examples in London, Manchester and Omagh.

Do you ever wonder about the role of evil in the scheme of things? I think it's part of human nature for a reason. Possibly to test us. How far will one go to stop wrong doing?

A friend got cross with me a while ago. "Why do you care about them? Why do you waste your time and energy? They don't care about you." That's a good point and there's no simple answer.

At Speaker's Corner yesterday, the chilling wind swept over the passionate, hate filled ranters, no answers there. The opinion pages of the antique media, again, no helpful answer. Blogs? Well, maybe one day.

The article continues:

"Furthermore, Al-Qaeda's supporters in Iraq are the minority Sunni Arabs who have been marginalised by the aftermath of the occupation, isolated from the state institutions in a rather humiliating manner, and are eager for revenge and the resumption of power."

"Militarily, Al-Qaeda has since been increasingly hardline and ruthless in Iraq, demonstrating indifference to "collateral damage". Zarqawi has long been waging an anti-Shiite campaign with the express intention of fomenting the sectarian strife we are now witnessing."

You know when you're marginalised and you just decide to behead everything in sight? Yeah, I don't get it either.

Language becomes debased when a writer works hard to craft a euphemism for killing children such as "collateral damage".

Now this is interesting:

"Civil war in Iraq could rapidly spread through the region. Many Sunni leaders are already unnerved by the growing influence of Iran in Iraqi internal affairs, and sectarian tensions have been brewing in several countries including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon."

And Dublin on the weekend, oh sorry, different and criminal tensions at play there after all.

"To understand what happened next, and to see how this obscure figure has emerged to such prominence, we have to look at the strange world of pre-invasion Iraq."

Nowhere does the writer suggest that western antique media has played a role in this "obscure" figure's prominence.

"He brought a new level of psychological terror to operations with his ferocious reputation."

Beheading and terrorising innocent civilians is neither new, nor a psychological "level" - but it sure sounds dramatic.

"The new generation of Al-Qaeda leaders is in place - with Zarqawi and the Suri among them - and the organisation has become even more hardline as a result. The new ruthlessness about relentless violence directed at a wide range of targets in Iraq is clearly designed to shock and terrorise their enemies. But Iraq has now become a platform from which to launch international operations."

"Al-Qaeda is not only attempting to destabilise the western world, but the whole of the stagnated Middle East."

Forewarned is forearmed.

Instant Judgements

Yesterday in my building, a ramshackle crew of students were photographing and filming around the ground floor foyer. They piled their equipment - tripods, and boxes and canvas bags, over every sofa in the main hall. Leads snaked over the floor. No one "official" from our building had thought to put a notice up, and no one was watching to see that they behaved themselves.

It got me thinking. There isn't any corner of the earth where people don't try things on, is there? Why is everyone surprised by the rioting in Dublin, the terrorist activitiy after Sodhim was outsted, the kerfuffle over the published cartoons?

The way a society is run is based on two things - a common agreed belief in fairness and a common and fairly applied system of retribution. It's why no one parks outrageously in central London anymore. One little mistake can get your car towed, enormous fines and hours of just getting everything sorted. The authorities have made it very unpleasant if someone tries to cheat while parking.

So we have a template to hand. Let's copy it.

Father of Account planning - Dead

Stephen King has died.

I'm just called John Griffiths and he's gutted. Look on his website for more.

I know, I know, joint fatherhood with Stanley Pollitt, but Stanley's been dead for ages.

Jeremy Bullmore has written a really nice obituary in Campaign this week:

"Stephen King died exactly a week ago. And 92.76 per cent of those he entertained, illuminated and inspired won't even know who he was. The other 7.34 per cent have lost an irreplaceable friend and mentor.

Stephen loved mocking the spurious use of absurdly precise statistics. I hope he enjoys these. They are certainly spurious but they contain a truth.

He was a Greats graduate - he knew the classics and forever obeyed their disciplines. After Oxford, he joined Mond Nickel, before deciding he wanted to be part of advertising. In 1957, he joined J. Walter Thompson. Between then and the end of 1988, when he retired, this is a fraction of what he did.

He turned proposition theory on its head. He invented and propagated an extremely simple, utterly workable way of setting advertising strategy so it liberated rather than restricted creative thought. Concurrently and coincidentally, he and Stanley Pollitt of BMP identified the need for a new way of setting advertising strategy so it liberated rather than restricted creative thought.

Concurrently and coincidentally, he and Stanley Pollitt of BMP identified the need for a new, specialist agency role, that of account planner; and he formed and led the world's equal first account planning department. He was a brilliant account planner himself, and earned the awed respect of clients such as Guinness, TSB, Kellogg and Bowater Scott. When RHM asked JWT how they might make more money from flour (to cut a long story short) he led the team that invented Mr. Kipling. He wrote and published an excellent book, Developing New Brands, and more than 40 articles, including the prescient, timeless What is a Brand?. His papers, intellectually rigorous and models of clarity, were regular award winners.

He never showed off, never used jargon (unless to parody it) and could spot - with guts of contagious delight - bullshit at a hundred paces. His influence can be detected throughout the world but goes largely unattributed. Only that fortunate 7.34 per cent of us know just what the man achieved and how much we owe him.

The collected wisdom of Stephen King already exists - but not in one piece. If no-one steps forward to perform the task of publishing the Stephen King Collection, it will be the ultimate proof that ours is a truly trivial trade. "

iTunes reaches one billion

From www.cynopsis.com:

iTunes announced yesterday it has sold/downloaded its one billionth song, which was Speed of Sound by Cold Play. iTunes has been in service for just three years. Since iTunes began offering videos to download in October, it has surpassed more than 15 million video downloads in a little over four months.

Blogging Pep Talk

From Doug Petch, directing his readers to a post on Rex Hammock's blog, outlining reasons to blog, including:

3. Set up a blog for the same reasons you have a telephone or email: You need a means to join in a conversation.

5. If you run a business, blog because one day, I promise, you will be glad you have a place to respond when the conversation is about you.

A couple of weeks ago, someone who owns a firm that manages phone systems for small businesses told me that he didn't want to start a weblog because he didn't want to "compete" with the 30 million blogs "out there," -- that the level of "discourse" on 30 million couldn't be that high.

I then said to him, "I could apply the same logic and come to the conclusion that I shouldn't have a business telephone. That reasoning would lead me to forego having a telephone because I'm competing with 300 million other "telephoners" and the level of discourse of all those phone conversations can't be that high."

Number one on your birthday

Just found this at army wife.

Find out what song was number one on the day you were born.

So this year the song was "Silly Love Songs" and next year it will be "I'm your Boogie Man" - inside family joke you all.

Not just a music channel

From cynopsis.com:

"mtvU will premiere the student-filmed and Beacon Award-nominated documentary, “mtvU Presents: Translating Genocide – Three Students Journey to Sudan” on March 12 on MTV at 11a. The documentary, filmed entirely by three college students, captures the devastation of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. mtvU's broadband channel, mtvU Über at mtvU.com, will also offer “Translating Genocide” on-demand beginning March 12."

The London Blitz

What must life have been like during the London Blitz.

I once took a tour of the Westminster Archives building. On the top floor was a section holding enormous maps from the period. Each was as big as a Mid West dining room table and covered a tiny section of London. We looked at the map for Hyde Park, covered in different coloured dots, each representing the landing spot of various types of bombs that reigned down.

An important job at that time was noting every location a bomb landed. These maps are still in use today as reference before any building permits are granted. The marks and scars of the blitz are everywhere. The Houses of Parliament were hit 14 times. St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey were hit too, as was the chapel and north section of Buckingham Palace.

Civilian casualties are incomprehensible. 400 on 9 October 1940, some nights merely 40 or so. St. George's Hospital on Hyde Park Corner treated the bulk of the wounded and ground breaking surgical procedures were developed.

On 19-20 April 1941 the first 1,000 tonne raid was launched, to honour Hitler's birthday. The biggest raid on London was 10-11 May, when 500 bombers hit, some returning for a second time. I read somewhere that they were gearing up for a third run when the weather changed. That saved London, which by that time had lost 25% of the buildings in the centre. Over 700 tons of "H.E." and 86,000 incendiaries landed between 11 pm and 5:30 am.

In my neighbourhood, the church attached to the Carmelite Monastery was completely destroyed by a doodle bug. All the buildings around still show evidence of that blast. 2,400 "V1s" reached London between June 1944 and March 1945, over 100 a day.

The most devasting of all was the V2, a 46 foot high rocket that delivered a ton of explosive and travelled at 3,500 mph. 1,145 of these rockets were launched against England, from 8 September 1944 up to the end of the War. Estimated deaths from the V1s and V2s is over 10,000.

Some of the information quoted is taken from "Walking the London Blitz" by Clive Harris.

Lights and car headlines were not allowed in the evening and that, combined with the large influx of Americans, caused the English to write, in large white letters, the way to look before crossing the street. This helpful idea is still in use today.



One final note - that photo's from an island in the centre of a big street. In London, the rule of thumb is look right first - traffic's on the left here.

Delilah

A great song from Plain White Ts.

Lady Clifton's Spirit

What is it, love
Why is your finger on my wrist
Tracing the veins
Soft fingers
Ice filled eyes
Warmth of your cheek
Cold chair, empty useless
Heart beating steady
In time but not in my time
Aching space where happiness lived
No more than I can bear
To know, to feel, to hear

Northern Irish Terrorists

There's a lot to be learned from the history of "the troubles". Just a few hard, cruel guys can adversely affect the collective consciousness as well as the safety of an entire community.

An article in the Sunday Times includes this on growing up in Ulster in the 60s:

"Though I may not have been abused as a child, the entire society in which I grew up was abused, causing me, like everyone else there, to see life through a jagged and peculiar prism. "

"From 1969 our world shrank into itself. And as the darkness closed in and the killings started, we found it harder and harder to look beyond and see ourselves for what we truly were. "

His cousin asks him to look after a suitcase:

"A week later I handed it back to him. He checked the lock. It wasn’t until months afterwards that I learnt the truth from a pal of his. The case had been packed with about £100,000 in banknotes, the results of an armed robbery. "

Criminal activity supports terrorism. It's as true today as it's ever been.

The "cartoon" riots and marches in London - what is their real purpose? Who gains? What is going on behind the scenes? When will we know the true objectives of this mayhem? I'm guessing years.

Plus - someone puts a fatwah on the Danish newspaper's editor for publishing the cartoons three months after the editor of the Egyptian newspaper does - just so we're clear about that, right?

1. What is the bounty on the Egyptian editor's life?
2. What is the bounty on France Soir's editor's life?
3. How is it paid, ie. wire transfer, cheque, notes stuffed in the boot of the car that is part of the bounty?
4. What is the reward structure for capturing the cleric who's offering the reward? If he's saying one million, why can't there be a reward for his head, say ten times the amount?

No really, I do wonder. We in the west read our papers quietly and see the big bold assertions but no one ever says - back at cha - why is that?

Has anyone ever issued one of these headline chasing fatwahs then not paid up?

We believe in freedom of speech, so let's say "every cleric who issues a fatwah will be a target, kill them and call this number for two million paid directly into your secret Swiss bank account."

Come on I'm kidding! I don't have two million knocking around to pay as a reward. How come these clerics do? They can just cut a cheque on presentation of a death certificate? I don't believe it.

Update:

There's a "minister" in India who will pay six million pounds for one beheaded cartoonist? If I was a criminal, I'd raid his home today, the guy will have some serious money in the safe in the basement, just behind that potted plant there...

Your Love is Teaching Me

Bono has a few things to say today:

"the Bush administration has funded the most extraordinarily successful Aids programme with nearly 400,000 Africans on ARVs anti-retroviral drugs.”

"Even the most staunch critics of the administration’s aid development will concede that the president has tripled aid to Africa."

"we have denounced the Bush administration when they have made mistakes, but we’re not placarding and throwing rotten tomatoes at people who are trebling aid to Africa."

“Our critics — I’ve met them in rock’n’roll in the early years and they’re the same people: cranks carping from the sidelines. A lot of them wouldn’t know what to do if they were on the field. They’re the party who will always be in opposition so they’ll never have to take responsibility for decisions because they know they’ll never be able to implement them. We get hits from the left, we get hits from the right, but in the end, every year, the world’s poor are better off for our presence.”

Finally, A Movie I Want to See

This sounds great.

"Young (Iranian) girls trying to sneak past stadium check points for football matches -- soccer to us Yanks -- are so common that soldiers have created an upper-deck holding pen to put offenders before turning them over to the vice squad. Here the girls suffer in agony. Not, you understand, over shame or repercussions of their actions, but from hearing the crowd's roar. This only reminds them they are missing the crucial match."

"They implore their equally young guards to take a peak at the game inside and perform a play-by-play of the action. The soldier in charge, a country bumpkin overwhelmed by the sophistication of these Tehran women, resorts to shouting at everyone, including his own men."

"He tries to defend the country's ludicrous rules governing the sexes to one particularly cunning girl. After he's forced to admit the rules don't seem to apply to foreign women, she exclaims, "So my problem is I was born in Iran?" "

It's showing in Berlin though, not in London, I checked the Standard last night. Hmmm, been meaning to pop over and see Antje...

Nancy Vonk on Blogging

In Campaign Magazine this week, a double page article by "advertising's most famous blogger" sets out a few things I knew and a lot I didn't. She blogs here.

Her article is written as answers to a series of questions. Here are edited hightlights:

Aren't blogs written by a bunch of losers with nothing better to do than criticise everything and everyone?

Yes, yes, yes, millions of blogs are tragic, but many others are hugely worthwhile.

Who are the blog experts?

Blogs are so new there aren't any gurus yet. The "rules" are being stumbled upon through all the mistakes and lessons learned, particularly when it comes to corporate blogs.

...should all my clients be starting their own blogs?

For most, not yet...the first prerequisite for success is authenticity.

what's to stop a company from creating a fake blog to promote its agenda?

You just don't go there...nobody "outs" better than bloggers.

Couldn't a corporate blog get lost among the millions and be a waste of time to create?

It's true that no-one is waiting breathlessly to hear your message. The really vibrant blogs have stickiness for a few common reasons. They're focused; they stand for something and stay on topic.

Do the best bloggers have incredible writing skills?

...the good ones write spontaneously (phew!); their words aren't meticulously thought through. In a context where speed and authenticity really count, this kind of under-thinking is a plus.

How will traditional, rule-bound marketers cope with approaching this powerful communications tool that cannot be controlled?

...the oxygen for blogs is truth, transparency, focus, nimbleness and constant refreshing of content.

How can agencies get involved in blogging?

Proposing to create a blog for your clients right now should be done with extreme caution.

Shouldn't a company live in fear that when they have bad news, it will be amplified on their blog?

...a blog can help neutralise some events that have PR nightmare written all over them.

...Lessons learned from "death by blog"?

I thought it was important for the people who attended that now-infamous event to hear another point of view, from a female creative director and key sponsor of the night...to say I was naive is an understatement.

Other blogging watch-outs?

Ad people already tend to live in bubbles. Blogs are our fancy new friend, but they may dumb us down in the long run. In the meantime, don't wait another day to get on the ride. It's thrilling.


Nancy Vonk is the co-chief creative officer of Ogilvy Toronto. She's the one who reported Neil French's comments about women not getting ahead in advertising because "they wimp out and go suckle something".

Rona, don't forget to send me the details on free phone calls.

Telegraph vs. Guardian

From Normblog:

"A letter to the Telegraph: "

"During the past few weeks, I have done some careful research into what is happening in Iraq. "

"I have discovered that 47 countries have re-established their embassies there. "

"The current Iraq government employs 1.2 million Iraqis. "

"More than 3,100 schools have been renovated and 364 are being rehabilitated, with 263 under construction. Twenty universities and 46 institutes are operating. Some 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary schools by the end of 2005."

"The Iraqi police force has more than 55,000 fully trained and equipped officers and there are five police academies producing 3,500 new officers every eight weeks."

"There are at least 1,190,000 mobile-phone subscribers. There is a fully independent media network of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations. "

"Much normal life is going on, although we rarely hear about it."

"And a tiny report on page 24 of today's Guardian: "

"Four children, including three siblings, were killed on their way to school yesterday as a bomb exploded on a central Baghdad street near a shop selling alcohol. "

"The target was unclear but religious extremists are known to attack stores that sell alcohol. The children, aged from 10 to 14, included two sons and a daughter of Jamil Mohammed, a market trader. "


The Guardian should know better, after all the streets of London were a target for the bombs of the Irish criminals pretending to be republicans from the 70s to the 90s. Now the Middle East criminals have taken up the gauntlet.

Pilot season

The pitch I wish we could hear:

From www.cynopsis.com:

"From CBS - Drama project 'The Way' that mixes old fashioned New England witchcraftery with the mafia, has added Riley Smith. The pilot is from Sony Pictures TV. "

Blogging and PR

Steve Rubel at MicroPersuasion is joining "the world's largest independent PR firm":

"After five years at CooperKatz, I felt it was time for me to take the next step in my evolution. So I am excited to announce that I will be joining Rick Murray's team at Edelman (the world's largest independent PR firm) on February 27 as a Senior Vice President. I will be working out of their New York office. "

This is what he said in his first post on 18 April 2004:

"The proliferation of Weblogs and RSS news feeds has changed the practice of public relations forever. Despite all of the hype about media consolidation, we are no longer living in a mass media world dominated by conglomerates."

"Today we're just as likely to be influenced by something we read on a blog like Scobleizer as we are by an article in the Wall Street Journal or a segment on Good Morning America."

"This means that the role of the public relations counselor is changing...quickly. Clients are still looking to agencies to reach key audiences. This hasn't changed. The difference, however, is now PR pros must not only secure "earned media coverage" but also know how to influence influential bloggers, many of whom are part of the audiences we covet."

"The rules of engagement are different in this world of micro persuasion. PR pros now must: 1) continually study how news spreads online, 2) identify and qualify the most influential and vocal members of their audience, 3) know how to reach these influencers and 4) learn how to easily assimilate into the audiences they want to reach by launching and promoting their own weblogs."


Media information isn't brought to you by idealistic journalists, it's brought to you by people who have an objective - to sell advertising space, or to influence opinion - which is actually the reason revenue drainers like The Guardian, the NYTimes and LA Times continue to be published.

The ancient and slightly disreputable profession of public relations has always played a part in information dissemination.

Blogs have an authenticity that is refreshing. I'm not too concerned with the quoted 7% daily readership of blogs (among US consumers online). After all, just two drops of bitters into a glass of champagne changes the drink completely.

Propaganda's Value

"Credibility is created by carefully managing the situation so that the star of the event, the communicator, looks just the way he or she is supposed to look - likeable, credibile, strong, expert, or whatever image is needed at the time. Once the image is created in the form of a celebritiy or politician, then it can be bought and sold like a commodity to advance any cause that has the resources to purchase the "rights" to the image."

Age of Propaganda, Pratkanis and Aronson, 2002

An Image can be created for any communicator including a media source.

A guy said to me the other night "you've got too much psychology on your blog". I don't think I have enough! Here are a few others who think psychology is interesting:

Norm quotes from an obituary:

"But Strawson argued that sentences are not in themselves true or false, simply meaningful; it is the statements that they are used to make that are true or false."

Dr. Sanity wonders if the "antique media" will back down when clear evidence of WMDs goes mainstream:

"Think of the "pre-reactions" as their way of being paranoidly proactive about news that exposes them for the complete idiots they are."

Mystery Pollster has an interesting article about American research studies of blog reading.

"Yes, MP is a blogger, and so he certainly appreciates Lydia Saad's final acknowledgment that despite the relatively low readership, blogs may still exert a "disproportionate influence...on opinion leaders, political insiders, and modern news media."

"But oh for some empirical data to test that hypothesis."

The statistics for my blog fascinate me. Everyone I ask directly says "I haven't read your blog in months". I get one or two comments from friends a week, that's it. Yet I get about 1,000 visitors a week. As I understand it, this is small potatoes in the blog world but fine by me! I'm still new to this and glad for the chance to practice under the radar.

Research Findings

From Nat:

"Apparently single men should look in Kensington & Chelsea for desirable, single females!!"

I got "patted" down twice yesterday, once in Portcullis House, once before going into the Stranger's Gallery at the House of Commons. What a tough job.

The guard at the Commons said to my chum "this is the most romantic thing you could think of?" which is interesting because the most romantic thing a guy CAN do is what I want to do.

Valentine's Day

Of course there's a themed article in the Times today:

"...Happy love stories are hidden. Intimacy is not public. Real love stories are, therefore, private and secret. Moreover, the rhetoric around intimacy is that it ought to be private — unless you’re in trouble, and then the troubles ought to be “talked about”. "

"So happiness gets lived out behind closed doors, while troubled relationships become part of the discourse we hear publicly. In consequence we’ve come to believe that happy relationships are fairy stories; real relationships disappoint or fail. "

Happy Valentine's Day Russell, it's wonderful that you won the Battle of the Blogs 'Best Planner/Theorist blog' category.

Smoke Free Pubs

This just in -

"Hi Carol

...need your help - tomorrow the government votes on the smoking ban - not sure if you support the full ban - but would be grateful if you could help through your blog.

Very last minute but if you could put this up this afternoon ( pretty please and some champagne at mine is in order for this lovely gesture!) i would be grateful....see email below."


I quit smoking on 14 September 2001 - after smoking all my duty frees at a clip I thought I couldn't feel any worse! I support a full ban and think the bars in Ireland are much improved these days.

The British Heart Foundation's website is:

http://www.bhf.org.uk/

So here's the email announcement:

"Hi all

We need your help to lobby for smokefree!

Tomorrow is the final House of Commons vote on smokefree legislation in England, and we've worked hard to ensure as many MPs as possible are aware that:
* Passive smoke is a proven killer and dramatically increases the risk of heart disease;
* Everyone has a right to a smokefree workplace; and
* To continue to allow smoking in non food pubs and bars will only increase health inequalities and prove much harder to enforce than a total ban.

Scotland and Northern Ireland have already decided to follow Ireland's brave and successful lead in going smokefree, and Wales seems sure to follow. Workers in England must be given the same protection from the damaging effects of secondhand smoke.

Every vote will count tomorrow, so please visit bhf.org.uk/yourvoice and email your MP, calling on them to support a total ban on smoking in pubs, bars and private members clubs.

The vote is on a knife-edge and the result could come down to a handful of votes.

Your email could make all the difference.Thanks for your help - and Happy Valentines Day from Policy and Public Affairs!!! "

Ruairi OConnor, Public Affairs Manager, British Heart Foundation

Monday Times

Great article in the London Times about blogging.

"Ultimately, however, I remain optimistic. For one thing, conservative bloggers still tend to be more tolerant of dissent than their left-wing counterparts, many of whom are about as much fun as superannuated members of the Militant Tendency. More importantly, if American bloggers often take a superficial view of Europe (we all sit on street corners begging, apparently) Europeans must take some of the blame. There simply aren’t enough of us out there working the internet. For some reason, the habit still hasn’t fully taken root on this side of the pond. Which means that, unless we rise to the challenge, the stereotypes will only get worse. Pardon my franglais, but the time has come to say “Aux keyboards, citoyens!” "

I think it's hard to take the chance that you might come off looking foolish. I've now done this in spectacular fashion - twice! You know what, you just delete it. Plus I have such a rich vein of support - people who know me and 'get' me - and that really helps. I love my friends and thank my readers. Good times.

Monday Morning Update

Dr. Sanity is "enraged" by "media pets":

"In my entire adult life, I have never witnessed such an unbelievable smear job of unrelenting and unadulterated bias and ideological bullshit that passes itself off as some kind adherence to "higher" journalistic standards. The same kind of "higher" standards that preclude publishing banal cartoon drawings of Mohammed; or showing the ruthless inhuman behavior of our enemy--out of "sensitivity"; but which eagerly makes front page news of fake Koran flushings and Abu Ghraib photos."

"There is nothing about the left and its media pets that enrages me more than the double-dealing, hypocritical, and obscene moral relativity that has taken the place of critical judgment and honesty."

"And as they all sit around congratulating themselves on speaking "truth" to power; history continues to go unreported."

A Boy Named Sue

The LA Times is quoting Carl Prine and oh does that make sense.

Here's Pine's take on the newspaper business back in October.

"Ahhh, but if they weren't so damned profitable! Publicly traded media companies regularly report double-digit profit margins. Numbers are numbers, and certainly readership and viewership have fragmented. But the NY Times still makes a huge amount of money and controls a good portion of the public debate, whether bloggers like it or not."

I've said it before. The LA Times is famous for having the greatest percentage drop in circulation in the States last year. The Tribune Company owns the LA Times amongst other things, most recently losing out in the WB/UPN realignment. Their share price has dropped over 40% in the last two years. The NYTimes share price has dropped 44% over the last two years.

Here's Prine's take on Michael Yon's writing:

"I have NO envy for Yon. Had I demonstrated his skills, I'd be fired as an incompetent."

I got up Carl's nose in October in the comments section of a post at Chapomatic. He showed his true colours - patronising, elitist and misogynist.

Here are some edited highlights:

Me: "There are myriad reports on the unprofitability of print media. "

Carl: "Too bad they don't seem to show up in public disclosure forms from the SEC. Most major print companies - and I assume mine would fall into this line - report double digit profit margins. For most industries, this would be fat times indeed! "

..."The dominant media companies currently are highly profitable. If you do not understand that, I don't know what to tell you. Obviously the SEC and I won't change your pretty little mind, so we won't try. Much of this information is publicly available. I will not speak for Fleet Street balance sheets.

Me: "Authentic and credible sources of information are what's desired. Old media no longer offers this. Blogs currently supply it."

Carl: "I must be missing those blogs! Most blogs I've seen cherrypick the stories they like from the "old media" then bloviate something about how the "MSM" aren't reporting it (which it tautologically impossible, but there you have it). Or they find a story from one media outlet and trash it. Or they take some news from one source and extrapolate from it the seeds of their own op-ed on the subject. "

Here's my favourite bit:

Carl: "Carol, your purposeful misreading of my words (perhaps they are too difficult to sound out) to construct strawman arguments is inane. But enjoy your precious little Oprah moment of catharsis. You got to talk big to a reporter. Good job. Now go brag to all the other ladies in the bridge club."

Dear Ladies of the Bridge Club, remember how I bragged about this! And a little later:

"In a certain sense, the anonymous courage of souls like "Carol" and "Subsunk" is hilarious. In another, their bile is deeply offensive.

"The only reason why I wrote “he” or “she” is because “Carol,” in the American parlance, can be either a male or female name (although it tends to show up among women)."

"It’s neither intended to be emasculating or misogynistic. The reality, of course, is that a great many people know me. I’m not sure if anyone knows you. But at least you got to talk big to a reporter, and that’s precious."

The whole thing was very enlightening.

Americans Get Irony

Living in England is a tonic. The gray skies contrast sharply with the twinkle in everyone's eye. Yesterday, everywhere I turned something funny was happening.

Two American girls asked the bus driver how to get to Harrods. He said "you need to get the bus on the other side of the street". One looked at the other and said "what did he say?". He threw me such a look!

A policeman came up to me and "just started chatting". Then he said "what do you do?" "I'm a market researcher, I get paid to ask people questions." Then we both laughed - so does he!

There's a brilliant book on the subject - 'Watching the English. The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour' by Kate Fox:

"Many English people seem to believe that we have some sort of global monopoly, if not on humour itself, then at least on certain 'brands' of humour - the highclass ones such as wit and especially irony. My findings indicate that while there may indeed be something distinctive about English humour, the real 'defining characteristic' is the VALUE we put on humour, the central importance of humour in English culture and interactions."

"...most English conversations will involve at least some degree of banter, teasing, irony, understatement, humorous self-deprecation, mockery or just silliness. Humour is our 'default mode'."

Yet Americans too use irony for comic effect. Here's Hugh Hewitt:

"Today's Lost Angeles Times, that circulation giant and revenue engine of the Tribune Company, runs a 24 column inch, page A-3 story on a "new" book by British author Philippe Sands, "Lawless World." "

An American 'Air Force Wife' writes:

"I have to wonder - what IS it about funerals that sends common sense packing? For instance, what is the criteria for choosing the people who speak the eulogy and those who make other speeches? Is it political clout? I’d always thought the pall-bearers and eulogizers should be intimates of the deceased. "

"I mean, if I've been operating under the wrong assumption about funerary arrangements, I am going to have to make a change from expecting my husband to sob through a speech about what an asset to society I was and expecting my kids to carry my heavy-ass coffin to it's final resting place. I mean, if those things that I thought were basic items of propriety are no longer necessarily enforced, I can have quite a lot of fun with this."

Then there's PJ, who's an honorary Brit after starring in all those British Airways commericals:

"All over the Muslim world there are riots and boycotts of Danish products. And I join the Muslims in solidarity (although, come on, you're Muslims, you shouldn't be drinking Carlsberg anyway). "

"...But I'm sure these depictions of Muhammad will infuriate me as much as they infuriate Muslims, if for somewhat different reasons. The cartoons are badly drawn and not very funny. I know that sight unseen, because the cartoons are European."

"I feel sorry for the angry mobs setting fire to the embassies. They should at least have gotten a good chuckle before they set out with their matches and gas cans. However, on a personal and professional note, I want to thank the angry mobs for showing up."

"I've put in some time as a satirist myself. It is the fondest dream of every wiseacre to get a really dramatic reaction from the public. Nothing is as disheartening to a humorist as having his most sardonic jibes, his most telling thrusts "laughed off." And the violent protests against Denmark, which have now become violent protests against almost all the nations of Old Europe, prove that humor truly is a form of communication that transcends all languages and cultures. The Europeans have made their little joke. The Muslims get it."

Just a Typical Saturday in London

First, stopped by the Iranian Embassy.

Twenty seven years ago Islamic fundamentalists "took power in Iran". Today there was a small, gentle protest outside the Iranian Embassy. One of the guys I spoke to has a blog.

Then went by the Danish Embassy.

Then walked around the protest in Trafalgar Square.









This guy was protesting about the congestion charge too.









This is the light and sky at 1 pm today. Bill Bryson was the first to point out that winter in England is like living inside tupperware.



Ended my travels in a pub with all the original Victorian fittings.

Things we said today

Two friends of mine did the meme in their own unique way. He's from Dublin, she's from Texas and they're engaged to be married.

Name: Lux Ion Verdin
Blog: http://imluxionverdin.livejournal.com/

4 Jobs You Have Had In Your Life
Prince in Miscellania, betrowed to the King's daughter.
Royal Aide, investigating the disappearance of the 10th squad, working for the gnome King Narnode Shareen.
Detective, investigating a murder mystery (the death of Lord Sinclair) at the Sinclair Mansion, north of Camelot in the Kingdom of Kandarin.
Archaelogical aide, working for the Archaelogical Expert, Terry Bolando, on the Digsite east of Varrock in the Kingdom of Misthalin.

4 Movies You Would Watch Over and Over
The Neverending Story (because once I started watching it, I'd have to, right?)
Once I started watching it, I could hardly have time for anything else.

4 TV Shows You Love to Watch
Xena
Buffy
Bewitched.
First 3 seasons of Charmed

4 Places You Have Lived
Varrock, in the Kingdom of Misthalin.
Xena Palace (no longer exists)
AWGate in Active Worlds
Alphaworld (in Active Worlds)

4 Places You Have Been On Vacation
Alphaworld
Mars (in Active Worlds, not the Solar System one)
Dreamland Park
Cybertown (a long time ago ... I used to have a house there)

4 GREAT Places Where you Just said "Eh..."
Alphaworld - the Starship Enterprise
Alphaworld - The Aquarium
The Baxtorian Falls in the Kingdom of Kandarin.
The mountains east of the Fremennik province, including the Ice Path.

4 Websites you visit daily
Carol's Planning Blog.
My Livejournal friend's pages.
Nothing else on an absolutely daily basis.

4 Milblogs You Visit Daily
I've never ever been to a Milblog.

4 Favourite Foods
Swordfish, caught in Catherby, and cooked over a log fire.
Shark, bought from someone.
Tuna, also caught in Catherby
Strange fruit (yes it's technically a food, even though I pick it from a strange plant, and eat it for energy)

4 Favourite "Adult Beverages"
Maxwell House Coffee
Nescafe Coffee
Maxwell House de-caff coffee
Nescafe de-caff coffee

4 Places You'd Rather be right now
East Ardougne, in the Kingdom of Kandarin.
Falador, in the Kingdom of Asgarnia.
Tai Bwo Wannai village, on Karamja island.
Sophanem, in the southern reaches of the Kharidian Desert.

Hiya Carol,

I did this meme back in January sometime.

My blog is at Livejournal, but it's mostly friends-locked posts. Only things that are public are Memes. haha

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE:
1. Customer Service Manager
2. Waitress
3. Secretary
4. Adult Novelty Sales (Best job ever *g*)
FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER:
1. Notting Hill
2. A Knight's Tale
3. Song of the South
4. Help!
FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH:
1. LOST
2. Xena
3. Hercules
4. Highlander
FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION:
1. Canada
2. England
3. Scotland
4. Ireland
FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. LJ
2. RuneScape
3. Sky News Offbeat
4. RuneHQF.
FOUR CARS YOU'VE OWNED:
1. 85 Oldsmobile 98 (only car I've ever owned)
2. Lambourghini (fastest car I've driven)
3. 69 Dodge Charger (funnest car I've driven)
4. 2000 VW Beetle (smallest car I've driven)
4 Places You Have Lived:
1. California
2. Reno, Nevada
3. Various towns in Texas
4. London
4 GREAT Places Where you Just said "Eh...":
(I assumed this meant places that most ppl find great, but I personally wasn't impressed with)
1. Mount Rushmore
2. Las Vegas
3. Texas
4. Any southern US state ;)
4 Milblogs You Visit Daily
None
4 Favourite Foods:
1. Grilled Pork Chops
2. Homemade buttermilk biscuits
3. Homemade pancakes with real maple syrup
4. Italian Food
4 Favourite "Adult Beverages"
I don't drink anymore.

Thank you so much for doing this. Isn't "thank you" lame sometimes? I'll have to figure out something that says it more compellingly.

Eurovision Song Contest for the States!

from www.cynopsis.com:

"A version of the 50-year old Eurovision Song Contest is coming to stateside. The format rights to the oldest and largest TV music competition in Europe were picked up by Ben Silverman's Reveille. NBC has already commissioned the project based on the format from Reveille. Like Eurovision, the new show will center on original songs rather than cover songs, with each U.S. state selecting a band or singer for a national competition per Variety. The winners will receive a recording contract and more. Participant rules and the premiere date details are still being hammered out."

I suppose it was inevitable. But there won't be the fun of saying "nil points" in your worst French accent when a song is unbelievably bad.

Not for the fainthearted

Do not, I repeat, do not click on this link here. It's outrageous and stupendous but not politically correct and I am not recommending it, got that?

http://www.fileitunder.com/2006/02/musical-message-for-danes-as-well-as.html

Numbers are our friends

There's a strange article in the Times today by a guy I've never heard of. But when you live in central London there are so many calls on your attention that it's hard to track everything. My filtering system includes; not watching tv news, not buying any newspaper but the Sunday Times, not reading any article beyond written evidence of "Bush Derangement Syndrome".

So when I'm short of time and the first sentence I read is:

"LAST WEEK I devoted this space to a diatribe against George W. Bush,"

I turn the page or click through to something else and also don't notice whatever is advertised around the opinion piece. Life's just too short!

However, I do like a crunchy statistic so the second paragraph caused me to hold my finger for a precious second:

"Within hours of publication I received nearly 500 e-mails from American readers. About a quarter of these emails were split between praise and rational disagreement. However, the vast majority — some 300 — were abusive to the point of obscenity."

"from American readers" - so they sent details of their passport? doesn't he believe it's in the interests of some people to make "right wing nuts" look - well, nutty?

One of the issues in market research these days is - how can respondents' identities be confirmed if the only contact is by email.

"nearly 500" - rounding up from 451? or 499?

"some 300" - rounding up from 251? or 299?

"to the point of obscenity" - there is no universally agreed measure of "rational disagreement" vs. "to the point of obscenity". I don't like this guy so don't trust his judgement, just saying.

251 out of 499 is no "vast majority" and this guy is using numbers, yet again, to confuse and discombobulate. That is getting very tiresome.

Just like a blog, this guy is giving his opinion.

But it's a new age these days and blogs are the venue for ranting opinions.

99% of cats agree with me too.

Superbowl Commercials

When Buffy was on, my cousin would Fedex it to me. I couldn't wait the three months for it to come to English tv. Heck, I couldn't wait a week for it to be posted. The commercials were fantastic - for wild mobile phones and odd Mitsubishi model cars and phone cards and make up. You could tell who media buyers thought was watching it.

The Super Bowl game on Sunday had over 90 million people watching - that's just on tv in the States. I know people who went down to Leicester Square and of course the Sports Bar and I'm sure that happened all over Europe and the world. But the grand American ritual is to get together with big gangs of people and watch it on a big screen in someone's home.

We didn't have that ritual when I was growing up. Many's the time my dad would be watching it on his own. I'd come in to see what was up, he'd switch it off and we'd play cards instead.

Watching the commercials has become part of the ritual these last ten years or so. Friends who make tv commercials work hard right through the Christmas period as the budgets for those spots are pretty impressive.

The Superbowl as a venue for impactful, brand building commercials started in 1984. MT Rainey, an attractive and clever English girl, was working as an Account Planner in the States. She learned about this once a year competition and it got her thinking. The 1984 Apple commercial, shown as an "event" during the Superbowl that year, was her idea. I haven't had a drink with her in years but she's quite low key for someone who has effected American culture so significantly.

All the commercials shown during the Superbowl are available to watch here. I'll warn you though, opinions run the gamut from "suck" to "boring". This doesn't bode well for your viewing pleasure.

The Sun Sets and She Appears

...There will be a time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be a time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

...It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen;

...We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, TS Eliot, 1917

Dear L, thank you for showing me this.

Come Hear Cilla and Lucy

They're playing the Blag Club, 68 Notting Hill Gate, tomorrow night. £3 to get in. I'll find out when they're on. We can start in the Churchill Arms and go on from there.

UK Population is 60 million

"An average of 90.7 million US television viewers tuned into the Super Bowl XL on Sunday night, giving this game the largest averages audience in 10 years. Among the coveted A18-49 crowd, it delivered a 34.6 rating."

"The game kicked off at 6:26 and ended at 10:10p, and I suppose it helped that the momentum of the game shifted between the two teams numerous times throughout all four quarters. Immediately after the post game coverage (10-10:27p), Grey's Anatomy aired on ABC and delivered an average audience of 38.1 million, and earning a 16.6 rating among A18-49."

"According to ABC, Grey's Anatomy was the third most watched telecast to follow the Super Bowl in the past 18 years, behind the Survivor II premiere in 2001, and Friends in 1996. (Final ratings for Sunday night will be in tomorrow's edition of www.Cynopsis.com)"

The Four Meme

4 Jobs You Have Had In Your Life
I didn't get paid for these:
Lowly assistant on a few pop promos
Research on night vision equipment
Babysitting my nephews when tiny
Chairman of local residents' association

4 Movies You Would Watch Over and Over
Casablanca
Local Hero
Michael Collins
Lost in Translation

4 TV Shows You Love to Watch
Buffy
History of Britain
Sex and the City
Band of Brothers

4 Places You Have Lived
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Hollywood Boulevard, LA (plus earthquake)
Just off Carnaby Street, Soho, London
The Chelsea Hotel, (6 months) NYC

4 Places You Have Been On Vacation
Northern Italy
North, middle and south of France
Prague
Georgetown, Exuma, Bahamas

4 GREAT Places Where you Just said "Eh..."
Heaven will have elements of these four places:
London - never stops being interesting
Clonakilty and the cliffs of West Cork, Ireland
Dublin
off the 50, eastern shore of Maryland

4 Websites you visit daily
I don't, I do visit a few blogs daily:
Normblog
Enrevanche
Dr. Sanity
Harry's Place

4 Milblogs You Visit Daily
I think these are milblogs:
Andi's World
Blackfive
AirforceFamily
Chapomatic

4 Favourite Foods:
Slightly bitter chocolate
A really good steak
Frozen berries with white chocolate sauce at the Caprice
Indian ready meals from Marks and Spencer

4 Favourite "Adult Beverages"
Vintage champagne
Non vintage champagne
Dry white wine (DWW)
Cognac

4 Places You'd Rather be right now
I'm pretty happy right here, right now, but...
In the 'cuzzi with my sister and a glass of wine
On the clifftop outside Rosscarbery
Checking in at any airport
Sitting beside my dad when he was working at his drafting board

Tag 4:
I'm going to ask four friends to do this, see how that goes.

Why I love Vodafone

An article about what shops get wrong reminds me to write about the brilliant service I got from vodafone.

I got a new mobile a few months ago. When the bill arrived I noticed a £7 charge for insurance. Meant to call about that but the month went by. This time when the bill arrived I did call. Spoke to a very reasonable British girl who said "we'll take those two charges off and I'll send you a credit note". This duly arrived two days later. End of story!

He's All That

Cool, calm, reasonable.

Highly persausive because of the gentleness and rightness of his logic.

This post is a good example of why Norm won best UK Blog this year.

It's all good. Here are a few highlights:

"Respect for the right of free speech and respect for the sensibilities of others are not symmetrical and no one should pretend, in the present situation, that they can be neatly balanced. If the right to free speech is under attack it has to be defended. It is not possible fully to respect it except by recognizing that it leaves in place the freedom to be disrespectful to the beliefs and sensibilities of others."

"Freedom of expression is our western heritage and we must defend it or it will die from totalitarian attacks."

Top Ten Reasons to Visit Copenhagen this Winter

10. "Copenhagen is a small city so we were able to walk around and see everything. We went to all the museums and the old castle, it's easy to get around."
9. "You really get a sense that you are close to everything, even the royal family. The changing of the guard happens right in front of you."
8. "Cafe Norden is right on the main street. We had a champagne brunch for twelve pounds and it was all the kind of food I love. Roast pork and red cabbage and fantastic bread."
7. "Here, try this. It's Akvavit, a Danish liqueur, Aalborg Taffel? I think that's the brand. It's unusual isn't it, with the dill flavour."
6. "Princess Mary is Australian. She's just had a baby and the christening robe, which is 400 years old, wasn't in the museum as they were using it. They met on the bus at the Olympics and fell in love and now she's a beautiful princess."
5. "The little mermaid is so sweet, there are all these rocks and she's out a way, on her own, on a rock."
4. "We went to see Hans Christen Andersen's grave. Usually graveyards freak me out but all the snow made it look peaceful and tranquil. There was no one else around, just us."
3. "The bridge to Sweden is incredible, it's up and then it goes down, so that ships can cross. It takes just 40 minutes to get to Sweden so of course we had to go."
2. "We took a coach tour, called the Grand Tour. The coach was warm and the guide loved his city, told us so much about the history and buildings and the royal family. That's the best way to learn history. He was marvelous."
1. Because it's in Denmark.

(Many thanks to beautiful Natalie and brilliant Andrija.)

Meme City

Linked in USAF has tagged me for one of these meme things. They're fun to do because you actually take note of how you live your life. I will give it a think and put something up tomorrow.

Shock Wave

Lisez-vous des Francais?





Inside today's France Soir is another cartoon, the four of them sitting on a cloud, consoling the bearded one "Allez, tu vois bien qu'on peut appeler au calme, maintenant...on ne va pas te faire un dessin".

"you can calm down now we won't make you into a drawing" - which is irony folks cause they just did! I don't have the guts to scan and post it, let the French take the heat for once.

Sloane Street, London

Tiny crowd outside the Danish Embassy this lunchtime. The traffic got snarled up but the shoppers just walked with their usual fast pace; past the shoes, clothes and protestors. Brits know how to treat a half hearted rumpus.

Suporting Denmark

I've told my friends (thanks JB!) it's all grist for the mill:

"Hi Carol

None of our newspapers have dared to print the Danish cartoons. It is outrageous that our newspaper editors are all so intimidated and that our freedoms are being removed. Thank God for the internet, though with Google giving in to the Chinese on censorship maybe it won't be long before that is also censored. I haven't seen any support given to the Danes by the British government or the EU yet. "

I've tried to buy bacon for the last two days at the Marks and Spencer on the high street but it's been sold out. So at least the neighbours are pro-cotting Denmark.

A bunch of twenty somethings from my building went to Copenhagen last weekend. We're off to a "private members club" on Saturday - not something I do often! But I'll find out what the highlights were and lis