Highlight

Okay, I'll post this as if it were still Thursday.

You know what today's highlight was? You'll never guess.

Oh all right, I'll tell you.

It was the sight on TV this afternoon of Scooby-Doo's Velma and Daphne together.

Belly dancing.

That scene alone has fulfilled one of my oldest adolescent sexual fantasies, going back to the last century. :)

They repeat this show, don't they?

This is right up my street

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Strength

The greatest lesson you can learn is something you can take from a dying man.

If you know how the dance ends, you don't have to give a damn from anyone how and where, and with whom, you step out.

Thanks, Mr W.

Courage, mes amis.

That's rich...

"Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil"

This is yet another simplistic "Let's laugh at the Samhain-bashing bumpkin priest" post, this one with an embedded video on the page.

But let's take a step back for a moment, okay, and look at the parish this Protestant priest is trying to protect.

Derry, in Northern Ireland.

If he really wanted to stop people "following a multitude to do evil," why the hell weren't he and his counterparts in the RCC next door even remotely interested in putting a stop to thirty years of The Troubles?

You know, all the bombings, beatings, kneecappings, arson, gun smuggling and armed squaddies on every street corner shooting out milk bottles on doorsteps because they could have been IEDs?

That thirty year period of gross bigotry on both sides that people still can't speak on without snarling and gnashing teeth to this day, remember? Those Troubles?

Drokk me.

Wi - Fi Stunt Refutes Mandelson's Meddling

Watch this video

Basically, the ISP TalkTalk arranged a small demonstration to show how the proposed change to the law forcing ISPs to cut off file sharers can easily be circumvented by sufficiently determined consumers.

Yes, "consumers." Not "hackers" or "smart criminals working for Eastern European gangs" or any of the tropes the media would love to throw in our faces to blind us to what's going on, but ordinary consumers.

Mandy should give up. So should those dinosaurs he takes instructions from, In the long term, they are never going to win the war.

On a side note, does anybody else no longer give a stuff either way for any of the musicians and bands doing the rounds any more, regardless of whether they are pro-file sharing or pro-greed?

I mean, when Lily Allen steps out onto the red carpet of the Mercury Awards in yet another slinky dress, you have to realise that it's the consumers who have paid for that dress - so why should I want to put one penny into the bitch's pocket for telling us that we'll have to pay for her music or face being cut off?

Me, I look at the options and think "H'mm. If I don't buy Lily Allen's music, she gets to wear rags to the Mercuries and I get to keep my internet connection. Win.

"If I do buy her music, I watch her wear silk to a party that I'd never get an invite to in a million years, and even then I may run the risk of having internet access cut off because some other consumer next door used my ISP for file sharing rather than risk his own. Fail."

I hate the musicians who come over saying "You'll have to pay, because otherwise we'll be poor." Because I am wont to retort "But we have never been anything but poor - and you got in because of your rich Daddy so you have never been anything other than rich!" followed by some two-word invective or other.

This argument is not just about music. It is about power, and censorship, and the same old hidebound people in boardrooms miles from the street suddenly seeing how that power has been slipping from their hands - and perhaps they never had it in the first place. It's an argument which goes back to the Seventies (when Roddy McDowall got into legal trouble for sharing video tapes and film reels that the companies had slated for wiping and trashing). And they can try what they like: we the consumers will adapt. We always adapt.

After all, we know this technology better than they ever could.

The Daily Fail and the Disturbing Homophobic Stephen Gately Hatchet Piece

I just spotted a link on livejournal_uk from queerunity who had this post about an article written by Jan Moir in the DailyMail newspaper on the death of the late Boyzone singer Stephen Gately.

This disgusting hatchet piece by journalist Jan Moir can be found here. Titled "A Strange, Lonely and Troubling Death," the journalist rants on about how it was Stephen's homosexuality that basically claimed his life.

An example:-

"Through the recent travails and sad ends of Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and many others, fans know to expect the unexpected of their heroes - particularly if those idols live a life that is shadowed by dark appetites or fractured by private vice."

Also ...

And we are not being ghoulish to anticipate, or to be mentally braced for, their bad end: a long night, a mysterious stranger, an odd set of circumstances that herald a sudden death.

Oh, FFS.

For those impelled to act to demand that the newspaper rescind this vile piece, some contact details will be listed below.

Associated Newspapers Limited
Northcliffe House
2 Derry Street
London W8 5TT

020 7938 6000

News and features - 020 7938 6000 / news@dailymail.co.uk
Send letters to the Editor at letters@dailymail.co.uk

Edit: Here is Charlie Brooker's response to the Jan Moir article. Read this. It'll set your mind at ease knowing that few journalists are as intoxicated by bigotry and hatred as Jan Moir.

Doctor Who's Barry Letts

The TV actor and Doctor Who director and producer Barry Letts apparently passed away one week ago today, on October 9, 2009. I only just found out about this today. :(

One week on, the Doctor Who site has put up a tribute to this remarkable man whose works filled my childhood with many happy memories.