The BBC are blatently advertising Google's Talk service. The Beeb currently have the story listed 8th on the RSS feed (it was further down earlier today).

The Beeb are a bit prone to doing this sort of thing, but this article just reads like a promotion. So much for the "no advertising" policy.

The BBC is reporting a deal with Sony and BMG to provide legal music downloads. It's called PlayLouderMSP?, and uses a 'custom' broadband service.

The idea is that you pay for broadband and then get to share as much music as you like (legally). The broadband connection magically reroutes your sharing traffic to it's own servers, thus keeping tabs on what you're doing.

If you're "not bothered" then this is probably a reasonable deal (although it's expensive broadband, so you'd need to use it quite a bit to make it worth it). If you are bothered about your own online freedom and privacy, then steer clear of this. The fact they're filtering your internet connection and "diverting" some of it means they're not working like a normal ISP (who generally have charters saying they'll pass anything along without discrimination). Think about it: What if they decide to divert your iTunes traffic, or your webmail server traffic?

They're apparently responding to people's "need" to use filesharing (Kazaa, eDonkey etc), rather than downloads (like iTunes, Napster etc). However, this seems like a terribly invasive way to do it. Surely most people will just stick to iTunes/Napster and illegal filesharing?

Once again, it's clueless music industry people being clueless. Or is it?

Well Cat fans, as if the ding dong about hedges wasn't enough, I thought I'd just have a little babble (something you're all terribly un-used to ;-)

You may know I'm poshing it up in Chelsea at the moment because my flat's having a load of work done to it. I thought this would be a great opportunity to get a load of work done that I've been putting off (because I'm not very good at it). Sadly, all I've really accomplished is to prop up the alcoholic drinks industry.

Also I've been confronted by something I'm going to call the 'Firefox/Coofer Cat rendering bug' (a snappy name, you'll agree). This is where the page loads, but the browser stretches it wider than the window, so you get a horizontal scroll bar. I'm really struggling to fix it - every time I make a change, the browser decides to behave, so I think it's sorted. Then at some random time in the future (usually when I should be doing something else) it goes wrong again.

I'm planning a bit of a re-vamp, perhaps time to change the layout and look of the site. As usual, I'm aiming for "looks good in Firefox" and "works well enough in IE". Anyone got any ideas?

I've had the 'substansive response' from the Home Office after my request under the Freedom of Information Act. It's not overly enthrawling (more or less as expected), but the lack of information is almost as telling as the information would have been.

See it all on the Wiki at UKIDCards.

John Prescott tells us, "It's a democracy, not a dictatorship, for God's sake.". Meanwhile, Michael Howard says "Parliament must be supreme.".

Here we see that those that are charged with running our country are utterly corrupt. They have forgotten that the Establishment is there to protect us and them from foolish behaviour. If non-Parliamentary bodies disagree with Parliament, then perhaps, maybe, just maybe, Parliament is wrong.

Once again, Parliament is separating itself from any form of dissent or accountability, as always, under the guise that it may "threaten our security". Remember, that security is only threatened because of Parliamentary action. What's wrong with that picture?

Graham just pointed out that the RSS feed was (still) broken (after he mentioned it some time ago) and that comments were also broken.

Sorry about that, Cat fans. Clearly I should test these things a little more thoroughly after upgrading Tiki. I'll try to do better ;-)

Get fit in London, and do something for your Country! It's easy, it's the fitness sensation sweeping the nation (no, it's not pole dancing). Run around Parliament Square, wearing your favourite protest t-shirt.

Personally, my route was from the south/east end of Lambeth Bridge, up to Westmister Bridge, over and around Parliament Square, up Whitehall, down Northumberland Avenue, over Hungerford Bridge, past The Eye, back over Westmister Bridge, down Millbank and back over Lambeth Bridge.

I've just had a thought... Buy a load of plain white tshirts in bulk, just get a pen, and write "stop the war" on the front. Then, stand in Parliament Square and hand them out (to people who promise to put them on right away). You can't charge, otherwise you'll need a Street Traders License, but if you're giving them away, I think you're safe.

Having a load of tourists wandering about in "the zone" with protest tshirts on, doing nothing but getting pictures of Parliament and such like would make a complete mockery of the new laws.

This plan would cost you a few quid, and an afternoon of your time, possibly fending off the odd visit from Officer Dibble, but would it work?

A number of people have been arrested for protesting on the lawn outside Parliament. This has, until recently, been a right of every British citizen since 1839. This reminds me of Ghandi's Satyagraha.

Anyone visiting the area should wear a "politically vocal" t-shirt, sit on the lawn, eat your sandwiches, and take photographs (all of which, is now illegal).

Inkscape is brilliant. It takes a bit of getting used to, and hey, I'm no artist, but I think I'm getting some good results (more at InkScape)

If you didn't know, Inkscape is a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) editor, a bit like Adobe Illustrator. The best news is that it's free, unlike AI, which costs and arm and a leg!