A friend posted this on facebook. It's a light piece about an ill-advised idea from Nu Labour to get the community spirit involved to photograph things that Labour have done that we all think are great. They were angling for shiny hospitals, schools and the like. The rest of us seem to think otherwise. You can upload pictures into their Flickr group.

After a swathe of pictures were removed from that group, a couple more sprang up. Change we are not allowed to see is the obvious one, but also Caught in the Act of Flickr-ing is another one on the same lines.

By the looks of the stories people are posting, the paranoia about photography-is-terrorism is out of control. There's a part of me that wants to put this to the test. Shame I'm a terrible photographer :-(

We bought the Brüno DVD a while back. We got the player setup last night and watched it. It's characteristically cringe-worthy, and the cage fighting scene is really something to watch. It's another nice comment about the USA, the media and the audience :-)

However, I'm really upset with the DVD itself. You put it in, and for 2 minutes get told that you're going to burn in hell after being subjected to a life of poverty if you so much as think about lending the DVD to your friends, let alone copy it. If that's not enough of an insult, you then have to sit through 10 minutes of trailers before you even get to the "play movie" option.

It's clear to me that the (Hollywood) film industry is even more broken than the music industry. Universal Pictures (and others), if you're listening (which it's clear you're not): I don't want to PAY to watch adverts. By all means give me some trailers on the DVD, but don't make it impossible for me to watch the film without seeing them. Surely you can just put another option on the main menu called "see some trailers" - that gives me a choice - you know, "choice" - that thing consumers crave?

I seriously doubt I'll be buying many more DVDs because of the general degradation of the medium, and this "final straw". I still want to watch good films at home, mind you. They just won't be on DVD.

Happy New Year!

I've come to realise that my knee sweat smells like tramps do. I know this because I have some knee pads, which I've been using whilst doing various bits of DIY. After considerable use, I'm finding they pong pretty badly, and smell like, well, tramps. The first time this happened was back in the summer, and I wrote it off based on heat and the dusty work I was doing. However, it's cooler now, and I'm doing different work, but the pads smell the same.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. Carry on as you were...