Eurovision hell
I've just watched the embarassing ritual that is the Eurovision Song Contest, live from Estonia.

It was either that or more from Big Brother 3.

For those of you not au fait with Eurosong, let me explain. Each country in Europe (plus Turkey and Israel) sends a contestant to this big deal version of your local school Eisteddfod.This is the contest which first gave a showcase to ABBA, lo those many moons ago.

Let's be clear. The Eurovision Song Contest is hide-behind-the-couch bad. This is the kind of thing that gives kitsch a bad name. Thankfully, at least, there were no yodellers this year.

As I type this introduction, the acts have finished inflicting themselves upon us and the best part of the show has begun. One by one, a judge from each country satellites in, assigning points to their "favourite" 11 entries (not including their own). One point goes to Country A, two points go to Country B, three to Country C and so on up to 10 points for Country J. Country K gets a whopping 12.

The great fun of the show is watching the blatant tactical voting from some countries. Often it's not how good or bad the act was (and some are very bad indeed), it's how many borders you share with their country. It's not a song contest, it's a vote for your neighbour contest.

Thank god it's over. What a shock! The local lasses won. Yay Latvia! My fave, the gal from Malta, came in a close second.

You can take a look at some of the acts by clicking here.

You just know that some of these kid's had their parent's help with the costumes.

In reverse order, here are my quick jottings on each performance, typed as the act appeared. Not terribly inspired, I know, but there wasn't too much to inspire:

• Lithuania -- A wooly hat moment.


• Latvia -- A Ricky Martin inspired lesbian chic strip tease.


• The Triple Tranny Air Hostesses from Slovenia had a lot of fun.


• Oooph! A groan inducing duet from Romania.


• My favourite so far -- The winsome wonder from Malta.


• The Turkish act appeared to have been sponsored by the local mafia. I don't know how else to explain their either appearance or their presence on the stage.


• The German girls were out of tune, but given that they all hated each other, because of some rumoured inter-act infidelity, I think we can forgive them.


• The French contestant did Celine Dion better than Celine herself.


• From Belguim came a Meatloaf look-alike who pranced about madly until he fell off the stage.


• The Bosnian entrant just looked embarassed.


• The Danish Kim Wilde look-alike was adorable. But talentless. Just like the real Kim Wilde!


• The Finnish entrant had the whole Roxette thing going on.


• Destiny's Sweede. And that's all I have to say about that.


• The Swiss Miss with her Halle Berry wig, wasn't too bad.


• Israel's act was frankly annoying and whiney.


• The Macedonian entrant warbled about painfully in her big red bell.


• Hubba hubba! Estonia's home town blonde bombshell won the evening's beauty contest.


• Russia -- A bunch of horizontally-challenged boys in white. More than a little scary.


• I think the Croatian entrant still has a few hormone treatments to go.


• The Spanish entry was too bouncy.


• Four Greek Michael Jackson clones was four too many Michael Jackson clones.


• Austria terrified with the Lord of the Prance.


• UK -- Jessica did quite well.


• Cyprus' answer to N'sync was out of sync.

Why I think you're so gosh-darned special
I know this is the wrong time to ask, what with you having just read the most disgusting post in the history of this blog, but if you could just see your way clear to ignoring this mildly anti-social abberation. And you know what a high opinion I have of you personally. What with you being so clever and principled and good looking and all that.

Think back upon all the joy and happiness this blog has brought into your life. Think about fluffy kittens and bean bags and tall glasses of iced tea. And just when your self-esteem is at its highest, think about rating me for BlogHop.

The voting gadget is on the bottom left of this page. Click on the colour which reflects your opinion of my blog. Green is good, red is bad. Think about how much I love you, then vote.

So far all of my voters have selected green, which is good. I'd be happier about that result if I didn't know that two of those three votes came from me.

Why I hate recruitment agency types
Because they like to feast on the blood of virgin goats at midnight. And they never return your calls.

Well, maybe they don't exactly feed on the blood of virgin goats, but the idea has a kind of spiritual truth. For all I know it might be virgin otter's blood they're feeding on. And maybe they prefer it chilled and served with a sprig of parsley and a nice salmon sandwhich on a lazy sunday morning. That's not the point. It's just that the virgin goat at midnight theory feels more true. Some notions emobdy a higher truth than those prosaic claims which merely reflect reality.

"But hang on," cries the second year philosophy student. "We know from Epistemology 101 that claims of knowledge require a justified true belief, with a causal connection between the justification and the true idea being known. That's just basic!"

"Yes, my young Padawan-Learner."

"There's no hierarchy of truth. No true-for-you and true-for-me. Something is either true or it isn't!"

"Agreed."

"Then how can you claim that recruitment agents like to feast on the blood of virgin goats at midnight? Even you admit that it's just as likely to be the blood of virgin otters on a lazy sunday morning. Why privilege goats?"

"Goats are bigger. More blood."

"Good point. Hadn't thought of that. Sorry, master."

Speaking of recruitment agents, looks like I've got another interview next week. If I get this job I'll have to move to Manchester. And it will mean a pay cut, but at least I'll be working. Which is really the key issue, at the moment.

P.S. I can't wait to see what kind of Google searches bring people in to read this post.

P.P.S. I'm serious, they really never do return your calls.

2002: No space odessey
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there."

Thus spoke Dave Bowman to humanity at the end of Arthur C. Clarke's science-fiction epic, 2010. In this sequel to the classic 2001: A Space Odessey, the Aliens offer protection to the slowly evolving inhabitants of Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The idea that there might be nascent life developing in a huge swirling ocean benath a Europa's icy crust is one which has titillated scientists for many years. Scientists were encouraged by recently discovered ecosystems here on Earth, where organisms obtain their enegry not from the Sun, but from geo-thermal vents.

But could there really be life beneath Europa's crusty arctic surface? There were a couple of problems with the theory. While it was Europa's proximity to Jupiter, with its gravity and intense radiation, which hypothetically provided the energy to drive a sub-arctic ecosystem, surely that intense radiation would kill anything that might develop. The only way to be sure was to go there and find out. Some scientists had been playing the idea of sending a probe to Europa, designed to melt its way to the ocean below. The theory, of course, depended on a relatively thin ice-crust, no more than 3km. If you'd like some background information click here to read (and listen) to Dr Karl's excellent summary of the topic.

They say that in science there is nothing is as worthless as yesterday's theory. Latest research, just published in Nature magazine, has put a dampner on scientist's hopes. According the BBC, analysis of the size of impact craters on Europa's surface have lead to a rethink on the depth of ice slab. They now believe it likely to be between 19 and 25km deep. Far too deep for any probe to melt through.

Are we alone in the universe? With our best hope for finding life on another world now beyond reach, we may never know.

NOTICE
Today several posts on my blog were destroyed thanks to a problem at Blogger.com. Luckily I kept carbons. Any other bloggers with problems, I'm sorry, I don't know how I got it working again, it just did! I came back, re-published and it suddenly everything was fine.

Note for readers. Sorry, a couple of your very witty and intelligent comments were lost in the great blogging disaster of '02.

Oops.

Feel free to be your usual charming selves and post again.

Ode to a dead swan
Thanks to the wonderful Daisy, of Chain of Daisies fame, for pointing me towards Rob's Amazing Poem Generator. All you have to do is point the dohicky towards a web page (ie your blog) and it produces a brand new poem based on what it finds there.

Here's mine. I don't care that it's artificial, I think it's better than actual art. In fact, this may well be the best poem ever.

kaymc anyway? A cynic. Well,
they Might
say. What would have
juice instead
of banana bread. chosen
partly at random,
and what are frozen A
few moments
ago I suspect most
would your passion in
You
There you have juice instead of DJ?
Weeelllf..., try to catch train.

Bleepless in Redhill
The bleeping has stopped. I think I miss it.

I should explain. For the past couple of days there has been an unexplained bleeping in my flat. Every so often, just once in a while...

"Bleep!"

- or -

"Ble-eep." (somewhat rare)

Had the bleeps been longer, or more regular, I could perhaps have tracked them down. But this short little bleep was a real mystery. It seemed to come from everywhere and yet nowhere.

In the spirit of scientific enquiry, I set out to time the pauses between bleeps: One minute, One hour and thirteen minutes, Seventeen minutes. No pattern emerged.

Was it organic or electrical? Not sure.

Was it in the longue room? Umm, maybe.

Was it outside? Possibly.

My first thought was that it was some kind Change My Battery warning. The most likely candidate was the fire alarm in my hallway. I stood under it, staring upwards, for 12 minutes, awaiting a bleep.

I felt very silly.

"Bleep."

Well, I don't know. It didn't sound like it came from the alarm. It sounded like it came from the living room. Or maybe the kitchen.

"Bleep."

Perhaps it was a brave little bug with a Don Quixote complex.

Last night I had a dream about the bleep. It was a Star Trek related dream. I'm not sure what Dr Freud would have to say, and I know it all sounds hopelessly geeky, but please don't start drawing any conclusions until all the evidence is in. As far as I'm aware, this was my first ever Trek-based dream.

In the interests of maintaining the remnants of my blog-cred, I don't want to delve too deeply into the dream storyline, except to say that the source of the bleeping was discovered and destroyed. I remember thinking in my dream, "Excellent, no more bleeps!"

And this is where it gets freaky. Since waking from my dream this morning, I've not heard a single bleep.

Not a one.

Sad news (UPDATED)
It is with great sadness that I note the passing Monday of prominent paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. He died at his home in Manhattan aged 60. Gould fought the good fight, standing firm against the creeping miasma of neo-luddites and their fellow travellers, creationists. He will be greatly missed.

Update: I've added a few more obits. After all, no one is really dead until The Guardian writes them up. Also Ron, of Nonsuch Views, wrote a nice little piece.

• New York Times


• Boston Daily Globe


• Washington Post


• The Independent


• The Guardian


• The Telegraph


• The Times

Oh dear lord
I'm taking a time-out from the usual kaymc-type postings here. It's about to get ugly. If you don't want to see a grown-man beg, then please skip onto your next blog.

I may be rapidly careening towards poverty, but that doesn't mean I want to miss Gwyneth Paltrow in Proof at the Donmar. As you probably know, all tickets have been sold out for a while now, so I took a look on eBay. Ouch!

I guess I'm not going to see Gwyneth.

So sad.

OK, so I'm begging here. If there's anyone out there, anyone at all, who has a spare seat for Proof at the Donmar Warehouse, please let me know. I don't mind if you make a little on the ticket price, I just can't afford the eBay style mark ups. I'll pay any reasonable price. And I'll owe you one for life.

Cookery corner
After writing the post about capital letters, I found myself motivated to make my own banana bread. So I went over to Google and did a search. By the way, make sure you visit Google each day this week. Dilbert is designing a new logo for them, which is going to be unveiled at the end of the week.

Anyhow, here are two recipes for Banana bread chosen partly at random, and partly because they don't need any eggs. Don't ask me where I found them. Cut and paste is my friend.

The Banana Bread of Kings
by Shari Bart


OK. Here it is. The one you've all been waiting for. :) I should mention that I asked a friend, a banana-bread connoisseur of sorts, to try it. She agreed that it was very good. But she said that it was a little heavier than normal b.b. So there you have it. And here it is.

1 cup ready-to-eat bran cereal (I used Total - .5 g fat in 1 cup)
1 cup mashed ripe banana (2 or 3)
3 tablespoons applesauce (replacing shortening)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup + 2 tbs boiling water
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Measure bran, banana, applesauce and sugar in a large bowl. Add the water and stir.

In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt (or don't sift it -- stirring it well with a fork works also). Add this to the banana mixture, stirring only until combined.

Pour into bread pan and stick in the oven.

Bake at 350 for about 45 min.

The 'other' banana bread recipe
by Sylvia Juche


6 ripe bananas
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 a tsp baking soda

Mash the bananas, sugar and vanilla together. Sift the flour, baking powder and soda together. Mix the liquid with the dry and pour into a loaf pan. Put into a preheated oven at 350 F for one hour.

This is one of the best banana bread receipes that I have tried. It's delicious and extremely easy. I use whole wheat flour for the extra fibre and have made muffins with this as well. Enjoy.

Many are cold but few are frozen
A few new links that I'd like to pass onto you, gentle reader.

For starters, FHM has pulled together the 100 best online games for you. There are some genuine classics, and you can spend hours exploring them, so maybe it's time to book those holidays now.

One of the games you'll find in FHM's 100 is a short, but enjoyable, graphic adventure called The Mystery of Time and Space Adventure. This was developed by a guy called Jan 'LOGAN' Albartus, who's a bit of a Flash whizz. Logan's home page has a lot of great stuff, but best of all, from this old 64-head's perspective, is an homage to the greatest little computer every developed.

Also, I'm adding two blogs to my list. Firstly, I know every other blogger in the world already has this page bookmarked, but it was new to me: Little Yellow Different.

Second: She's funny, she's adorable, she's just plain joy.

Capital, capital
I've never been good with capital letters. Unless it's the name of a person or a place or it's the first letter of a sentence, I'm just not sure. This is especially true of my handwritting, where I throw around capitals as if I were an ancient greek stonemason.

Well at least I try.

I don't know if you've noticed, but a lot of bloggers have given up on capitals entirely. Like later-day e. e. cummingses, they've gone radically lower-case. Not that I've asked them, but I suspect most would claim it to be a stylistic choice. They knew which letters should have been capitalized; they just chose not to.

Sure.

"But wait," you might say. "Take a look at your own banner. 'kaymc' That's all in lower-case. You haven't got a capital to stand on." And then you might go on to offer me a piece of banana bread and a glass of water.

"Ahh yes," I'd reply. "But it's a made-up word. I made it up myself. I have the right to decide if I want to capitalize it or not!" Then I'd thank you for the banana bread, but ask if I could have juice instead of the water.

"Oh come on," you'd come back, carefully slicing me a piece. "What kind of hypocrisy is that? And what kind of name is kaymc anyway? How do you even pronounce it? What are you, some kind of hip-hop DJ?"

"Weeelllf...," I'd try to say, carefully chewing 35 times on my first mouthful of your banana bread. "Ooooh, that's tasty."

"Thanks!"

"As I was say... What was I saying? Oh yes, kaymc. Well, it's kind of an expanded version of my initials, KMc. And no, I'm not a hip-hop DJ, although that mistake has been made before. And if I were, I wouldn't go with kaymc as my DJ name."

"Really?" You'd say, slicing another piece of banana bread for yourself. "What would your hip-hop DJ name be?"

"I don't know," I'd say, pausing for a few moments to have another bite of your excellent banana bread. "I suppose I could go with Puff Kieran, but I have a feeling that name would come back to haunt me it anyone saw me carrying the shopping up the hill."

"Well, quite."

"Hello. My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. You killed my Master. Prepare to die!"
Question: What do you get when you combine one of the funniest, most charming films ever made with the single greatest disappointment in cinematic history?

Answer: This!