Mark's in love
Apparently.

Everybody say awwwww.

And three cheers for the object of his affection. I wonder how long she has been blind...

Worth a look
I just read a fantastic article, well excerpt really, about daytime talkshows. In The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows, Laura Grindstaff describes her time spent as an intern on two US talk shows. Although she uses pseudonyms, both are real shows. It seemed very likely that one was the Jerry Springer show; I'm not sure about the other.

If you've ever wondered how these shows find their guests, keep them seperated, how they get them so worked up, what happens when guests refuse to play ball and even how show staff feel about it all, then you should get a kick out this article.

Williams beats sister -- world yawns
One of the Williams sisters today defeated her sibling in straight sets (7-6 6-3) to claim the Women's Wimbledon title. The annoying boring one with the funny hair looked slightly sharper throughout the match, while her also quite boring funny haired sister put in just enough effort so that it didn't look she handed her the game on a platter.

The centre court crowd clapped politely, pretending that they gave a damn which of these two deathly dull women took the trophy home.

"She just played a better shot every time, and sometimes you have to accept it," said the Williams sister who didn't win.

Here's the BBC's report of the game.

Of course the scary thing is that it looks like these two sisters are going to dominate the game for years to come. As far as I'm concerned, that means I'll be tuning out of any tournament where the both sisters compete. In effect, they're killing the Women's game.

Come on back Hingis, we love you. Sigh.

It's Friday Five time again
It's been a while for me, but just for the heck of it, here's this week's Friday Five. Yes, I know it's Saturday, but but Blogger was playing up yesterday.

Is it just me, or are the questions getting a bit boring? Probably just me -- These day's even nostalgia isn't what it used to be:

[1] Where are you right now? What kind of odds will you give me that 95% of people will answer this one with a "at home in front of the computer"?

[2] What have you lost recently? I predict that 55% of people will make some time of gag about losing their minds, 40% will mention something trivial and completely un-interesting while only 4% will have lost anything. The remaining 1% will make up smart arse statistics to back up their lack of anything interesting to say.

[3] What was the first CD you ever purchased? Does that embarrass you now? It was some pathetic Jean-Michel Jarre anthology. I have since tried to wipe my mind clear of that time when taste abandoned me. To think that I, of all people, listened to the likes of Jean-Michel Jarre & Vangelis!

How did I ever get into such over-wrought electronic crap? I blush at the thought. There must be some fundamental flaw in my character.

[4] What is your favorite kind of writing pen? I like red pens, but I'll use whichever one I have lying about that doesn't look to badly chewed and which shows no evidence of being used to clean the wax out of my ears.

[5] What is your favorite ice cream flavor? When I was little it was bubblegum flavoured ice-cream, as a teen it was the now defunct Sara Lee Strawberry & Cointreau, later it was Homer Hudson's Coffee Rock and here in the UK it's all the way with Ben & Jerry -- Either their Cherry Garcia or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

Rocky Vs Bullwinkle
If the weather clears for long enough today, Leyton "Rocky" Hewitt will take on professional also-ran Tim "Nice but dim" Hen-man in the Men's semi-final at Wimbledon. Cocksure Hewitt, who has only lost one set in the tournie so far, will win it in straight sets.

That's one prediction you can take to the bank.

Go outside and play
As you could probably tell from that last post, I've been on a bit of a nostalga trip lately. There's nothing like feeling sick and sorry for yourself to make you miss the certainties of childhood. Everyone's childhood is different, but if there's one universal, I guess it must be boredom. All those endless summers and the quest to find something to do.

"I'm bored."

"It's nice outside. Why don't you go out and play?"

"Don't want to."

"Go outside and play!"

"Well if you put it like that...[grumble] [grumble]"

Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Hi Kieran!"

"Hi. Wanna come out and play?"

"Sure," and with that we would go out into the street and sit on the curb. Sometimes we would squish ants, sometimes throw rocks at each other, but whatever hi-jinks we came up with to amuse ourselves, sooner or later someone would say...

"I'm bored. What do you wanna do?"

10 REM
20 REM Kieran's patented childhood boredom simulator.
30 REM
100 PRINT "I DON'T KNOW. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?"
110 PRINT "[shuffling feet sounds]"
120 GOTO 100

And so we would sit on that curb, asking each other what we wanted to do, squishing ants, throwing rocks or bits of bark at each other until someone got into a fight. Once in while we'd hop on our bikes or skateboards, or climb a tree (usually so we could throw rocks from a better vantage point), but that was about it.

The best times, of course, were when there was a new house being built in the neighbourhood. We would climb up on the wooden frames, add unexepected ingredients to the cement mixer and crawl all over those yellow earth movers. If we were really lucky, sometimes you could get one of the engines on the graders to start. At this point we would become so certain of our being caught that we'd run off, leaving the deisel engine to splutter away until it ran out of fuel.

Future kids may not have to worry about what to do when mum sends them outside to play. This according to the freaks of nature at The Lifeboat Foundation, who believe that outside won't be so nice in the future. Of course, I mean "freaks of nature" in the nicest possible way. The Foundation holds that by 2020 the planet will be pretty much uninhabitable, and they plan to build Space Arks to carry us to safety. Our future, apparently, is in the stars. Won't the astrologers be surprised?

Ad Astra!

Oh yes, and Beware the evil Grey Goo!

Drip drip drip
It’s wet outside, again. Drab grey skies, the gentle patter of rain and Wimbledon on TV.

And I have a cold.

The British summer continues apace.

It’s raining phlegm and I want my Vitamin C. I know it won’t do any good. I know that countless studies have shown it to have precisely zero effect. That Vitamin C can’t prevent a cold and it won’t stop one that has begun. So why do I crave those little yellow and orange tablets so much?

I’ll tell you why – Because my mother believed in them.

Actually, for colds my mother believed in a lot more than orange and lemon flavoured tablets. I used to get my Vitamin C straight. I would down powdered ascorbic acid by the bucket load. And swallow strange herbal mixtures, full of ingredients that sounded like they were named after ground-dwelling marsupials or medieval skin conditions.

You might say that my mother was something of a pioneering new-ager. She was into Bach remedies before Johan Sebastian. We had a pyramid on the front deck, there were crystals all over the house and any time she wanted to know something, out come the old wooden peg on a string.

“Is Kieran allergic to Lik-em-aid?”

The peg would start to swing wildly. Turns out I was allergic to almost everything I liked.

Whenever I limped home after standing on a rusty nail or an oyster shell (something of childhood regularity for me) my mother would rush into the garden and grab some comfry leaves. Even now I can smell that green goop she poured from the blender onto my foot. It smelled of home.

When we wanted a hot drink, it was time to visit the catnip or the lemon grass bed. I didn’t even know you could buy tea in stores.

Now I’m all grown up and a card-carrying sceptic. Yet today I will bury all my doubts and head out to buy a big bottle of Vitamin C tablets. Why bother?

Because my mother believed.

Welcome Guardian readers
Hello all you lovely, lovely people and thanks for doing such astonishing things to my hit count. In case you're new to blogs, I should tell you that you can leave a comment on any piece that interests you by clicking on the word Comment at the bottom of the entry. We bloggers are a funny bunch. Most of us are basically comment whores. So, go on, comment me! You know you want to.

If all of my current bits bore you silly, and you're wondering why the Guardian mislead you so cruely, I certainly sympathise. You can search for more interesting entries in the archive by using the little box over there on the right.

The Grauniad did what? Shome mishtake, shurely?
Any regulars wondering what the hell I'm talking about, click here.

A round-up
Yesterday's job interview went quite well. I was a bit late, thanks to some transport difficulties. The people were friendly and the company seems relaxed. I think it's a good sign when the Managing Director tells you straight out at the end that you're being called back for a second interview. So I was happy.

Even Coventry itself wasn't too bad.

On the way home I stopped off in Leicester Square to see Spider-man. Finally.

I loved it, absolutely loved it. It is certainly my favourite film of the Summer, although Minority Report is yet to open in the UK, and I suspect it may win out in the end.

There was just one thing which bugged me about Spider-man (no pun intended).

That damn ending!

Tooth-achingly gorgeous Kirstin Dunst's Mary Jane proclaims her love for Toby MacGuire's Peter Parker, and he rejects her! He rejects this girl who he has been in love with since the age of six. He rejects her with a "let's just be friends speech," no less.

Well, I'm sorry. I'm not a violent man by nature. To my certain knowledge I have never started a fight. But that final scene enraged me. At that moment I swear I was ready, along with (I'm sure) every other heterosexual man in the audience, to kick the very shit out of that little punk.

What were they thinking?!? I'll tell you what they were thinking -- Unresolved Sexual Tension = Sequels, ongoing movie franchise potential and megabucks for all involved. Bastards.

BB3 noms
The nominations are out and four of the seven remaining housemates are up for the big flick. Everyone nominated Jade plus Adele, Kate and Jonny all got two nominations each. Somehow Tim escaped nomination, despite my confident prediction.

And from the News from the Twilight Zone department comes a report that Jade's mother wants her to be evicted. She is worried that her daughter may be driven to hang herself because of what people are saying about her.

Oh boy.

Adele on Jade, "only a matter of time before she stabs me in the back."

Jonny on Adele, "She's been talking about me behind my back, saying I've been playing up to the cameras."

Alex on Jade, "She's trying to influence people not to nominate her."

Not very successfully, apparently. Here's the breakdown:

ADELE	Jade and Jonny
ALEX	Jade and Jonny
JONNY	Jade and Adele
PJ	Jade and Adele
KATE	Jade and Alex
TIM	Jade and Kate
JADE	Tim and Kate

Why Justin has a hole in his roof
I just got off the phone with my friend Justin Bradley. He phoned me as soon as he got into his office in Überlingen. I'd actually only had a couple of hours sleep, when his call woke me. I've been up watching the News Channels all night long.

Justin has had no sleep at all.


AP Photo from CNN.

He actually had a bit of trouble getting in to work, because the police understandably do not want to let anyone in or out of Owingen at the moment. Not until they've interviewed everyone. He managed to convince them that if he didn't get into work all of the systems would be down and no one would be able to do any work.

Last night Justin's heavily pregnant girlfriend Ramona woke him with the news she had just heard an almighty crash. Thirty six thousand feet overhead a Russian Tupolev 154 jet liner and a DHL Boeing 757 cargo plane had just collided. At this point it's unclear whether the initial noise she heard was that of the collision or some of the fuisilage hitting the ground. Soon afterwards, things started to get personal as debris began raining down upon the yard, the street and, in one very scary moment, the roof of their house!


The small orchard next door, where some small debris now rests.

This morning they climbed into the loft to recover a 7 inch long piece of shattered die-cast metal. It has a serial number on it. Investigators will be interviewing Justin, when he returns at 2pm to collect Ramona for a baby check-up.


A bit of Justin's roof (left), his garage and surrounding Owingen.

No one has slept in Owingen. Justin's landlord returned from the crash site a shaken man. There he saw some of the mangled bodies of the children laid out. I can only imagine how horrific that scene must have been. Apparently there were 49 Russian school kids on their way to a holiday in the Spanish sun. Last night CNN were reporting a rather forlorn bus driver at Barcelona Airport waiting for fifty Russians who seemed to be running late.

Oh God.

The largest part of the plane is near a small lake on a golf course that you have to drive past to get into Überlingen proper. When Justin described the location I could easily picture it in my mind. During my stay earlier this year we must have driven past that lake 200 times or more.

Wreckage is strewn over a 20 mile area, particularly in the wooded mountain areas which surround the town.

It's still not 100% certain that no one was injured on the ground, but at least one small cottage was destroyed in the fires which cast an unearthly glow on Owingen all night long.

Apparently they still haven't found the engine; they suspect it's laying somewhere in the middle of Lake Constance.

For the record, here's Justin's email which he sent in reply to one of several I sent him during the night. He fired this one off just before calling me:

Hi Kieran,

Apart from no sleep and part of our house roof missing we both OK.

Justin

> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Kieran McCabe [mailto:kieran_mccabe@btinternet.com]
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 2. Juli 2002 03:39
> An: Justin Bradley
> Betreff: Any planes dropped on you lately?
>
>
> I assume you're ok, right?
>
>
> The Sky news map only has Owingen on it, scared me silly.
>

The latest from CNN.
The latest from the BBC.

Praying for Justin
Jesus, this is scary! Justin lives in Owingen, just outside Uberlingen, which is where the crash happened. They're saying some buildings are ablaze and there are some casulties on the ground. Oh my god!

I was just there a few months back.

Can't sleep.

Here's what the BBC is saying.
Here's what CNN is saying.

CNN is actually saying the crash happened over Owingen, Justin's home! Jesus.



You can see some pictures of Uberlingen that I took when I was over there by clicking here.
You can read about the trip to Uberlingen/Owingen here.

Another interview
I have another interview today, this time in an obscure industrial estate somewhere impracticably far outside of jewel in the Midlands crown, Coventry. I am one of seven to be accorded this great honour. Have I learnt anything from previous interview experiences over recent months? Nothing worth a damn.

I have suitably low expectations, but will go in eager and interested.

"Gosh! Is that real instant coffee?"

Coventry! The very name of the place has entered the lexicon as the place of exile. A place you are said to be in if you are ignored or persecuted. By an extraordinary concidence my mother once lived in Coventry. Mum shared a room there with one of her sisters (an aunt of mine, but you probably figured that out).

She used to describe the town as being pretty close to hell on Earth. That was, of course, many years ago. I'm sure it's much improved. And I'm also sure that sprawling industrial estate I'll be visiting will be much nicer than the town centre my mother knew.

I have just visited a well-designed Coventry booster site and found this charming, almost bitter-sweet tale of a man leaving the great town. He lovingly describes the many things he will miss - The Cathedral, the University and the Heritage. Just for the record, here are the things he wont miss:

• The untidy element of our fellow citizens who litter and damage the facilities offered in Coventry.
• The battle to gain decent medical care in a hospital located to suit the people and not the politicians and overzealous hospital managers.
• The over-preponderance of noisy kids pubs in the city centre, and the lack of good quality eating places.
• The fear of all ages of threat of attack which leaves our centre deserted at night.

I can hardly wait. I'll keep an eye out for that "untidy element" though. They sound mean.

Getting something off my chest
If you have a look on the left hand side of my blog you'll see a list of Entertaining Blogs. They're a great bunch. Really. Some are funny, some are clever and one or two are both! I love them all, and you probably love some of them too. Heck, you probably write one of them.

Some are very popular, and will survive if you don't click.

Some do OK, like this blog. I don't get a lot of visitors, but I get enough so that I don't feel like I'm pissing in the wind. And the fact is I've been lucky enough to claim a few damned nice people among my regulars. I really appreciate you all.

And some... Some of those blogs deserve to be more popular than they are. Today I want to talk about one from that last group.

One of my favourite regular reads is A Skeptical Blog. You know I'm a sceptic, right? Almost every day of the week, Houston's own Dominion writes what can only be described as "an essay" on some topical issue. Each and every one is a thought provoking gem, full of insight. You may not agree with everything he says, but you will certainly find something to engage you if you visit on a regular basis.

So I'm asking you to pop over, take a look, and if you get anything out of his blog, add a link on your own blog. Why? It just kills me that poorly written knee-jerk punditary of the Far Right Loony Toon persuasion gets all the attention, while the clever and carefully considered political and philosophical views of A Skeptical Blog slip under the radar.

It's just wrong.

So, stand up for reason. Visit A Skeptical Blog. Often.

World Cup update
Ronaldo, he of the freaky haircut, just scored his second goal for Brazil. That might just be the game. Yay team.

Scam 'o the day
Just got a text message on my mobile phone.

A £150 GIFT! As a valued mobile network customer you have been selected to receive a £150 gift. To collect is easy. Just call 0906 xxx xxxx

What do you think, should I call? To make it easier for you, I should point out that 0906 numbers are "charge whatever the hell they want" premium rate numbers here in the UK, beloved of scam artists and phone sex operators.

I've just done a bit of a search on the web. From what I've found, when you ring these numbers, sometimes you get a recording of a busy signal, encouraging you to ring back (at up to £5 a minute). Other scams lead you to bogus betting operations. All have one thing in common, they're designed to keep you on the line while you rack up a hefty premium rate phone bill.

Watching, not caring
As I type the World Cup Soccer Final is being played out in... actually, I'm not sure if it's in Korea or Japan. One of those two, anyway. I've got the tv on, but I'm not really paying too much attention to the guys in nylon. One of the neat things about digital interactive television is just playing around with extra bits they give you for big games like this.

If I press the Red Button I can choose to listen to the regular BBC commentary team, the BBC Radio 5 team or just the sounds of the stadium.

If I press Green, I get the game highlights channel, with the live game playing up in the top corner. The game has just started, so the loop is quite short. If I press Select, the live game swaps position with the highlight feed.

If I press the Yellow button, I get the analysis screen with, yes, another pair of commentators. This is my favourite. These guys provide background analysis of the game. There are two video feeds on this page, the regular game feed on the left side of the screen and an unchanginging birds-eye 'tactical' view of the field on the right. At the bottom there are questions/comments which have been emailed/texted to the commentators, who may or may not address them.

If I press the Blue button, I get a little drop down stats bar. You press the left or right button to scroll through the various statistics.

The game is still nill all and we are rapidly appoaching half time. Blah! I'm sorry to have to say it, but this World Cup phenomenon still hasn't really convinced me. I'd hoped it would, I tried hard to give a damn, but once the England and Ireland were knocked out, I had no one to root for. I adpoted South Korea for a bit, but they didn't last much longer.

Soccer is a mighty dull game enlivened by, if you're lucky, two or three exciting bits per game. Unless you have some kind of emotional interest in the outcome, or are very drunk, those two or three "exciting bits" can be quite dull as well.

How long to the next Rugby Union World Cup?