I’ll be missing for a week or so. Please feel free to comment on anything and I will update all when I return.

There’s a much-needed post on the Wi-Fi scare by The Guardian’s Ben Goldachre, in which he tackles the “science” behind Panorama’s programme on the “dangers” of Wi-Fi.

Link: Wi-Fi Wants To Kill Your Children

Speaking at the Royal College of Surgeons last week, Bob Geldof suggested a boycott of the Chinese Olympics because of that country’s insidious influence in Sudan and the conflict in Darfur. It adds to the already awful record at home, and one that does not appear to be improving because the world is coming to visit in 2008. Rather, it is being used as an excuse for a crackdown, according to some reports.

From the Washington Post editorial (subs req) today:

China is cracking down on dissidents because of, not in spite of, the Olympics. “[S]trik[ing] hard at hostile forces,” as China’s minister of public security told a state-run publication in March, is meant to “create a harmonious society and a good social environment for successfully holding . . . the Beijing Olympic Games.”

China is not just abusing human rights at home; it’s countenancing genocide abroad. Despite increasing evidence that the Sudanese government is contributing to mass killings in Darfur, China remains Khartoum’s main commercial partner, buying two-thirds of Sudan’s oil exports. Amnesty International has alleged that China is supplying the arms used in the Darfur conflict, which China denies. China has generally refused to take a stance on the internal politics of Sudan, just as it wishes the world would stay out of its own internal politics, and it has blocked U.N. sanctions against Khartoum. In recent months, however, China has taken credit for persuading Sudan to accept U.N. and African Union peacekeeping forces. Beijing also recently sent a “special envoy” to Darfur. These gestures are not enough.

Given the meekness of the UN on this matter, we shouldn’t hold our breath on the rest of sporting world to take a stance on this. But Geldof raised an important question all the same.

PaddyC comments:

I found a question that can’t be googled recently. You know that situation when you’re walking down the street, and meet an on-coming pedestrian, and both of you choose the same side to pass the other, then both revise your choice, and again, and you end up dancing on the street with a stranger for a moment? There’s a word for that, but I can’t find it, and Google can’t help… so it’s not invincible yet!!

I’ve not come with a word for you, but The Atlantic has an entertaining column that deals in this particular problem.

Link: Word Fugitives (subs required)

There is also Douglas Adams and John Lloyd’s Meaning of Liff, inspired by “common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist”.

During the regular episodes when I lose my keys or wallet or car, a strange impulse sometimes pops into my head: “Maybe I should Google it.”
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9/11 conspiracy candidate Morgan Stack has polled 116 first preference votes in Cork South Central.

I wonder if that will put an end to the long, rambling, obtuse e-mails he sends to the media on an almost daily basis. He’s done an incredible job of taking a complex theory and making it even more opaque.

This was the e-mail received after his elimination:
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Noel O’Gara in Dublin South-East, picks up 27 first-preference votes but in Longford Westmeath he grabs a stunning 84 votes, (despite early tallies having him at three). Those voters were obviously impressed by the service at his tile showroom.

No matter how much some of us love the count, there must be a sizeable number out there who find the whole thing utterly tedious. Who can’t bear hearing 43 tally counts in the morning, and another 43 at lunchtime, and then confirmation of what we already when we get the first rounds of vote counts.

There must be people who woke up this morning, heard the exit poll and immediately decided that the “tightest election in decades” (passim, all media) is actually an anti-climax. And now they’ll have to spend the rest of the day, and weekend, looking for an alternative to the wall-to-wall coverage of the thing.

The tallymen might get a kick out of the process, but I never found that indulging them in their fetish shold have been one of the factors in dumping the e-voting idea. With a decent computer-based count, we’d probably be well into the results by now (only 6 seats announced so far). But getting a decent computer was the problem in the first place, and why anyone without the geeky obsession with election counts is going to find their patience tested to the limit over the next 24 hours.

Almost 30 years ago, NASA sent the two Voyager probes into deep space with a golden record on board that tells any passing alien where we are, what we look like and how crap we were during the 1970s. Honestly, if you wanted one decade to represent mankind - would you pick the 70s?

Links: Far Out: Nasa’s Golden Gift to the Aliens

It includes this “demonstration of licking, eating and drinking”. And a fine demonstration it is too. Let’s just hope the Voyager spacecraft don’t someday encounter a race of ice-cream shaped aliens - or we’re in BIG trouble.

Just finished Anne Enright’s really fine novel The Gathering - certainly the best (and only) novel to feature a disfunctional family of Hegartys. That scuppers my memoirs, anyway.

From Eve Patten’s Irish Times review:

Enright is still pre- eminent as a stylist: only Mary Morrissy, among her Irish contemporaries, can match her descriptive economy and flair. Enright has the added skill of a kind of stagecraft in her writing, shown to terrific effect in the novel’s scenes of sex and confrontation. But, to go back to my earlier question, does the swagger of her style sometimes hint at an excess, or again, a misfit? If so, it shows up here, I think, in the narrative voice: sometimes one is wearied by the cleverness and ubiquity of the trademark epigrammatic observations (”There is nothing as tentative as an old woman’s touch”), or alienated by the knowing interventions (”It’s a heady business, burying the dead”). This is a good story but essentially a very simple one - underwhelming even - which risks being overloaded by these wry punches.

Of course I’d rather lose the story than the style, but this is really a roundabout way of saying that Enright’s style can obviously accommodate broader subjects, and I hope that in the future she might let it loose on something more meaty - a big, brassy political satire, perhaps. In the meantime, The Gathering will certainly do as a welcome return, for this writer, to the novel form, and as a fresh, sophisticated take on the ever-popular dysfunctional family saga.

Have now picked up Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, because I’ve read the Hitchhikers series a hundred times but never the Dirk Gently books. So far, so Adams, although - as with the adventures of Arthur Den - there are so many observations of 1980s life that it acts as a time capsule of sorts.

Going on holidays next week, and Declan Burke’s The Big O will be in the bag. He has an excellent blog too:

Down those mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean but is in fact quite happy to share the latest news, reviews, gossip and slander about the dicks, dames and desperados of (mostly) Irish crime fiction, non-fiction and movies on the basis that it provides an investment-lite platform for giving his paltry two novels some much undeserved interweb publicity.

Link: Crime Always Pays

Al Gore’s office. Now, where did he leave the Democratic nomination application form…

The demand for ethanol fuel is pushing up world food prices

It was a lot of hassle to build the Port Tunnel, the universe would be long dead by the time we built the Large Hadron Collider in order to find out what it was like when it was a few trillionth seconds old?

What to do with your day/life? Soon, you’ll be able to ask Google

From The Onion, one for bloggers - and newspaper columnists

On Saturday, I quoted Margaret Atwood as saying that you can’t take an eBook into a bath. Well, this gentleman took up the challenge - and proved her wrong.

Every time he says the following, take a drink:

- “But I will say this …”: one finger of beer
- “The voters have a choice of more of the same smugness and arrogance…” Two fingers of beer
- “Which I personally offer through my contract”: a whiskey
- “I am putting my neck on the line”: triple brandy

Polls Apart with Matt Cooper and Eddie Hobbs is on again tonight. The high concept idea was that they would disagree with each other as much as with the politicians. A kind of Hannity and Colmes or Felix and Oscar for this election. Of course, it didn’t really turn out like that. Perhaps TV3 got the pairing wrong. If they wanted presenters who were polls apart, why didn’t they go for a really mad combination. Any of the following would have worked:

- Polls Apart with Brian Farrell and Rosanna Davidson
- Polls Apart with Brendan Courtney and Ian Paisley
- Polls Apart with Shane Lynch and Seamus Heaney

Lost has been pretty good these past few weeks. Season finale is this Sunday (Sky). Here’s the US trailer. Don’t worry, it doesn’t give much away

I’m no Nobel prize winning scientist-type, but this “Wi-Fi will melt your brain” story is beginning to depress me. Now, it’s Panorama’s turn to scare you silly

They’re not graphics you’ll see John Bowman using, but politics.ie gives an interesting snapshot through its Poll of Polls

What’s the origin of the ‘Bowman’ surname anyway? Not as straightforward as you’d think

What Futurama had to say about the election

Victoria Mary Clarke has been talking to her “angels” about the Madeleine McCann case. And today, she tells us what they said. Extraordinary piece. Perhaps they should have told her to go and talk to some real people instead.

Link: Victoria Mary Clarke’s angels have their say

I wrote about the infestation of angels back in January (before I started this blog). Here’s that article:
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Every afternoon, The Irish Times’s literary desk piles high with new books, with some 30 or 40 arriving every day - maybe double that in the run-up to Christmas.

They get released, stacked and sorted. But only a few get reviewed. Occasionally, we have a charity book sale in the office. There was one this week. And, for half an hour, staff swamped tables heavy with hardbacks, paperbacks, softbacks and pamphlets. It’s always some sight to observe. We gather like sharks around chum. Like politicians around a baby. Whatever’s not picked up there, is unlikely to be picked up anywhere.
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In last night’s debate, Enda Kenny menioned many of the unfortunate people he has met on his travels around the country. He would fix Bertie a stare and say “Tell that to the woman in Laois who…”

Here are some of the people he didn’t get a chance to mention:

1) The man in Carlow who can’t watch Marx Brothers films anymore without thinking of Willie O’Dea
2) The student in Longford who did German in her Leaving Cert because she was told it would be the business language of the future - except Chinese turned out to be that language
3) The woman in Cobh who only has three ribs for an unspecified reason
4) The man in Letterkenny who can’t get a dental appointment because someone gave him the wrong number for the dentist
5) The man on the M50 who really, really needs to pee, but can’t because there are no service stations
6) The hypochondriac in Sligo who’s on a waiting lists for cardiac, asthma, amputation, renal, neurological and STD services

Some quick thoughts:

It wasn’t so “great”.

But Bertie Ahern won it - not only because he conveyed the tangible benefit of experience, but also that he was willing to do things like make Enda Kenny look like a man who would pull the plug on a dying cancer patient. Bertie looked a bit pale starting off, despite the ton of make-up, and he sat awkwardly, with his body pointing one direction but his head another. But he visibly relaxed as it went on.

Kenny started strong, but weakened. He struggled with practicalities, relying too much on listing off the problems of people he has met. That can work up to a point, but repeating a problem is not the same as explaining how he’ll solve it. He also says “But I will make this point…” so often that were he a sitcom character it would be his catchphrase.

He does have this way about him where he looks like he has memorised what he has to say and doesn’t like to deviate from the script. Again, maybe that’s an experience thing, but he does have 32 years in the Dáil under his belt - a fact which made him look somewhat of an under achiever.

I’ll be interested to read what Mark Hennessy thought.
And the politics.ie forum has been hopping. Who needs Frank Luntz when you can track that?
And Damien Mulley gets medieval on Enda’s ass in his summary

Some quick observations about the leaders’ debate tonight.

1. The Weakest Link thing at the beginning, with the leaders being spot-lit at a podium - and muzak played as they were each being introduced - was pretty silly

2. What was all the stuff scribbled on Trevor Sargent’s left palm?

3. Gerry Adams, and Sinn Féin, like to tell us that “people have rights”.

4. It was a debate not between the four leaders, but one involving the three other leaders ganging up on McDowell

5. Does Michael McDowell’s Dáil privilege extend to the RTÉ studio?

Link: The Debate

Mark Hennessy reviews the debate at his blog here

Good discussions on the politics.ie forum.

The FF political broadcast was up on YouTube a few minutes before it made it on to the box. You can see it here.

The peace process has been about the only positive news Bertie’s had this campaign, so the party will be delighted to jump all over it. Who would have thought we’d see the day when a shot of Ian Paisley looking to shake Bertie’s hand would be the big selling point to vote for “the Republican party”?

Anyway, neither Clinton, Blair nor Mitchell actually wear a rosette or plead for the vote, so it’ll be interesting to hear from their camps exactly what they thought it would be used for. Otherwise, it’s just a little corporate-vid bigging-up Bertie and allowing him to bask in his place as friend to the stars and someone who should really should be given the Nobel peace prize as soon as possible. There “would be no peace process without Bertie Ahern”, apparently. That kind of thing drives Albert Reynolds nuts…

Bertie Ahern’s speech at Westminster was historic, and the coverage it recieved here was utterly deserved. But did it get much attention in the UK? The Times gave it a front page pic - but not in its English edition - and full (tabloid) page 8. The Independent gave it half a (tabloid) page, and the Telegraph printed a nice pic, several pages in, of Tony and Bertie shaking hands. As for The Guardian? One paragraph on page 8.

Yesterday, it hardly registered on the BBC website, nor the Google UK news page.

When Blair announced his resignation date, the North hardly featured in the British coverage and debate over his legacy, and Bertie’s arrival yesterday reflects the general lack of interest in the “Irish question” or Blair’s part in it.

Our political correspondent Mark Hennessy has started a blog. Well worth checking out, of course.

Link: Mark Hennessy

Some thoughts on the FF party political broadcast:

1. No Bertie.

2. If you stopped someone on the street and asked them what are the big changes in the last 10 years, how many of them would reply: “the National Treatment Purchase Fund”?

3. Thanks to the nice lady who told us that thanks to FF we have “our electricity, our telephones and our televisions”. Because without FF we’d be living in 1834.

4. It used that tired, swaying camera style, as if we’ll get bored if we have to spend two seconds without seeing something move.

5. How many of those featured were actors or party members or both?

6. 10 years of change and nobody mentions immigration.

Thanks to John who writes:

It is indeed a US version of the C4 programme, the chap with the glasses’n’big hair is going to reprise his role too.

And by finally going to bother of googling “IT Crowd” and “NBC” I found the evidence here. But no Chris O’Dowd? Shame.

I have a link to Graham Linehan’s blog, so maybe I wasn’t paying attention when he announced this, but is The IT Crowd that’s been picked up by NBC the same IT Crowd that Linehan writes?

If so, looks like it’s getting The Office treatment. I’m still waiting for the American version of Allo’ Allo’, but this will do until then.

Present Tense : At the start of the week the BBC banned a song from its radio stations. Style, Attract, Play by Shocka turns out to have been an elaborate commercial for a hair product, and its brief infiltration of the commercial-free broadcaster was part of a covert plan by advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi.

The BBC reacted with typical annoyance, and there was a brief flurry of indignation. After all, if we can’t trust the advertising industry, then who can we trust? The track itself is a blippy techno number, catchy after a while, but ultimately disposable. Still, it’s the best song about hair gel that’s been in the charts for a long time.
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Onion Network News on Gap’s new ‘For Kids By Kids’ range of clothing

NASA’s return to the Moon video is exciting, but commits the cardinal sin of pretending you can hear sound in space.

I’m guessing that Delta Farce will go straight to DVD

There’s some nice work being done over at Green Ink. Go for the pictures of Bertie as a vampire; stay for the delicious images of Green Party people wearing the mullet of their Mayo candidate Peter Enright.

From the people who brought you Bertie Ahern on Dragons’ Den, comes Enda Kenny on American Idol. Brilliant. (via Mulley.net)

Since Blogorrah pointed people in the direction of The Sorted Party sketch, Paul Tylak’s put up a second one here.

This is the first general election in which the internet will be a battleground. Which means it’s time for candidates and party leaders to get busy on the keyboard. Or, at least, to shanghai someone from the party’s youth wing into doing it for them. And yet, looking at the results you wonder whether it’s something of a phoney war.
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News bulletins are always keen to ram home the idea that they have a reporter “on the spot”, which is why we now have the conceit of reporters speaking live to the studio “from on the spot” - even if you often get the feeling that they could just as easily have come into the studio instead of staying out in the cold just for the aesthetic value.

RTÉ took this to a new level on Thursday night’s Nine O’Clock News when David Davin-Power stood on one side of Government Buildings, while George Lee stood on the other, and they both reported to Anne Doyle. At the same time. Maybe one cameraman could have been let home for his dinner.

By the way, why does it seem brighter on Merrion Square than it is on Kildare Street?

Watch:
David Davin-Power, live from Government Buildings
And George Lee, er, also live from Government Buildings. At the same time.

Rock The Vote’s site hands over a section to the party leaders’ “blogs”. I refuse to cast doubt on the fact that each leader wrote these notes themselves, in between reading The Swearing Lady and posting anonymous comments on Blogorrah.

It’s worth checking out as a wonderful example of how when politicians and yoof are forced into an unhappy press-op, it’s more jarring than George Bush Jr playing the bongos.

Michael McDowell’s “blog” couldn’t be more patronising if he patted each of us individually on the head and said “good boy” while giving us a biscuit. Says Michael: “It’s a privilege to meet people, young and old in every sector, from business people to students, from farmers to workers; both Irish and from overseas.”

Enda Kenny actually uses the phrase “we work our butts off”.

Trevor Sargent has a picture of himself and candidate Roderic O’Gorman playing pool.

Frankly, if all this doesn’t get the kids into the voting stations on May 24, then we should raise the voting age to 32. What more do they want?

It’s my birthday today (no flowers please, only financial donations). I’ve just checked my phone to find that O2 texted me to say happy birthday.

There’s nothing like getting a computer-generated birthday greeting from a company with which I’ve a standardized phone-charges contract to make me feel a little special. And a bit creeped out.