Stayed up till 3 am on Wednesday morning to see the historic event - the first black man elected to the White House. Not that he's particlarly left wing or anything, but at least he was one of the few politicians who opposed the neo-cons when they went to war.



Our leaders, however, a pathethic couple of buffons - I'm his friend, no I wanna be his friend.



I watched a documentary on Neil Young. He must be pleased having taken CSN&Y on tour around the USA - winding up their southern audiences with songs laden with anti-Bush messages.



Back on the bike this week. I wasn't well last week. Even though I seme to ahve avoided catching a cold. I'm fighting it mentally, and physically - eating very carefully to make sure I have all the nutrition I need, and more. I've put on the weight I lost again though.



Inspired by Danny Baker I'm filling my MP3 player with songs at 2 minutes or less. I might publish the full list on here when I'm done. There's quite a lot of 60s stuff, punk and Elvis Costello. No Floyd or Genesis though.



I managed to get a couple of songs onto Danny Baker's list, and now realise my information was probably wrong. Oooops.



The DVDs from lovefilm keep on coming. This week I've had Amorres Perro; Seinfeld series 4 disc 1; Wrong Arm of The Law.

A Fortean Weekend

Attended the excellent Fortean Uncon event at the weekend.



Saw talks by Richard Wiseman (investigating the unknown); David Clarke (Opening Britain's X-Files); Ian Simmons (Extraterrestrial Mythologies in Modern Music); Andy Roberts (Psychedlia Forteana); Peter Brookesmith and Rob Irving (Celine and Julie Go Hoaxing); Jon Downes (Re-evaluating the Chupacabra); Patrick Huyghe (Under the Radar: UFOs and National Security); Ivan Mackerle (Exploring Siberia's Valley of Death); Paul Screeton (Folklorists and Forteans: Friends or Foes); Professor Vanessa Toulmin (Peculiar Entertainments - Speciality Acts in Victorian and Edwardian Fairgrounds and Variety Theatres); Richard Freeman (Search For the Almasty); David Clarke, Andy Roberts and Peter Brookesmith (A Policeman's Lot - The Alan Godfrey Abduction Case).

time to ramble

The row over Ross and Russ has been unbelievable. The Daily Mail went into spasms of hysterical righteousness and whipped up enough anti-BBC fervour to register near 30,000 complaints. I'm assuming none of these people actually heard the programme as after the programme was aired, and before the Mail got hold of it, only 2 complaints were made to the BBC. The Mail, of course, has got business links with Sky and ITV and other digital media outlets, which means they have a hidden agenda - that of undermining public broadcasting at every opportunity, so I'm not surprised at their hideous over-reaction. I am unfortunately continually surprised at how stupid their readership is.

Jeremy Hardy pointed out on the News Quiz that much more important things have been happening, and apparently are not being covered by the major news media in this country...

Loved Charlie Brooker's Big Brother Zombie epic which was on every night last week. I don't approve of fast Zombies - neither does Romero - but on the whole it was worthy of the best Zombie films - the comments on modern media and fame all hit home, and there were clever references to "Dawn of the Dead" which I enjoyed.

Came 2nd in the pub quiz last night. People in the Tup are pretty friendly and I'll miss my Sunday nights once I move out of Colliers Wood.

I've been contributing quite a bit to an on-line forum lately. I've been having a massive row about the Ross and Russ incident on Radio 2 and somehow managed to start a row about the Military Industrial complex / Pentagon / secret government that really runs America's foreign policy and long term strategy.

We've got our final judgement from LRQA on Thursday - about whether we're able to close out our NC's. I have a good feeling about it, as we have done everything that was required. We shall see. Tomorrow might turn out to be quite a bad day.