You’ve got to hand it to Channel 4, another Celebrity Big Brother makes the front page news, is mentioned in an early day motion in the Houses of Parliament and has effigies of the shows producers burnt in a province of India. Looks like the only winners will be Channel 4 themselves and me (who put £5 on Shilpa to win at 5-to-1 last week, Ladbrokes link to your right if you still fancy a flutter).

If you listened to the media you’d think that Jade Goody, Jo O’Meara and Danielle Lloyd were going to set fire to a few mosques when they’re released. Personally I think they’re just a collection of three uneducated ‘celebrities’ who, through their lack of cultural understanding, have joined forces and have started to pick on somebody they don’t like. If there was an attractive Polish film star I’m sure those three would be acting the same. The laugh is on them as on a show like this you can see their careers slipping away in front of your eyes while they remain blissfully unaware, stirring their cauldron. Not that I’ve actually watched any of this as I’ve only seen around 10 minutes of the show (honest), and then just to catch the lovely Cleo Rocos who I probably had my first ever crush on.

The media saturation is so overwhelming yet the voices you hear are generally 90% loud and reactionary. The lack of clarity of thought is the only thing I’m worried about lurking behind the doors of British houses, not a dark underbelly of racism. Now I even turn off the radio if they’re discussing the matter. Same for BBC online news. Read Germaine Greer’s refreshing take on the ‘controversy’. I wonder what would happen if the 22,000 people who complained got off their arses and actually did something about racism in their area? Now that should make the news.

A little bird tells me the next eviction vote is between Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty. Is this a ballot on racism in the UK? If the furore can last till the end of the series I think I’ll win my bet on Shilpa but people are gonna get bored of the news story very soon. I only hoping Shilpa can win this series before the enevitable backlash of balanced thought prevails and the cover of Heat Magazine with Jade saying “I’m not a racist, it was just the way the show was edited,” appears.

Enough of that rubbish. Here’s when Brighton’s West Pier burnt down, speeded up.

Goats on trees.

Every Extra Extend. Brilliant music shoot-em-up by the Japanese maker of Rez.

Video of Market Street in San Francisco filmed in 1905, before the big quake.

Newsreel video of the Hindenburg blowing up.

Vidmeter. Shows you a list of the most watched videos on the net.

I’ve been so busy since my last post working on a couple of amazing looking websites so here’s a week’s worth of posts in one big go.

The new Die Hard 4 teaser trailer:

The new man at Upton Park, Alan Curbishley. I think we’ll put 3 past Man Utd on Sunday.

He-Man sings 4 Non Blondes. A very messed up YouTube video featuring a camp He-Man singing a dance version of What’s Going On. I can’t get this out of my head now.

30 Essential Pieces Of Free Software for Windows. Superb collection of links to applications that will enhance your PC experience.

Boycott Christmas. Cartoons from the Christmas Resistance Movement.

The international contest of logos, trademarks and corporate identity Identity: Best of The Best 2006. Superb graphic design.

Look around Paisley Park. Take a 360 degree look around Prince’s home.

The Surrey Comet. Nothing special about this article entitled “Marksman called in to kill Kingston’s pigeons” but check out the comments below. Funniest thing I’ve seen this week.

Hot UK Deals. Amazing list of the latest cheap and free things to get online.

If you’re one of the lucky people to own a Nintendo Wii and have Orange Broadband, formerly Wanadoo, with a Livebox and have had problems getting online using Nintendo Wi-Fi then these tips may help.

First, you have to log on to your Livebox admin control panel using your PC. You can do this by using this URL in your internet brower: http://configuration.adsl/index2.html
When promted for your username and password use ‘admin’ and ‘admin’ if you can’t remember ever changing it before. Make a note of your Livebox name. Mine is WANADOO-B7E8.

Now go to Security -> Firewall and turn the setting to Low (disabled) and press ’submit’. As long as you have a firewall on your PC then it’ll still be safe.

UPDATE: I no longer think you need to do this last step. The default MEDIUM position should be fine.

Then go to Configuration -> Advanced -> Wireless and make sure your setting is ‘WEP security only’. ‘WEP and WPA’ may also work but unless you’re running a WPA encrytped device it’s unnecessary.

Now go to Security -> WEP Connection and make a note of your WEP Security Key. Keep the letter in CAPS as they wont work otherwise. It should be 26 characters long.

Turn on your Wii and go to the Wii Options (bottom left) then select ‘Wii Settings’. Now select ‘Internet’ and then ‘Connection Settings’. Select ‘Connection 1′ and then ‘Wireless Connection’.

Select ‘Search for an Access Point’. The Wii Now looks around for all the signals it can find. Press ‘OK’ and choose the one that matches the Livebox name we wrote down earlier. Move your Wii pointer over the password area and using the virtual Wii keyboard type in your WEP Security Key you found earlier. Press CAPS to make it easier, the number is in Hex so all the characters will be from 0 to 9 or A to F, no ‘I’s or ‘O’s please. *Do next step before anything else.

Go to your actual Livebox itself and look for two little black buttons in a small panel at the back. Press ‘1′, the one on the left. You now have 10 minutes in which to connect your Wii.

Back at the Wii hit ‘Yes’, then ‘OK’, then ‘OK’, then ‘OK’ again. The Wii will now test the connection. Hopefully after 30 seconds you’ll get a ‘The connection test was successful’ message. Well done!

You can now decide whether to perfom a Wii system update, I’d select ‘Yes’ if I were you. The Wii will then spend the next few minutes downloading the latest firmware. Now if you ever use a Wii service that needs the use of the Internet it will automatically connect. There’s no need to ever change any wi-fi settings again!

* Note, this site is not responsible for your Wii if anything were to go wrong with it by following the instructions here.

So, I hope that was of use to people out there. I’ve probably saved you a few hours of frustration or calls to Nintendo or Orange so feel free to send me a bit of cash using this nice little PayPal donate button here if you’re feeling generous or browse the online game stores featured above. Thanks! And have fun!

The Campaign to Protect Rural England have created a map showing the ‘tranquil’ regions of the UK.

This got a whole article at bbc online, which it wouldn’t have done if it had been a bit more truer and just said a map of the ‘Countryside’.

Me? I’m a big fan of the countryside, for short periods of time only of course, unlike Peter Cook.

The seafront was quite blowy this morning but not as windy as it was earlier on this morning as can be seen here:

From the BBC: Coastguards put out a warning to shipping after a tornado was seen sweeping along the South Coast just after dawn on Sunday.

They got the caption wrong as it’s actually Brighton Pier.

The tornado was probably nature’s response to this biblical happening in Margate, called Exodus, yesterday:

Well Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Andrex, have decided to shed a third (135) of it’s Brighton workforce. This isn’t great news of course and makes me wonder why this seems to happen to every company based at Trafalgar Place. It has a prison-like quality with those huge gates, maybe they think that some employers will strike back one day.

All the staff wear devices that you use to open doors but maybe they track movement too. And what are those strange plastic things in the ceiling? Yes, it the Big Brother house! It’s much easier to outsource the work after comprehensive ‘time and motion’ surveys. Err, allegedly.

Anyway, don’y buy Andrex, Charmin’s much better, and good luck to all the staff at Kimberly-Clark!

Oh, and here’s the trailer for the new 300 film by Frank Miller. Looks good.

And for a laugh. Here’s a Carry On Camping sketch from Shooting Stars:

It’s good to see that The Argus has changed it’s website for the better. It now has a searchable news items, an RSS feed and permalinks. I might actually start reading it now.

Today’s news has a story on the artist Banksy who carried out some art attacks on Brighton music stores this week. “He took 500 copies of Paris Hilton’s debut album, Paris, and given them his own unique makeover…. On the front there is a sticker which claims her latest singles include “Why Am I Famous?”, “What Have I Done?” and “What Am I For?”… A picture of Paris behind the CD has replaced her head with that of her pet dog and the inlay card which features lyrics to her songs has slogans such as “Every CD you buy puts me even further out of your league” emblazoned across it. One picture has been replaced to show Paris getting out of a car next to a number of homeless people with the slogan “90per cent of success is just showing up.” – Read the whole story here.

It’s also good to see West Ham united on the back and front pages of many newspapers this morning due to the rumours of a Russian buy-out. The Sun lead with “I’m forever blowing Roubles” and had Tony Gale describing the new players as “the two biggest bombshells to hit the East End since the Luftwaffe.“. There a good article in the Independent too. Personally I think West Ham is undervalued at the moment and when the regeneration hits Newham in time for the 2012 Olympics the club could be worth a few more quid. Good business.

From today’s Guardian:

The US government was closely involved in planning the Israeli campaign in Lebanon, even before Hizbullah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross border raids in July. … several Israeli officials visited Washington, separately, ‘to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear’.”

Isn’t that state sponsored terrorism?

But on a brighter, slightly nerdier note please check out the wonders of resonant frequencies with just the simple use of some salt, a speaker and some card: