No, I didn’t go to see Fat Boy Slim yesterday. There’s some good pictures at The Argus though. Including this famous Brighton face I haven’t seen in ages:

The webstats for KingOfMyCastle during December really skyrocketed. This site had over 80,000 hits and nearly 6,000 unique visitors.

The BBC’s John Simpson looks ahead to World news events in 2007.

I finished watching The Wire Season 1 too and it’s so good I’ve ordered the second box set. Probably the best drama I’ve seen in a very long time. If you skip to the 2:20 in this YouTube video Charlie Brooker gives his opinion of it:

Had this in my mind for the last few days what with all the mid-term elections in The States. 15 minutes in Photoshop later:

Ha! Check this advert that was running on US television earlier this year.

This was created by the CEI, the Competative Enterprise Institute, which, funnily enough, is sponsored by Exxon.

It’s so nice to see the US winning the trust of the Iraqi people.

“Sean Smith, the Guardian’s award-winning war photographer, spent nearly six weeks with the 101st Division of the US army in Iraq. Watch his haunting observational film that explodes the myth around the claims that the Iraqis are preparing to take control of their own country.”

You can also see his image gallery here.

And to change direction slightly here’s something more entertaining coming from somewhere in Asia. A very cheap remake of Thriller with the worst music production I’ve ever heard:

Here’s a couple of games I’ve been playing this week:

First we have Line Rider. Just draw a simple line on the screen, press play and watch a man toboggan down the slope. You can redraw the line in more complicated waves as seen on YouTube.

Secondly we have Picto. This is a memory game where a new icon is added to the screen after every round. You just have to click the new one and ignore the others. It starts off easy but soon gets incredibly hard. I managed a score of 23 before my brain started to hurt.

It’s good to see the editting at The Argus is up to its usual fine standard, as can be seen with this article about durg-related crime.

And for some politics just check out Dan Olbermann’s special commentary on the Clinton vs Fox debacle. We always think of the US press as too government friendly but this goes to show that some networks aren’t scared to say what they think. The Guardian has also published Terry Jones’ latest letter to George Bush which is well worth a read.

And finally, from YouTube (again) comes this Simpsons classic, Dr Zaius.

I listen to Radio FiveLive every day at home. I even go to bed with it playing in the background. The morning 9-12 show hosted by Victoria Derbyshire is a lively phone-in discussion programme which only seems to allow views from the two opposing sides of an argument have their say. You could never get on there if you think both sides have a point to make, you have to be one side or the other. And all the time Victoria play Devil’s Advocate enraging the callers more and more. She’s not as viscious as Nicky Campbell but she gives a good show of herself.

Today I heard there was going to be a discussion on global warming and I decided to send in an eMail in the hope it will be read out on air. The discussion revolved around whether the UK should continue to cut it’s carbon emissions even though countries such as China, India and the USA have not signed-up to do so yet. There’s a possibility that the UK could lose out competitively with these countries.

To get my message read out on air it had to be a strong view, perhaps inflammatory, and it had to be short and to the point but I’ve listened to the show long enough to know the kind of message they read out. So I thought why not mix climate change with slavery! And guess what? My message was read out 3 minutes after sending the eMail. Here’s what I said:

“Should the UK have waited the extra 60 years it took America to abolish slavery? Most arguments FOR slavery were economic but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have abolished it. The same goes for Climate Change. We need to make a start now!”

Ha! It worked. Now I’m going to try one every day, mixing a relevant issue with an unrelated one. I can’t work out whether to keep to the left-wing eco viewpoint or to sometimes switch over to a right-wing bigot. I’m sure it’s easy to get a “bring back the birch!” eMail read out next time there’s a program about hoodies. I’ll let you know if I have any more luck.

The new Borat movie has been doing the rounds at various film festivals around the world and the feedback has been good. As ever the Kazakhstan government is annoyed at Sasha Baron Cohen’s portrayal of one it’s national reporters. So annoyed that they’ll bring it up during discussion with President Bush next week.

From the Daily Mail: “President Nazarbayev will visit the White House and the Bush family compound in Maine when he flies in for talks that will include the fictional character Borat.”

Brighton has a new visitor this summer. Introducing the Hummingbird Hawk-Moth:

This creature is normally found south of the Alps but for some reason this year they have been seen as far north as Finland.

“Israel has arrested almost one quarter of the members of the Palestinian parliament as part of its campaign to free an Israeli soldier captured on the Gaza border in June.”

From The Guardian

“British mine clearance experts have accused Israel of “carpeting” Lebanese border villages with deadly cluster bombs, claiming that more appeared to have been used than in the American-led invasion of Iraq.”

From The Telegraph

And on a lighter note here’s an 8 minute clip of Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson and Midge Ure in Filthy, Rich & Catflap, one of my favourite comedies from the 80’s. Courtesy of YouTube.

Hit the pause button for a minute if you’re having streaming difficulties.

Well you could get one at this little development in Dubai.

“Prices start at £100,000 for a one-bedroom flat with a shared pool and go up to £3.8million for one of the 90,000 sq ft plots on the end of each frond.”