Cowboy in the making

BBC: Brown criticised over embryo bill

It's a little-known fact that Embryo Bill was the name Buffalo Bill went by before he was born.

The pheasant's revolt

There's a semi-tame male pheasant which has been visiting our garden for the last five years. For alliterative reasons, we have named him Philip.

Philip seems to think he owns our garden, and gets decidedly pissed off if other birds start eating the bread that we have quite clearly left out just for him. When we neglect to leave out any bread for him, Philip comes to the window and stares in at us in an intimidating manner. If we ignore him, he starts pecking at the glass. Philip has got a bit of an attitude. I like that in a pheasant.

You might wonder why I put up with such nonsense from a wild bird. To be honest, similar thoughts have crossed my own mind. Then, yesterday afternoon, I saw something which made me realise that pampering Philip had not gone unrewarded. It was a sight that cheered me up for the rest of the day: one of the neighbourhood cats running terrified from our garden, with a very pissed off pheasant in hot pursuit!

Attaboy, Philip!

See also: Pheasant surprise

Finger on the pulse

Jen and I are off work this week and next. The other day, we found ourselves in what I still insist on calling a record shop. Have you noticed how little music they sell in record shops these days? It's all computer games and DVDs. Music is dead. I blame Steve Jobs.

Anyway, when I'm working, I spend about three hours a day commuting in my car. When you spend that much time in a car, the delights of radio soon begin to wear a bit thin. On my way into work, my main listening choice is between Sarah 'Tory Girl' Kennedy on Radio 2, and the Today Programme with the unbearable John Humphrys on Radio 4. Which is why, a few years ago, I bought an iPod. Thank you, Steve Jobs!

With an iPod in your car, you have the best music radio station in the world. Put the thing into shuffle mode, and you can listen to non-stop music entirely matching your own taste. Eat my iPod's shorts, Radio 1!

But, with an iPod in your car, you also have the best talk radio station in the world, courtesy of the podcast. Thank you, Dave Winer! Over the last three or four years, I have become totally addicted to podcasts, be they ordinary BBC radio programmes available for downloading after the event, or programmes put together especially for the internet by talented amateurs. Thank you, Steve Gillmor! (Vanity feed still in good working order, Steve?)

BUT… What with having access to the best music station and the best talk radio station in the world on my iPod, I hardly ever need to listen to traditional radio any more. Buggles were wrong: it wasn't video that killed the radio star; it was the podcast.

On the whole, this is fine, but it does mean that I no longer have my finger on the pulse when it comes to modern-day pop crooners.

Which is why, when I was in the record shop the other day and heard a rather fabulous new tune, I hadn't a baldy clue who it was. Too embarrassed to ask the trendy, young whippersnapper behind the till, I scribbled down a couple of the lyrics for Googling later. It turns out that the song has been played to death on the radio and has been the UK number one for several weeks. Thank you, Duffy:

Perhaps music isn't quite so dead after all.

Rather fishy

Pine air freshener

You must have seen those silly pine-tree-shaped pine-scented air-fresheners they have in cars… Do you see what they've done there? They've made the air-freshener into the shape of the thing that it smells like. Clever marketing ploy, or what?

The other day, I couldn't help noticing that a colleage had an air-freshener in the shape of a dolphin hanging from the rear-view mirror of their car. I have never smelt a dolphin, but I don't imagine it's the sort of smell I'd want wafting through my car. Rather fishy is how I imagine a dolphin would smell. But I could be wrong.

How about you lot? Have any of you ever smelt a dolphin? If so, what did it smell like? Is it the sort of smell you'd want wafting through your car?

I need to know.

Rewriting movie history

BBC: Call to restrict smoking scenes

An anti-smoking group in Liverpool is calling for all movies with smoking scenes to be given an 18 certificate.

The latest modest proposal from the anti-smoking bigots. Doesn't it seem just a little bit over-the-top to you? Here's a short list of films that would be given an 18 certificate if they had their way:

  • Casablanca
  • The Quiet Man
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  • Blade Runner
  • The Full Monty
  • As Good As It Gets
  • The Lord of the Rings
  • 101 Dalmatians
  • pretty much any film depicting the Second World War

Yes, we know smoking isn't nice, but neither is being a criminal (not quite the same thing yet—although rapidly heading that way in the movies). Tell you what, while we're at it, let's slap an 18 certificate on every film with a bad guy in it too, just to make sure they don't tempt children towards a life in crime.

The innocent have nothing to fear (except false positives)

Observer: Put young children on DNA list, urge police

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

'If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,' said Pugh. 'You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won't. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.'

(My emphasis added.)

That is one hell of an if, if I may say so, Gary. But I suspect you already know that. Exactly what percentage of experts is 'some experts'? How do you define an expert? When you say these experts 'believe', do you mean they have actual scientific proof, or do you mean that they believe in the same way that some people believe in Father Christmas, that there is a god, or that there are fairies at the bottom of their garden?

Why are you spouting this dangerous nonsense, Gary? Haven't you read The Mismeasure of Man?

What's your real agenda, Gary?

(Is this the sort of debate you had in mind?)