Guilty as charged, Monsieur Poirot

OK, I admit it: I'm a royal pain in the arse when it comes to watching detective shows on the telly. I don't try to work out who dunnit, you see; I'm far too busy looking for mistakes.

It all started when I was a kid in the Seventies. "Back projection!" my dad would call out, whenever they showed a close-up of Telly Savalas supposedly driving his car in Kojak. Once I discovered what back projection actually was, I started to join in.

Then along came Columbo: "But there's just one thing I don't understand…" Peter Falk would begin during the denouement scene. "MI-CRO-PHONE!" dad and I would shout in unison, as the overhead boom sneaked into shot. And I couldn't help noticing that whenever my heart-throb, the delightful Cheryl Ladd, did anything dangerous in Charlie's Angels, she suddenly grew a lot less petite and lost her totally mesmerising 35-23-34 figure: it was a bloke in a wig!

Spotting mistakes in detective shows was a fairly harmless hobby until time-shift TV came along. Now that we have Sky+, I have developed the annoying habit of placing the programme on hold, rewinding a bit, and asking Jen if she can spot the mistake. It must be totally infuriating.

"Look, there! UPVC windows in 1940s Brighton!" I will declare during Foyle's War. Or, while watching Inspector Morse, "Somebody has done a wonderful job of polishing Morse's Jag: look, you can see the reflection of the entire film crew in the door!"

On Saturday, I surpassed myself. We were watching an old edition of Rebus. I had already paused the picture several times to show Jen how immaculately clean people keep their car windscreens in detective shows: "It's so they can film through them without dirty smudges' appearing across the actors' faces," I explained. Then Rebus and his detective mate (who would die shortly afterwards) decided to get filthy drunk: "No way is that Laphroaig," I objected, as Rebus's mate uncorked a new bottle: "look, it's totally the wrong colour—it's way too dark! That's cold tea, that is!"

Mind you, when it comes to Laphroaig, I consider myself a bit of an expert.

Laphroaig, you say. Don't mind if I do…

We who are about to die…

There is a distinct possibilty that Gruts might die temporarily in the next few days. I have just been looking at the stats for the gruts.com domain, and was frankly amazed to see that it has exceeded 99.5% of its monthly bandwidth allocation. My Darwin site is to blame—it's taken a serious hammering over the last week.

I haven't a clue what happens when the domain hits 100% of its bandwidth allocation, but it might well stop working. If so, be good, and I'll see you all in June.

(I am currently taking steps to try to ensure that this doesn't happen again.)

Postscript: The domain in now at 105% of its bandwidth allocation for the month. It looks as if my hosting provider, Clara.net, allows a bit of leeway. Good on them!

Working lunch

I was at a conference at a hotel yesterday. They tried the standard trick with the buffet lunch: very small plates. But I wasn't having any of that nonsense and piled mine nice and high with ham sandwiches, quiche (it's not true what they say), spring rolls, and those things that look like chicken but which always turn out to be fish.

Then, as I got to the end of the table, I found a woman serving potato wedges and curry. They had concealed her very well. So I pushed my sandwiches to one side to make a bit of room and handed her my plate.

Good on her, she piled up the potato wedges in the gap I had made, and then ladelled the curry over the top of my ham sandwiches.

Curry and ham sandwiches: I'll tell you what, it's the future!

Estranged

Guardian: There is a tunnel and there is light, and I will get there

… [Sir Paul McCarney's] divorce will cost him tens, possibly hundreds of millions of pounds, and has already cost him his place in this year's Sunday Times rich list—with £725m, he fell from 65th richest person in the UK to 102nd. It has been estimated that [Heather] Mills could get as much as £200m.

Two-hundred-MILLION pounds! I know they're estranged and everything, but that's practically an arm and a leg!

Putting the 'private' into private members

Guardian: MPs back 'squalid' curbs on FoI

MPs today backed a controversial bid to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information Act—a move described by opponents as "squalid".

The Tory private member's freedom of information (amendment) bill secured its third reading by 96 votes to 25, a majority of 71.

This from the people who exempted their own bar and club from the forthcoming anti-smoking law.

That's it, I've started an online pledge:

"I will refuse to vote in the next UK general election if members of parliament make themselves exempt from the Freedom of Information Act but only if 10,000 other UK registered voters will do the same."

— Richard Carter, disillusioned voter

Click here to sign the pledge, or text pledge FOI-4-Parliament to 60022 (UK only).

(Remember, you only need to refuse to vote if MPs make themselves exempt.)

Somebody got out of bed the wrong side this morning

Commenter 'dont like people like you' (I don't think that's their real name) writes:

youre hecker freaking stupid. you people who just mess around with stuff like that are hollow butts and XXXX. didnt get it. didnt like it. go to HxLL, maybe they'll appreciate it.

Very well put! If only all Gruts commenters were of such calibre (no offence). But why on earth would I want to go to Hull?

You can see what provoked this constructive bout of criticism here.

The East shall rise again

The top five countries in last night's Eurovision Song Contest final were:

  1. Serbia (268 points)
  2. Ukraine (235)
  3. Russia (207)
  4. Turkey (163)
  5. Bulgaria (157)

OK, hand-on-heart now: if you'd had to write down a list of European countries, how long would it have been before you thought of any of the above?

Me too.

We are living in a new era.

The UK came joint next-to-last with our old buddies, the French. Good to see our European pals have forgiven us for Iraq. But the real shock of the evening was the Republic of Ireland's last place, with a measley cinq points.

Like I said, a new era.

See also: Don't Mention the W*r