Viddy This, My Brothers

Quite an interesting week really. First there was the G8 summit, with 8 powerful men promising that this time they really would do something about African poverty. They did indeed decide on something - namely almost nothing.

Then we had some rock has-beens organising a large concert, seemingly in the belief that the G8 genuinely wanted to help, and would get more impetus to do so if they knew there were thousands of nearby pop fans in Make Poverty History armbands.

Some bombs exploded in London, and Tony Blair went on TV doing his 'distressed' routine, which amazingly seemed to fool a lot of viewers this time. Other politicians did the same thing with less amateur dramatics, and got slammed for opportunism.

The boards of Outpost Gallifrey - that bastion of light entertainment enlightenment values - is now suffused by posters with union jacks in their avatars. The site owner comments 'We're all British now', without a trace of irony.

Fortunately, the 'one nation pulling together against terrorism' mood is already fading, the ID card lobby hasn't gained support, and the racist backlash hasn't materialised. Everything about those bombs is puzzling - from who planted them, through why, to the mawkish but unhysterical public reaction.
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The N-Pod is working, the DAB capture machine is sort-of working, Simon M's computer started working for no reason after I spent an hour fiddling with it, and the cashpoint still isn't working.

I finally got around to seeing 'A Clockwork Orange'. A story about an insoluble problem - how to control violence in a society that functions by uncontrolled violence. On the same DVDR is Bad Lieutenant, Evil Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.