Author Archives: Fordiebianco

Grunty Wimbledon

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Hold on to your seats, ladies and gentlemen, put on your hats, pour the Pimms, scoff the strawberries and make yourself comfy in front of the TV: Wimbledon is starting again. This year with the added bonus of a possible British contender. While he’s only being held as a contender because Rafael Nadal isn’t starting, Andy Murray will nevertheless become the most talked about Scotsman over the next two weeks, giving Gordon Brown a welcome break. The English will probably try to naturalise him, maybe even giving his some good natured hoots from ‘Henman Hill’, though he will probably never incite the same sort of shrieks that Henny Henman got from his female audience (and of course the obligatory ‘COME ON, TIM’ just when he wanted to serve). It must be the absence of the henmanian mop of hair.

I am looking forward to some proper tennis, though I am delighted that I am not present at the court, as I would probably interrupted in my enjoyment of this beautiful game by the shrieks of Michelle Larcher de Brito, whose shrieks are apparenly audible over 3 courts and whose exclamations apparently are lasting forever (and decibels in the ‘747 taking off’ range).

I wonder whether Health and Safety should be involved and punters issued with earplugs?

Ipod touch +Last.Fm + Revo iBlik Radiostation = Excellent Entertainment

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CIMG0212

So, you have a Last.fm account, but you don’t want a computer in the living room. Well, if I say “want”, I mean ‘Not allowed’. No, not even a small one (women can detect even the smallest aberration in their interior design). But you were allowed to buy that nice Revo iBlik Radiostation, because it looks so stylish and it fits rather fetchingly into the modular book case. And you have of course a nice high speed wireless connection. It would of course be a wonderful idea if the iBlik would offer a Last.Fm plugin, but it seems that the Scottish electrosmiths at Revo are more interested in design then advancing their software (has any iBlik or Pico owner ever had a software update??), so the Last.fm connectivity has to come from somewhere else. Enter the iPod touch that you still had lying around somewhere, and tadaa: one click and you have one lovely sounding (I have a set of smashing active monitors hooked up to it) and acceptable looking Last.Fm living room entity. I always knew that the IPod touch had more to offer than just watching ‘Lost’ on the train.

Dear Gordon,

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I was delighted when you succeeded that belligerent twerp Tony Blair. I was hoping for a thoughtful, intellectual, measured, competent technocrat with the social conscience of a presbyterian minister and the economic prowess of a long term chancellor. I would have voted for you back in  2007 if you would have given me a chance.

Unfortunately you turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

While still able to lead on international subjects, you completely lost it in the domestic arena and surrounded yourself with a bunch of incompetent yay-sayers. Your thoughtfulness turned into dithering. You turned out to have the political response time of a galapagos turtle. You have been eclipsed in every aspect of domestic policies by the Tories and gave the BNP the chance to poison the minds of the very electorate that you should be able to bank on, the white blue collar worker.

I’ve had it with you. Please save this country from the BNP and the Tories and leave now. Let the smoking remnants of the Labour Party go into a coalition government with the LibDems and let the healing begin.

I wish you all the best in your future career as a visiting professor for economics at the University of St Andrews and hope that your life will be a fulfilled one. It’s probably the best for us all.

Sincerely,

FB