Adolf has tried to make a big deal about a couple of tons of enriched uranium and sundry other radioactive items found in Iraq and removed by the US in 2004.

What he doesn't bother to tell you is the material, low enriched uranium, was found after the first Gulf War way back in 1992 and put under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Adolf:

Remember the barrels of cyclosarin (commercial insecticide) found next to shell filling equipment? How strange that before today there has been no mention in the MSM about two tons of enriched uranium. Not just a couple of pounds of the stuff but two bloody tons! All the media talked about was Jo Wilson and Nigeria. It's called 'black hole' journalism. Don't want to know, didn't see.

As to the supposedly non-existent media coverage, well even a cursory Google throws up stories in the MSM from both ends of the spectrum, Fox and BBC, in addition to the one linked above.
Predictably shabby.

I've finally replaced my old 1966 Nikkormat and gone digital with a Canon EOS 350D, marketed in the US under the unfortunate label, the "Rebel XT". I'm still getting used to it but am totally impressed so far. It seems to be able to handle just about any situation I can throw its way.

Anyway, me and my "Rebel" went around the coast today, through the backblocks to Kaikohe, where I boosted the economy by a much needed $7.50 for a sandwich and a coffee. Then on to Wairere, where I missed a pic of two lads racing their horses, and on to Rawene, Opononi, Tane Mahuta (more impressive than I expected), a beer at the wonderful Kaihu pub, Dargaville and then, dammit, down the peninsula to Pouto before turning home to Whangarei. The pic above was taken on the peninsula.

The US wiretapping story is growing legs daily. It really makes you wonder when the current administration will realise that even when you are hunting and prosecuting terrorists, the rule of law applies. In Guantanamo, through renditions, torture, secret prisons and illegal kidnappings, and now through these wiretaps they have gotten themselves in a horrible legal muddle. Worse, because of all this they are now failing in one of their primary missions: to bring terrorists to justice.

The administration's wiretapping policy has now endangered its cases against a range of other accused terrorists as defence lawyers scramble to discover if illegal taps were used to gather evidence against their clients. Yesterday Daily Kos has a lively discussion of the illegalities involved in the wiretaps here. Kos also reveals the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), which grants warrants for some wiretaps, had to modify 173 requests in 2003 and 2004 and speculates on the reasons why.

It doesn't pay to rely on The Washington Times for an understanding of the Middle East, it seems. Adolf did:

The news from Iraq cannot get any worse for the Democrats and the dopey NZ Left. The Sunni Arabs of Iraq have more brains than the pseudo intellectuals who infest our universities and news outlets.

Sunni Arabs have concluded they should deal with the Americans and extend the 'negotiated truce' which allowed the election to proceed. How interesting that the truce was negotiated by the Yanks. That was not widely known. By this means they have essentially broken the 'insurgency' and isolated the imported fanatics. Even more interesting to note the Sunni's main fear is Iran, not the Americans.

I wish I had a dollar for every time a winger declared the insurgency broken. That probably makes me a Zarqawi supporter again. Yawn.

While Rumsfeld and Bush seem, through the bitter experience of two wasted years and at the cost of untold lives and treasure, to be abandoning simplistic strategies and statements, their lowly camp followers haven't got the message yet. For them it's still either black or white. Adolf again:

It just gets better by the day. That is, if you don't read the New York Times, The Guardian and The Independent and don't watch CBS or the BBC.

Well, it would wouldn't it?

So some evil opportunists have taken Alistair Cooke's bones and sold them off.

It's an unforgivable desecration ... though if it were someone else Cooke would perhaps have noted some amazing historical coincidence, made some astonishing analogy, and used the event to illustrate a wider point.

Cooke, who died in 2004, was both modern and old-fashioned. While keeping up with the world went with his trade, his understanding and analysis came from the long view. His genius (apart from catholic interests and an incredible memory) was melding the general and the particular and explaining it in plain English. And he lived so long and had easy access to the great and powerful. He heard Hitler speak in Munich in 1931, for goodness' sake.

Because his viewpoint was rooted in the past it also meant that Cooke made, very, very occasionally, a lapse of judgement, often along the lines of taste, his courtly attitudes to women usually to blame. He once made a comment about being able to cure a pompous person being about as impossible as reflowering a virgin. When he was told the latter was medically possible, he repeated the whole exchange in a speech in San Francisco. He had a sometimes prickly relationship with his longtime employers, the BBC (great bio here), partly because of the odd ill-advised statement he made in one of his weekly Letters.

But he was almost always on the money, as those who know their history are. On administration hawks without experience of war he said:

"Although in a democracy we keep to the famous and sensible belief that war is too important to be left to the generals, I have seen enough of civilians running policy in wartime to know that nobody is more bloodthirsty, more exhilarated by the war game, than Presidential assistants who are new to it. They give force to a warning maxim I have quoted before and will quote again: CE Montague's celebrated line, 'Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant scorned.'”

I flew back into New Zealand on Wednesday having taken redundancy from my day-job at The Sydney Morning Herald a week or so earlier. That's why blogging has been light this week. The Girlie got the window seat, of course, but I was still able to see Kaipara Heads and that little windy river that leads north to Helensville, glistening, on the way in. Then we did a slow turn and the entire Hauraki Gulf swept past the window.

It's good to be back after five years away. Very good.

Last night I caught up with my oldest crew for a Christmas nosh-up and to see The Furys at the King's Arms. The band used to be a mainstay of Auckland music in the early 1980s and they are even better now. Last night they were magnificent. Big Dave McLean's voice has grown deeper and stronger and it was already deep and strong way back when. He is a greatly under-rated songsmith as well (samples here). The combo was also the original Furys line-up with the self-effacing Rob Galley on guitar and Simon Elton on bass. A great night out.

Sir John Anderson will take over as chairman of Television New Zealand at the end of April, Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey announced today. Anderson, as few of us will know, is chief executive of the ANZ/National Bank.

As the saxophonist Paul Desmond once said, "So this is how the world ends, not with a whim but a banker."

Rich and exceptionally flexible though the English language is, it sometimes leaves us struggling for just the right word to describe an object or to sum up a predicament. I particularly like a list of ‘new words’ compiled a long time ago by Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones that appeared in either the Not the Nine o’clock News or the Alas Smith and Jones annual, and which I once transcribed into my 1984 Collins A4 page-a-day diary. Well, there can’t have been much else going on that day… There should certainly be words for most of the phenomena and objects listed here, and I can’t see why they shouldn’t be these.

Our Director-General is taking a brief sabbatical from broadcasting, although rumours that he’s been joined at the beach by Ian Fraser, where they’re sharing the dregs of a bottle of Murrieta Rioja, could not be confirmed by NZBC sources before pub opening time. However, since I’ve recovered from my headache, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t assume this week’s responsilollities (sorry, lolly responsibilities).

Rob offers the following from the comfort of his north-facing deck chair: a review of King Kong, which he saw the other night and which he proclaims “Very good. Much better than the Rings”; as well as another good review of Kong on Slate; a New York Times piece on the turnout in Iraq election; and finally the DG thinks No Right Turn’s posts on the torture issue, here, here, here, there, here, there and, er, everywhere have been “really great”.

Once again, Stephen scrutinises our office copy of the Economist so you don’t have to: for example, this solid piece, with its usual, thorough on-the-ground reporting on the US Army’s plans to improve its performance in Iraq — and why, it seems, the Brits do this kind of thing better; and also why the European Union retains its strange fondness for farm subsidies; plus this astonishing item from the Downbeat magazine archive: jazz bassist and bandleader Charles Mingus in two blindfold tests from 1960. And here’s a remark Mingus made on stage at New York’s Five Spot that was recorded for posterity:

“You haven’t been told before that you’re phonies. You’re here because jazz has publicity, jazz is popular… You like to associate yourself with this sort of thing. But it doesn’t make you a connoisseur of the art because you follow it around…”

How many of today’s artistes — in any genre — would have the cojones to say that to their audience? And, finally from Stephen, Radiohead (a band he read somewhere in the MSM doesn’t even have to bother with a formal record contract) is back in the studio.

I would like to do a favour for our mate Douglas Rushkoff, and help him plug his just-published book Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out, and which I’ve ordered for US$16.29. If you have the resources to buy yourself or someone else his book as a Christmas pressie via Amazon, Barnes & Noble or anywhere else this week, Douglas says, it would “help keep me in print and my baby in diapers”. Marketing guru and author of All Marketers are Liars, Seth Godin, seems to like it: “Get your highlighters out! There’s a worldchanging idea on each and every page,” he exclaims.

The venerable Philip Roth explains why literary critics should be shot; on the strength of which, I can’t see why the blighters shouldn’t be hunted instead of foxes. And I very much like cartoonist and illustrator Chris Ware’s work (be sure to visit all the pages here), which I discovered via BoingBoing.

When the Ricky Gervais show was launched as a podcast by the Guardian just a couple of weeks ago, they asked subscribers to the first cast to post their questions. Here’s a very funny sample from the original blog. And get the first two episodes of Gervais’s hilarious podcast here — the best fun I’ve had for ‘free’ since the Underworld webcast (two hours and forty minutes of live improvisation for the price of a rather large broadband download).

Following Mark’s note last week that Wikipedia was in a spot of bother, I spotted and then Mark spotted that in matters of accuracy (and we ought to heed the Stratford Theory of Media Numbers here, lest it come back to bite us on the arse again), it fares only marginally less well than the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Finally, as Rob and Mark rightly pointed out last week, global warming is getting complicated. However, reputable scientists agree that, whatever’s causing the rising temperatures, more and more polar bears are swimming alone, far out at sea, and drowning. And they probably don’t care too much why it’s getting hot in here.

Nos da!

Film review: Joyeux Noel
* * *

On Christmas Day, 1914, a truly remarkable thing happened: pockets of troops on the Western Front stopped fighting. For a few hours they left their sodden, stinking trenches to have a drink and smoke and a game of football in no man’s land. Remarkable too, that Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) is the first big-screen presentation of this surreal event. But just in time for Christmas.

Possibly the only two familiar faces in this necessarily feel-good-feel-bad co-production are Daniel Brühl (Ladies in Lavender) as a German officer and Diane Kruger (Troy) as half of a singing couple (there is also apparently an Eastender in the cast). Her and her bloke heroically escape from singing for some stereotypically raucous drunken Nazis to entertain the troops at the front line. A burst from him of “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” is matched by the Scots across the way filling up with their pipes to a tune about dreaming of home. Pretty soon a Christmas truce is declared. The French in the other corner bring their wine and coffee, and soon the three groups are sharing pics of their wives and indulging in a game of football. A mass is held in Latin - a lingua franca and religiosity almost certainly more commonly shared then than today.

(In daylight the sides also took the opportunity to bury those killed in the middle, and Tommy and Fritz in real life also used the opportunity to scout out one another’s positions. The film quietly notes both less sentimental realities through one soldier who refuses to fraternise and instead bitterly mourns his fallen brother.)

This film is eager to illustrate the veneer of difference, merely hidden behind a cloak of animosity created by nationalistic egomaniacs of varying craziness. The troops' cosiness is not condoned by commanding officers miles behind the lines or representatives of the church (a bishop reprimands one of his underlings after the fact for refusing to morally condemn the men). It was, however, the early days of the war, so soldiers are not yet embittered, and perhaps retain a remnant of the adventure with which they entered the war.

But Joyeux Noel, directed by Frenchman Christian Carion, suffers from clumsy exposition and lumpish moralising – it opens with three children of the warring nations talking the inflexible language of their belligerent politicians in what appears to be a classroom. The acting is also at times flat and stagey. The German crown prince is suitably weasely and weird, and the front-line officers tread the line well between guarded and enjoying the company of their cultured counterparts. But the lip-synching is atrocious, and distracting. Plus the trenches are a bit clean.

Even so, there are real moments of pathos in the schmaltz of what is in effect a statement film, and the film does pretty well to balance the light- and heavy-hearted. Joyeux Noel will be enjoyed most by those who actually remember a world war or its effects.

It was one of those drunken ideas that probably should have been left in the bar — along with their bags, credit cards and most of their brain cells. “We like Spanish red wine!” an NZBC blogger yelled; redundantly, as it turned out, since a quantity of it was already dribbling down his front. “We should write a side-by-side Rioja review!” slurred his fellow blogger, as they tumbled headlong down the stairs of their favourite watering hole and into the gutter. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it turned out to be far more difficult than they had thought it would be. Our aspiring “wine experts” will be strangers neither to readers of NZBC nor to Auckland’s long-suffering bartenders. Director of the World Service Mark Broatch is NZBC’s Rioja evangelist, while Director of Light Entertainment Chris Bell describes himself as, “a pisshead from way back”. But they were both strangers to reviewing wine and quickly found themselves out of their depth. Nevertheless, the two repaired to Casa del Bello with a bag of roasted almonds and three of the best Riojas available from Auckland’s wine suppliers in the under-$50 price range. Several hours and two big headaches later, the winner was revealed. Read the red-stained results here.

If you’re anything like me, and I know I am, you’ll like to start your day with a burst of dance music — a kind of pre-breakfast live jam session before you head off to the office. Sorta fing. So if you’re up and about at 07:00 New Zealand time on Friday morning (that’s 18:00 UK time on Thursday), you might want to log on for this: Underworld and friends will be hosting a “live, techno-flavoured webcast” from their Lemonworld studio (short notice, I know, but I only heard about it myself at 22:00 on Thursday). Says Underworld’s Karl Hyde of the event: “Haven’t got a clue what will happen, and that’s the way we like it.” The Underworld website is streaming the webcast on QuickTime, and you’ll find a link if you’d prefer to listen to it on iTunes or WinAmp. Check out the webcam, bring coffee and I’ll put some toast on.

Update, 07:16: Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m listening right now and watching the webcam, and mighty invigorating it is to feel as though you’re connected, live, to the other side of the world... What do you want on your toast?

I've been in Sydney five years now. That's five years with a riot just about every year. The first, a bit of a warm-up, was school leavers running amok in Bondi, smashing up a few cars. The next was the Redfern riots, Aborigines versus the Police after the death of an Aboriginal teenager. Then there was Macquarie Fields, poor whites versus the Police. Now its Cronulla, the very peculiar and insular Shire where I went to school years ago. This time it's about lower middle-class whites versus anyone of "Middle Eastern appearance".

I still haven't quite worked out whether Muslims are the feared "other" in Cronulla, whether it is Lebs in general or whether any old wog will do.

Most Lebanese in Australia are Maronite Christians and they, like their young Muslim countrymen, do seem to travel in gangs. I once saw a group of Christian Lebanese at an inner-west soccer match. At the end of the game they ostentatiously took off their shirts to display their tattoos. It was quite a site. Some kids had their entire backs covered in bloody and beautiful images of the crucified Jesus.

I'd never seen gang patches quite like them. You were left in no doubt that to screw with these kids would not be healthy.

Like most western cities Sydney is now wildly multi-ethnic. That is a strength and not a weakness. It is a joy on many different levels. I simply couldn't imagine living a full, rich life in a city that didn't offer that kind of diversity.

In my opinion, it is the Police that have covered themselves in glory this week. While some cry out for harsher measures, a few more broken heads, the Police instead have saved people and worked to calm rather than inflame a difficult situation. Investigations and prosecutions will come, but all in good time.

Just a decade ago the New South Wales Police was one of the most corrupt forces around and, after that, one of the most demotivated. They are now an inspiration to Police forces everywhere. That deserves to be recognised.

This isn't over yet and lives may still be lost. There are young hotheads on both sides and they want to score before the final whistle goes. But in the end these riots are just another blip, worthy of note not because they are the norm, but because they are the exception. It's life in the city. Love it or leave it.

I love it, but I'm leaving it anyway. I was made (happily) redundant last week and will return to New Zealand next week, Girlie in tow as usual. I'm not sure what I'll do when I get back and don't even want to think about it for a while, but right now lying on a beach and staying with my old Mum and Dad seems pretty spot-on.

I'll worry about the rest in January - or maybe February.

Chris Trotter, in New Zealand's best business weekly, analyses the prospects of a no-confidence motion against the government and concludes 4 1/2 out of six preconditions for such a vote are present right now. There are some missing elements, though.

The first is that Labour remains under the firm command of its most seasoned and capable politician - Helen Clark.

The second is that, in spite of angry rumblings from the business community and the radical right, New Zealand society continues to display a relatively placid countenance.

However, a hard landing could change all of that.

While economic conditions remain buoyant and the population continues to divert itself with the dangerous pleasures of over-consumption, the rickety nature of this government will not be given much thought.

However, should the long spell of golden weather come to an abrupt end in the new year, and the economy experience the hard landing more and more economists are predicting, then the public's tolerance for Clark's jerry-built regime is likely to evaporate overnight.

Dangers lie on both the right and the left.

Top 10 chants for racist mobs:

Hang 'em high - Van Halen

Street fighting man - Rolling Stones

Burning down the house - Talking Heads

There's a riot going on - Sly and the Family Stone

White riot - the Clash

Die you bastard - Motorhead

Alive and kicking - Simple Minds

Tub Thumping – Chumbawumba

White light white heat - Velvet Undergound

You'll never walk alone - Rogers & Hammerstein

Any others?

When we asked The Datsuns if they could spare us five minutes, we assumed they’d kick our Zimmer frames and run away laughing. After all, the British music press hailed them as “the future of rock”, and we’re just sad old Boomers who deserve to die. They were signed to the record label V2 largely on the strength of their reputation as a great live act, and we just ruined everything. In 2004, while we were collecting our bus passes, they were playing on the main stage of The Big Day Out and opening for Metallica. During this Australian tour, we’re unreliably informed by Wikipedia, The Datsuns were mooned at by one of Metallica’s fans, but metal mag Kerrang! calls the band “butt-clenchingly fantastic”. We’re investigating a possible link. Meanwhile, the band chose Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones to produce its second album ‘Outta Sight, Outta Mind’. And they were invited to take part in the recording of a single honouring John Peel following the sudden death of the legendary BBC DJ: a cover of his favourite song, the Buzzcocks’ Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have)? This month, The Datsuns return to New Zealand to play a handful of gigs, and Christian Datsun visited the sad old fossils at the NZBC Rest Home for Redundant Hacks to partake in a virtual Mexican coffee (coffee ‘n’ tequila) before our afternoon nap. More...

Remember WKRP in Cincinnati? Mark certainly does and points out that Cloth Monkey has succumbed and set up fan page for Jan Smithers, who played the "touchingly neurotic" Bailey :

I propose that 'Jennifer or Bailey?' is a much more telling test than the standard 'Ginger or Mary Ann?' question. Mary Ann may have been a farm girl, but she was a 'bad' farm girl. (Look how tight those damn gingham dresses are on her.) Six months in LA, and she'd be Ginger. Bailey, however, could never be Jennifer. Only trust those who answer Bailey to the above question.

He also notes Wikipedia is in a spot of bother and if you go and see Narnia as an unbeliever, you may have to take a chuck bag. And godammit if global warming ain't getting complicated.

Chris likes the new Ricky Gervais podcast. From the first show:

Gervais: "Sorry, are you mental? I've never heard such drivel."

Producer Karl Pilkington: "You're saying that, but if Newton said that, you'd go, 'Mmm, that's interesting.' "

He also likes this Telegraph piece, via A&L Daily, asking what is more important, the first or last line of a novel? Having just finished a speed-re-reading of Bret Easton Ellis’ essential American Psycho, which while not a masterpiece does have what must be one of the best partial last lines of all time in “THIS IS NOT AN EXIT”, Chris is inclined to agree the final sentence is the most important.

And he likes this piece on why American muslims haven't turned to terrorism.

Now, when an election comes around, serious media organisations such as the NZBC take a punt and make an endorsement. As Director-General I have therefore decided to endorse sometime NZBC commenter Llew and his site SunnyO (One Man's Struggle to Take it Easy) in the very serious Weblog awards. Vote for him here.

And, while I'm at it, vote for us in the Netguide Awards here.

Last but by no means leastest, Stephen says new research shows serious poets and visual artists generally have more sexual partners than those who were either not artistic or only dabbled in the arts.

I've gotta go write a poem. Ciao.

Is your iPod half full or half empty?

Ipod for an iPod, Bluetooth for a Bluetooth?

Is a gig of your RAM worth two in your USB drive?

Should you look a gift DVD in the mouth?

What's the story, wikipedia?

Open source – ever heal?

Are parents now telling kids to get away from the google box?

Do you have to XML the positive, eliminate the proprietary?

Does Xbox mark the spot?

An Apple a day, flog your belongings on eBay?

You can count on Adolf to get things totally wrong. Republican congressman Randy Cunningham has resigned in a corruption scandal. What's the story here? Political corruption? No! It's how the MSM failed to notice what was going on, says "The Department of Unspin".

The article goes on to ask why it is that the illustrius MSM - you know, those outfits full of trained, energetic and ethical journalists - totally failed to notice what was going on. It seems they did notice but did not consider such things newsworthy. Could it possibly be they too were bought off?

Sadly, it appears Adolf's powers of comprehension are failing him. Ariana Huffington, who he links to, does not say the MSM got it wrong at all. She says the "beltway", or Washington papers, failed to get the story.

So how did it all come out? Well, ahh, the MSM broke the story: the San Diego Union-Tribune to be precise. The paper is the 20th largest in the United States with a circulation of 314,000. Is this not the MSM, Adolf?

It's also a paper that endorsed George W. Bush in the last election, but despite that its circulation is falling sharply. They must be on the "wrong side of history" ... or something.

So, buy our MSM T-shirts in the NZBC shop.

We at NZBC are sure King Kong is another wallet-bulging classic from PJ, but that quaint old notion of journalistic balance seems to go out the window when the papers report on how our cultural exports fare in the wide world. So, to tip the scales back against those who'd love to give this loving remake 10 out of 5 mainly cos they got flown to big old New York, we accentuated some negatives.

The Daily Telegraph says “the film lacks the cohesion and character development needed to make it a totally satisfying experience". But in a no-brainer it predicts a huge hit from this "hokey and clichéd in parts, thrilling and dramatic at other times" film.

Coming Soon thought that Peter Jackson's latest epic "is far from perfect, just as it's far too long". It's more of everything, said Edward Douglas on the site: more laughs, drama, CGI creatures, but it doesn't help to spend the first hour of a movie on a boat trying to develop backstories for everybody. (At least that watery clunker A Perfect Storm did this on land. But did you notice that the black guy was the only one who had no backstory? Hollywood racism!) Brody is miscast, Douglas reckons, and it's got a hokey score.

Mike Jackson on The Cinema Source reckons (at great, great length) that there's a couple of gaping plot holes, which we won't reveal. The mystery island bit is cheesy, he reckons, which sounds both likely and welcome.

An IMDB user, spencercpw, loved it but thought Jack Black's character was more like a caricature of a movie producer (surely a well-known species to the makers?) and that the plausibility of the primate-blonde relationship was strained at times. Good love is so hard to find these days.

Relations between the US and Syria may be strained on some fronts, but when it comes to torturing people, the two are allies. The US and Uzbekistan, whose preferred interrogation method is the boiling of detainees' body parts, are also getting along just fine.

But it looks as if the international heat is finally getting to US policymakers. Having emptied America's supposedly top secret European torture centres (by moving the prisoners to North Africa), Condoleeza Rice gave a rare nod to international conventions yesterday, saying:

As a matter of US policy, the United States's obligations under the CAT [Convention Against Torture], which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment - those obligations extend to US personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States.

That doesn't change the US's definition of torture or stop prisoners being handed over to the Syrians and Uzbeks for a bit of a boiling, but it's a start.

A couple of months ago one of the guys who designed the renditions policy, Michael Scheuer, said it had created a nightmare where once the detainees rights had been violated they could no longer be returned to the court process. "You can't kill them either," he said.

Military commissions, however, will likely use this torture testimony and may even sentence people to death with it.

If that sounds medieval, that's because it is. Self-respecting courts don't admit torture testimony because it's untrustworthy. Whether they're waterboarded, beaten, or pulled apart on a rack, suspects who have been tortured don't speak the truth. They speak the words their tormentors want to hear.

Underworld has released another download-only EP, ‘pizza for eggs’, available exclusively here. This is the second in the RiverRun series of releases, following on from ‘lovely broken thing’, as reviewed by NZBC here. The audio section of ‘pizza for eggs’ is made up of six new tracks worked into a single piece, including food a ready, back in the fears, vanilla monkey, flatz, ancient phat farm coat, and play pig. This time, the gallery of Karl Hyde’s photographs consists of a whopping 444 shots, as well as artwork by tomato’s John Warwicker (detail of the cover art shown here). Surprised to hear what sounds like live bass guitar in the middle of ‘pizza for eggs’, I asked Karl to confirm. He says he doesn’t remember playing bass, but then again he does: “The way we jammed on all the new tunes has meant that the ‘who played what on what’ thinking is pretty much out the window.” The new track is 25’08” of mp3 audio in the form of a 52.4Mb download, plus all the artwork, for only £5.00. If the major labels offered this kind of value for money, perhaps they wouldn’t have to whinge so much about the revenue “lost” through file swapping.

If Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House" is the obvious theme song for Guy Fawkes' Day, what should the theme song for Christmas be?

Abba's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" has a promising title but it gets a bit gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) with the next line, "A man after midnight". Cream's "Wrapping Paper" is a bit gnarly. In my house, the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is usually apt, like Radiohead's "Let Down".

Any other suggestions?

Food Television on Sky Digital channel 38 has only been on air for a couple of months, but already the people running it appear to have become complacent. If indeed there are people running it. The sound quality has been intermittently atrocious for a couple of days (and only on channel 38, which suggests it isn’t a fault with my TV). So bad, in fact, that some shows have become unwatchable. Well, less watchable than usual. This would be forgivable if anybody in the control room noticed (I presume they do still have control rooms on these channels that churn out a 24-hour loop of shows licensed from overseas, or is everything run off a computer?). Faults were once acknowledged, replaced by musak and a card promising Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Thirty minutes of interference later, though, one does begin to wonder why one is paying $83 a month for the pleasure of being able to watch a channel that’s been overrun by catarrhal Daleks. If the people running the station aren’t even watching it, why should we? Juice TV and J2 frequently screen hours of pop videos that have the wrong captions. When you screen a video by The Strokes but tell us it’s Shania Twain, should you really be running a music TV station? The big cheeses at Food Television need to ask themselves whether what’s on their menu is just as unpalatable.

Master of Horror Joe Dante has made real use of of Showtime's request for a one hour low-budget horror flick, no strings attached. He has produced an episode called Homecoming in which the "flag-draped coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq burst open and the reanimated corpses of dead veterans hit the streets, searching for polling places where they can pull the lever for 'anyone who will end this evil war.' "

What's shocking about Dante's Homecoming is that he dispenses with the usual horror subtext completely. Pundits go on TV to defend the living dead's right to vote until they find out they're not voting Republican. Zombies rise from the grave, wrapped in the American flag. There's even a Cindy Sheehan stand-in with a zombie son.

Damn I like zombie movies at the best of times ...

While Dante's film will no doubt raise hackles, my guess is that most members of the military would get a kick out of this flick that praises the troops in Iraq while offering up the politicians and pundits who sent them there as finger food for the undead. Some big brains have tried to make a statement about the war in Iraq, and every single one of them should be standing in line, heads hung low, waiting to get their artistic licenses revoked. Who would've thought that where Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11), Sam Mendes (Jarhead), and Steven Bochco (Over There) got it so wrong, the director of Looney Tunes: Back in Action would have gotten it so right?

Anyone got a bittorrent?

Nine Horses
CD Review
Star rating: ****½
According to Amy Lawrence of the Observer, since the break up of Japan and his first solo release, 1984’s ‘Brilliant Trees’, David Sylvian has released 17 records. I haven’t counted, but I have highlights from many of them on my iPod and in my CD collection. Sylvian’s voice and his instrumental collaborations with Holger Czukay of Can have accompanied me through the darkest and brightest moments of my adult life. ‘Snow Borne Sorrow’, his latest, a collaboration with Steve Jansen and Burnt Friedman, is his freshest, most complete and (dare I say it?) most addictive work since 1987’s ‘Secrets of the Beehive’. All of which only partly explains why it’s the most difficult record I’ve ever chosen to review.

Christopher John Bell points out that the bad sex fiction awards have released their "long list" here. I might just knock something up with fishing waders for next year ...

Christopher John has unleashed the occasional grizzle about Auckland drivers on these pages, well he's found a solution on Boing Boing - set up your lounge in the middle of the street. He also likes Andrew John Motion's new site, The Poetry Archive, which aims to make poetry accessible by putting their readings online. Here's an article about it.

You say Admiral John Pinochet, I say Admiral John Pinochey, let's call the whole thing OFFFFF!

Mark John Broatch points out that George John Monbiot is inviting people to fisk his energy figures! I'm sure there's a legion out there willing to oblige.

Stephen John Stratford says you can go bison hunting in Montana for the first time in 14 years. Get your licence here (and here's why you shouldn't).

Fred John Kaplan on Slate says the most remarkable thing about George John Bush's strategy for victory in Iraq is that, well, he presented it this week and not two and a half years ago when it was needed.

To put this in perspective: From December 1941 to August 1945, the U.S. government mobilized an entire nation; manufactured a mighty arsenal; played a huge role in defeating the armies, air forces, and navies of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan; and emerged from battle poised to shape the destiny of half the globe. By comparison, from September 2001 to December 2005, the U.S. government has advanced to the point of describing a path to victory in a country the size of California.

John John Dickerson Robert John Fisks John John Kerry on Iraq, saying George John Bush isn't entirely clueless! thank God for that. And whatever you do this weekend, spare some time for the Slate-Magnum photo extravaganza.

Ciao.

There are so many great photographic exhibitions on in Sydney right now it's hard to know where to start. But seeing as how most of you aren't in Sydney why not start at Slate which has just launched, in association with the famous independent agency Magnum, a new photo feature.

It's a terrific idea. Since the great photo mags of the 40s, 50s and 60s closed the number of outlets for great documentary photography has fallen, maybe online is the way back?

Back to Sydney, there is the David Moore exhibition at the State Library and an amazing exhibition of newly discovered Police photographs from the last century at the Police and Justice Museum, among several others including the Walkley Award finalists for press photography just closed in Paddington.

There's been a bit of talk about waders (see comments) around the old NZBC offices this week so I thought some explanation might help. We all have formative experiences, things that leave an indelible impression on us. For me, as a hormonal teen, there were many. But one that keeps cropping up, mainly because Mark keeps bringing it up, is the "waders thing".

Remember the film Cat People? Cat People is the source of my "waders thing".

Schrader is greatly helped by two inspired pieces of casting: Kinski and McDowell as the lycanthropes look feline beyond belief, with the former's innocence and the latter's decadence playing off each other to great effect. The effects stand up to the test of time well, with Ed Begley's arm removal still sending shivers up the spine. [And the sight of Kinski in thigh-length waders sends shivers in a different direction, but that's another story]