Wait a second, this couldn’t be right. A British man is about to be extradited to a country that practises torture?
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Archive for July, 2008
Gary McKinnon
July 31, 2008My mother may also be in there somewhere
July 29, 2008
Possibly the most surreal thing I’ve seen all month. Simon Pegg, who was in my show Big Train, joins Joel McHale, who was in the dunderheaded US remake of my show ‘The It Crowd’ (not his fault), and Keith Olbermann, the tell-it-like-it-is behemoth of US telly and one of my heroes. This is like someone took a screengrab from my dreams. Link
(via Huffington Post)
Live from the Houses of Parl-ia-ment
July 26, 2008
Ooooh, I’m all sixes and sevens with the move and everything. Talk amongst yourselves and I’ll catch up presently.
Good luck!
July 22, 2008
Well, I guess I’ll just have to tell you. We hid an Easter Egg in the IT Crowd Series 2.
In fact, we hid lots of Easter Eggs in the DVD. In fact, the DVD was not just a DVD, but a fiendishly complicated collection of clues that would, we thought, eventually lead some clever Nancy Drew-type to our special mystery prize–a bright yellow Lamborghini laptop (you may have noticed Moss with it in series 2).
“Make sure”, said the lawyers, “that it really is a test of skill and judgement. No questions like: Which of these is a part of the body? A. Shoe. B. Head. C. Hat. Make sure they’ve read the terms and conditions. And make sure there’s a closing date.” So we did all that, and watched the website hosting the competition receive 12,000 unique visitors. We jumped up and down with glee when at least three other sites popped up on the interwebs, each having stumbled across parts of the puzzle – yes, it was hard, but people were solving it – hurrah!
One clever German site even published a walkthrough for … well, for what we thought was the most complicated bit. But as the closing date neared, it seemed that we might have made the competition a bit too hard. Or, as we discovered when the competition finished, very, very, very much too hard indeed.
So, as the proud posers of possibly the most difficult competition ever, we still have a shiny yellow laptop to award.
And you still have a clutch of Easter eggs to find.
How long have you got? Not long!
“What I didn’t say? I take it back.”
July 21, 2008
This is an interesting post on how team Bush spun that Maliki was ‘misunderstood’ and ‘mistranslated’ when he mentioned how he wanted US troops out of his country within 16 months. All the usual shenanigans from the Bush corner, but I thought this comment really nailed the problem with how the media are reporting the story.
“The retraction stunk from the start because it supposedly refuted something that Maliki apparently didn’t say!
Maliki was reported speaking about timelines and withdrawals and that 16 months seemed a reasonable time-frame.
This was re-reported by quite a few news outlets as ‘Maliki endorses Obama’s plan, which is a reasonable characterization of Maliki’s reported words.
Then the ‘mistranslation’ story appears where the spokesman then says that Maliki didn’t endorse Obama.
This is then re-reported as a ‘refutation’ of Obama’s plan.
Given the quotes of Maliki and later from the ‘re-translation’ the difference and disconnection is clear:
Maliki’s remarks were a reflection of Obama’s plans for the US in Iraq.
Maliki did not say “I endorse Obama for President”, nor was it reported as that.
The subsequent ‘refutation’ was “Maliki didn’t say he endorsed Obama for President”.
Right!
So how can do you ‘refute’ something that someone didn’t say in the first place and that wasn’t misreported?”
More Chavez
July 16, 2008
Sorry, I forgot to post this at the time–a really good piece on Hugo Chavez.
Nothing startling in it as such, but stuff like this is always valuable in the face of the anti-Chavez bulldada elswhere.
“Sometimes you hear a stray sentence on the news that makes you realise
you have been lied to. Deliberately lied to; systematically lied to;
lied to for a purpose. If you listened closely over the past few days,
you could have heard one such sentence passing in the night-time of
news.
As Ingrid Betancourt emerged after six-and-a-half years – sunken and
shrivelled but radiant with courage – one of the first people she
thanked was Hugo Chavez. What? If you follow the news coverage, you
have been told that the Venezuelan President supports the Farc thugs
who have been holding her hostage. He paid them $300m to keep killing
and to buy uranium for a dirty bomb, in a rare break from dismantling
democracy at home and dealing drugs. So how can this moment of
dissonance be explained?”
Bonus: The lunatics are out in force in the comments section.
Why, That\'s Delightful! 