The View from the Spaghetti Factory

Yeah, so it was named after his father, who I assume is marginally less of an imbecile, but it still makes me laugh… the CIA’s George Bush Center for Intelligence.

Imagine the architects’ brief for the building…

- All important rooms on the ground floor; not much going on upstairs
- Lights must always be on, even when there’s no one home
- All closets to have built-in skeletons

etc…

Whatever next? The Margaret Thatcher Benevolent Fund?

Taking advantage of the great weather yesterday, we spent a few hours soaking up the atmosphere around the London Marathon. One reason for going was that Nicola’s sister Judith is a keen runner, but I was also hoping to spot my pal Nick. I didn’t, but then have you ever tried to spot a person wearing a “Bumlasers” t-shirt in a crowd of 50000?

There’s a small collection of photos on my Flickr site.

With less than a month to the General Election, how does this election campaign differ from the last one, in 2001? Well, Tony Blair is less popular, largely due to the Iraq war, and there’s a much stronger feeling of “Blair out whether Labour win or not”; in 2001 his main detractors were anti-Labour in general, but now he has plenty of enemies among previously loyal Labour voters. Meanwhile, the Tories are even more hopeless and divided than they were in 2001 and 1997. (Good. I grew up in a country which was run for the benefit of the rich, greedy and unprincipled… the slow demise of that party is fully deserved.)

But you know what is shaping up to be one of the big differences between 2005 and 2001? Apart from the widespread use of political blogging? It’s… Ebay. Yes! Having pervaded just about every other aspect of modern life, Ebay has now entered the world of politics, albeit rather hesitantly. The first few “buy my vote” auctions appeared this morning, although it seems that all but one have since been withdrawn, no doubt as the sellers realised what they were doing was illegal.

Still, one remains… seller subynesimean of Derbyshire would like you to buy his vote. Of course, that’s illegal, but that obviously doesn’t deter the bidders… as I write this, 21 bidders have taken the price to �1000, with 9 days to go. No, really!

(And just in case Ebay decide to delete the auction before you see it, here’s a screengrab)

Clearly more wary of the legality of such things, paulj866 is promising *not* to vote for whoever the winning bidder chooses (screengrab).

And even more tenuously, someone has set up a new Ebay ID, themindisaterriblething, just for the purpose of selling the use of his/her mind “or the 1 minute it will take to enter a polling station during the 2005 UK General Election and put a cross in a box next to a political party” (screengrab).

A sad indictment of a dwindling respect for the democratic system? Just a bit of fun to lighten the day? The future of British politics? Vote now!

People from warmer countries must wonder why we bother with the concept of “spring” in England… that period between winter and summer, when the weather careers madly between rain, wind, snow, more rain and occasional sunny spells. The English spring, and especially the month of April, is perfectly demonstrated by the BBC Weather Centre’s forecast for my area this week…

Monday: Light rain
Tuesday: Sunny intervals
Wednesday: Heavy rain
Thursday: Light showers
Friday: Hail

But that’s doesn’t tell the whole story. When so much of the season is dominated by variations on the basic theme of “water falling from the sky”, the glisteningly bright and warm days are just *so* welcome.

The South Downs, 2 Apr 05 - Flickr photo set

… when Panorama, that dry BBC current affairs programme, shocked the nation with its hoax April Fool’s Day report of Switzerland’s annual spaghetti harvest. Of course, Britain was a more insular place back then, and some people were easily fooled by tales of spaghetti growing on trees. “Pah!”, say I. As we now know, spaghetti grows in recording studios, where it thrives in the warm, dark environment behind equipment racks, sometimes branching out across the floor where it risks being crushed by swivel chairs.

More information, along with a video clip, on the BBC site.