Spy death linked to nuclear thefts (Observer)
Why are they wasting their time investigating Russian nuclear sites? Get out there and search the roadside verges of Springfield!
I give you Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music. For a CEO of a major producer of electronic media, Doug doesn’t seem to be too comfortable with the modern world. First of all, he knows exactly what we’re all doing with our iPods…
It’s not just the little plastic boxes we carry around in our pockets, either. Poor Doug is feeling a bit confused by pretty much everything that young people do these days. So what does he do? He sues MySpace…
The Wired article mentions damages of up to $150,000 *per song*. I had no idea all those MySpace teenagers were doing so much damage to the world Emo economy…
Haven’t done this for a while…
Sometime last year I was at a family get-together sort of thing in Warwickshire. As it was an area none of us knew (it was chosen as a good geographical centre) I took it upon myself to hunt out a good restaurant for the evening. I found The Crabmill and we were rewarded with some splendid nosh.
I was particularly impressed with my main course, a butternut squash risotto topped with a slab of cod. Because of overfishing and pollution in the North Sea, I tend to avoid cod (especially in fish & chip shops, where it tastes like slightly fishy water) but this particular fish was clearly of a finer pedigree. What really grabbed my attention, though, was the risotto. Risotto is one of those satisfyingly easy-to-make comfort foods, but the Crabmill’s chef had done a damn fine job. I resolved to learn to make this particular variety of the classic Italian ricey stodge.
Time passed, and it was only when we found ourselves in possession of a perky butternut squash a couple of weeks ago that I remembered my plan. A search of the BBC’s recipe archive turned up a pretty close match. It’s mostly yer standard risotto recipe, which isn’t difficult, but I hadn’t thought of the pine nuts or sage. I also used one glass of Noilly Prat instead of the two glasses of wine… I like to use vermouth in risotto, for the slightly “herby” flavour it adds.
Topped with a slab of swordfish from the local fishmongers and… result! Possibly not quite as good as my memory of the one at the Crabmill, but some fine-tuning should sort that out.
So, last weekend marked the sixth annual uk.music.guitar national get-together. I’ve been to four of the six and find myself developing an almost complacent expectation that the event will be exciting, amusing, interesting and inspiring in equal measure. A number of external glitches conspired to threaten the very existence of this year’s event, but that just made the success of the whole thing seem even more important than normal.
The focus of the weekend, as ever, was the Saturday evening “Guitar Idol” (named with tongue firmly in cheek), our musically diverse marathon gig where anyone can perform a song of their choosing, backed by an ad hoc band. The only obstacle is the lack of formal rehearsal… you practise your own part and trust the rest to nods, hand signals and the adrenalin of the evening. I don’t think I played particularly well on my “spots” (insufficiently focused practice in the preceding weeks) but that’s no problem. We’re all our own worst critics, and the emphasis is on fun.
As I mentioned this time last year, it’s difficult to describe just what the National (notWigan) means to us. Plenty of online communities have their occasional meatspace manifestations, and each event is, I’m sure, similarly cherished by its loyal attendees. And look at ours… it’s a bunch of people from a Usenet newsgroup! Does anyone still use that dusty old text-only relic from the pre-Myspace days of the Internet?
The truth, of course, is that UKMG is so much more than just a newsgroup. There’s a chatroom, regular offline meet-ups, musical collaborations, a whole range of specialist services and abilities and, most importantly, a whole network of “real life” relationships. Quite simply, it’s a community. And that’s why I find the whole Web 2.0 more exciting than anything I’ve seen since I first started using the Internet back in 1997. A lot of the early excitement faded in the flood of corporate involvement and the one-way artist-fanbase (or vendor-customer) relationship, but the democratic community aspect is coming back. I know from experience what can be achieved with the right mix of online and offline, and the various Web 2.0 technologies have enormous potential for making things even more fun.
Fifa quota proposal angers Wenger (BBC News)
… and you can see why. The customary lack of English (or even British) players in Arsenal’s first-team squad has become something of a standing joke. However, I’m not going to criticise Arsene Wenger… he’s simply working within the guidelines available to him, and Arsenal have produced some of the most attractive football in the Premiership in recent years, especially since Man Utd went off the boil and Chelsea became so bullishly charmless.
No, what I object to is the system that allowed this situation to develop. What we’re seeing in top-flight English football is the result of unfettered capitalism. That’s what the Premier League wanted when they broke away from the Football League and took control of their own TV rights, and they’re partly responsible for the outcome… precious few domestic players gaining regular match practice at the top level, with the result that the England squad is a hapless mish-mash of precocious individuals and inexperienced understudies. There are some incredibly talented players in the Championship, but as long as the sports media, the money men and even the England coaching setup are obsessed with the Premiership to the exclusion of all else, we’ll never see those players.
To be honest, I’m not completely comfortable with the idea of a quota, because it’s inspired by the same “TAKING OUR JOBS!” mentality that lies behind all the tabloid asylum seeker hysteria. However, something has to be done before the Premiership becomes a cartel of rich multinational businesses and English football ceases to exist as a unique identity. There’s no doubt that the high-quality, cosmopolitan feel of the Premiership has done much to rehabilitate English football after the dark days of the 1980s, but there are dangers. The rich-poor divide becomes wider every season, and the exclusive band of big-money clubs is becoming more and more arrogant, as the whole G-14 affair demonstrates.
The Italian FA imposed a total ban on foreign players between 1964 and 1980, in order to improve the national team. It’s impossible to prove whether Italy’s 1982 World Cup triumph was a direct result of this ban, but I’d suggest it wasn’t entirely unrelated. A total ban in England would be impractical now (not to mention illegal in the case of EU players) but perhaps there’s scope for a limit on non-EU players? Back to Italy again… at the turn of the millennium in Serie A, there was a limit of five non-EU players per club, three of whom could be on the pitch simultaneously. While that led to a damaging fake-passport scandal, a properly-policed scheme of that sort could be a valuable lifeline for English football.
Greene King boss faces a roasting (BBC News)
Of course, Greene King are perfectly entitled to sell whatever beer they like in their own pubs, but in this case they seem to be acting brazenly in the face of local opinion. That’s nothing unusual… despite the idealistic “traditional ale plus modern forward thinking” message on their company website, Greene King represent one of the biggest threats to proper localised brewing in this country.
Their recent growth spurt is well documented by CAMRA who have expressed concern over the Greene King approach to ruthless expansion. Other large brewers, such as Fullers or Wolverhampton & Dudley, have taken over struggling local breweries recently, but have generally maintained their product ranges, striving to keep the quality and branding consistent. On the other hand, Greene King simply absorb the resources of the smaller companies into their own homogenous operation.
I’m really tempted to go down to Lewes tomorrow for the bonfire celebrations. I’ve been before and it’s a lot of fun, but there’s that extra level of intrigue this year. I don’t exactly need much persuasion to drink Harvey’s beer, so I’m perfectly happy to do it as an act of protest :-)
(By the way, there’s more info on the whole affair at the Lewes Arms blog)