Managing the information flow

Here you can see how the taking of Baghdad was stage-managed. Rather than thousands of Iraqis spontaneously gathering, 200 Iraqis are guarded by 3 tanks and Marines while they 'spontaneously' cheer. Some of the onlookers are suspiciously similar to US-backed militiamen...

Yawn

At 6:30 this morning I was woken by a shifting in the bed. I looked left just in time to see Erin roll over in my direction. He left arm flopped momentarily upwards before crashing down on my stomach, momentarily stunning me.

She snuggled into my side, her head a few centimeters from my ear as I lay still, facing upwards, eyes closing. Once she'd got herself comfortable, she quickly slipped back into deep sleep and the snoring started. From the nose which, as I previously mentioned was about an inch from my left ear.

I spent the next 5 minutes trying to sleep, pinching her nose shut, rocking her and eventually quietly saying her name in an attempt to make her turn over to face the other way. In the end I simply shook her and said "Turn Over!", at which point she rolled back to the other side of the bed, had a drink from her glass and started snoring again. It took me at least ten minutes to get back to sleep again, as by this time I'd been fully woken up.

And that's why I'm now feeling slightly light-headed.

Madonna

Q Music Channel seems to be having a Madonna week, showing nothing but endless Madonna videos in an endless cycle of Madonna.

So I set the Tivo to record chunks of it, popping in every half hour or so to unpause it, fast forward through the dulls ones and watch the ones that take my fancy.

Which seem to be everything from Ray of Light onwards. Despite finding her a fascinating person (I've rarely seen someone so adept at manipulating their own image who seem to enjoy it so much), her early music just leaves me cold. The video to Material Girl was pretty cool, but other than that everything before 1999 lasted less than thirty seconds before turning into a jerky blur of 30-speed goodness.

[addendum - except for Vogue]

Oh, and I like both Die Another Day (although it's taken me a good 15 listens to do so) and American Pie (which isn't as good as the original, but still works for me). The latest single I can currently take or leave, except for the rap at the end which I quite like - which invariably means I'll be sick of it by the third time I hear it.