I want to be up there.

Sudden glimpse of hilltop, tiny specks of people almost touching the sky. Too many things to do today, but if the weather holds then tomorrow I shall be up there, looking down on my envious self.

Sat 16/02/2008 11:32 16022008304

The last few days of interesting things

(i.e. some of the links from andyduckerlinks, with more details/thoughts).

Court victory for pregnant sex auction woman - purely for the marvellousness of the headline. Although the article is interesting insofar as it spreads light on practices in countries other than my own. In this case Germany, where people can auction themselves on a website.

Britain third worst in EU for use of renewable energy - The scale of the renewable energy challenge facing Britain was revealed yesterday by figures showing Britain installed about 270 solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on houses in 2007, compared with 130,000 in Germany. On the one hand, this is happening in Germany because the people are being paid more to install them - they aren't actually economical yet. On the other hand, they won't become economical until they're mainstream and there's sufficient scale to make investment worthwhile.

Play.com to sell DRM-free music in the UK - and as I swore in the past, once I can buy MP3s I'll stop downloading them. And so I shall. Next time I want music I don't have, I'll be off to play.com to download it!

Britain powerless over Saudi threats - which is entirely unsurprising. We're as stuck in realpolitik as the next person, and it does look like one of those situations where idealism just wasn't going to help. Of course, the answer is to dig ourselves out of the kind of situation where we're beholden to countries that are enmired in corruption...

How to have relationships

Everyone should read this.

No. Really.

You can skip the bit at the bottom about Valentine's Day, but unless you descended from Heaven in a great big glowing chair you have done at least one of the stupid things from the rest of the piece.

And let's face it, we can all do with reminding about what's right and what's wrong sometimes.

Read it. Remember it. Come back to it next year.

Fun with memes

Got this via email - but it's more fun to pass it on via LJ

A.) Four jobs I have had in my life (other than current job):
IT Manager, Directory Enquiries, Tech Support, Paperboy

B.) Four movies I would watch over and over:
The Wall, Aliens, South Park, Magnolia

C.) Four places I have lived
Portsmouth, Rainham, Stirling, Edinburgh

D.) Four TV shows that I watch:
Halfway through Studio 60, At the start of season 2 of BSG, Will someday get to the end of season 5 of The West Wing, probably won't bother with the rest of Ashes to Ashes.

E.) Four places I have been:
Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Dublin (for half an hour), The Lake District

F.) People who e-mail me (regularly):
In the last week it's been largely Nick, Julie, Hugh and my uncle Patrick, who's having problems with his server settings that I'm helping him with...

G.) Four of my favourite foods:
Bacon, Chicken in a creamy mushroom sauce, Lasagne, battered fish

H. ) Four places I would rather be right now:
On top of Arthur's Seat, New York, the pyramids in Egypt, and that's it. I'm actually quite happy here :->

J.) Four Things I am looking forward to this year:
Taking is_not_well to Devon, Eastercon, family holiday in July, the festival (as usual)

K.) Four favourite authors:
Iain M Banks, Alan Moore, Greg Egan, Neil Gaiman