Monthly archive: May 2006

• ABC News: Why Is the Best Sunscreen Blocked by FDA?
  Make sure your suntan lotion contains Mexoryl, which protects against wrinkle-causing UVAs – unless you live in the US where it has not yet been approved by the FDA and is therefore illegal.
  (tags: health suntan mexoryl uva)
• YouTube – Titanic: The Sequel
  Titanic: Two The Surface (fake trailer of the sequel to Titanic). Starts a bit slow, but stick to the end for disco-Dion campness.
  (tags: films hoax parody spoof comedy trailer titanic)
• iRiver Clix: 2GB portable media player
  No buttons, you navigate by pressing the edges of the screen. Great sound and video playback, but if it is so geared towards portable video, why only 2GB storage?
  (tags: iriver clix video)

Here are the answers to yesterday's language quiz, taken from the Never Mind The Full Stops TV show.

1. the host said the correct answer was roofs, but that he would accepted rooves as weel, because rooves was correct but had purely gone out of fashion. Well, I'm sorry Mr Fellowes, but the plural of roof, in this country at least, is roofs. Fullstop. Check the Oxford English Dictionary entry for roof if you don't believe me
2. cannon
3. mongooses (not mongeese, because it is not related to the word goose)
4. diagnoses
5. ignoramuses
6. mesdames
7. kibbutzim
8. octopuses (and not octopi, because it is not latin but greek)

1. You won't find me in the village by the yew tree, I'll be in the meadow feeding my ewe.
2. Already somewhat piqued, Sebastian's anger peaked when he peeked out of the window to see his tortoise escaping.
3. "Aye"said Angus. "I had a very nasty eye infection."
4. She looked doe-eyed at Antonio as she made dough balls, but he ignored her. Doh! She thought. "Why am I such a fool?"
5. Don't mistake this iron ore for a wooden oar, or the effect could be awesome.

• Second Hand Songs
  'Find out who performed the original version of a particular song, or who covered that song.'
  (tags: database music cover song audio)
• BBC NEWS | Technology | Smart sites to power semantic web
  A good article summing up the implications of the "web that can be interpreted by machines", with examples of what it will mean for financial markets, epidemiology or the travel industry.
  (tags: semanticweb metadata ontology tags)
• Swoogle Semantic Web Search Engine
  Semantic Web Ontology search engine that indexes RDF and OWL documents rather than plain HTML documents. It extracts metadata for each discovered document, computes relations (including similarities) between documents, and measures their importance.
  (tags: data ontology search semanticweb metadata)
• On-line cinema library unveiled at Cannes – Yahoo! News
  A project that will enable film downloads from 1.99 USD for a three-day rental, or 4.99 USD to buy and burn. It will also be possible to chat on line, while you are watching the movie or afterwards, to discuss the film.
  (tags: cinema online ondemand movies films community)

Never Mind The Full Stops is a new panel quiz show on the use and abuse of the English language, hosted by Julian Fellowes and airing on Thursday nights on BBC4.

I find it a tad slow and enjoy recording it and playing it back at 1.5x speed.

I'll save you the trouble altogether and show you something that has challenged me during the last twenty minutes. You can have a go at the answers and post them as comments, or wait until tomorrow where I'll post them myself.

What is the plural of…

1. roof
2. cannon
3. mongoose
4. diagnosis
5. ignoramus
6. madame
7. kibbutz
8. octopus

Homophones

Fill in the blanks with words that sound the same but have different meanings (and are spelled differently):

1. _____ won't find me in the village by the _____ tree, I'll be in the meadow feeding my _____.
2. Already somewhat _____ , Sebastian's anger _____ when he _____ out of the window to see his tortoise escaping.
3. "_____" said Angus. "_____ had a very nasty _____ infection."
4. She looked _____-eyed at Antonio as she made _____ balls, but he ignored her. _____! She thought. "Why am I such a fool?"
5. Don't mistake this iron _____ for a wooden _____, or the effect could be _____some.

Answers to the quiz above in tomorrow's post.

I'll probably regret admitting this in the morning, but I have also realised that Dave Gorman (one of the show's panelists) is sort of hot, in a scruffy Guy Ritchie kind of way. See the picture within this post.

Dave Gorman is so hot that he even has a whole website dedicated to photoshopped pictures of female celebrities with his face pasted on them.

• What Causes Urine Odor: urine odor remover, urine odor removal, urine stain removal, urine odor
  'the uric acid crystals are extremely insoluble and remain tightly bonded to the surface [...] any type of moisture will reactivate those remaining crystals and the smell returns, as strong as ever'.
  (tags: urine cleaning smell odour)
• iDon't
  T-shirts, stickers, link and information on alternatives to iPod, iTunes and iEverything
  (tags: apple humor ipod marketing music)
• Hello Cheeky: the only Topless / Nude Cleaning service in Costa del Sol (Spain)
  NSFW, obviously. But I was looking for the BBC comedy show of the same name, trust me.
  (tags: hellocheeky topless cleaning bbc comedy spain)

• BBC NEWS | Technology | Privacy worries over web's future
  'Depending on which sources the semantic web references, it could gather together health records, lists of recent purchases or even contact details, that would build a more complete picture of a person than ever before.'
  (tags: data privacy semanticweb)
• BBC Web API (beta)
  'The API is built on a TV-Anytime database (the same as used for the BBC Backstage 7-day TV/Radio feeds) and you can use it to extract information in TV-Anytime format.'
  (tags: tv api bbc tvanytime)

Leaving in a few hours for Athens. Yes, for the Eurovision Song Contest, my very first time.

I could not be more excited. The weather is gorgeous, I am told. Just as well, because I threw some flip-flops and shorts in a bag and I was packed.

Planning to go watch the semifinal tomorrow night in some Taverna, or possibly in a square, if we find out they are setting up a large screen somewhere. I will cheer for Silvia Night to go through to the final.

Then on Saturday we have tickets for the final, thanks to one of our friends who managed to snap them up the day they were released, after spending a few hours hitting 'refresh' and on the phone. Our places were cheap, we might be way at the back but I've heard that the venue is not gigantic and we might enjoy a decent view. I will cheer for Silvia Night to win.

In between, and until Monday when I fly back, there will be a fair amount of sightseeing. I have been to Athens twenty years ago and I am sure it has changed.

Results from last night's 'Douze Points' Eurovision Song Contest annual pre-selection competition at Retro Bar, London:

1. Germany
2. Sweden
3. Greece
4. Slovenia
5. Iceland
6. Belgium
7. Romania
8. United Kingdom
9. Russia
10. Finland
11. Malta
12. Estonia
13. Denmark
14. Bosnia and Herzegovina
15. Spain
16. Norway and Croatia (joint)
17. Monaco
18. France
19. Switzerland
20. Poland and Latvia (joint)
21. Moldova
22. Israel

Our team's votes:

1. Slovenia
2. Germany
3. Iceland
4. Belgium
5. Estonia

We were given Spain, so found ourselves not standing one single chance of winning the champagne.

• Never Mind the Full Stops starts on Thursday 11 May 2006 at 10.30PM on BBC Four
  Grammatical panel quiz show 'based around the idiosyncrasies of the English language [...] Teams must grapple with grammatical challenges, decipher different dialects, display their text messaging expertise and hold their own in a slanging match.
  (tags: tv nevermindthefullstops quiz game english language julianfellowes)
• BBC NEWS | Technology | BBC revamps website search system
  'The new search system launches on 11 May and should make it easier for users to find webpages, audio and video from any part of the BBC.'
  (tags: bbc search tagging website)

• Unlock Your Mobile: Unlock the Savings | UK's only money saving expert
  Instructions and websites that offer free unlocking for most Nokia phones and other manufacturers. And no, it is not illegal – that's a common misconception.
  (tags: mobile cellphone telephone unlock network)
• bokstavskex.framtid.nu – automatic biscuit image creator
  Spell anything with bokstavskex (Swedish alphabet cookies). Via lavitaistruzioniperluso.com
  (tags: art biscuits design food graphics humour image photo typography words fonts)
• ergocise.com — Stretch Now!
  A series of stretches that can be performed at your desk. Exercises are divided by (aching) body part.
  (tags: exercise health programming reference stretch pain muscles)

Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts, Cheryl Tweedy and Kimberley Walsh. There. I can name all five members of Girls Aloud without looking it up.

The problem is I don't want to be able to. I'd like my memory slots to remain available for more important stuff. But now the damage is done and I will never forget, for this is precisely the kind of information that clings to my memory forever (ask me in ten years' time and you shall see).

I have been reflecting for a while now about how much time I spend reading/listening/watching/browsing through cartloads of information that probably gives me a small amount of instant gratification and amusement, but which does not represent any sort of long-term investment in the Bank of Culture (and by Culture-capital-C I mean anything which is challenging and makes you think and stays with you and potentially changes – even improves? – you).

I like to keep myself up-to-date, informed and entertained. Recording Girls Aloud: Off The Record every week hardly qualifies. Will And Grace has stopped being funny long ago. My Name Is Earl lost the novelty factor around episode five. The Armstrongs get on my nerves, as does every single contestant in The Apprentice. I have listened through Project Runway and its UK version Project Catwalk while engaging in other activities, often in another room (which, considering it is a reality show based on fashion, takes a very vivid imagination). Seasons 2 of Desperate Housewives and Lost and Veronica Mars are not a patch on the previous ones but hey, just a couple more episodes to go before the end. Alias lost me way back (too far-fetched), and even Green Wing that I raved about not so long ago) is becoming repetitive.

So, stop.

That said, I have to see if the three blokes in Boys Will Be Girls who are being groomed to perform as a girl band pull it off. Judging from this week's episode, I'd say not a chance in hell.