Words of Waldman

So it's Michael Howard...and then what..?.

So Michael Howard is going to lead the Tories. And it seems almost certain that they will unite behind him immediately, putting aside any awkward differences because they know that the next few months are going to see a mix of: ongoing troubles in Iraq, difficulties over Ireland, public service militancy, and a growing deficit - all culminating in a potentially damning report from the Hutton Inquiry. 'What's going to happen' is now a very entertaining pub game. I offer three scenarios.

Scenario 1: the Tory wet dream
Tories under Howard turn into a fit, lean election fighting machine in the next couple of months. Blair becomes increasingly beleagured by the start of next year, then gets whalloped by the Hutton Inquiry. He stays on, becoming ever less popular and alienated from his party as a result of the consequences of Iraq, plans for public services et al. . He refuses to leave before the general election, and Tories rise to power on promises to hold a referendum on Europe; a crackdown on asylum; being tough on crime but gentle on pensions, and, somehow, a plan to reverse five Labour tax increases. Gordon Brown becomes leader of the Labour party for 10 years of opposition.

Scenario 2: the Brown wet dream
Starts the same way as above, only early next year: knocked by Hutton and worries over his health, Tony Blair decides to step down to spend more time with Bill Clinton. Gordon Brown moves to number 10, with a plan for massive investment (again) in public services, a u-turn on tuition fees, a promise to hand British responsibilities in Iraq over to the UN and very glamorous non-job for John Prescott. The labour party rally. The Tories make some advances in the general election but not enough to feel 100% comfortable with Michael Howard.....cracks start to show. David Davies starts looking for campaign office space.

Scenario 3: The Blair fantasy
On the eve of the announcement of the Hutton Inqury's findings:The entire shadow cabinet (including Theresa May) is caught whooping it up in the back room of Spearmint Rhino. Despite securing the Daily Star's support, they are all forced to resign. IDS is re-elected as leader.

iPod...the saga continues.

I'm getting closer to iPod nirvana. But it's not been easy.
Headphones: Unless you like walking around tied up in 6ft of white plastic string, Apple's headphones are a disaster. And the sound is less than amazing. I've gone two ways on this. At home, and when I don't mind walking round with a foam saucer on each ear, I've splashed out on pair of Grado SR-60s. Beautiful sound, not too stupidly expensive. Often for sale cheaper on e-Bay. Out and about, I've got a £12.99 in-ear set from Sony, who know how to make headphones that don't get tangled up (they're sort of fabric coated). Much simpler.
Oh, and just live without the remote control.
Software: This goes on and on. iTunes is not worth it, until they open the store in the UK.
Musicmatch, which comes with the iPod is fine for ripping, tag-editing and library management. But useless for transferring to the iPod.
I've just tried Anapod, which is really nice, ..especially as it allows you - in theory - to transfer from your iPod to your computer.
Unfortunately, I just haven't quite got the whole synching/ tranferring thing to work. Will try again.
Which brings me back to Ephpod. Only had one problem with it - when it wouldn't recognise some norwegian characters.
Battery life: It's not awful. But it isn't 8 hours. No way. Not as bad as some have it...but needs to be much better. From what I've read, it sees the firmware is partly to blame. Would be good if they released a v basic version where you lose some features for improved battery life.

Amazonian adventures....

New bundle of audio fun arrived from Amazon this week. I read about Amy Winehouse (quite a while after everyone) in the Observer Music Monthly, where Gary Mulholland gushed over her single Stronger Than Me. Her album, Frank, is well worth getting...sort of Ms Dynamite, meets Macy Gray meets Nina Simone. And she's only 20. Buy it.
Damian Rice has been written about everywhere, and his album 'O' been in the charts for ages. And it's for those 'David Gray moments' now that David Gray - through no fault of his own - feels as manufactured as a bottle of Piat d'Or. Yet again, you should buy it.
Not much to say about my other two. The Strokes new album, sounds just like, The Strokes new album....It's good, but it's not as exciting second time round.
And, the title of 'The Best of Rem' isn't technically correct, because it doesn't have 'It's the End of the World as we know it' on. What were they thinking?

Victory over Hitler....

IPC have finally admitted that they can't claim copyright over the scans of Homes and Gardens' November 1938 edition - so I'm delighted to restore the album to its full glory.
I can't claim any credit for this. It goes down to The Wyman Institute who presented IPC with this petition.
They then press released it, and IPC then released this statement.
Life's too short to go over the whole incident in detail. But, bearing in mind what we now know to be the true position on rights, I'm less than delighted about how IPC reacted to my initial request to them.

"This turnip makes Michael Foot look like Spartacus..."

Max Hastingseloquently eloquently administers the knife to IDS.

" One day, I want to be able to vote Tory again. Like millions of others, I cannot do so while the party is led by a turnip.....IDS makes Michael Foot resemble Spartacus....His tenure has been disastrous. His recent conference speech was among the worst by any party leader in living memory. ...I am among millions of angry former Tory voters, who have watched the party march blindfold over the political precipice since 1997. Those of us who supported Michael Heseltine, Clarke, Douglas Hurd, and the old centrist vision of Toryism always feared that after an election defeat the right would seize control. And so they did.

It's like watching a small dog being tortured. Good to see he'll soon be put out of his misery.

This was Whitstable...

Early on Sunday evening..looks best full size. Mini-album here.

The great and the good in action...

Two lovely examples of how things work among the powers that be in today's paper. In a full interview, Richard Desmond, gives details of an enounter with Michael Green (scroll to the bottom of the page for this bit) that goes as follows:

"Michael Green came up to me at the 10-year anniversary party for GMTV recently and said: 'I know.'
I said, 'You know what?'
'I know you've got an agenda.'
'Agenda? What agenda?' I said.
'I know,' he said again.
I said, 'What the fuck are you talking about?'
'I know you want to buy ITV'.
I said, 'I haven't got time to watch it, mate, let alone buy it.'
He went on: 'The things you have been writing about us, I know.'
I said: 'Well, we've written that you've lost the shareholders a billion and a quarter, we've written that it has been very badly managed ... I'll tell you what. I actually don't write the editorial, but the editor of the Sunday Express is standing here. Why don't you have a word with him?'
He just went berserk and kept saying, 'I know.'
I said, 'I don't want to be rude with you, pal, but I spend £35m a year with you, with ITV, and actually it is quite good to be nice to major advertisers....'
Then he said: 'You only take ads on ITV to suit yourself.'
I said: 'Oh really? I'll tell you what, I'm knocking £5m off our ITV budget because that suits me.'
The interesting thing was that we sent a letter telling them that. No phone call, no nothing in response, so I knocked another £5m off.

He also reveals, that he gave £100K to the Labour party...but they spend £113K in advertising..so he profited from the deal.
A few pages later, there's an interview with Mark Bolland, former PR man to Prince Charles (his first ever interview) and partner of Guy Black, director of the PCC, talking about how he managed the Prince Harry Drugs Shame story in the News of the World:

"We had been wrestling... with several newspapers, principally the News of the World ... on stories about William and drinking and/or drugs, all of which were untrue, and then Harry - drinking and drugs - as well...
"There were a lot of shouting matches with newspaper people, a lot of interventions by the PCC. There was a particular incident that summer in Spain, photographs that allegedly showed Harry in a drunk or drugged condition. ...the News of the World pushed very, very hard to run that story and didn't because we just said it was untrue...
...It was a screaming match....They then had a big investigation down in Gloucestershire and confronted us with what they had found. Their dossier of evidence was compelling. We had to make a choice. Did we fight again to stop these allegations appearing in the newspaper, or did we accept that the News of the World was going to print something and make the best of it?"
Bolland chose the latter and told the paper about a visit that Harry had made to a drug rehabilitation centre in south London during the summer. Charles had supposedly arranged the visit to give his son a shock lesson on the potential consequences of drug-taking. The idea was simple: instead of an unremittingly negative story about the young prince's drug-taking and drinking, this would become a tale of a father's enlightened and light-touched response to teenger's errant behaviour ...
The News of the World was only too happy to oblige. ...There was just one problem with this story. In fact, Harry had visited Featherstone Lodge in midsummer - late June or July, according to Bolland's recollection. But the evidence of Harry's drug-taking and drinking was gathered by the News of the World team later - nearer August or September. In order to fit its revelations into the neat redemptive narrative supplied by Bolland, the News of the World had moved them forward by several months, reporting that "during a two-month period covering June and July 2001, Prince Harry fell in with a bad lot".

Petty squabbles between multi-millionaires, money swilling between media moguls and political parties, back-scratching flexibility with the truth in pursuit of 'exclusives'...what a wonderful, wonderful world.

Forget iTunes for windows, voice recorders and image viewers...I want an iPod that does this...

Tried iTunes for Windows..and it looked very pretty and all...but in the end, had to change it, because I've got two separate sets of MP3s, one on a desktop and the other on a laptop. And actually, a combination of Musicmatch for ripping and library sorting and Ephpod for synching works just fine.
Obviously, all will be different when they launch the music shop over here. But till then.... iTunes is off my machines.
And while I'm at it...think they're slighly mad to be working on all these extra goodies for the iPod. An image viewer...in black and white? As it is, the battery life is much worse than anyone would like because (so we hear) they have tried to kludge a half arsed PDA into it.
Stick to the knitting. Make sure it's the best digital music machine on the market.
Oh, and then just add a DAB radio, preferably with the rewind and record functionality of the Roberts RD1 (pic right). Without increasing the price, of course.

Applauding a secret policeman

Last night's documentary on racism among trainee policemen was an excellent - and remarkably balanced - piece of work. And Mark Daly deserves the awards he will no doubt get for going undercover so effectively. I have no idea how he managed to hold it all together for so long. You have to admire the Secret Policeman's balls...(there got that gag in)
Perhaps the most long lasting benefit he received though was laser surgery (which was shown in all its gory detail) : as he was too short sighted to get into the police. I wonder whether he was able to claim it on expenses? Think he deserved it.

Last week on the Devon coast...

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Mini-album here