Listen

With izdihar currently stuck in a holding pattern whilst I work on some stuff behind the scenes (should be good, I promise), I thought I'd give you something good to look and listen to whilst I'm getting things sorted. It's something that came on the iPod whilst out in the car this morning. I'd not really listened closely to the lyrics before, but a couple of lines caught my attention. If this is what infatuation sounds like, it's perhaps not such a bad thing...

Depeche Mode: In Your Room

A quick security update for you:

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved". Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross". The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance". The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588 when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards". They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender". The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military capability. It's not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout loudly and excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing". Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides".

The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs". They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose".

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Americans meanwhile, and as usual, are carrying out pre-emptive strikes on all of their allies, just in case.

And in the southern hemisphere...

New Zealand has also raised its security levels - from "baaa" to "BAAAA!". Due to continuing defence cutbacks (the air force being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying paper aeroplanes and the navy some toy boats in the Prime Minister's bath), New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which is "I hope Australia will come and rescue us".

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, mate". Three more escalation levels remain: "Crikey!", "I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend", and "The barbie is cancelled". So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

Note: Courtesy of one of those emails that get passed around

I suppose much of what blogging is about, is 'observation' - as one of my recent commenter's so astutely observed, it's the detail. This particular detail is a few days old now, but it has stuck with me and keeps playing across my mind.

Television round here is a fairly dull, piped in affair for the most part - 52 channels of fairly staid stuff. OK, so having the Premiership on live so many days a week is something I'd not have in the UK. The news channels though are limited to Sky News, BBC World and CNN, therefore nothing that is in any way out on a limb or massively thought provoking. And it is on the first of these that I found my detail.

For some reason, AM and I always seem to find ourselves watching this channel. I'm not sure whether that's because it's on channel 1 on the TV, whether it's because it looks glitzy compared with the others, but more likely that it's a better connection to home than the others. From a quality news reporting perspective though, it's bloody awful. The approach is easy to see, take any given subject, shake it like a terrier with a doll and then put it on the infinite repeat, but under no circumstances get to the core of the topic at hand, your audience wouldn't understand it - I have in the past, and probably will continue, to refer to it as 'Sun TV'.

In this instance, Sky themselves aren't really the point, it was an interview they ran with some UK government minister whose name escapes me. This was probably less than 24 hours after the Haiti earthquake struck and here in front of me was this minister explain what was being done to bring relief to the people of that country. It's something that should be celebrated that the UK, despite a recession to cope with, is able to muster the resources needed to tackle such a catastrophe and play its part in world affairs. I should have been able to feel that this was a positive thing I was watching, but came away feeling a distinct distaste for UK politics, as if that could be any worse than what's been witnessed in the last 12 months. What got me, was not the message, but the manner the message was delivered in - this guy was positively enjoying what he was doing! There was no sense of gravitas about it, just some guy who wanted to be seen to be delivering 'good news'. There was nothing about his manner that suggested he cared in any way, so what we got was a repetitive recital of numbers of rescue workers, sums of money and tonnes of equipment, all trotted out through an inane smirk. A government in trouble looking to put a positive spin on itself, ably assisted by a media channel that seems to see nothing more in a story than how best they can promote their own image. Wouldn't it have been nice to have posed the question "Minister, can you explain to our viewers why it is that you seem to be enjoying this..."

Non-Believers Giving Aid - Support for the Haiti Tragedy & Beyond