www.paulnixon.org

Florence and the Machine

Beautiful cover of a beautiful song.

Beautiful squared! I'm prepared to stand by the validity of that statement mathematically by the way :-)

Alan Johnson, what a knob

I hope this scandal runs and runs.

The sacking of Prof Nutt, the Chief Drugs Adviser (a scientist, not a politician - who would you trust?) illustrates perfectly everything that is wrong with this Government - ie mostly not listening and acting on the whim of the narrow minded views of a pathetic unelected prime minister.

What's worse is, the Conservatives who, to be sure will win the next election, are no better:

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said the sacking had been "an inevitable decision" after Prof Nutt's "latest ill-judged contribution to the debate"."

Ill judged huh? Jesus Christ.

Whilst I always open myself up to ridicule for generally agreeing with what most lib dems say these days - how can you argue with this:

"But Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the decision to sack the adviser had been "disgraceful".

"What is the point of having independent scientific advice if as soon as you get some advice that you don't like, you sack the person who has given it to you?" he said.

Mr Huhne said if the government did not want to take expert scientific advice, it might as well have "a committee of tabloid newspaper editors to advise on drugs policy"."

Fit to govern they may not be but I'd trust that amusing old man Vince Cable to have a good go.

Back to Alan Johnson (see pic below) - he looks really down with it don't he?

Professor Nutt

Good, good.

I was thinking Lord Drayson was a stand out science dude until I got to this bit, no doubt a statement extracted after a severe arse tanning from the Dire Minister:

"In a later statement, Lord Drayson said he had not been fully appraised of the situation when sending the e-mail in question.

He added that he had since spoken to the home secretary and received assurances about the important role that scientific advice would continue to play in informing government policy."

Luminara

Very good asteroids-a-like game.

Windows 7

Well. So far, so rather good.

I managed to install both on my netbook and my main pc in no time at all.

No hardware detection or driver problems.

The interface is nice and clean.

Bye, bye Vista. The worst operating system ever released by Microsoft.

Strange Diet Advice

I'm finding this news story rather strange.

"The recommended daily intake of calories could be increased by up to 16%"

says a draft report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition said.

But only if

"... they exercise more, given rising levels of obesity."

What next? We should eat less providing we stop moving about so much perhaps?

Cosmetic Surgery

According to the BBC website

"Lack of regulation and 'professional greed' is putting patients undergoing cosmetic surgery at more risk than ever before, a leading doctor warns."

I'd also add vanity to the list frankly.

Top 50 Albums of the last decade

Here's the top 10

1. The Strokes - Is This It

2. The Libertines - Up the Bracket

3. Primal Scream - xtrmntr

4. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell

6. PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

7. Arcade Fire - Funeral

8. Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights

9. The Streets - Original Pirate Material

10. Radiohead - In Rainbows

(these are not in reverse order unfortunately from a personal taste perspective :-))

Jenson Button

Maintains his 100% record for horribly public and mercenary disloyalty in his contract negotiations.

Having now signed with McLaren, I would expect an abrupt announcement that actually, he would rather drive for Williams. No wait, Red Bull.

Exciting though, Button to McLaren - Hamilton is going to give him a proper pasting no?

Mozy - PC backups

I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you do not have a backup for your important files on your home pc you're a big idiot.

Not least as there's a very good, free, offsite backup service offered by Mozy which I've found absolutely brilliant.

Simply download and install the application, tell it what folders you want backed up and you're done.

When your hard drive fails, or you have a fire, or your pc is stolen you'll thank me.

House of Ultimate Technology Products

Reminscent of the African hands-free kit gag.

Jeremy Clarkson

I know, I know. I should hate him. And I do, really... I promise.

But, his column is turning into a guilty pleasure. Years of reading the Guardian and the Economist have left me unprepared for, well - can you call it straight talking?

Whether you like him or not he is a) funny and b) says stuff that you shouldn't be able to say in a newspaper any more.

He is also self-aware

"When it comes to sweeping generalisations, I am the daddy. All Germans have no sense of humour, all instruction manuals are pointless, all cruise ships are ghastly, every single American is fat, all golfers are boring and all Peugeots are driven by people you wouldn’t have round for dinner."

Followed by

"Of course, I’m well aware that most generalisations are nonsense."

You wouldn't find this in the Guardian...

"I like lesbians, especially proper ones in stockings that you find on the internet"

Clients from Hell

Check the archive out; can't stop clicking on the comedy gold.

You're listening to The Streets

Or at least you should be. Justifiably the Guardian's album of the decade in my view.

It wouldn't be my first choice but would make my top 10.

Slankets

One of the shitter gift ideas I've stumbled upon today. Glorious photoshop work is an added bonus.

Twitter bore!

Ooops. I'm a twitter bore. Here's my 'twitter cloud'.

Make your own here, though watch out - tt tweets the result without permission!