It seems my faithful Nikon EM has sprung a light leak. Thankfully, my fellow Nikonians came to the rescue and last night I was able to (hopefully) repair the problem. Read on for the gory details.

BB would just like to congratulate all the main political parties taking part in the upcoming European and local elections. All of them have recently made significant contributions to environmental improvement, collectively making the biggest difference ever through party-political means.

If anybody has more electoral leaflets that they would like us to add to our recycling bin, please get in touch.

Nagios is a great network monitoring frontend. NET-SNMP is a good SNMP implementation for the backend. Somehow, nobody appears to have yet connected the two in any useful, simple way. If you feel that you ought to be able to use SNMP to perform remote host monitoring checks in Nagios, here are two such plugins that monitor load and disk space.

Strident Yanks bawl at audience for two hours. Some laughs.

Ashley Norris over at the Guardian becomes one of the first mainstream journos to sample the All Of MP3 “samples” (that’s full length, unprotected samples in the format of your choice, bud). He offers some unintentional (we think) black humour.

A fisherman’s bondage gear [? check this - ed.] down by the harbour.

After Iraq, Bush promises to hand back sovereignty to Britain

Poll highlights growing discontent with interim Blair administration.

Blair brands Opposition, Press, Unions, Robin Cook “terrorists”

Proposes sweeping new powers to eliminate “all forms of terrorism” as half of Labour party goes into hiding.

Blair enters “health farm” for restorative treatment

…While brushing at jacket and screaming “Gargh, terrorists, terrorists everywhere! Get them off me!!”

Bin Laden broadcast promises to annihilate “decadent, nihilistic, bloated wreck of western soci… click

Ratings surge for reality makeover talent shows midway through 10 o’clock News.

Saddam tells Bush where to find WMDs

US President submits to body cavity search from Attorney General.

Massive dump of ammonium nitrate fertiliser discovered

Police raid B&Q Warehouse, arrest 200. Ground Force team charged with incitement to commit terrorist acts.

Swarthy, olive-skinned men in big padded coats who might suddenly explode

Is there one staring over your shoulder right now? Well, is there?! HAVE YOU EVEN CHECKED??!!

Beckham: I couldn’t keep my hands off him

by David Beckham.

View from the top of Montserrat in Spain, reached via one of the steepest funiculars I’ve ever gazed down.

“Doze!” said my Glamorous Research Assistant with careful emphasis to the ticket lady at Museu Gaudí in Parc Güell. She had already spent several minutes in the queue rehearsing her pronunciation, under my coaching (despite being a self-proclaimed authority, I was too chicken to try my luck on actual Catalans - for reasons that will shortly become clear).
“In my language, that means ‘box’!” replied the ticket lady, emphasising the possessive in fluent English with a certain smugness. “You mean ‘doss’.” The queue behind us dutifully giggled, as we pondered why the ticket clerk at the railway station hadn’t batted an eyelid when we’d asked for “Box tickets to Clot”, and why others couldn’t be as polite/tactful/uninterested as him.

BB is off to Barcelona for a break shortly. Are we worried? Nervous? Concerned? Nope, can’t wait. And we’ll particularly look forward to breathing the same air as a sane, humanitarian, motivated electorate. Hopefully, the numbers of Bush-voting American tourists will be down currently, so there won’t be any unpleasant farmyard smells around either.