I tried drugs, admits drugs minister

I tried education, admits education minister (though we doubt this).

I tried internet, admits technology minister.

I tried leading, admits Prime Minister.

BB is praying desperately that very soon, TIm Henman will finally achieve the result he desperately deserves at Wimbledon after years of trying, the moment his entire career has led him toward, the ultimate goal that the whole country cannot wait any longer to share - the realisation that he’s simply Not Good Enough (and with that, the end of those Goddamn Ariel Adverts).

[…Which is a reference to an Etta James song and thus culturally right-on and clever, not offensive or politically incorrect - at ALL - as you might think from reading what follows. Our RNIB donation backs us up and eases our conscience.]

Did you know that Tuesday 15th July is “Wear your shades” day in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind? Yes, another opportunity to be wacky and zany in your workplace - without getting the sack like you probably deserve, you irritating flubb - at very little personal inconvenience while basking in the warm glow of patronising others less fortunate and hopefully less annoying than yourself. BB doesn’t quite understand why we aren’t instead being asked to walk around with our eyes closed, if we really want to show some empathy with the blind. But then, we look around at this sad excuse for society and realise that wouldn’t be any different from normal.

Here’s a great Photoshop action that reproduces the look of “Amelie” (one of my all-time favourite movies, and I say that as a dyed-in-the-wool, lifelong, lifesucks cynic) on your images. Regardless of whether one judges it to be an effective reproduction (you probably have to pick the right chocolate-box kind of images), it also helps to brighten up dull colours. Even better, Dawn gives you the manual formula so you can use it in other applications (like the GIMP).

…Said an alleged Sisters fan to BB once. Which, if you’re not a Sisters fan, amounts to liking two early singles and not the three albums and numerous EPs that followed.

This NotBBC post nicely points up the problems in being a fan of one specific period of a band’s history.

Home Photography by Andrew Sanderson: I have to stop going into bookshops for at least a few years if books like this keep coming out. And I swore I wasn’t going to buy any more tutorial books. Good job the floor under our bookcases is solid concrete.

Actually, this is less a tutorial and more a philosophical tome. And the photographs are fantastic. You’ll look at your home completely differently afterwards, and probably take a lot more pictures around it. Very inspiring.

Update, 2004-01-26: My full review is at Nikonians. Andrew Sanderson’s web site is finally up (NB. not the URL in the book), and you can find some of his stock images at Trevillion or visit his gallery (Sanderson, George & Peach) in Holmfirth, Yorks. [Andrew: Many thanks for your kind email. I did reply, but I’m not sure if you got it.]

Here’s an interesting thread on Nikonians about the merits of fast lenses against all-in-one zooms. The latter are usually targetted at the “consumer” market, because consumers want the convenience and will accept - or are unaware of - the limitations and compromises imposed by these designs. Chief among these are narrow (slow) maximum apertures (second is quality loss, although it’s arguable whether this is a serious issue for typical print sizes). That means problems working in low light (i.e. the upper northern hemisphere :-) and difficulty obtaining shallow depth of field effects - which often produce the most “artistic” images.

As wee bairns across the land eagerly await the arrival of the fifth Hairy Plodder book, BB notes the following related news items: * After 7,000 copies are stolen from a TNT delivery, Merseyside police warn that anyone caught reading them - we’re talking about a book aimed at kids, remember - will be prosecuted. (Frankly, knowing what scousers are allegedly like, the only solution may be to kill all the first-born in Liverpool.) * JK Rowling, via her US publisher, is suing an American newspaper for $100m after they printed brief extracts and a synopsis based on a copy bought from an unwitting health food shop. (Obviously the health food shop had $100m less in revenue and a tighter case, so they aren’t being sued. It’s a shame the paper didn’t have it couriered from Liverpool, then Merseyside police could have arrested the editor.) * Rowling’s Canadian publisher reportedly offered a woman $5,000 to return a copy sold to her by mistake. She refused because she “hadn’t finished reading it yet”. (We really don’t know who’s crazier here. Lock them both up in a secure ward.) * One web site already offers three ways to download the text from file-sharing networks. My ghod, we thought ripping off struggling record companies was bad enough but this is Grand Larceny - send in the marines!! * Bloomsbury announce higher profits than expected due to advance demand for the new book. * JK Rowling is now richer than the Queen, Onassis, Croesus and Russia. The marketing people said so. Ah, Bloomsbury - capturing the magic and innocence of childhood!

From a news item about the increasing incidence of job candidates losing offers after their prospective employers run background checks on the Internet: > “In a third case, a senior sales executive seeking a move also ended up getting the sack after boasting to the Friends Reunited site, set up to keep old school pals in touch, that he lied at interview and his CV was “a masterpiece of fiction.”

Geez, you’d think he’d be a shoe-in for sales with those tactics. Maybe they considered him over-qualified.

In the new issue of Word magazine, Moby talks about how long it took him to realise that - far from a merry jape or publicity stunt - Eminem really did hate him. He doesn’t understand why. “…There was a genuine hate and rage on his part towards me. And I’m like one of the most inoffensive people I know,” he says, thus answering his own question.