This Sark Business

I don't usually let myself get wound up by stuff I read about in the news, but this Sark business has me pretty mad. If you've never heard of Sark, go read about it in Wikipedia. The island and its (former) way of government is living proof that the UK is old. This country wasn't created, but instead evolved over millennia, along the way accreting administrative cruft like the Chief Pleas. Titles like Seigneur and Seneschal are beautifully evocative, and it really didn't seem like the pseudo-feudal system was hurting the island's 600 inhabitants.

The hypocrisy of current events is simply stunning. The Barclay Brothers may claim to want democracy, but in reality they only wanted to place themselves as feudal lords over the island. When their nominees lost the popular vote, they chose to shutter all their concerns on the island in a fit of pique. I'd call it childish if it wasn't so far beyond that. It's downright criminal. The islanders wouldn't let the Barclays take over — probably with the intention of installing a new tax regime more favourable to themselves — and so they are being punished. Notice in the BBC article where the Barclay's spokesman says that they have no need to sell the properties. Rather than risking someone else moving in and giving these people their jobs back, they will board-up the hotels and other businesses and let them rot in order to spite the islanders.

I live just across the Channel from Sark, and I've got half a mind to grab a boat from the harbour and stage my own one-man invasion of Brecqhou — the Barclays' Bond-villan-esuqe island fortress — to see how they'd like it.

I'm Looking for a Performer

I'm looking for a performer. A comedian or actor. Although not actively. Not quite yet. Just passively. Keeping my eyes peeled. I mention it here just on the off chance someone stumbles across it.

For some reason, I've found myself watching a lot of Daily Show and Colbert Report recently. Probably the US elections. The formula's pretty simple: five minutes of jokes, then a (usually toe-curling) interview. The BBC's Late Edition was a fairly accurate copy, albeit way more hit-and-miss. And now I'd like to try my own on the internet.

Of course, I wouldn't dream of sticking myself in front of the camera. Apart from always feeling uncomfortable, I simple haven't got the talent. Mind you, I see myself writing the thing and I certainly don't appear to have the talent for that. I've started another blog at hereisthenews.tumblr.com with the intention of posting short snappy jokes. So far, nothing. But give it time.

Anyway, this post is really more for me, to try and spur me into action. Although if anyone else reads this and is interested, drop me a message.

Sarah Palin Prank Called

Apparently it was Russell Brand claiming responsibility for Bristol's sprog.

What Kind of a Week Has it Been?

The $0.47 in my Google AdSense account says "not too shabby." Yeah, I know, but for the first week of the newly re-launched Apple Eclectic it really isn't bad. In the last 7 days we've posted 85 articles, knocked our WordPress template into a shape which we're reasonably happy with, and are even starting to find our voice. We've had 668 visitors since I started the stats thing counting on Thursday, over 400 of them today alone. We've even had a commentor.

I've got a good feeling about this. Unfortunately that's when things usually start to go wrong, but we'll see.

A few random thoughts:

• Twitter: Just started following some people. One was Jason Calacanis, who instantly started following me back. I know it was just some machine of his somewhere being automatically polite, but it's still a weird feeling.


• Amazon: Having to sign up to a separate Associates programme in each country is a pain. Google doesn't require this, but then Google doesn't have to ship physical goods and follow pre-digital accounting practices. It's still a pain. I really need to find some way to get WordPress to present different Amazon widget according to the visitor's location.


• Trackbacks: We posted an article in reply to a TechCrunch piece, which got us a link on their page, which in turn generated some traffic. This feels weird in the same way as the Calacanis Twitter thing — I shouldn't be playing at the same level as these people, but I guess that's the beauty of this InterNet thingie. Go egalitarianism!

I'm sure that when I was planning this earlier I had more things to say, but that will have to do for now. Next: find a cartoonist.

419, the Old-Fashioned Way

Just to show the world what kind of a technological backwater I've washed up in: someone has been going around my home town dropping letters through people's front doors claiming to be from the window of the President of Zambia, asking for help in moving millions of pounds through the banking system. Yes, that's right: it's a paper-based version of the 419 scams. Well, would-be-scammers, the jokes on you. People round her don't trust them new-fangled banks. Give a total stranger your money rather than keep it under your bed? Not likely.

via The Dorset Echo (our local rag).

Checking Google Takes Only Seconds

"Find Your Soulmate" — presumably in the fruit and veg aisle.

(For those of you outside the UK, Asda is a WalMart-owned discount supermarket chain.)

PCW Laughs Last, Longest

In an attempt to distance myself from the rest of the Blogosphere, I followed my rant of a few months ago by shunning the typical passive-agressive stance and actually Doing Something About It. By which I mean I wrote a snarky letter (well, e-mail), which is what passes for Doing Something in the particular strata of Englishness to which I belong.

The staff of PCW, however, are professionals well-equiped to deal with uppity readers, and proceeded to implement the neatest bit of wrong-footing I've experienced in a long while, to whit: they awarded me the Letter of the Month. If you can find a copy of the October 2008 edition (which came out a few months ago in crazy magazine time — yeah, I should have blogged this sooner) and turn to page 20 you will see my words (slightly edited, but nothing to get all Giles Coren about).

You may also note that I won a prize: a Ricoh Aficio GX 2500 printer. As PCW Editor Kelvyn Taylor joked in his congratulatory e-mail, "I hope it comes with Mac drivers." Now, I was planning on ending with the words, "And we all know the answer to that," but bugger me sideways if the damn thing doesn't actually have Mac drivers. A review shall follow.

How the Manic Street Preachers Invented Tech Blogging

1: Will it Blend?

From Little Baby Nothing at approx. 3 minutes 32 seconds.

2: The Gizmodo-style Pantsing

From You Love Us at approx. 1 minute 39 seconds.

One Store for Them...

I've just been reading this from Craig Hockenberry about comments on the App Store. Following the link to comments on the iPhone app Band it struck me that a) people were bitching about the app's price, b) even more people were bitching about the people bitching about the app's price, and c) all of the prices mentioned in the bitching were in "£". So does this mean that each store gets to keep its own database of comments? Given that so many US-centric directory apps got listen I had kinda assumed that we were all slurping from the same international app pool.

Pixel Imperfect

To get this far with the site I had to solve my little Internet Explorer problem. In the end I just said (read: screamed) "sod it" (read: a grawlix (which looks kinda like Perl to me (and this is starting to look a lot like Lisp)) (have these balanced yet?)) and decided to go old school, forgoing re-size-ability and measuring everything out in pixels. You can see the results here.

And yes, I know that the buttons spill out the bottom of the location-setting dialogue.

Have I mentioned how much I hate Internet Explorer?