Read the Big Book

Read my article in the Big book, edited by Iain Dale and Guido fawkes.

Big Red Book

England friendlies, a fate worse than death

I have the misfortune to be both indoors tonight, and in possession of an ancient Matsui 14″ television. Thus having finished watching tonight’s episode of Coronation street I am now though a combination of morbid fascination and a complete lack of willpower; watching the England v Spain match on BBC1.

Is there is anything duller than an England friendly in the sporting world? If there is then I have yet to see it. Watching 11 overpaid, underworked, clothes horses jog around a pitch with as much energy as that flattened frog currently sitting in the road outside my house depresses me immensely. These guys show no passion, no get up and go, and certainly no patriotic spirit whatsoever. Playing for your country should be an honour, they could at least pretend to care. If someone would only put something in the water? I think a few kilos of speed would help and suggest they talk to Rio Ferdinand about that one.

Anyway, I’m not just a moaner, I have a solution too. Drop friendlies, problem solved. However if the FA won’t drop these pointless glorified training sessions from the fixture list then they could at least try to engineer some passion from them. I suggest that England from now on only play either Argentina, Germany, France, or Scotland. That would get their pulses racing.

And finally…2 questions:

1. Why can’t McClaren drop Lampard and put Stevie G in central midfield?
2. Why the hell is Phil Neville playing? Is the manager insane?

Internet 101

This video says it all as far as the Internet, new media, and web 2.0 are concerned. Definitely required viewing for anyone trying to get to grips with it:

Click to watch.

Also, Don’t buy Vista: see here and here and here and here

Geek Public Service Announcement

As a fine upstanding member of society it is my civic duty to lend a hand for the common good if requested. The thing is, I haven’t been called on to perform jury service, nor have I been conscripted into the army, and although I think I could make a big difference, I haven’t yet been deputised to the local sheriff’s department to help combat our local bandit problem (I’ll get you one day el diablo loco!).

Thus I’m afraid I will have to fall back on my geek roots in order to feel a fully useful member of society. So listen up, I’m about to impart some technological wisdom.

Tip #1: For the love of god and all that is holy, don’t install windows vista! (yet)

This is very important, for it is truth universally acknowledged that a geek with too much time on his hands will attempt to install another operating system; and if that operating system is a new windows release, then only pain (or in the worst cases, death) can ensue.

I really cannot advise strongly enough against it, yet some will still be tempted by this madness. You could be fed up with XP, maybe someone gave you a “fully legit review copy”, or perhaps it’s simply that your new computer came with one of those ‘vista ready’ stickers slapped on the front? Whatever happens, fight the urge.

The lesson to follow is this. Don’t upgrade or install a new Microsoft OS until at least service pack one (see here). The initial Windows releases are always buggy, vulnerable to viruses and spyware, quite unstable and not worth the effort, I mean really, what is it going to offer at present that XP doesn’t? Answer: Nothing at all.

Now of course, over the years new versions of Windows have got much better. You may remember how Windows 95 crashed every 2 minutes, 98 crashed every hour, and ME, only once every few hours. However since moving to the NT product line, by which I mean windows 2000 and XP, things have gotten a lot better. The blue screen of death (BSOD) is now quite a rare occurrence and new installations are a lot more professional and easy to perform than before. Yet not all bugs are as obvious as the BSOD, or as easily fixed. There is still a lot of scope for things to go very wrong with Vista, especially as it is based on entirely new software..which is bad. Basically it was not developed on top of proven Windows XP technology, but written afresh. Thus like all new software, it will be full of loopholes just waiting to be found and exploited. Think of it this way, they’re still fixing new loopholes found within XP five years after its release!

So please, wait a year and stick with XP for now. You won’t be missing much at the moment, and in my honest opinion this is the golden age for Windows XP. It’s stable, every program out there has been designed with XP compatibility firmly in mind, you can customise it well, and importantly, well for me anyway, my parents know how to use it. Just think of all the agro involved in teaching your technophobic parents about 3D desktops and the like, it really doesn’t bare thinking about!

On the other hand I do concede that Windows XP is a bit tired and worn on the graphical side of things. However all is not lost on that front, and buying a copy of Vista isn’t the answer. You can make XP look a lot prettier very easily by installing a new visual theme. Many are hosted on the deviantART website though others can be found simply by searching Google. However for ease of application I recommend the XPize (4.6 beta 2) program. You simply download it, install it and hey presto, XP looks shiny and new again. Have a go!

Tip #2: Instead of searching the net for days looking for some freeware in order to covert a file, risking either the onset of scurvy or a nervous breakdown. Just use ZamZar!

I can’t tell you how happy I was to find this service. I had been searching for ages, trying to find a simple program able to convert windows media files into the quicktime video format. The problem was that the programs I found either cost money, produced a watermark over the video output, or were utterly crap!

Now being neither willing or indeed able to code my own program to do it, I was at my wits end. Yet the fear of failing my mission drove me onwards, and I went once more into the bowels of the Internet, left clicking away at all and sundry…..All seemed lost, when, as if by magic, I found this website www.zamzar.com My prayers were answered, it’s a fantastic service able to convert anything to pretty much anything. It’s quick, easy and most importantly, free of charge. Check it out, you won’t regret it!

Tip #3: Don’t bother buying a PDF maker.
The industry standard PDF kit is Adobe Acrobat. You likely have their reader, and very good it is too, if slightly larger than necessary. However unless you really need the digital signature aspect of it all, or the comments and other work related tools, and if all you really need is something that will generate PDF files, then there are many cheaper options out there.

Programs like cutePDF or my personal preference, primoPDF produce very good quality results,and you’ll not need to put your hand in your pocket to do it. To generate PDF’s they are set up like a printer, with windows thinking of them as such. However being virtual they print a .pdf file to a location on your PC ( I have mine set to the desktop), as opposed to a normal printer which will generate a paper print out. Thus if you can print a picture or document (for example from MS Office), then you can make a PDF out of it too!

The PC agony aunt is willing to help if you need it! Just ask a question in the comments below or send me an email: gregorh@gmail.com.

A new leaf?

Tonight my friends I shall be eating a nice lamb casserole, I’m sure it will be delicious, in fact I expect it to be so. The smells emanating from yonder kitchen are mouth watering.

The thing is, amongst the scent of fresh lamb and the rich aroma of freshly cooked tomatoes, another whiff is wafting so to speak, something that many would find abominable, however, and this is the crux of the story, a new fragrance previously maligned now whets my appetite moreso than the rest. Something has changed, and I like it.

It all started last year, a mere handful of weeks ago. I too was one of the haters. The vegetable of the season was on my blacklist, off limits, proscribed. Indeed; those squishy little green cabbages, the bringers of flatulence and folic acid to millions of care homes around the world were the fruit of the devil in my eyes. Brassica oleracea my dear? Someone would enquire, brassica off I would retort with a wink, an example of my razor sharp wit at its best.

However, and as far out of the blue as you could get, as if destiny herself had recently had an audit and decreed it anew, along came Christmas, the dinner was laid out, and my perceptions were thrown into a tailspin. I tentatively stabbed one of those bitter little green orbs with my festive fork and closing my eyes, took a bite. Instead of the foul weed I had expected, lord of the vegetables is what I found! By golly, I liked it!

So my friends that what I savour, the heady sulphuric odor of the humble Brussels Sprout. To me that little vegetable is now the telltale sign of a great dinner, and if I can change, so can you. Go on, give them another chance, you know it makes sense.

Have an above averagely cheerful winterval

Why do people become politically correct; I’d really like to know? I only ask because this morning I was was optically assaulted by my woefully uninspired Galaxy Chocolate advent calendar. I was hoping against hope that I may finally see something even remotely Christian in one of the brown swirly windows, I mean if it’s not the birth of Christ they’re counting down to, what the hell is it? does anything else happen on the 25th of December I don’t know about?

I only say this because today I was cruelly exposed to yet another affront to Christmas cheer, a spectacular drawing of a ‘bejeweled hair clip’! Yes that’s right a ‘bejeweled hair clip’, at least I think that’s what it was. It took me a good while to work it out. However it doesn’t end there. The other day I was lucky enough to be treated to a picture of a handbag, yes a bloody HANDBAG, and not even a festive one!? Did Mary sport a handbag, or even a bejeweled hair clip’? If she did they would be the first thing in this calendar even remotely Christian. Of course I should have been wise to Galaxy’s woeful sense of holiday spirit as this sort of thing had happened before! Yes one fateful day all of one week ago I came across not only a box of chocolates, but a pair of mittens. I suppose you’d have to ask all those African, South American and Antipodean Christians to assess the true relationship those mittens had to Christ, however I feel they may come to the same conclusion as I did, utter bollocks!

The thing is, I’m not even Christian. Being an agnostic, I do believe in a god*, however I just can’t subscribe to the whole organised religion bit. These Bible’s, Torah’s, and Qu’ran’s are just bunk as far as I’m concerned, however I still subscribe to Christian values on the whole, the focus on family, being good to each other, respect for oneself, and all that jazz. Christmas is perhaps the one day of the year when those ideals are to the forefront of everyone’s mind, and if it means putting up with organised religion for at least one day of the year, I can subscribe to it. However I am under no illusions as to what the day was inspired by or what it was about (originally), so to all those advent calendar producers out there I say this, stop being a bunch of sodding arseholes…amen.

* There either is a god or there isn’t, no one really knows, so I say hey, why not hedge your bets? If you’re wrong it doesn’t matter, and If god is a spiteful bastard who wont allow you in if you don’t believe, then I’ve got that covered too. I also find it makes me feel more comfortable, I don’t really know why, it just does.

James Bond update

Good day all, I saw Casino Royale the other night and felt like adding my voice to the general chorus of approval for the first Daniel Craig, James Bond film.

A rousing tour de force is one cliché I could use, bloody good would be another. However it’s by no means perfect. The song is underwhelming if passable, it’s slightly too long (20 minutes shaved off would have given it a bit more urgency), There is a discrepancy between Bond and the main love interest Vesper Lynd which I explain in more detail later, and most importantly, there is a distinct lack of naked gyrating females during the opening credits! Naked gyrating females in my humble opinion greatly enhance most situations. Although of course one must take into account the company ones in, and also the attractiveness of said females; however if for example it were just myself and a few “mates”, I think the atmosphere would be enhanced considerably. I digress …Yes, the film is not perfect, however the good points more than make up for the bad.

A great feature of the new film is that it’s the first Bond for a while to actually be based upon a real Bond book, as written by Ian Fleming. Therefore it seems that they have actually attempted to recreate the character of James Bond; as Fleming imagined him, and have tried to portray the character of an assassin realistically on screen. Thus Daniel Craig’s Bond is cold hearted, emotionally removed, and most importantly he is flawed. Bond is beaten, scarred, and in one scene tortured. He is human, and seen to be human. This Bond therefore exhibits a rawness and vulnerability we haven’t seen since the Timothy Dalton days. Where Brosnan or Moore seemed to float through situations with a smirk, a wink, and a Martini, Craig’s Bond crashes through it all like a bull in a china shop, with barely any time to think! We can see that if Craig’s Bond tried anything else he’d likely slip up and get shot or something. In order to survive and be professional he needs to act that way.

That of course is good for an assassin, however for a lover it presents a few problems. If you’re an emotionally removed warrior, how can we take on board you falling in Love quite sappily with the provided totty, in this case Vesper Lynd, a very pretty, if quite dull accountant from Gordon Brown’s office in the treasury. Luckily enough there is some chemistry between them, so it’s not completely flat, however Craig’s demeanour on screen, and the things he says, don’t quite match. The film would definitely have benefited from a bit of trimming in my opinion. The removal of a few of the slower “bonding” scenes (for lack of a better word) would have freed up quite a few minutes, and quickened the pace for the last third of the film. Overall the film does suffer a bit as a result of that lack of urgency, and even though it does recover, and well, for a fantastic finale; it does detract from the film overall. It should have been more Bourne identity and less Titanic with those scenes.

It may appear at first glance that I’m moaning a bit, however most of the film was fab; the first half especially is breathtaking, and never lets up for a second. The crane, airport, poker game, and stairwell scenes in particular are fantastic, not forgetting to mention the incredible torture scene. The brilliantly portrayed bad guy, Le Chiffre really shines, which is good, as these scenes have a tendancy to descend into farce, however Craig and Mikkelsen’s well judged acting keeps it together. This is important as in some films these scenes become more comic than emotional, generally because it becomes so over the top and hammy you can’t help but laugh, usually in embarassment. It doesn’t happen here, it really is well handled.

In conclusion I give it 4 out of 5 Greg-stars, which equates to 4 and 1/8 normal stars, the logic being that I am 1/8 better than everything else ever, thus my stars weigh more, an analogy would be guineas to pounds. If that makes no sense then you’re obviously saner than I!

Right yes, Bond, I can’t really remove stars for a poor song as it doesn’t really detract from the story (much), and the lack of dancing girls is a personal preference. However it would have been perfect if it had been a bit shorter, and less lovey dovey, they really were close to making one of the best ever Bonds, it’ll have to make do with being nearly there.

Right then. On the strength of that review I hope you will all pop round to your local cinematorium to see Jimmy B in all his glory; or maybe get round to renting it some day, or perhaps get it for your dad on DVD for his birthday!? Ok you could rent a tape of it I suppose, but you’ll be missing out in the quality stakes as DVD is a far superior medium when it comes to high quality entertainment than video….Jesus, persuading you lot is hard work!

Updated Jimmy Bond Top 10:

1. You only Live Twice
2. Goldeneye
3. The Living Daylights
4. A View To A Kill
5. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
6. Goldfinger
7. Casino Royale
8. The Man with the Golden Gun
9. The Spy Who Loved Me
10. Dr.No

I’m afraid Daniel Craig’s first go isn’t in the top 5 yet, maybe if I watch it a few more times on DVD I may change my mind. We’ll just have to wait and see how or if it grows on me. It’s 3 for Sean, 3 for Roger, and 1 each for the rest.

Gregor.org.uk Exclusive: Casino Royale deleted scene