It’s recently come to my attention that Manic of b3ta & Bloggerheads plus a few others have started a campaign, Backing Blair. The basic aim of this is to get rid of Tony (I like referring to Blair and Bush as Tony and George, after all they were both on first name terms with Mr Hussein of Iraq, plus Tony and George sound like a pair of gay hairdressers) by the method of tactical voting. The whys of this are fairly obvious (dragging us into the Iraq war, the right-leaning politics, the ID card and the other limitations of civil liberties, the fact that he just doesn’t seem to listen anymore…). I wasn’t going to vote for Labour anyway. I think the Lib Dems have a lot of sensible policies, and previously my only sticking point with them was their support for proportional representation, which I thought would remove any single party’s ability to actually get anything done, hamstringing us with a series of coalition governments. I now see what can happen if the wrong person gets that majority, so Mr Kennedy will be getting my vote. So I shouldn’t have any problem with the Backing Blair campaign. Only I do. I think it’s a waste of time. It’ll work fine on the internet, where people will pass around links to the site and their flash campaign ad, but how much crossover between the net and real life is there? There was a huge internet campaign against George in the USA, yet I seem to remember reading that there was little conversion of strong internet statements into actual votes. And “Backing Blair” - the whole campaign sounds like something New Labour would churn out themselves! Look at the posters! And the trucks! Alistair Campbell would be proud! Of course, it’s all ironic, ha ha. I just don’t think irony and politics mix very well these days, slick presentation of bold hyperbole seems to be the preferred method at the moment. Still, good luck to BB, and hopefully we’ll at least see a much reduced Labour majority by the middle of the year.

Following my earlier post regarding evolution and intelligent design, I spotted a post on boingboing quoting a NYTimes article which fleshes out the argument for unintelligent design, citing extinction and some frankly comedic “design” in the plumbing of certain mammals. Vagaries in the route of the laryngeal nerve of the giraffe are perhaps a bit esoteric; the mere existence of the giraffe is good enough evidence for me. The extreme length of the giraffe’s neck means that its heart needs to be incredibly powerful in order to pump blood to the animal’s brain. Of course if the giraffe moves its head below the level of its heart, gravity is working in concert with this awesome pump, the unopposed combination of which would apparently generate enough force to blow the animal’s head clean off. (OK, maybe that’s hyperbole, but its a nice image.) To stop this, the giraffe has a valve to stop blood flowing up its neck when its head is in such a position. Still, it makes the “incredibly long neck” solution to finding food something I wouldn’t design, that valve smacks of post-production fixing after lots of headless prototype giraffes were found at watering holes. Actually this turns out to be one of the points creationists raise when they dis evolution.

I was out playing some jazz last night. I’d spotted an advert on t’ interweb for people who wanted to play soul, but we kicked off with some jazz stuff as everyone (well, everyone else!) knew it and we hadn’t got transcriptions of the other stuff yet. Usual tunes: Summertime, Perdido, Girl (well, Boy, as the singer is a lady) from Ipanema, etc., and we had a bassist, pianist, tenor sax, vocals and myself. I don’t think I did too badly, particularly as I was sight reading the chords for most of the songs, though I did have to quickly work out the shapes for diminished chords. I’ve not got much of a feel for what to play yet; I tend to do go for a trad jazz banjo-style chords part, i.e. a muted strum on each beat. Of course, this can get in the way of the piano, so I guess I should be playing more arpeggios when that happens. Or something. Anyway, they seem like a good bunch and it’ll give me an opportunity to develop my jazz playing, particularly soloing over the changes. I’d better watch myself though, playing too much jazz can be a bad thing; if you use the wrong mode of the melodic minor scale you can accidentally summon Shub Niggurath and end up torn limb from limb by her unholy children. Dangerous stuff, music theory.

I’m losing it. I really am. A decade ago I was doing partial integration and Laplace transforms (albeit badly; I failed my maths course, resulting in me going into biochemistry rather than physics), but today I did not get this puzzle, called Petals Around the Rose. The answer is actually very simple, which is what confused me; I was trying far more complicated solutions than required. In the end I read the links at the bottom of the page and found another site that uses a javascript app to create the same puzzle. “View source” is a keyboard shortcut in Firefox, and I succumbed to the temptation to use it. So this becomes just one more data point on the downward trend of me having “it.” I blame the booze.

This is the Perry Bible Fellowship archive, a collection of brilliant, darkly humourous cartoons. I’m not sure which would be my favourite, but Banana Scientists is certainly up there somewhere. The white, cartoony yet undefined figures reminds me of an artist’s work whose name escapes me; he or she painted lots of such bold white stick figures either jumping or running against a square solid colour background. I wish I could remember who it was, and this is the kind of question that’s pretty much un-googlable!
Edit: OK I lied, you can google for it; the artist I’m thinking of is Keith Haring.

This is the nastiest recipe known to man, or rather woman, and one in particular; many years ago Rob and I cooked this then went to a party where we spent the evening chatting up a lady who probably didn’t think much of two guys with the kind of garlic breath that could be used to strip wallpaper. Apparently Rob’s mother got this from the Radio Times, which I really don’t believe as it’s far too exciting for them. I can’t decide if it’s the work of an angel or a devil…

• ~2 cubic inches of fresh root ginger, grated
• ~5 fresh chillis, finely chopped
• ~4 cloves of garlic, crushed
• A couple of mugs of basmati rice
• 2 or 3 chicken breasts cut into cubes
• About a pint of stock (chicken or veg or whatever)
• ~4 tbs sesame oil, plus the rest of the damn bottle
• Bucket of soy sauce

Take the chicken and put it in the bucket of soy. Leave for a while to marinate. Heat the sesame oil in a pan (which you have a lid for) and fry half the ginger and garlic for a while until your kitchen smells f’kin gorgeous. Chuck in the rice and fry that for a bit (hopefully there was enough oil to get all the rice coated in oil… if not, up the oil a notch or two). Pour on the stock, then chuck a lid on the sucker. Wait. Hey, why not have a beer? Anyway, eventually the rice will absorb enough of the fluid that the level of stock will drop to the same level as the rice in the pan. Take the lid off (what am I saying? You had to take the lid off to check the level of the stock) and layer the chicken pieces on top of the rice, hopefully in a single contiguous layer if you’ve got enough chicken and the right sized pan. Turn the heat right down, whack the lid on and leave it for 20 minutes. While that’s doing its thang, make the chilli dipping sauce. Take the rest of the ginger and garlic and put them in a mug with the chillis. Bung on sesame oil until what you’re looking at is one big garlicy gingery chilliy oily mess. Mix it up, put some cling film on it then whack it in the fridge. Basically this is it; when the chicken’s done steaming on the rice just eat it with the dipping sauce either on the side or brazenly mixed in with the rice. Consume. Be amazed at how good it tastes. Oh, the above recipe makes far more than one person could possibly consume in a single sitting - even Rob and I used to have a bit of trouble.

The Murmurdochy, a poem written by Mushroom and posted on b3ta:

’twas rumours from the slimy toad
did wire and mumble through airwaves
all flimsy was the evidence
yet the toad’s wrath outflamed

beware the murmurdoch my son!
the scoop that bites; the story’s cash.
Beware the hubbub bird and shun
the immigrant job snatch

he took his writing pad in hand
long time the ministers he sought
so rest’d his feet, on downing street
and stood a while in thought

and as in plaintiff thought he stood
the slimy toad, with eyes of flame
came striding down the street of fame
and chose gov’ment again

one two! one two! and then a speech
the camera flash went snicker-snack
they left him fed, and had his head
emblazened on the rag

and hast thou chos’n the government?
come to my arms, my beamish hack
and in five years, or so’t appears
we’ll have the Tories back.

’twas rumours from the slimy toad
did wire and mumble through airwaves
all flimsy was the evidence
yet the toad’s wrath outflamed

Mushybees (he of the sweary Cactus cartoons) has a new cartoon going called egg & chips.

Finally, eclectech has put together what I’m sure will be recognised as the Veritas party anthem.

Lejo is a Dutch site that has a set of videos starring, well, hands. It’s rather muppet-esque, but maybe that’s the ping pong ball eyes. Go to the filmpjes (videos, if you click the GB translation button at the bottom) section, and choose the DJ vid (top left), which is my favourite.

I was recently completely suckered in by marketing. Ok, again. For years I’d been using a two blade razor to shave with, and watched the arms race of increasing numbers of blades with amused disdain. Then I noticed that a new set of blades is about the same cost as a whole new razor, so thought I’d give one of those new fangled four blade behemoths a go. At the same time I thought I’d change to Wilkinson Sword rather than my old Gillette, as the latter’s adverts are incredibly irritating (see my views on Darwinian advertising). They practically guarantee a six pack stomach, no premature baldness and oral sex if you use their razors, and frankly none of those have ever resulted directly from my method of shaving. So, I bought my new razor.
It’s shit.
No, really. The shaving experience is akin to having your face pulled off by a horde of rabid kittens. And the head is so large you can barely see your face behind it, let alone judge where the end of your sideburns are. And my facial hair isn’t even that strong, so heaven help anyone who actually needs to shave more than once every other day (e.g. one of Derek’s pupils - he’s a teacher, he doesn’t have talking eyeballs - asked him why his face is blue). Even though my dad claims we have Viking ancestors, I think I’d have trouble growing the enormous ‘tache and beard those lovable Norwegians are often pictured with. Frankly I’m starting to think my dad’s making it all up. Though I did feel strangely at home in the Jorvik centre in York, but that might have been due to the part of the tour where they said everyone, including children, drank beer rather than water as it was safer. It still is! You don’t see them commie preverts putting fluoride in beer, do you? But perhaps they should put fluoride in alcopops, it might improve teenage dental health. And if we put bromide in there as well, that should cut down on teen pregancies. Hmmm, maybe I should suggest this to some drinks companies…

Managed to get some more recording done rather than wasting my life infront of Half Life 2. I’d made an original recording of a song I’d provisionally titled winter back in october (original post here). I had a change of plan about the song, which involved reworking it to include a melody line played on the ebow Kyla gave me for Christmas and generally aim for a more Radiohead-esque kind of feel. And so I give you Winter v2.0. This was recorded in my usual manner at the moment: one track of metronome as a guide, then rhythm guitar, the ebow, drums, then finally bass (the new 5 string!). I have even written some lyrics for it, but they’re fairly uninspired so I don’t think I’ll bother recording them for the moment. I had intended to have a final section in 7/8 time, but quickly discovered that I could barely play my idea on the guitar, let alone drum it. Let’s face facts, I’m still having enough trouble drumming in 4/4; the drum lines I used in this are deliberately less complicated than the ones I’ve attempted in previous recordings, because they’ve all sounded shit. It turns out my bass playing isn’t that much better than my drumming; I have a spectrum of playing that ranges from (root notes only + in time) < -> (interesting bass line, badly out of time). And I’m still getting lots of unwanted strings ringing… hey, it’s a learning process, and recording things helps, I think.

Spotted a couple of articles that make a nice pair. Firstly, an article in the Guardian entitled Religious right fights science for the heart of America.

But the largest applause of the evening was reserved for a silver-haired gentleman in a navy blue blazer. “I have a question: if man comes from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Why do you waste time teaching something in science class that is not scientific?” he thundered.

And secondly, a news article in Nature entitled Monkeys pay for sexy pics.

… the juice-to-picture exchange rate was highest for images of female rears. “Virtually all monkeys will give up juice to see female hindquarters,” Deaner says of his male subjects. “They really value the images.”

So man might have come from monkeys, but not that far, it seems! Next thing you know, there’ll be monkey porn on the internet and broadband connections in the jungle.
The creationists are rebranding their ideas under the banner of Intelligent Design, the idea that there are gaps in the fossil record so evolution is flawed, plus there is evidence of design in biology, ergo God is the driving force behind all this, not natural selection. Steve Dutch has written an interesting page on arguing with Bible literalists (many of whom advocate intelligent design), the summary of which says

The two issues that appear to divide scientists most sharply from Biblical literalists are first, can any phenomenon be definitively known to be outside the laws of nature (i.e., a miracle) and second, can any documentary source be known to be absolutely free of error for all time? Even if miracles and infallible sources actually exist, we can never be sure whether some alleged example really is one. We could be mistaken in our evaluation or new evidence could appear that changes our interpretation. Rather than assert the nonexistence of miracles or infallible sources, which is a losing proposition both because many listeners will reject it and because such a disproof is impossible, it seems a far more robust approach to explain why science cannot accept either as ultimate explanations.

Rather than worrying about creationism getting onto the curriculum, perhaps what we should be teaching in schools is thinking for ones’ self. Don’t just believe something is the way it is, think about it, form your own opinions, test them out yourself, and be ready to be proved wrong. Hopefully then we could teach anything we like, and kids will sort the wheat from the chaff themselves.
There are times when the idea of intelligent design has not been without appeal to me. I did a course on molecular biology during my degree that contained a section on bacteriophage lambda (a virus that infects bacteria), which has a very clever arrangement of operons (genes) on its genome. The phage can either start dividing immediately after infecting a cell (lytic phase), or go dormant (lysogenic). The decision to do so is controlled by various positive and negative feedback loops controlling expression of the phage’s genes, which are also ordered on the genome in such a way that this inhibition can take place. The thought passed through my mind, “And all this is for a virus that infects E. coli. This is so damn complicated I can’t believe it occurred by chance.” Of course, despite the high points of evolution, there are some lame ducks (or rather, dodos), and this has prompted the theory of Unintelligent Design.

I have noticed of late that disco is starting to infect rock again. I’m not 100% certain, but I believe this is being labelled “post punk.” Franz Ferdinand and The Killers are the two main culprits to my ears, both using disco drum lines e.g. in the chorus of The Killers’ Somebody Told Me:

   1...2...3...4...
HH xxo-xxo-xxo-xxo-
SD ....x.......x...
BD x...x...x...x...

Disco. Disco disco disco. Suddenly every drummer in the world is sounding like Dave from Casa. GET BACK ON THE 8THS! That said, I must admit to having been practicing lines like this a lot recently; syncopated hi-hat lines are definitely something that can be done tastefully (Interpol, for example), and up until now it’s something I’ve not worked on. I nearly had something quite pleasing going on in one session, where the interesting line was on the hi-hats and the ostinato was on the drums, something like:

   1...2...3...4...
HH xxxxo-xx.xxxo-o-
SD ....x.......x...
BD x...x...x...x...

But then, as ever, my limbs got out of time with each other and I lost it.

… actually, fuck me, there’s some new demos on the Casa website! I feel like some psycho stalker ex, downloading them just to see what their new guitarist can do.
*listens*
*compares*
Well, I like the updated version of Express Yourself, that’s a nice guitar line. And I’d forgotten about Dave’s addiction to comedy snare rolls/buzz. I think, in general, bands should always include live recordings in their demo; all these Casa recordings lack half the energy that is in their live show. And that’s all I’m going to say!