Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Early this morning, the death took place of Mary Maloney, better know to us here as the mother of Mrs Rainy Day. A gentle woman with a marvellous sense of humour, she encouraged her children to read and travel widely. In her final years, she revealed a talent for painting and her watercolours were filled with the motifs of her native, beloved Sligo. As a mark of respect for this remarkable woman, who faced her final illness with fortitude, and for her family, Rainy Day blogging will be suspended until Monday, 3 January.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 27 December 2004 at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Christmas reading: "State of Fear", the new thriller by Michael Crichton. Page 553:

"Kenner looked back at the ocean. He saw the wave coming toward the shore.

It was enormous, as wide as the eye could see, a foaming line of surf, a white arc spreading as it came toward the beach. It was not a very high wave, but it grew as it came ashore, rising up, rising higher... With a roar of surf, the wave struck the beach and raced inland toward them.

To Evans, it seemed as if everything was happening in slow motion — the big wave churning white, boiling over the sand, and somehow keeping its crest all the way across the beach, and into the jungle, completely covering the green landscape in white as the water boiled up the slope toward them. He couldn't keep his eyes off it, because it seemed never to lose its power, but just kept coming. Farther down the muddy track the two men were scrambling away from their fallen jeep, and then they were covered in white water and gone from sight...

...Eight thousand miles to the east, it was the middle of the night in Golden, Colorado, where the computer of the National Earthquake Information Center registered an atypical seismic disturbance originating from the Pacific basin, just north of the Solomon Islands, and measuring 6.3 Richter. That was a strong quake, but not unusually strong. The peculiar characteristics of the disturbance led the computer to categorize it as an "anomalous even", a fairly common designation for seismic events in that part of the world, where three tectonic plates met in strange overlapping patterns.

The NEIC computers assessed the earthquake as lacking the relatively slow movement associated with tsunamis, and this did not classify it as a "tsunami-generating event." However, in the South Pacific, this designation was being re-examined, following the devastating New Guinea earthquake of 1998 — the single most destructive tsunami of the century — which also did not have the classic tsunami profile."

Say what you like about Michael Crichton, but any author who anticipates the cloning debate by means of Jurassic Park and the coming role of nanotechnology via Prey understands how to pitch complicated science to the thriller-reading masses. With State of Fear, he's taken on the environmental lobby and as the excerpt above shows, he's filled the book with stuff that's provocative and eerily topical.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on at 1:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With one fell swoop David and Victoria Beckham saved our Christmas. Not only did they choose the time of the Nativity to christen their two sons, Brooklyn(5) and Romeo (2), which raised the spirits of those of us worried about the decline of the nuclear family, but they threw a great party as well. All the angles covered, in other words. The Irish media, starved of celebrity news of late, was thrilled by it all because the cleric who conducted the ceremony was none other than the Right Reverend Paul Colton, the Bishop of Cork. Name got a familiar ring? Well done! He's the very same minister who married Posh and Becks five years ago.

First to arrive for the evening was Sir Elton John, with his boyfriend David Furnish, who was filming the event. Both are godparents, by the way. Elizabeth Hurley, a godmother, was next. Here's a nice tabloid bit to go with that dry detail: "Wearing an ivory-satin dress and a white fur shawl she appeared to have breached Victoria's alleged diktat ordering women not to expose too much cleavage." Naughty, naughty.

The only hint of disharmony was the non-appearance of Mel B aka "Scary Spice". All the others were there: Melanie "Sporty" Chisolm, Emma "Baby" Bunton and Geri "Ginger" Halliwell. Wayne Rooney did show, though, and with fiancee Coleen McLaughlin. And on and on and on.

Oh, here's a good bit. The grub for the evening was provided by "society caterers" Rhubarb Food Design. How about this: "It served champagne and 8,000 canapes in just two hours at Price Edward and Sophie Essex's wedding reception…guests enjoyed a crayfish cocktail in a crisp croustade with spicy horseradish, salmon tartar on toasted brioche with soured cream and dill, and creamed Stilton with pear and rocket crostini." We've got a bacon and cabbage dinner to look forward to now. For supper, there'll be sausages and mash and a plum pie.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 26 December 2004 at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

William Sydney Porter wrote hundreds of stories for the popular magazines of early 20th-century America under the pseudonym O. Henry. "The Gift of the Magi" is one of his best-known. An excerpt:

"The magi, as you know, were wise men — wonderfully wise men — who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi."

On this day, Christmas Day, we are the magi.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 25 December 2004 at 1:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A nagging cough, a week old now, found its match in Tipperary Town yesterday in the form of Potter's Vegetable Cough Remover. This famous herbal remedy, made with traditional phlegm fighting ingredients such as Lobelia, Ipecacuanha and Rectified Spirit, is feared by lung invaders the world over.

A communal tasting of the stuff around the fire last night elicited memories of Dr Condon, a legendary physician who practiced in the Tipperary-Limerick border area 60 years ago. In these days of instantly prescribed antibiotics, Dr Condon's method of dealing with coughs evokes an image of medicine that belongs more to the age of Smollet more than 20th-century fact. Then again, rural Ireland in the last century offered more than a few parallels with life as it was lived 300 years ago in England and Scotland.

The Rainy Day mother recalled visiting Dr Condon in search of a "cure" for a persistent cough that had laid her father low during the dreadful winter of 1947. The good doctor produced a collection of jars containing various powders and proceeded to conjure up a remedy using the palm of his hand as his sole measuring instrument. A large amount of one substance was followed by a sprinkle of another and when he was satisfied that he had the right number of elements he placed them "in a jug that hadn't been washed for years", in my mother's words, and added water. Finished, and a whisky-bottle cork snapped on top of the container, the expectorant was on its way to the patient. The mystery mix tasted "hot" according to those who had experienced it and, best of all, it worked. It was conceded, though, that the week's bed rest, the nourishing soups, the strong teas and the mulled Guinness were important factors in getting rid of the coughs of yesteryear. Looks like a tough week is ahead of me. Happy Christmas one and all!

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 24 December 2004 at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This time last year, Rainy Day made a donation to the World Food Programme, which allowed the organization to purchase 5,000 cups of rice. Considering that the WFP fed 72 million people in 82 countries in 2002, we said at the time that our donation was just a grain of sand, of rice, in an ocean of misery, but it was better than doing nothing.

This year we are sponsoring a wheelchair. Our donation goes to Fatuma Acan in Kampala, Uganda. Fatuma is the first woman in Africa to train as a wheelchair technologist and she runs the non-profit company MADE (Mobility Appliances by Disabled Women Entrepreneurs). The idea for this particular donation was spurred by Anna Hochsieder, and our joint visit to the Western Union office this week to transfer the funds was far more instructive about the nature of First World-Third World interdependency than wading through most research papers on the subject.

This e-mail just in:

Dear Eamonn, I am glad to inform you that I have got the donation. On my own behalf and on behalf of MADE I would like to convey to you our sincerethanks for your generous donation. Plese consider this as your most needed help to some one who was crawling in the African dust. The young boy who is going to benefit has never had a wheelchair in his life so you can imagin the excitement he will have. Please pas to Anna my thanks and gratitude for being such a good friend. I request you also to pass the messege of need of wheelchiair to other friends of yours. I whish you the mrriest X-Mass and a prosperous New Year. Fatuma

If you would like to read more about Fatuma Acan, we suggest this interview conducted earlier this year by Lisa Foster. Meanwhile, Rainy Day is heading to the Cork-Limerick-Tipperary border nexus where high winds have flattend trees and telegraph poles. Posting will be hit and miss.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 23 December 2004 at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The president marched his men up the hill and down again and over the border and into a god-awful mess. The horrors of the resulting war have been well documented. The brutality of the invading soldiers is outdone only by the cruelty of the local "insurgents" as the terrorists are sometimes called by the sympathetic press. When it comes to slaughtering men, women and children, they show no mercy. In fact, they seem to relish the prospect of dying for Allah and taking as many innocents with them as they can slay.

The president we're talking about is George W... Right? Wrong? Actually, it's Vladimir Putin and he's had a grand old time of it in Germany these past two days. Putin doesn't tolerate cameras in Chechnya and he doesn't hold with a free press at home and he is busy divvying up the economy amongst his cronies, but no one in Berlin is too troubled by that. The thing is, Putin's got oil and that means it's perfectly okay to put out the red carpet for him. The German "street", famous for its ability to rouse itself on behalf of all those under the yoke of American imperialism, has taken to its collective bed since Monday. But don't worry, the Man is coming in February and you can bet the last of your declining dollars that he'll be greeted by the usual suspects, en masse. See, he's much, much worse that the freshly-embraced Putin and the recently-embraced Chinese dictators because he doesn't have any oil to offer and, what's worse, he uses the stuff in a way that does not please the environmental sensitivities of those who do so well by selling him all those expensive Mercs, BMWs and Porsches.

Rather tart, this bit from the BBC: "Mr Putin is one of the few world leaders who can chat with Mr Schroeder in fluent German. But for critics this is another reason to distrust him. He picked up his German as a KGB spy based in Leipzig." On Sunday, the long-suffering people of the Ukraine will have the opportunity to elect a leader who is determined to free them from Putin's clammy grip.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 22 December 2004 at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Exciting days in the Gunners' goalmouth. Jens Lehmann, the ex-Borussia Dortmund keeper who replaced David Seaman between the posts back in July 2003, has been told by coach Arsène Wenger that he can pack his bags. Lehmann was in goal throughout Arsenal's record 49-game unbeaten streak, but was dropped when he dropped the ball once too often. After his mistakes led to just one victory in nine league and cup matches Spanish keeper Manuel Almunia from Celta Vigo, who arrived in Highbury for an undisclosed fee in July, got the nod as the newest, safest pair of hands. Don't you love this comment by Wenger? "I must tell you something. Jens Lehmann has gained more respect from the whole squad since he has been dropped." Er, thanks, boss.

Adding to all this turmoil is the fact that Lehmann is duelling with Oliver Kahn for the number one keeper position in the German national side. King Kahn began to slide last year and Lehmann felt that his hour had come, especially after the new coach of the German team, Jürgen Klinsmann, fired Sepp Meyer, Kahn's trainer at Bayern Munich. With Lehmann heading for the dole office now, though, Kahn must be feeling somewhat more secure. Still it's a pity that Lehmann is on the way out as Arsenal and Bayern are scheduled to meet each other in the next round of the Champions League and it would have been fascinating to see how the two would have coped with the face off.

Meanwhile, waiting in the wings is the Irish national keeper Shay Given. Word is that Wenger is willing to dig deep into his pockets for the man now in his seventh season at Newcastle United. To top it all off, Klinsmann said yesterday that he planned to go to London after Christmas to discuss the Lehmann situation with Wenger. Crowded goalmouth! High ball coming in! Get the keeper!

Let's see what the totally excellent Arseblog, who has written something every morning about the Gunners for almost three years, has to say about this. How does he keep that monothematic output up? Well, he recently confessed to enjoying a regular breakfast of potatoes covered in Guinness washed down with a steaming hot mug of poteen. Must try that.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 21 December 2004 at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Inspired by Mrs Rainy Day's choice of Book of The Year, Happy Days With The Naked Chef, I spent some time leafing through it at the weekend and was struck by how much Oliver tends towards hunter-gather foods. Very big on fish, wild meat, fruit and nuts, he is. There's a certain amount of dairy products in there as well, which some of our Palaeolithic ancestors would not have been unfamiliar with. The sad thing is that the ingredients Jamie Oliver would have us cook with have become too expensive for most people today. The modern innovations of the food industry such as starchy grains, which upset our digestive systems and cause us to put on weight, are much more affordable and much more popular.

Another interesting thing about Oliver is that he's not afraid to promote alcohol with his appetising and healthy cooking. There's a slight echo of another Londoner here — Kingsley Amis. In his 1972 book "On Drink", Amis laid down the rules for a successful diet: it should help you lose weight without reducing your alcohol intake in the slightest. With his high-protein, zero-carb "Boozing Man's Diet" Amis pre-empted Atkins and with a much more sociable regime, too. So, if you want to enter the New Year looking sleek as opposed to stout, keep your wines as dry as possible over Christmas and if you must drink beer try low-carbohydrate stuff. Here's a small excerpt from the Amis diet plan:

"Eat as much salt as you like. Some diets disrecommend this, on the grounds that salt causes the body to retain fluids and so in effect makes you heavier. This is true, but ludicrous, unless you are so titanic that an extra few ounces will kill you as you rise from your chair. As well lose weight by donating blood or having your hair cut... Another eating-out tip, applying to restaurants: order a dish you hate, or one you know they do badly. After a few mouthfuls of the average chicken a la Kiev or boeuf stroganoff — two of my own unfavourites — your appetite will be fully satisfied. Make the waiter leave your plate in front of you while your companion's gateaux, crepes Suzette and so on are being ordered and consumed."

Throughout his writing life, Amis stuck to an unflinching schedule of 500 words each day. "Any proper writer ought to be able to write about anything," he once said.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 20 December 2004 at 5:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apple didn't opt for San Francisco or New York when it picked the location of its largest retail outlet ever. No, London got the nod. The doors of the Apple Store at 235 Regent Street opened on 20 November and they've been open most of the time since then: 10:00 am to 9:00 pm from Monday to Saturday and 12 noon to 6:00 pm on Sundays are the trading hours. One can sell a lot of iPods and iBooks during a 72-hour week and Apple certainly does the business. What's the USP the staff stress when advising those torn between buying a PC or a Mac? Absence of viruses and a more stable OS. Unless you've got armour-plated virus protection today, your PC is going to get hit, and hard; Mac owners don't have that kind of worry, and compared to Windows, which was built in pieces, OSX is a much more stable operating system. Well, that's the pitch, anyway.

But it's not all about the hard sell at the Apple Store. The space fairly hums with creative activity. It's hosting 250 events this month alone. There are free workshops and presentations for beginners and pros. You can attend courses, hang out with the nerds in the Genius Bar and attend shows in the theatre. Which is what I did on Tuesday night. The performer was Martin Baker of Digital Heaven, a post production facility in West London. It provides facilities to both independent film producers and major broadcasters. Digital Heaven now uses Apple's Final Cut Pro editing software and has developed ten new plug-ins since making the switch. It's a niche, and a hot one.

At the core of the Apple retailing concept is the thinking that if you've got something sophisticated to sell, and if you turn the purchasing experience into something that respects the intelligence of the consumer, the business will flourish. Seems to be working so far.

NOTE: The issue discussed in yesterday's post, the spread of the Firefox browser, is expanded upon in today's New York Times by the Silicon Valley-based historian and author Randall Stross. In "The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating)", Stross is scathing in his derision of Redmond's "stodgy" Internet Explorer. As someone who gave up on Netscape and urged users to switch to Explorer I should be wincing when I read this kind of article, but there was a time when it was the better browser. Honest. That day has passed, though. From security to size to features, as Stross points out, Firefox beats Explorer hands down. Time for us all to get with the program, then.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 19 December 2004 at 8:57 AM | Permalink

Here's an amazing, inspiring story. It's about a website which was built to grow the global community for a particular piece of open-source technology. Although in existence for just three months, the site has signed up 50,000 members and recently, in the space of 10 days, it raised $250,000 from 10,000 individuals around the world to place a full page ad in the New York Times extolling the virtues of its "product", the Firefox browser. The site, Spread Firefox, has a new goal now: to raise $500,000 before 1 January. This money will then be donated to grassroots organizations that embrace open source methodologies.

Can the open-source movement harvest and disperse such enormous sums? Certainly. The success of the Howard Dean campaign for the Democratic White House nomination earlier this year showed that the technology is available and if you have the right message the people will use it to respond. By the way, if you are actively involved with open-source technologies and would like to receive a grant from Spread Firefox, they'd like to hear from you. Note: Firefox has been downloaded more than 11 million times.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 18 December 2004 at 7:54 AM | Permalink

It's not the New York Times list of books of the year and neither is it the Financial Times list of best reads of 2004, but it's the Rainy Day list and we're as proud of it as any press baron or baroness would be. Mrs Rainy Day is up first with her pick:

Happy Days With The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver. To look at me it doesn't appear as if I eat or even like to eat, but I do, and much more importantly, I love to entertain — well that's obvious when you see how I act and how much I laugh. That's why Happy Day With The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver is my Book of The Year. I picked it mainly because it has helped me to have so many good evenings with friends and family over the year. I mean, I would never have thought of putting a stick of cinnamon in a chilli or adding honey to a salad dressing or serving rhubarb with panacotta, but it all worked like a dream and my guests were impressed. I love the relaxed way Jamie cooks with his concentration on fresh herbs, which most people don't think even exist and which can transform a dish into something sublime. Funny, Jamie says his book is "more like a diary than a cookbook", which is probably also why I have chosen it, as I like reading diaries. By the way, Jamie has great one here, filled with ideas and recipes.

Now it's the turn of the main beneficiary of all the Oliver-inspired cuisine, Mr Rainy Day. Here's his choice:

The Anglosphere Challenge by James Bennett. Four years ago, when French foreign minister Hubert Védrine wrote "Les Cartes de la France à l'heure de la mondialisation", he listed a number of "un-European" traits, including: "ultraliberal market economy, rejection of the state, nonrepublican individualism, strengthening of the universal and 'indispensable' role of the United States, common law, Anglophone, and Protestant rather than Catholic concepts." The one term M. Védrine needed to sum it all up was the "the Anglosphere". But what is the Anglosphere? Simply put, it is all those people who use the English language and who cherish freedom and individualism as political and cultural values. The Anglosphere narrative runs from England's Magna Carta to the US Bill of Rights and its core concepts are contained in sayings such as "innocent until proven guilty" and "a man's home is his castle". As a result, a group of people communicating in English but not sharing these assumptions cannot be part of the Anglosphere. Along with setting out the boundaries of the Anglosphere, James Bennett argues that globalization and information technology are creating new "network civilizations" and the foremost of these will be the USA and the other English-speaking nations, hence the book's subtitle "Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century". The book is accompanied by an informative website, which features a synopsis and chapter samples.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 17 December 2004 at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

What's the London newspaper industry gonna do? Faced with a declining readership, it's shrinking its product from broadsheet (The Independent, The Times) to tabloid (The Independent, The Times), or "compact", as the newly downsized prefer to put it, but what do you do if you can't get smaller? Simple. You give the paper away.

That's what London's Evening Standard started doing on Tuesday. Standard Lite is a new, free edition of the paper that's handed out between 11.30 am and 2.30 pm. The non-lite version of the paper sells on news-stands at the same time for 40p. The paper's paid circulation now is at 371,000 and dropping rapidly.

So what's the difference between the two papers? Well, the give-away Standard Lite is a celeb-filled, gossip-filled paper and the paid-for Evening Standard is a celeb-filled, gossip-filled... Seriously though, the give-away version represents the ailing Standard's last attempt to find a reason to exist. The plan is the get more ads and then charge more for them in the paid version by offering advertisers the inducement of running the same ads for free in the lite edition. If the trick works, the paper could then raise its ad rates next year and watch the dosh flow in.

The big problem with this scheme, though, is that the Evening Standard is doomed. It's natural consumers work in the service-sector now and most of them have access to the net. They don't need an evening paper anymore to tell them what's going on in the world. They're getting the minute-by-minute accounts on their desktops. And when they get on their trains and buses, they whip out the mobile phone or the MP3 player and immerse themselves in a world of entertainment that they're in charge of, not some editor down in Docklands.

Metro, the free paper that's distributed in the London Underground at dawn has eaten the Evening Standard's breakfast and lunch and it's very hard to fight free, especially if you have a paid-for version of the same product on the same shelf. Pity. As someone who loves newspapers, I hate to see one die but the city evening edition is an anomaly now. The battle for survival among the dailies can be expected to heat up in 2005. It will be over in 2010.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 16 December 2004 at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[LONDON] At 5.45 pm yesterday evening, a large crowd had gathered at the entrance to the Oxford Circus Underground station. What could be the cause of the assembly, a visitor pondered? An accident? An attack? A performance? None of those, actually. Entry was restricted because of "overcrowding", as the station loudspeaker announced over and over again. We were advised to be patient.

While waiting, patiently, shoppers and commuters were entertained by the elaborate lighting display that runs along Regent Street. Further amusement was provided by the hordes streaming into and out of Laura Ashley, FCUK, United Colors of Benetton and the amazing new Apple Store. With the crowd swelling dangerously, a bus pulled up in front of the Tube station bearing along its side a message that gave us further food for thought: "Brent Cross," it said, "Shopping until 10 pm," it continued and, this is the best bit, "Feed your addiction". All well and good, said the trapped consumer, but what if the addiction is insatiable? What then? Will people be forced to buy everything? To spend all their money? To shop forever? To run the risk of being trampled to death in Harrods?

Got a lovely double-ended bow tie in Gieves & Hawkes, though. Only ten more shopping days to Christmas!

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 15 December 2004 at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[LONDON] And a great time was had by all in the Brixton Academy last night. But then, The Kings Of Leon were onstage so it would have been impossible not to have had a great time.

For those unfamiliar with the music and the story, which reads like a potential film script, The Kings Of Leon are three brothers and a cousin from America's Deep South. The brothers are the sons of the Reverend Leon Followill who swapped a life of crime and booze for a career as a minister of the Pentecostal Church. As he travelled across the land evangalizing at revival meetings he took the lads with him. The automobile was their home, the church their theatre and the car radio their source of musical education. Because of these formative influences, the lads preach a taut blend of country blues and rock descended from the work of Robert Johnson, the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Sometimes one hears hints more modern stuff such as Cat Power, The Kills and The Sold Out Brothers in the mix.

The group's debut album, "Youth And Young Manhood", hit the stores in summer 2003 and immediately became a massive hit, selling over 500,000 copies in Britain alone. Rainy Day was so impressed that we declared The Kings of Leon "rock's new royals" here in January. The latest album, "Aha Shake Heartbreak", is a horse of a different hue. The songs are subtler and involve different rhythms and styles throughout with lots of tempo changes. "Milk", "Rememo" and "Soft" are slow, melodic and poignant, while "Day Old Blue" is gently acoustic and "Razz" has a touch of ska about it. "Pistol Of Fire" is the most lively track with the trademark screeching guitar licks and foot stompin' beat. The lyrics remain charmingly obscure throughout.

In concert, the Kings are an explosion of pure energy. Caleb Followill's rasping voice sounds like he smokes 50 fags a day but it's an impressively tuneful instrument capable of expressing the full range of emotions: exhilaration, tenderness, pain. The gravel vocals are underpinned by filthy driving rhythms and one knows at once that this is the real rock 'n' roll deal.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 14 December 2004 at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We have selected ten of our favourite books from the many read this year and linked the titles to Amazon, for those who would like more information or might be interested in buying any them. On Friday, we'll present our two Best Books of the Year, chosen from this list. First up, Mrs Rainy Day with her five favourite reads of 2004.

One Hundred Strokes of The Brush Before Bed by Melissa P. On her quest to find love, an 18-year-old Italian girl gets involved in intense sexual adventures.

Happy Day With The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver. Food and family and friends and eating the best meals made with the best ingredients.

Lanzarote by Michel Houellebecq. Going on holiday to Lanzarote may sound boring, but Houellebecq manages to turn the commonplace into high comedy.

A Multitude of Sins by Richard Ford. Ten grown-up stories about marriage and adultery, passion and infidelity, disappointment and revenge.

The Dying Animal by Philip Roth. A carefree liaison between a 60-year-old TV critic and a 20-year-old evolves into a tragic tale of love and loss.

And now, Mr Rainy Day presents his five faves:

The Anglosphere Challenge by James Bennett. The English-speaking cultures are the world's path-finding nations and Bennett says their global lead will widen in the coming decades.

A Venetian Affair by Andrea di Robilant. Two passionate protagonists exchange letters in 18th-century Venice. Casanova, Canaletto and Goldoni get cameo roles in the novel.

The Persian Puzzle by Kenneth Pollack. The United States and Iran have reached an impasse. Pollack looks at the regional and global implications of the options available to Washington in dealing with the mullahs.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Say what you like, 50 million readers must be on to something. Brown invents history, trashes the Catholic Church and laughs all the way to the bank. This is page-turning balderdash at its best.

Getting Things Done by David Allen. Is your workload getting on top of you? Allen's "do it, delegate it, defer it, drop it" strategy will help keep that in-box empty and the blood pressure down.

Here on Friday, we'll present our two Best Books of the Year. Comments are welcome.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 13 December 2004 at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Off to London to tomorrow. A strict diet of biscuits, crisps, chicken tikka masala and fish & chips washed down with bottles of Imperial Stout will be adhered to. Well, that's what the Brits subsist on, innit? Along with piling on the physical pounds these days, the Queen's subjects are also becoming "digitally obese". A study by Toshiba has found that "music, images, e-mails, and texts are being hoarded on mobiles, cameras, laptops and PDAs" in the Kingdom. Treating one gigabyte as the digital equivalent of a pick-up truck piled with paper, the study found that many Britons were carrying 10 trucks worth of data. This is particularly good news for the producers of mobile content as the report predicts that people could be carrying around 20 gigabytes of data next year. Although not all of that will be on mobile phones, the trend clearly favours the producers of ringtones, images and film clips.

Wonder how much I'll weigh when I return?

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 12 December 2004 at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in March, after Islamists had murdered some 200 commuters in Madrid, the Spanish electorate responded by firing their uncompromising Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and hiring the pliant Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who quickly pulled the country's troops out of Iraq. The defeat of Aznar prompted The Economist to title its 20 March issue "One down, three to go?" The three were British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Australian Prime Minister John Howard and US President George W. Bush. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi didn't make the cover, but he got an honourable mention in the feature. After all, he had had the temerity to go against the will of the "European street" and send Italian troops to Iraq. He'd be sorry before the year was out.

THE QUESTION MARK in The Economist's title is one of those classic insurance policies journalists use when circumstances require circumspection. For example: "Charles in love-nest triangle with corgis?" One can steer clear of the libel laws and sell lots of copies that way. For The Economist, though, the question mark was a hedge, just in case the unexpected happened. The Spaniards had shown the way and it was worth speculating that the Aussies, Yanks and Brits would follow. Still, there was the risk that it mightn't turn out that way.

The first test came in two months ago with the Australian general election. Following the Islamist massacre of young Australians in Bali in October 2002, John Howard had adopted a tough approach to terror and then declared his hand by sending soldiers to Iraq. Like Tony Blair, he was demonized by the country's media as being a Bush lapdog and the electorate could be counted on to give him the boot for being either "aggressive" or "submissive", depending on who was spinning at the Sydney Morning Herald. Except it didn't pan out that way. Howard was re-elected with an unexpectedly large majority. One up.

AH, WELL, with the world's media on John Kerry's side and George Soros and Michael Moore and Bruce Springsteen on the campaign trail, pumping in money and pumping out platitudes, the biggest trophy of the year would be bagged in November. That would make up for the Down Under disappointment in spades and restore the gleam in Chirac's eye. Except it didn't pan out that way. Bush was re-elected with an unexpectedly large majority. Two up.

The next target was Berlusconi. Eight years in the slammer would take the grin off his face, reckoned the, by now, very upset punters who had placed their downfall bets back in March. Blair would be isolated, and Europe would finally sing with one anti-Bush voice. But wait. What's this? Aaaaarrghhh! The headline yesterday read "Berlusconi cleared of corruption". The grimness of the situation can be sensed in this sentence: "The BBC's David Willey in Rome says that although acquittal through the statute of limitations is not the same as a not guilty verdict, Mr Berlusconi's unbounded political confidence is unlikely to be shaken by the ruling." Yes. Quite. Three up.

THOSE WHO PREFER their leaders to lead and not follow the mob or the mass media can expect to go four up next year when Tony Blair is re-elected. In anticipation of that happy moment, I think it's time Rainy Day lit that cigar and poured that glass of single malt. Eh?

Meanwhile, here's a suggestion for The Economist: How about a cover with the title "One down, three to go?" featuring a photo of Arafat? As regards the three who'd share the cover with him, well, I'll let you pick those yourselves.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 11 December 2004 at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, we had this Islamic fundamentalist regime treating its subjects with great brutality and intent on returning a country to the Dark Ages. Simultaneously, it gave sanctuary to a terrorist network that planned to murder "unbelievers" all over the world. All this culminated in suicide attacks on New York and Washington that left some 3,000 people dead. Then the United States led an international coalition to oust the hosts and their parasites, and three years later NATO, the UN and dozens of NGOs helped organize and supervise the first free and fair national elections in the country's history. Finally, the country's first popularly elected president was sworn in at a dignified ceremony attended by hundreds of local and foreign guests. Don't know what you think, but this has to be one of the most amazing stories of our time. It certainly was the most uplifting news of the week. Pity the media coverage was so grudging, though.

Next on the good news agenda: elections in Iraq. By the way, those who knew that the war to get rid of Saddam Hussein's regime was wrong and all about oil, anyway, should spend some time at the mass graves of Iraq. You have 62 pages of photos here. Take a close look at all of them.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on at 8:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So there we were at the weekend, poring over the New York Times Books section with its "100 Notable Books of the Year". This is one of the family's favourite seasonal traditions. The venerable institution picks its hundred top books and we go through the list to see how many, if any, we've read since January. The presence on the shelf of a few of the titles convinces us that we're not too far from the mainstream. When it comes to books, it's comforting to be in the NYT zone. Anyway, we were skimming the titles when we pulled up short at number 92, The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir by Toni Bentley. Here's the one-line summary that caused us to put on the brakes: "The writer and onetime Balanchine dancer extols the joys, physical and spiritual, of anal sex."

The joys of what! Well, well, things have certainly changed and "The Old Grey Lady", as the New York Times is fondly referred to, is clearly not as strait-laced as she once was. You know: there was a time when anal sex was such a forbidden subject that readers of Lady Chatterley's Lover had to wait until Chapter 16 before Constance and Mellors did it. Back then, along with the critics, D. H. Lawrence had to contend with censors upholding Section 12 of the British Sexual Offences Act, which concerned the offence of "buggery", so he was forced to finesse things when it came to the "back story", as they say. That's why Constance, "a little startled and almost unwilling," is "pierced again with piercing thrills of sensuality, different, sharper, more terrible than the thrills of tenderness". The British censors weren't fooled, though. The old buggers.

The Times has changed. The times have changed. And they've changed to such a taboo-less extent that Leon Wieseltier, the respected literary editor of the New Republic, is being quoted as calling Toni Bentley's anal intercourse memoir "a masterpiece". Well, that's what the New York Observer said in its cheeky story "The Ballerina Who Bent". Note: on Sunday, the New York Times presents its 10 Best Books of the Year, chosen from the 100 list. What are the odds that the sodomy story won't make it? These are books for consenting adults, after all. Factoid: the demure black cover of The Surrender folds back to reveal the very same image of a barely clad female bottom that filled the opening shot of the film "Lost in Translation." Well, that could be useful information for a pub quiz some day.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 10 December 2004 at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The idea was to get into the city in time to see the rockin' rebel Steve Earle in concert. We were on an extremely tight schedule but we had done the math, as they say. Robbie Burns was right, however, when he spoke of the schemes of mice and men ganging aft a-gley. What happened was that a white car, travelling at tremendous speed, emerged out of nowhere and ploughed right into the side of our bus, forcing it off the road and almost into the oncoming traffic. It all happened so fast that life didn't have time to flash by. Anyway, by the time the medics were done treating the injured and the police were done taking statements and a replacement bus had arrived and we had gotten to our destination, seeing Steve Earle was no longer an option.

All that happened on the evening of 2 November on the Long Island Expressway as we made our way from Kennedy Airport to Manhattan. Steve Earle was playing down in the East Village in CBGBs, home of The Ramones, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie and Television. To make the occasion even more memorable, Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme (The Silence Of The Lambs) was shooting footage of the gig. He's directed the video of Earle's "Rich Man's War", the second single from his critically acclaimed and highly political new album "The Revolution Starts...Now." What a hilarious way to spend the election evening, we thought, listening to Earle lambaste George W. Bush in the heart of the true blue city. If you're not familiar with Earle's stance, here's a sample from his sporadic blog:

"Richard Nixon began pulling our guys out of Vietnam only when he and his government began to fear chaos in the streets of America. We can do this. We have to. We have the advantage of the largest anti-war movement ever mobilized before a single shot was fired. These are our sons and our daughters (along with tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens) who are dying every day. The most important thing is that we never lose hope. This will take whatever it will take."

Not so sure if "tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens" are "dying every day" but you get the picture. Steve Earle is passionate. Naturally, we don't think much of his skills as a political analyst but we love his singing, admire his courage and support his right to speak his mind. And that's why we trudged off into the murky fog last night to see him play. Grafinger Straße is a long way from the Bowery, but getting to the Metropolis proved less life-threatening than to CBGBs.

And the gig? Great! The two-hour set began with "The Revolution Starts", the opening track from the new album, and segued into the second song, "Home to Houston". After "Condi, Condi", with its come-on line "People say you're cold but I think you're hot", the crowd was very much on his side and it was a blast from there on in.

Two classics during the encore: The Beatles' "Revolution" and "Sweet Virginia" by the Rolling Stones. As regards the band, guitarist Eric "Roscoe" Ambel is marvellous, and Allison Moorer's powerful voice is sweet when needs be and plaintive when required. Everything about the Earle-Moorer body language on stage suggests that love is in the air. Lucky ole Steve.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 9 December 2004 at 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In a must-read essay titled "The Media and Medievalism", which appears in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Policy Review, the Atlantic Monthly correspondent and author Robert D. Kaplan identifies an emerging new tyranny. An excerpt:

"The global media's demand for peace and justice, which flows subliminally like an intravenous solution through its reporting, is — much like the Communist International's rousing demand for workers' rights — moralistic rather than moral. Peace and justice are such general and self-evident principles that it is enough merely to invoke them. Any and all toxic substances can flourish within them, or manipulate them, provided that the proper rhetoric is adopted. For moralizers these principles are a question of manners, not of substance. To wit, Kofi Annan can never be wrong."

Uncannily, and almost as if ordered by Kaplan, the international version of the German magazine, Der Spiegel, provides confirmation of his thesis with an article by one Klaus Brinkbäumer titled "The Campaign against Kofi". It begins "The secretary general of the United Nations fights a war on many fronts in his crusade to bring human rights and peace to the world. But Kofi Annan's latest front isn't Sudan or Iraq, it's Washington, where right-wingers and spin doctors are plotting to overthrow him."

Although Brinkbäumer is tedious and blinkered, someone should still direct him to what the human rights attorney Joanne Mariner has to say over at FindLaw. He won't like the title, that's for sure: "How the Abusive Protect the Repressive at the U.N." Here's the introduction:

"Sudan, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Russia: one thing these countries have in common is that their governments violate human rights flagrantly and systematically. But another thing they share, astonishingly enough, is membership on the U.N. body meant to monitor and prevent human rights violations. Pakistan, China, Egypt, Congo — the list goes on. When it comes to rights-abusing countries, the 53-member U.N. Commission on Human Rights has plenty of depth."

Nauseating. Did you know that two weeks ago the UN General Assembly's human rights committee rejected a resolution condemning violations in Darfur? Ninety-one countries voted in favour of the "no action" motion that killed the resolution; 74 voted against it.

Back to Brinkbäumer. Under the heading "Smearing Kofi", he continues, "But for the time being all the fuss is about Annan. The entangling of his son in the scandal has emerged like a dream come true for Kofi's worst enemies. Of course, they have other ammunition, too; his career at the UN hasn't been without its blemishes. In the early 1990s, Annan was in charge of the UN's peacekeeping operations and he ignored calls for help from his commander in Rwanda, where 800,000 Tutsi as well as Hutu were dying. Either he did not or was not able to do anything to stop the murder of 8,000 Muslim Bosnians who were murdered in Srebrenica. 'We all made mistakes,' Annan says, 'the world community failed.' "

Hmmn. It is a telling moment when the 8,000 slaughtered here and the 800,000 slaughtered there are regarded as "blemishes" by Der Spiegel and as "mistakes" by Kofi Annan. Why not call these things what they are: "crimes"? As Robert Kaplan so perceptively notes about the media mob, "As with medieval churchmen, the media class of the well-worried has a tendency to confuse morality with sanctimony: Those with the loudest megaphones and no bureaucratic accountability have a tendency to embrace moral absolutes. After all, transcending politics is easier done than engaging in them, with the unsatisfactory moral compromises that are entailed." Indeed.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 8 December 2004 at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Up front, here's one of our favourites: "The president of the United States bears about as much relationship to the real business of running America as does Colonel Sanders to the business of frying chickens." That's one of the many acidic observations that has dripped from the busy pen of British author J. G. Ballard (Empire of the Sun, Crash, Cocaine Nights, Super-Cannes). Now, right in time for the Christmas market, Ballard has come up with a volume consisting of 400 pages of quotes from 40 years of writing. "J. G. BALLARD: Quotes" is the simple but effective title. Here's a sample:

"Sex times technology equals the future."

"Sooner or later all science fiction comes true."

"Americans are highly moralistic, and any kind of moral ambiguity irritates them. As a result they completely fail to understand themselves, which is one of their strengths."

"The advanced societies of the future will not be governed by reason. They will be driven by irrationality, by competing systems of psychopathology."

"A general rule: if enough people predict something, it won't happen."

"A widespread taste for pornography means that nature is alerting us to some threat of extinction."

"Learn the rules, and you can get away with anything."

"The only definition of real happiness: to find yourself and be who you are."

Ballard isn't for everyone. He tends towards the dark, so if you're feeling down, wait until the clouds have cleared before delving into his work. Still, he gets it right a lot of the time, especially about the grim uses of technology that threaten all of us. The "new totalitarianism" is what he calls the deadly mix of bland architecture, pervasive computing and docile citizenry we've become used to. He sums it up brilliantly here: "The New Totalitarians come forward smiling obsequiously like head waiters in third-rate Indian restaurants, and assuring us that everything is for our benefit." J. G. Ballard has warned us, quotably. Meanwhile, here he is talking about the middle classes and mail order Kalashnikovs.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What's the hippest form of fame today? Being named in a sex scandal? Being named in a sex scandal and having your own blog? Not being named in a sex scandal, not having your own blog, but having an iPod created especially for your own music? No, non, nein, none of those. The hippest thing of all these days is having your achievements listed in Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia. Recently, Christopher Hitchens, the English journalist, author and critic was added to the Wikipedia knowledge base. "Hitchens is well-known for his ruffled and hard-drinking persona, as well as his unpredictable political views," says the editor of this entry in progress. "The Dude", as Hitchens is known to his friends and admirers, including Rainy Day, cannot complain about that. In the Wikipedia entry, his career is compressed into snippets entitled "Trotskyism", "Political gadfly", "Neoconservative?" and "Fascism with an Islamic face". The latter reads as follows:

"Fascism with an Islamic face: Hitchens was deeply shocked by the Fatwa against his longtime friend Salman Rushdie, and in the years following he increasingly became concerned by the dangers of what he called theocratic fascism, and particularly the fascism with an Islamic face, that is, the radical Islamists who supported the Fatwa against Rushdie, and seemed in many circles to favour the creation of a siege-state Caliphate; an odd blend of medieval forms of life with C20th totalitarianism. After 9/11 his opposition to what he regarded as this menace turned into an urgent political priority for him. He has aggressively supported US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq."

By the way, the gatekeepers who decide what is acceptable fodder for today's mass media consumers regard Wikipedia with suspicion, and they're downright hostile when it comes to quoting it as a source, but it's a battle they're destined to lose. What we're seeing with Wikipedia is similar to the evolution of Linux, Apache, MovableType and Google. It's all about participation, reputation and global distribution. The growth of a world-wide network has unleashed a tsunami of enterprise resulting in a wealth of innovation, and the development of free publishing tools means that millions of formerly marginalized creatives are now actively pouring their energy into all kinds of collaborative online projects, such as Wikipedia. Rainy Day prediction No. 673: Wikipedia will be the world's default encyclopaedia in 2009.

Meanwhile, here's its entry for Christopher Hitchens.

UPDATE: From the New York Post, dateline 2 December: "BILIOUS Brit writer Christopher Hitchens has been asked to lecture U.S. military officers-in-training at West Point. The Vanity Fair columnist, a reformed leftist who backed George Bush's re-election and who now supports the war on terror, will be speaking at the famed military academy on the subject of 'Iraq, Afghanistan and democracy in both places,"' he tells PAGE SIX. Hitchens, who attacks the likes of Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, Michael Moore, Mel Gibson and Mayor Bloomberg in his new book, 'Love, Poverty and War,' says he was very surprised by the invitation. 'I thought, 'Surely the U.S. military can't be in that much trouble,' he quips. 'Is it a great country, or what? Actually, I think it's an honor, especially now. This is the next generation of American officers.' Hitchens says the academy offered him a 'nominal' fee for the lecture, which he has asked to be donated to a fund for soldiers' widows and orphans."

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 7 December 2004 at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Did you know that the European Union, in its wisdom (?), forbids portable music players from blasting more than 100 decibels into the ears of their owners? Now, you may say that this is very enlightened legislation, especially if you've ever had to sit beside some MP3 totin' cretin who's wearing those crappy headphones that spray numbing beats over everyone within hearing distance. But you might see things differently, however, if you've shelled out for a shiny new iPod and you want to use it on a plane, or a train or somewhere with lots of background noise.

Anyway, there you are, on the road, and you've got The Kings of Leon lined up and you want to feel the full impact of those magnificent chords that introduce "Slow Night, So Long" from their new album, "Aha Shake Heartbreak". This is bourbon-soaked, smoke-filled music that was made LOUD to be played LOUD. But you're snookered because you bought your iPod in Berlin and the volume has been set in Brussels. Meanwhile, your mate who's listening to the same song is blissfully heading towards tinnitus because she bought her iPod in Singapore. The difference here is appreciable: iPods sold outside Europe play as loud as 104 dB — two and a half times louder than 100 dB European Union limit. What to do?

Well, if you want to melt your Euro ears, click along to Norway. Beyond the ambit of the Brussels bureaucrats, lies the domain of euPOD VolumeBoost ("now over 45 000 downloads!"). This clever little utility alters a setting in the iPod's hidden database and instead of adjusting the volume of the individual songs, it increases the player's volume. And in a matter of seconds, too.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 6 December 2004 at 6:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

It's that time of year again: the time when pundits begin to assemble their reviews of 2004. If you've forgotten what happened back in January, or February or March don't panic, though, Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, has everything you need. Check out "A full chronicle of 2004". It's all there. Long seen as a research database filled with entries on everything under the sun, Wikipedia is emerging as an incredibly useful record of the news. March? That was the month of the Madrid bomb attacks. November? The most important election of our time, or so it was billed. And this was the year when terror displayed its true face in Beslan.

Not satisfied with being a permanent record of the news, Wikipedia is now moving to making and breaking the news with Wikinews. The ideas presented in the position paper suggest that Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger are on the right track. In the future, we'll see an item, such as this one on Hurricane Charley, developing as a breaking story while being archived as a record for the ages.

The wonderful thing about Wikipedia is that the people behind the scenes understand how online communities work, and they're able to get people all over the world to share that vision, as Britannica has learned to its cost. When Wikinews hits its stride, news organizations will feel the heat as well.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 5 December 2004 at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Writing headlines and subheads is not as dull as it sounds. OK, it has its moments of drudgery, like all jobs, but there are times when it can be fun. Take this classic from yesterday's New York Times: "United Methodists Move to Defrock Lesbian". Those Methodists! Kinkier that we're led to believe. As headlines go, it's not quite "Headless Body Found In Topless Bar", but it will do.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 4 December 2004 at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Those two phone calls last week were not the stuff of history, but they were significant nonetheless. The first was with Ian Paisley, icon of irredentist Northern Irish Unionism, and the second was with Gerry Adams, icon of militant Northern Irish Republicanism. At the other end of the line was President George W. Bush. Given that the success or failure of the second Bush term will be determined by progress on such major issues as nourishing democracy in Iraq, enabling a Palestinian state, defanging Iran, disarming North Korea, reforming the UN and defeating terror, Northern Ireland's internecine bitterness will be well down the page of problems the White House has to deal with, but this parochial affair is more important than many think.

For 30 years now, the Nationalist-Unionist conflict has contaminated relations between the Republic of Ireland and Britain, and it has, at times, strained relations between Britain and the US. In the 21st century, none of the affected parties can afford this festering sore, especially given the hazards facing the US, Britain and Ireland. So the time has come to end the "armed struggle", once and for all. Had John Kerry won in November, however, Sinn Fein/IRA would have believed that the re-empowered Edward Kennedy wing of Irish-American Catholic nationalism could have given them massive leverage in Washington, thus adding to the paranoia of the Unionists, thereby increasing tribal tension and putting off a negotiated settlement even longer. But Bush won and Paisley and Adams have to deal with the very sobering fact that there's no appetite on the other side of the Atlantic for funding Armalite politics anymore. They must now sit down and get real. The same goes for Abbas, Annan, Assad, Chirac, Kim Jong-il, Schröder, Zapatero and all the others who went to bed on 2 November and dreamt of waking up in a different world. Like Paisley and Adams, they awoke to reality, and it's this reality: neither alone nor together can they build an army, a navy or an airforce that can take on the US. If they are sensible, they will now channel their disappointment into productivity and the pursuit of progress.

Who would have believed four years ago that NATO would be keeping the peace in Kabul and Kundus so that Afghanistan can build a democracy? Or that Iraq would be preparing for its first free elections in January? Shame on those European leaders, academics and journalists, whose countries were liberated from fascism and communism, and who didn't think the people of Afghanistan or Iraq were entitled to similar freedom! Shame too on all those, on both sides of the Atlantic and in Asia, Africa and the Middle East who effectively said that Saddam's genocidal dictatorship should have been left in place!

The US president gets our award for making those two phone calls, for liberating 50 million people and for picking up the gauntlet thrown down on 11 September 2001. It was not his choice, but the choice of the Islamists, this war, and it will go on long after he has left office, but when the history books are written they will recall that he was a leader. To George W. Bush, then, goes the Rainy Day Person of the Year Award.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 3 December 2004 at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Apple more or less invented the PDA with the Newton, but because it got the sizing and pricing wrong it had to kill the product and the company developed an aversion to the portable market as a result. All that changed, of course, with the iPod. Given the bitter Newton experience, though, there are good grounds for believing that Steve Jobs won't tamper with the pod. It ain't broke so there's no need to fix it by adding on, say, a phone. And with predictions doing the rounds that the planet will be supporting 100 million podders by 2008, who in their right minds would want alter the hottest and the coolest thing since toast? Still, Motorola did announce back in July that it would be bringing the iTunes Music Player to its next generation of mobile phones early next year, so if iTunes can be embedded in a phone, why can't a phone be embedded in an iPod?

Well, of course it can be done and Apple will do it. It will have to. Consider this one fact: the ringtone market for mobiles is worth a staggering $3 billion. That's much, much, much bigger than the current music download market. So, with the mobile music market expanding and with mobile phone makers beginning to incorporate MP3 players, Apple will have to act to protect the iPod's core market. However, if Apple decides to stay clear of the telecoms business, it might license the iPod to Motorola which would then roll the hardware into a PhonePod. Then, with GPRS or UMTS, you could use the iTunes software to buy songs for your phone! By the way, those who would argue that by adding a phone the iPod would look unwieldy should take a look at the mini. It could be expanded and still remain aesthetically pleasing.

Note: you can now get socks, yes, Podsocks for your iPod in any one of six vibrant colours: green, purple, grey, blue, orange, and pink. Price? $29. Don't you wish you had bought an iPod?

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 2 December 2004 at 7:10 AM | Permalink

The hunt is hotting up. The media beagles are in full flight now, their noses filled with the corruption scent. It's not just their baying that makes this so exciting, although that is a thrilling sound, it's the hope that in catching smaller fry a much bigger prize will fall the way of the relentless pursuers — namely, Daddy-o. That's right, we're talking about the Annans, son and father.

Suddenly Kojo, the lesser Annan, is everywhere. He was forced into the open last Friday by Caludia Rosett of The New York Sun in a gripping piece of investigative journalism headlined "Annan's Son Took Payments Through 2004". Key graph: "Now comes this latest information that Kojo Annan continued to receive payments until February 26 of this year — more than five years longer than the U.N. initially implied, four years longer than the U.N. confirmed to the press this September, and for the entire duration of Cotecna's U.N. oil-for-food contracts."

Trusty Hans Blix, he of the arms inspections, took a swipe at the scam hunt on Monday in, where else, The Guardian. "The Iraq war wounded the UN, but it won't be fatal" said the jolly old Swede. The subhead on the article was a gem: "The UN and the security council can survive the US campaign of vilification". Here's Hans on the search for the looted billions:

"The fraud, although widely suspected and estimated at about a billion dollars a year in the media, was not easy for the programme administration to track down and prove. The council and its members saw it with open eyes just as they saw the billions that flowed to Saddam from oil exports to neighbouring states. The programme functioned as a reasonably effective break against the import of weapons and dual-use items, which was its major objective. Today it serves as a campaign platform against the UN."

THE THEFT OF A BILLION DOLLARS a year "was not easy for the programme administration to track down and prove"! Hey, maybe those Enron accountants weren't so bad after all? I mean, once sums exceed seven figures it seems that the numbers people are just like you and me — totally confused. Or were they party to the racket? Either way, why is an investigation into a scandal of almost unfathomable proportions described as a "a campaign platform against the UN"? Interestingly, on the very same day that Hans Blix was excusing daylight robbery, William Safire was shining a harsh light on the Annans in the New York Times. In "My Son, My Son", he reveals the rot:

"Of course, in a $20 billion ripoff, $125,000 to the boss's son for doing nothing is chump change. But it should lead to questions for the son: what are his associations with families in the oil industry? (Yamani or ya life!) Did he lie to his father about four years of fees from Cotecna, or did Kofi fail to ask him? Did Kojo inform Sevan about the fees, or know about any lucrative oil vouchers given by Saddam to Sevan?

For the father: Will he now share with Congress, which supplies 22 percent of the U.N. budget, his 'thorough investigation' of his son's Cotecna connection? Did he learn of the 'nothing illegal' fees only last Tuesday, as his aides say? Has he since asked his Absalomic son if the secretary general can stand by his April 'nothing to do with' statement about Cotecna?"

SO GREAT ARE THE WAVES being stirred up by the scandal that they're now even washing the shores of those islands where the UN Secretary General is regarded as a kind of multilateral Pope. One such place is Germany. Even there it's getting difficult to ignore the stench and so that virulently anti-American newspaper, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, was forced to address the matter on its front page. In a classic example of denial, however, it managed to place the piece under the blatantly dishonest headline: "Dollarsegen aus der Schweiz" (Dollar blessing from Switzerland). Yes, those evil Swiss and that accursed greenback. Time to get Mr Blix on the job. He'll find the missing $20 billion for sure. That nasty Herr Hussein probably buried the money in Basel and trapped little Koja into pocketing a trifle. While we're waiting, and we might be waiting for a while as Hans prefers to be paid by the hour, Rainy Day suggests you keep up to date on UNSCAM by visiting the Friends of Saddam, who are busy burrowing deeper and deeper into this GUBU. The abbreviation there, by the way, comes from the days of Charles J. Haughey, an Irish prime minister who put the "Mac" into Machiavellian and who called the discovery of a serial killer hiding in the flat of his attorney general "grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented". Conor Cruise O'Brien, the PM's nemesis, pounced on this Grand Guignol scandal and coined "GUBU", which came to sum up Haughey's putrescent reign. Maybe "UNSCAM" will be the GUBU of our time.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 1 December 2004 at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)