Here we go!

"If you like your action movies pounding, proficient, and as bloody as a Boxing Day sale at Selfridges, The Raid is something to behold. Gareth Huw Evans announces himself with an almighty Welsh roar as the latest successor to John Woo, trapping us inside a derelict, 30-storey Jakarta apartment block for a relentlessly brutal showdown between drug dealers and an out-of-their-depth SWAT team." The Telegraph.

"There is not, to the best of my knowledge, much competition for the title ‘best Indonesian martial arts movie ever made by a Welshman’. But, if there was, The Raid would see off all comers with a flurry of flying kicks and a selection of gruesomely snapped spines." The Daily Mail.

"Such a lot of talent comes out of Wales. Ivor Novello, Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, Rhys Ifans, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Sheen, to name only the bleeding obvious...... Even so, there’s hardly ever before been quite such a drastic example of talent out of Wales as Gareth Huw Evans, the writer, director and action director of this radical martial arts film, made and set in Jakarta, using only Indonesian actors, speaking only Indonesian throughout.". The Evening Standard

"The Raid does not detain the audience with expositions of character." The Guardian.

You may safely assume that I will be visiting the Wimbledon Odeon this weekend. As the for the Grauniard's sniff, to paraphrase Gus Petch in my beloved Intolerable Cruelty, "You want tact, call a tactician. You want an ass nailed, you come see Gareth Evans".

getting in your face

This time last  year I was in the middle of a Bikram 30 day challenge (Icons passim). If I make it to the Saturday morning session I've booked for the day after tomorrow I will have been to yoga one hundred and sixty nine times altogether.

Good to see the All Black baiting Richard Cockerill getting with the programme.

Raising the roof

If a leak does occur on a flat roof then damage often goes unnoticed for long periods of time during which water penetrates and soaks the decking and any insulation and/or structure beneath it. This can lead to expensive damage from the rot which often develops and if left can weaken the roof structure.

Wikipedia may be less than perfect, but it is right on the money when it comes to a flat roof. The new one on my bathroom is now complete, and I am flirting with the notion of putting a Warre bee hive on it, though the jury is still out on whether that is a good idea or not.

Tiddy Oggy

Last night, essentially because I was so entranced by its name,  I made a Tiddy Oggy or Somerset apple and pork pasty for today's lunch.

Then I went along to a pub quiz which we won.

At this rate it can't be too long until I'm wearing open toed sandals and intoning endless folk songs about the decline of the honey bee.

Harvey and I sit in the bars...

The plan for tonight is to go along to the Antelope for the quiz at 8pm, my deep knowledge of Jimmy Stewart's 1950 Harvey having come in very handy for the film round last week.

I'd just put Ed Hickey into a taxi. Ed had been mixing his rye with his gin, and I just felt that he needed conveying. Well, anyway, I was walking down along the street and I heard this voice saying, "Good evening, Mr. Dowd." Well, I turned around and here was this big six-foot rabbit leaning up against a lamp-post. Well, I thought nothing of that because when you've lived in a town as long as I've lived in this one, you get used to the fact that everybody knows your name. And naturally I went over to chat with him. And he said to me... he said, "Ed Hickey was a little spiffed this evening, or could I be mistaken?" Well, of course, he was not mistaken. I think the world and all of Ed, but he was spiffed. Well, we talked like that for awhile and then I said to him, I said, "You have the advantage on me. You know my name and I don't know yours." And, and right back at me he said, "What name do you like?" Well, I didn't even have to think twice about that. Harvey's always been my favorite name. So I said to him, I said, "Harvey." And, uh, this is the interesting thing about the whole thing: He said, "What a coincidence. My name happens to be Harvey."

The Dharma Bums

Buddhist monks hit by scandal after devotees filmed smoking, drinking and playing high-stakes poker

Buddhist monk charged with murder after 'bludgeoning religious leader to death inside Alabama temple'

Overall a better day for the first two noble truths as opposed to three and four.

Starkey Raving Bonkers

Starkey makes 'cultural' link to gang jailed for sexually exploiting girls

Historian calls on schools to teach English history to ethnic minorities to make them 'English citizens and English men'

Has this nation a toad more odious than David Starkey? I've been unfortuate enough to share the same air with him at a couple of events. Not a day goes by when I don't regret not slapping the smug grin off his face with a wet fish.

Robbed Raided Reunited

The Profit Burglar spotted some of our software in use on the police intranet, in Staines I think, on a TV show called  Robbed Raided, Reunited earlier this week and grabbed a couple of screen shots.

Render unto Caeser

In which we are excited

Dear Amazon Web Services Customer,

We are excited to announce the launch of Amazon RDS for SQL Server and .NET support for AWS Elastic Beanstalk. You can now take advantage of these managed database and application services to deploy, manage and scale SQL Server databases and ASP.NET applications using familiar Microsoft tools.

We have come a long way since Friday, August 25, 2006, that is for sure. These could be the final pieces of the jigsaw as far as migrating our our code base to the cloud is concerned.

(See http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/05/net-support-for-aws-elastic-beanstalk-amazon-rds-for-sql-server-.html also.)

Wordle

Hat tip, Kali

The Rain Redemption

The Bomber and I are off, later today and for the third year- tempus fugit, to the Burnham-on-Sea Rugby Festival for Under 8-13s.

The rugby club are confident that the festival will go ahead as planned with maybe a few tweeks to pitch allocation. Please come prepared for wet conditions under foot.

I hope it all goes well as my Mum and Dad are coming over from Wales to watch himself play for the first time.

I'm taking the iPad and will try out 3G access but I may not post here as I personally find Apple's globe straddling wonder device something of a trial when it comes to text input.

The Raid Redemption

They hang huge posters that you can see from the escalators on the way up to the Wimbledon Odeon's screens. When I was there last weekend one of these behemoths was for Gareth Evans "The Raid" - see Icons passim. Only a fortnight to go.

Heavy Sedation

Two drunken Welshmen Wednesday escaped with a fine after being convicted of stealing a penguin called Dirk from an Australian theme park after consuming large amounts of vodka.

Former Royal Marine Rhys Owen Jones, 21, and his bricklayer friend Keri Mules, 20, broke into Sea World on Queensland's Gold Coast last month and swam with the dolphins and let off a fire extinguisher in a shark enclosure.

The pair, in Australia on a working holiday, then stole Dirk, Southport Magistrates Court heard.

Their lawyer Bill Potts, who Australian Associated Press reported was wearing a penguin tie in court, said his clients meant no harm.

He said after they awoke the next day with hangovers and found the bird in their room they tried to care for it by feeding it bread and putting it in the shower.

"They tried their incompetent best to care for the penguin," Mr Potts said.

The little bird was eventually found, exhausted but otherwise well, after a couple spotted it in a nearby shallow estuary when they had released it.

The couple said they saw the captive-bred penguin get chased out of the water by another animal - possibly a shark - before it was then herded back in by a dog. Sea World workers eventually came to retrieve it.

Potts said the men, who pleaded guilty to trespassing, stealing, and keeping a protected animal, regretted their actions and were deeply embarrassed by the international media coverage of their exploits.

Magistrate Brian Kucks fined them Aus$1,000 ($1,034) each and said they were lucky not to have drunkenly stumbled into the polar bear enclosure.

"You could have found yourselves in a morgue if you'd gone into the wrong enclosure. Perhaps next time you are at a party you will consider drinking a little less vodka," he said, AAP reported from the court.

Hat tip, Vince.

Recuse

An unexpected friendship between the Special One and a Premier League referee led to an inspiring story of generosity and recovery.

Compared with the life-threatening tumour Mark Halsey has survived it is not much of a worry, but something he must consider. On the one hand, he naturally wants his friend to come back to England after working abroad. On the other, he knows that it might end his own career. For his friend is Jose Mourinho.

You could call Halsey and Mourinho football's odd couple: the referee and the referee-baiter. Mourinho was dubbed "the enemy of football" by Uefa's refereeing overlord in 2005 and subsequently suspended after claiming that Anders Frisk, the official in charge of a Champions League match between Barcelona and Chelsea at Nou Camp, had been visited at half-time by the home manager, Frank Rijkaard. As recently as last week, Mourinho, now at Real Madrid, continued to imply that decisions involving Barcelona could not always be trusted.

Halsey, meanwhile, has always liked to be on amicable terms with players, managers and the game at large. Yet they have become so close that if Mourinho were to return to the Premier League next season, Halsey would have to drop off the referees' list.

The whole story (which you can find here) is well worth a read, but what I'm taking from it today is that it seems very odd that a football referee should have to accommodate a much firmer line on the perception of his own possible conflict of interest or lack of impartiality than seems to be required of the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, with regards to the News Corporation takeover bid for BSkyB.

Captain

I'm making a note here so that I remember that the Bomber was the  Ruts' captain for the first time at the Esher Floodlit Rugby Festival on Friday. It was extremely funny to see the ref describing to Ben in great detail how he was going to adjudicate at the scrum. A part of the game which - as a full back - the son and heir knows next to nothing. "He was talking a lot about the back foot," said Ben. "I just nodded."

The boys beat Esher and Teddington but got edged out by Chobham. Himself told me he got a couple of tries but I can only remember him touching down for the first points of the campaign so I must have been having a senior moment for his second.

Any Given Sunday

If you're going to be stuck in Wimbledon with the Bomber's rugby cancelled due to the terrible weather then a meal at Sticks 'n Sushi followed by The Humger Games movie at the Odeon is as good a way as any of taking your punishment.

Ain't life grand!

The radiators and hot water tank will be salvaged, but apart from that the whole central heating system will be torn out and replaced on the 22nd of next month. I'm seven grand lighter of pocket and will be living without a ceiling for another month. I do get two years complementary Homecare with it so I suppose that is equivalent to a 20% discount from one point of view.

Also, now I have had time to reflect, it would have been easy for Mick to ignore the damp cladding on the vent pipe, put up the ceiling, and trouser the fee, leaving me with a ceiling that would collapse with damp again in a few years, so props to him. He's cost himself money and inconvenience for my benefit.

And so it goes ...

The central heating engineer turned up yesterday afternoon and concluded that my pipework is corroded and the vent is going all the time because of the quality of the water in the system.

It is too far gone even to power flush and thus, the whole system will have to be replaced which means ripping up the floorboards. This - of course - will all have to be done before I can get my ceiling put back up.

A further and better guy is going to come round and work through it with me this afternoon.

Weeks of chaos at the end of which I will be several grand lighter in the pocket is the current forecast.

The Story So Far .....

I got a call from Mitch the builder yesterday saying that when they took down the landing ceiling, they found that there was still a leak in the loft pipework, and further this leak had rotted away part of the joist.

I called in HomeCare who sent a plumber around. The plumber in turn told me that the the leak is coming from the open vent on the heating, so I needed a British Gas engineer. I was promised he'd attend between 3 and 6 and that I would get a call when he was on the way as I only work five minutes away. When I got in there was a card through the door saying that the engineer had called at 5.03 when I wasn't home.

I called back and am due to get another visit between twelve and six today. It is essential it gets done as I've had to cancel the electrician for today and re-book him for tomorrow. I'm about to call and stress this to them which explains the collection of thoughts on these spindrift pages.

This sorry tale also finally explains why the bathroom roof is waterlogged. The vent should be empty. If it is leaking in the loft this explains why the overflow tank would have been continuously streaming water onto the flat roof, via an amazingly stupidly sited pipe.

Update: Today's job number is 138 745 2774

Bound East for Cardiff

His life was simply awful, an existence bookended by a grim metaphor of rootlessness. His dying words were reportedly: 'I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room, and God damn it, died in a hotel room.' Between those two rooms, the first on Broadway and the last in Boston, he struggled through sixty-five years of intermittent soul-draining misery. After an unhappy nomadic childhood, gloomy Catholic boarding school and a brief spell at Princeton University, he bummed around the world as a merchant seaman, developed a taste for liquor, and contracted tuberculosis. He was a remarkably bad poet, publishing some dud verses when working briefly for the New London Telegraph in 1912. A spell in a sanatorium led to his decision to become a writer and he was an emerging theatrical talent when his parents (both actors) and much-loved elder brother died in quick succession. Two failed marriages produced three children; his third wife, the actress Carlotta Monterey, was addicted, though not fatally, to potassium bromide, a clobbering sedative available over the counter in American drugstores until 1975. His two sons, Eugene Jr and Shane, both committed suicide, the former predeceasing his father, who later disowned his daughter, Oona. She married Charlie Chaplin (she was eighteen, he fifty-four) and O'Neill never spoke to her again. His last ten years were spent as an increasingly reclusive invalid, with a debilitating nervous condition, misdiagnosed as Parkinson's Disease, that caused his hands to tremble so violently that he couldn't hold a pen, let alone write a word. A morose alcoholic, he was subject to long depressions. A suicide attempt at the age of twenty-four informs the content of Exorcism, written seven years later.

Anyone who can read Eugene O'Neill's life story without laughing must have a heart of stone.

One thing after another

Nearly two months after my floods (Icons passim) the initial (it's a long story) insurance claim is settled and the builders arrived this morning to take down the ruined ceiling.

After that the electrician will come in to replace the shorted lights and wiring.

After that the builders will come back to board up the ceiling again.

After that the plasterer will attend.

Once the plaster is dry, the builders will come back to put up the coving and sort out the decoration.

We're not out of the woods yet.

Synonyms 2.0

friend: stranger
community: strangers
like: click
share: steal
comment: type
chat: read
talk: bot
follow: ignore
social: solo
groom: stalk
discover: parrot

(poke: prodnose)

Howard Moon

Howard is an aspiring musician, actor, poet, novelist and photographer. He is vain, despite being described as "generic-looking" and often makes outrageous claims which turn out to be true. He reacts to criticism violently. His favourite style of music is jazz-fusion, and he spends part of each day in a "jazz trance". He often claims different parts of his body or aspects of his style are "powerful" particularly when he is being mocked. He is unlucky in love. Despite his lack of success, he seems to see himself as a smooth-talker and while he considers himself cool and dashing, his attempts to engage women are awkward at best.

Netflix gas given me the chance to catch up with the first two series of The Mighty Boosh. I think I may actually be Howard Moon.

Dashed elusive, what?

I have managed to acquire some footage of Pippa Middleton at the Vicomte Arthur de Soultrait's party in Paris earlier this week. More I cannot say for my source works in the dark, and his identity is only known under the solemn oath of secrecy to his immediate followers.

Between ourselves, the Scarlet Pimpernel is the name of a humble English wayside flower; but it is also the name chosen to hide the identity of the best and bravest man in all the world, so that he may better succeed in accomplishing the noble task he has set himself to do.

What the Taco Bell®?

Zany and optimistic, Olive Shipley starts a music blog called 'Let's Big Happy', which is dedicated to helping bands launch their careers. When bands seek out her talents, Olive's ingenuity propels them into the spotlight as she pulls off absurd, attention-seeking stunts. Her visions are always bizarre and rarely go according to plan, but with the help of Andrew W.K. and an unreal number of tacos, Olive's own career takes off beyond her expectations and 'Let's Big Happy' becomes an Internet sensation. Underlining the synergistic nature of the partnership, the show's final episode will feature Taco Bell's new Doritos Locos Tacos, a product that launched at restaurants nationwide earlier this month.

......

"Taco Bell is a brand of firsts, continually at the forefront of traditional and social entertainment partnerships, and we are always looking for new ways to authentically connect with our fans," said Brian Niccol, Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer, Taco Bell Corp. "Fox Digital understands that -- and has been a great partner, leveraging our passion for music and our Feed the Beat program. 'Let's Big Happy' integrates Taco Bell and Feed the Beat in a way that is organic to the series and supports our new branding efforts to Live Mas."

This makes Infinite Jest's Year of the Whopper look eerily prescient.

As long as the fire’s still burning

“When you get onto the mat, if you don’t respect anybody who’s on that mat, you’re not worthy to be on it. You’ve got to respect everybody, whatever their creed or colour of origin. When you go on that judo mat, everybody’s won.”

A quote from a profile of Winston Gordon (2nd from right back row in the photo above) on the Telegraph web site today. The Bomber also appears in the picture at the right of the front row. I'm not sure Ben ever really understood what elevated company he was in. (I've also just noticed that the son and heir is also, and not untypically, the only kid too reserved to be displaying his medal.)

Anyway read the article here. It is all true and he walks the walk; as is demonstrated in our photo of an Olympic athlete taking a day out of his schedule to help Eric and Darren chaperone a junior team at a competition.

a goal of two halves

Messi may be in town with Barcelona for the Chelsea game, but who needs him when City have got Mark Hudson.

Hit the DEC

I am off to the Disasters Emergency Committee today.

As its a touch damp an cold I am looking for someone to whom I can complain about the weather but I'm not sure that I will get much sympathy at the umbrella organisation which launches and coordinates UK responses to major disasters overseas.

Give me the U7 and I will give you the man

I learned at the weekend that the Old Ruts (the Bomber's club) won the 2012 RFU "Recruitment club of the Year" award for the whole of England, having recruited over 160 new players this season.

I'm pleased of course to see mini rugby going from strength to strength up here, but there's a bitter-sweet taste from what Vince was telling me over Easter about its decline in Cardiff.

Anyone for tennis?

With the end of the rugby season looming, the Bomber has expressed an interest in trying tennis for the summer; http://www.tennisforfree.com/courts.php?court=337 looks like a good place to start.

Update: Then maybe http://www.cranleightennis.co.uk/ if it goes well.

The continuing adventures of Jessie J

Jessie J: OK, Coconut Man, Moon Head and Pea, you ready?

Coconut Man, Moon Head and Pea: No

Arthur 'Two Sheds'

We're invited to the official opening of Andy and Ollie's shed at 4pm Sunday. I like to think if it as a sort of sequel to my red carpet appearance at the Titanic 3D premiere at the Albert Hall (Icons passim).

They've wired it up to the mains but neglected the internet. I think something along the lines of the D-Link 200Mbps Powerline Wireless-N Kit out to be up to the job of piggy backing the interwebs on the 'leccy but I better confirm it is all on the same fuse box.

April showers

Those whom God preserve

The Nubrella, which resembles a bubble wrapped around the user's head and shoulders, works by strapping on a shoulder support and extending a canopy around the head.

Weighing just over 1kg, it costs £40 and comes in either black or see-through style.

Inventor Dr Strabismus, 49, from Utrecht, said: "The major advantage is the wearer doesn't have to carry anything when not in use as it goes behind the head like a hood.

"The umbrella was long overdue for some innovation, now people can ride their bikes and work outdoors completely hands free while staying protected.

"Millions of people are required to work outdoors no matter what the conditions are and simply can't hold an umbrella and perform their tasks.

"We believe this will revolutionise the industry and are targeting people who can't use an umbrella or are too tired to hold an umbrella."

The Mind Outside My Head

A panel from A process oriented externalist solution to the hard problem by Riccardo Manzotti

"You are not stuck in traffic: you are traffic." I may have had more time to think, stuck on the M4 in journeys that bookended the Easter break, than was good for me.

Mr Cadbury's Parrot Reprise

I'm back and it is time to reflect on the Easter mystery.

technophobia

I am off to Wales with the Bomber for the Easter break which means that you won't be hearing from me on the interwebs, Ma and Pa Browne not having broadband.

For the future however, I have ordered a (deep breath) new iPad - now with ultrafast 4G LTE connectivity.

I may need help when it arrives. Last night's attempt (wine glass in hand) to re-tune the TV after BBC2's analogue signal was turned off left me still 2less and all the box's menus converted to an alphabet - never mind language - that I couldn't even recognize never mind read.

A cheap shot

PLANS to monitor millions of emails, texts and website visits are vital to trap killers like Ian Huntley and smash paedo rings, Theresa May declares today.

Writing in The Sun, the Home Secretary says the new powers are needed to “help police stay one step ahead of the criminals”.

This is so disingenuous that words fail me. I grant you that mobile phone evidence was crucial in Huntley's conviction, but internet records weren't relevant to it at all.

The IT lesson from the horrible murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was of the incompetence of the police in managing information. Specifically, in the failure of Humberside police to pass on suspicions about him that would have stopped him getting a job as a school caretaker in the first place.. There is a specific derogation in the Freedom of Information Act that allows Police Forces to hold hearsay on their CIS databases.

I am 100% with David Davis on this.

EVERY email to your friends. Every phone call to your wife. Every status update your child puts online.

The Government want to monitor the lot, by forcing internet firms to hand over the details to bureaucrats on request.

Whenever a government announces plans to snoop on British citizens, the argument is always the same — it needs the new law to stop terrorists.

But we already have a law which lets the secret services eavesdrop on suspected criminals and terrorists.

When the London and Glasgow bombings happened, the secret services were able to use telephone records to identify the suspects.

In a matter of hours. In the middle of the night. They did not need a new law to do that.
The new law does not focus on terrorists or criminals. It would instead allow civil servants to monitor every innocent, ordinary person in Britain, and all without a warrant.

This would be a massive, unnecessary extension of the State’s power.

Happy Easter

The ginger geezer sold out towards the end. Good for him.

2 April 1982

It is thirty years ago today that Argentina invaded the Falkands. I was a pampered, gilded lily of twenty in university at the time, and I remember very clearly that the overwhelming majority of the casualties I heard about on the news were younger than me.

Younger than twenty.

You really do have to wonder what circumstances can possibly justify two countries sending their children out to kill and be killed by each other.

Churrasco

Churrasco (Portuguese: [ʃuˈʁasku], Spanish: [tʃuˈrasko]) is a Portuguese and Spanish term referring to beef or grilled meat more generally, differing across Latin America and Europe, but a prominent feature in the cuisines of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and other Latin American countries.

It is improved somehow the exotic looking Brazillian fella manning the grill turns out to have a broad Cheshire accent.

To infinity, and beyond

I'm reading David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest' on the kindle at the moment; a work which, for all its manifest virtues, I am finding easier to admire than to like.

I discovered by accident that that the page numbers appear when you press the menu button when you're in a book.

I'm on page 397 of 981! I had no idea it was such a doorstop. I wonder if I would have entertained it as a physical book that weighed in with that amount of heft?

"I've started so I'll finish."

How low can you go?

Esperanza Spalding: ' I want to dig into Welsh poetry'

The jazz bassist and singer on hanging out with Prince, meeting her hero Yo-Yo Ma and getting in touch with her Welsh roots.

The world's leading aspirational ethnic identity just goes from strength to strength.



I played double bass with the South Glamorgan Youth Orchestra when I was a kid. I settled on the instrument as there was one provided at school and rehearsals so I didn't have to cart it about or, indeed, practice.

The downside of this is that I was no good. I remember playing jazz with some horn players at a residential weekend. They finished when I was exactly half way through.

The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu

£25 quid a throw is a bit rich for my blood, but the The Mu is such a brilliant design one wonders that no one though of it before; tempted.

Red Carpet

I was on the red carpet last night for the world premier of the 3D version of Titanic. This is proved by the 2D photo of my foot on it above.

Play

Going through my morning IT calisthenics I have noticed a new Play link on the Google toolbar.

Clicking through it I am offered Android apps, books and movies. (Update: I've just realized that there doesn't seem to be any music available on Play in the UK. That seems odd.)

For the UK the movies offered at https://play.google.com/store/movies seems to be pretty up to date and, from what I can see, available for rent rather than sale.

The online movie market is getting very crowded (ITunes, Netflix, LoveFilm, and Zune are already plying their wares). I can't see how they will all survive.

Prodnose (arch): Even the prime minister is offering pay per view in the UK now.
Myself: Ho ho, very satirical.

Wimbledon Bookfest

Myself: We need to work on promoting the Bookfest friends scheme. Any ideas?

Cruddas: Thirty quid to fifty quid is premier league ... what you would get is, when we talk about your donations the first thing we want to do is get you at the Friends dinners.

You do really pick up a lot of information and when you see June Whitfield, you're seeing June Whitfield, not the June Whitfield. But within that room everything is confidential - you can ask her practically any question you want.

If you're unhappy about something, we will listen to you and put it into the policy committee at No 1 Archway Mews - we feed all feedback to the policy committee.

Myself: I'm not sure. Is this all above board?

Cruddas: It’ll be awesome for your business. You’ll be… well pleased.

Hello world

I'm atill here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_world_program.

The Raid

In 2009 and 2010 I brought you news on Merantau, a martial arts movie from Gareth Evans, a Welsh filmmaker based in Indonesia.

Hiis next film, The Raid, which wowed critics at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival and 2012 Sundance Festival, hits US cinemas this weekend and is due out in the UK on May 18.

The movie follows a SWAT team who infiltrate a derelict apartment block in the Jakarta slums to take down a notorious crime lord residing in the building.

Stranded with brutal killers and gangsters, the elite squad - led by Iko Uwais's Rama - must fight their way through the city's deadliest criminals in order to survive the mission.

Edgar Wright gave it a shout out on Twitter yesterday. I'm delighted everything seems to be going so well.

Strabismus Inc. Ink

Utrecht:

Finnish phone company Nokia has applied for a patent on tattoos that would sense when your mobile phone is ringing.

Using metal ores, the ‘tattoo’ would vibrate when a phone call was being received or when a user’s battery was running low.

The US patent application says that a user would have to scratch their arm to dismiss the alert, which would feel like a tingling sensation.As the tattoo is inserted under the skin, however, users would have to commit to a minor surgical procedure to take advantage of the new technology, which Nokia says would only be activated after scars have healed. The technology could also be applied superficially, but would be less resistant to wear and tear.
Communicating using different sequences of single or multiple pulses, the tattoo could theoretically do different things for messages, emails or warnings.

In the application, Nokia says that 'Prior to using the ferromagnetic inks for attaching to human skin, the ink material may be exposed to elevated temperatures to cause demagnetization. Such demagnetized ink is then used for creating an image by dispersing the ink material on or under the skin to make a functional, tattoo like image. Once the apparatus is settled and the skin cured, the user with the functional image may use permanent magnets to magnetize the functional image on the skin again.'

The application was filedthis month at the US Patent and Trademark Office.

http://nickbrowne.coraider.com/search?q=strabismus

two separate gorillas

Congratulations to Welsh flanker Dan Lydiate who has been named Six Nations player of the tournament after our 2012 Grand Slam triumph.

The Bomber identified the flanker on first sight as the "best player I have ever seen" as we watched the early stages of the Wales/ South Africa game that kicked off the World Cup campaign on TV.

Later he had to downgrade him just slightly when he realized that Lydiate in the pack and Jonathon Davies (in the same scrum cap at centre) were in fact different players and not a single omnipresent game-dominating rugby colossus.

Prodnose: Five years ago, I was a four-stone apology. Today, I am two separate gorillas. No tiresome excercises. No tricks. No unpleasant bending. Wrestle poodles and win! Play beachball!  Knock over walls. Tease people! Brush them aside as though they were matchsticks. Impress your friends ........

XBox iPlayer

The XBOX BBC iPlayer has finally broken cover, so I guess the Bomber and I will be giving it a thorough test this evening after rugby training.

seven pillows of wisdom

According to The Telegraph:

A state-owned Syrian TV channel has claimed that analysis of Barcelona's formation "represents arms smuggling routes"
.......
The clip above (see original report) proposes that an analysis of Barcelona's passing movements gives clues about weapons routes to Syrian rebels attempting to oust President Bashar Assad.

The ball, apparently, represented the weapons. The Barcelona players, allegedly, are the smugglers. Real Madrid's, it claimed, represented blockages as weapons were brought in from Lebanon.

So when the analysts showed the ball moving from one player to the other, and getting round Real Madrid's defence, the rebels were made aware of the location of the weapons.

The voice-over informs us that when the ball is passed by Lionel Messi it means that weapons have reached rebels in Dir al-Zur.

Barking mad as that sounds, it somehow seems less ridiculous than Apple having close to a hundred billion bucks burning a hole in its pockets. A hundred billion here ..... a hundred billion there ..... pretty soon you're talking about a lot of money.

Vampire Hunter

First I was bemused by the Presidential endorsement "seven minutes ago... we, your forefathers, were brought forth upon a most excellent adventure conceived by our new friends, Bill... and Ted".

Then I was I was hornswaggled by "if she were a president, she'd be Babe-raham Lincoln" in Wayne's World.

Nothing, though, began to prepare me for "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter".

(On second thoughts, it may share some DNA with Bubba Ho-tep; see Icons passim.)

Reithian

The BBC: Male fruit flies that have been rejected by females drink significantly more alcohol than those that have mated freely, scientists say. In an article in Science, researchers suggest that alcohol stimulates the flies' brains as a "reward" in a similar way to sexual conquest. The work points to a brain chemical called neuropeptide F, which seems to be regulated by the flies' behaviour. Human brains have a similar chemical, which may react in a similar way.

Prodnose: You're puttinng he hard stuff away as vigorously as ever, Nick.

Myself: I will not dignify that inneuendo with a reply. You sir, are no gentleman.

The BBC: The connection between alcohol and this chemical, which in humans is known as neuropeptide Y, has already been noted in studies involving hard-drinking mice.

Myself: Hard-drinking mice?

Monty Python: Well... I was about seventeen and some mates and me went to a party, and, er... we had quite a lot to drink... and then some of the fellows there ... started handing ... cheese around ... and well just out of curiosity I tried a bit ... and well that was that.

Prodnose: And what else did these fellows do?

Monty Python: Well some of them started dressing up as mice a bit ... and then when they'd got the costumes on they started ... squeaking.

diskinected

The Bomber was pondering presenting Your Shape: Fitness Evolved as a Mother's Day gift, but we've had to pu the block on it as I've realised that the burglars took the kinect so she can't play it.

I wonder if there's anthing else missing that I just haven't noticed?

the best dressed man in London

The plan for tomorrow is to get to the pub for half past two ahead of the Welsh showdown against France. This is to be followed by a St Patrick's day contest between England and Ireland at five. Looking through my wardrobe I see that I have clobber - purchased long ago in Dublin - that suits the demands of the situation down to a T.

Warburton back

Wales team to play France in the RBS 6 Nations Championship in Cardiff on Saturday:

L Halfpenny (Cardiff Blues); A Cuthbert (Cardiff Blues), J Davies (Scarlets), J Roberts (Cardiff Blues), G North (Scarlets); R Priestland (Scarlets), M Phillips (Bayonne); G Jenkins (Cardiff Blues), M Rees (Scarlets), A Jones (Ospreys), A-W Jones (Ospreys), I Evans (Ospreys), D Lydiate (Newport Gwent Dragons), S Warburton (Cardiff Blues, capt), T Faletau (Newport Gwent Dragons).

Replacements: K Owens (Scarlets), P James (Ospreys), L Charteris (Newport Gwent Dragons), R Jones (Ospreys), L Williams (Cardiff Blues), J Hook (Perpignan), S Williams (Scarlets).

You have to feel sorry for Justin Tipuric, who did all that could be asked of him last week I think.

The Dude abides

Evoking his character in 1998's "The Big Lebowski," Jeff Bridges will co-write a book of Zen teachings, to be published later this year. "The Dude and the Zen Master," co-written by Bridges (the Dude) and Bernie Glassman (the Zen Master), promises to be a set of casual exchanges on life, film and trying to do good.

The world is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

เตะตัด

Former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan might be the best of friends with some celebrities - he's been pictured socialising with Katherine Jenkins, Nancy Dell'Olio and Frank Lampard - but Kate Moss is more like an enemy.

So much so, that the 38 year-old model lashes out whenever she sees him.

"She came up to me at some charity thing with Naomi Campbell and gave me a full, haymaking kick," Morgan told his former paper .

"And then the next time we had dinner in a restaurant, she was opposite me... and kicked me again."

Apparently, not even their mutual friend, Topshop boss Sir Philip Green, could intervene.

"I told him it was pointless. She doesn't like me, I don't like her. She kicked me, hard. Right on the shin, repeatedly. I looked at her and said, 'Kate, why are you kicking me?' She said, 'Because I want to' and cackled. She was completely off her head. And I replied, 'Well, can you just stop kicking me, OK?' She looked blank, and gave me another kick. It was a bizarre conversation."

Who knew? Kate Moss now joins Eric Joyce among my personal heroes and heroines.

Taste

As a rule I am a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives kind of guy, but that doesn't mean I'll turn my nose up at Jun Tanaka's Pearl.

Gosh

Prodnose: Swansea City 1 Manchester City 0

Myself (stupified):: ?!?!?!?!

a wee scuffly thing

What a man! I'd vote for him in a heartbeat.

The Labour backbencher Eric Joyce told police officers “you can’t touch me, I’m an MP” after drunkenly assaulting four fellow politicians in a House of Commons bar, a court heard yesterday.


The MP for Falkirk cried out “there are too many Tories in the bar” before aiming punches and headbutts at Stuart Andrew, a Conservative MP, and two Tory councillors. He then attacked the Labour whip Phil Wilson, who had attempted to calm his colleague down.


When the police arrived, Joyce landed a final headbutt on Mr Andrew in front of officers. The former Army major later wrote garbled notes in a police notebook about living in a “Tory nation”.


Mr Andrew claimed Joyce was “drunker than anyone he had ever seen in his life”, adding that “his eyes looked like no one was home”.


Full details of the brawl were disclosed yesterday as Joyce pleaded guilty to four charges of assault at Westminster magistrates’ court. The MP was spared a prison sentence and was instead fined £3,000, banned from pubs for three months and ordered to pay compensation to his victims. Having been suspended by Labour since the incident, he is now certain to be expelled from the party.


The attacks took place on Wednesday Feb 22 in the taxpayer-subsidised Strangers’ Bar. Joyce, a philosophy graduate who has been an MP since 2000, had spent the evening drinking with two friends, Stuart Niven and Catherine Beachley, the court heard. At about 10.30pm, Mr Niven, an amateur opera singer, began singing “very loudly”.


Alec Shelbrooke, the Conservative MP for Elmet and Rothwell, apparently glanced at the table “in bemusement” and was approached by an angry Joyce who told him: “Don’t ever look at any of my guests in that way again.”


Andrew Percy, the Conservative MP for Brigg and Goole, then asked Joyce if he could get by to reach his table, only to be told: “No, you f------ can’t.”


Joyce, who had drunk a bottle of wine, then shouted: “There are too many Tories in this bar … this bar is full of f------ Tories!” Mr Andrew, the MP for Pudsey, responded: “You can’t behave in that way,” after which Joyce grabbed him by the tie. Mr Shelbrooke then said: “You don’t treat an MP like that in a place like this”, causing Joyce to aim a punch at him, but miss. That prompted Luke MacKenzie, a Conservative councillor who was drinking with the Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price, to intervene.


Joyce punched Mr Mackenzie on the nose and the mouth before Ben Maney, a Conservative councillor who was at the same table as Mr Mackenzie, tried to restrain him.


Joyce headbutted Mr Maney who stumbled away “looking as white as a sheet and completely shocked”, Zoe Martin, prosecuting, told the court. She added that one of the victims later said that Joyce’s eyes “looked dead. He looked possessed and completely out of it”.


Phil Wilson, the Labour whip, then put a hand on his colleague’s shoulder and said: “Calm down, Eric. What’s going on?” Joyce spun around and punched him on the chin, causing him to fall into a chair, the court heard.


The attacks stopped briefly when Mrs Doyle-Price put herself between Joyce and the others and said: “If you are going to punch my staff, punch me first. You don’t want to hit a lady.”


Police arrived to find tables and chairs upturned. Mr Andrew told police that Joyce had assaulted him and, when the officer asked if this was true, Joyce headbutted Mr Andrew. He then told officers: “You can’t touch me, I’m an MP.” As he was led away, Joyce kicked a glass door, breaking a pane and swore at officers, the court heard.


At Belgravia police station, Joyce “alternated between being calm and apologetic to aggressive and abusive”, and at one stage had to be restrained by several officers, said Miss Martin, He also wrote a message in an officer’s notebook, which read: “Meant to include this for the moment. We are a Tory nation. That cannot be forever. Good cops tonight but it is [missing word] surely to hate the Tories.”


The next day he was interviewed and said he remembered little of the incident. He said he recalled some “noisy young Tories” in the bar and “some kind of misunderstanding”, adding: “I nutted a guy, it was a wee scuffly thing.” He went on: “I think he was a silly fat Tory MP. He was pushing like a girl and giving me a bear hug.”

Every day I have the blues

I was offline last night back at the ranch last night as my computer was taken in the burgalry. This morning I came in to find that my Windows Live account had been disabled because of "unusual" activity.I am now in the middle of an orgy of password changes, though I can't imagine how a thief could get logged onto my laptop.

In the meabtime, if you get any emails that appear to come from me about enlargement pills please treat them as spam. My knowledge of such things doesn't run much further than "can you take away the pain but leave the swelling?"

Myself (heartfelt): The best I can hope for is that they give up on my portable and throw it in the Thames.

Prodnose (insufferable): A Dell rolling in the deep?

Single spies

A week and a half ago the trickle of water through my ceiling (Icons passim) became a torrent. I've finally got all the rotted central heating pipe replaced and had to go home at 2pm yesterday afternoon to get a quote from a builder for replacing my ruined ceiling and shorted electrical lighting (insurance claim 201203003613).

I couldn't get in the front door because burglars had put the latch on from the inside after gettingt into the house by jimmying the sash window at the back and breaking the frame, before proceeding to trash the rooms and make off with a lot of my possessions. This will be claim 201203011214.

The police dispatch reference is CAD4451(7March), but I haven't been given the crime number that I need before the insurers will send round their tame glazier.

I think I need a hug. If I'm quiet on cyberspace over the weekend it is because there are no functioning computers at the gaff any more.

Redlegs

Redlegs is a term used to refer to the class of poor whites that live on Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada and a few other Caribbean islands. Their forebears came from Ireland, Scotland and the West of England. Many of their ancestors were transported by Oliver Cromwell. Others had originally arrived in the early to mid 17th century as slaves or indentured servants. Small groups of Germans and Portuguese were also imported as plantation labourers. Many were described as "white slaves". According to folk etymology, the name is derived from the effects of the tropical sun on their fair-skinned legs.

The nearly man

I first heard of Amazon Web Services in 2006. It is now central to how we run our systems: "in the past six years, we’ve lowered pricing 18 times, and today we’re doing it again. We’re lowering pricing for the 19th time with a significant price decrease for Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon Elastic Map Reduce".

Today’s Amazon EC2 price reduction varies by instance type and by Region, with Reserved Instance prices dropping by as much as 37%, and On-Demand instance prices dropping up to 10%. In 2006, the cost of running a small website with Amazon EC2 on an m1.small instance was $876 per year. Today with a High Utilization Reserved Instance, you can run that same website for less than 1/3 of the cost at just $250 per year - an effective price of less than 3 cents per hour. As you can see below, we are lowering both On-Demand and Reserved Instances prices for our Standard, High-Memory and High-CPU instance families. The chart below highlights the price decreases for Linux instances in our US-EAST Region, but we are lowering prices in nearly every Region for both Linux and Windows instances.

I can't help but wonder what nearly means in "we are lowering prices in nearly every Region for both Linux and Windows instances" as we are in the EU region, but Heavy Utilization Reserved Instances appear to be the way forward. I wonder if Amazon will convert our baby to this automatically or if we will have to intervene.

Hunky Dory

Always happy to big up films from Wales. Hunky Dory is set in a Swansea comprehensive in 1976. Over to you Mr Howell?

Shipping Forecast

"And now with the time approaching 5 pm,
It's time for the mid-life crisis forecast...
Forties; restless: three or four.
Marriage: stale; becoming suffocating.
Sportscar, jeans and t-shirt; westerly, five.
Waitress; blonde; 19 or 20.
Converse all stars; haircut; earring; children;
becoming embarrassed.
Tail between legs; atmosphere frosty;
Spare room: five or six."

Peter Cook: Genius at Work

the brightest star of a remarkable generation

Bedazzled
4 Mar 18:10 NFT3 BOOK
A hapless everyman falls under the spell of the Devil in this Swinging Sixties take on the Faust legend.

Beyond the Fringe
8 Mar 18:10 NFT1 BOOK
A scintillating series of sketches, skits and satirical shenanigans.

Not Only But Also
12 Mar 20:40 NFT1 BOOK
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore star in this brilliant TV sketch show.

Peter Cook: Oddities and Rarities
21 Mar 18:20 NFT1 BOOK
A specially compiled selection of fascinating fragments from all areas of Peter Cook's career.

Peter Cook and Co
16 Mar 20:40 NFT3 FULLY BOOKED
A one-off TV special from 1980 starring Peter Cook and a host of other comic greats.

The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer
18 Mar 18:20 NFT2 BOOK
21 Mar 20:40 NFT2 BOOK
A ruthless but charismatic advertising executive sets his sights on politics in this cult satire.

easy as one, two, three

Looking at the pictures from last weekend's festival I noticed that the photographer had got three in a row showing the bomber breaking a tackle; I've blended them together above.

He scored seven tries for the school in the rearranged Tag Rugby tournament yesterday.

Brothers be ye constant

St David's Day, the celebration of the patron saint of Wales, has been marked with a colourful Welsh-themed Google Doodle.