I'll stand by you

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.

Up to a point Sir Noel, but today is the New Ninja Bomber's eighth birthday and there is no better delineation of what I feel for him than what the world knows as a Girls Aloud hit single:

Hey, why d'you look so sad?
Tears are in your eyes
Come on and come to me now
Don't be ashamed to cry
Let me see you through
'Cause I've seen the dark side too

When the night falls on you
And you don't know what to do
Nothing you confess
Could make me you love you less

I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you

So if you're mad, get mad
Don't hold it all inside
Come on and talk to me now
Hey, what you got to hide?
I get angry too
Well I'm a lot like you

When you're standing at the crossroads
And don't know which path to choose
Let me come along
'Cause even if you're wrong

I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you

Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you

And when he night falls on you
And you're feeling all alone
You won't be on your own

I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you.

Shell Games

[user@localhost home]$ cd ..
[user@localhost /]$ cd usr/bin
[user@localhost bin]$ rdesktop
rdesktop: A Remote Desktop Protocol client.
Version 1.5.0. Copyright (C) 1999-2005 Matt Chapman.
See http://www.rdesktop.org/ for more information.

Usage: rdesktop [options] server[:port]
-u: user name
-d: domain
-s: shell
-c: working directory

You guessed it. I've had to go back to a command line interface to make any progress with linux on the AAA1. This, as much as anything is because the Live Update feature always seems to take the GUI back to the factory setting every time an update is downloaded.

My geek gene - though recessive or dormant - is still there.

Fecking Hull!

The Bomber turns 8 this week, and I was lucky enough to get a couple of tickets for the Emirates as an early present, so we took ourselves along, and joined the throng. Arsenal were sitting pretty at the top of the table, and had knocked six past Sheffield in the week so confidence was high ...... and yet it was not to be.

Hull won two one, inflicting only the second ever home defeat in a competitive match for the Gunners at the Emirates.

Ben certainly had a thorough tutorial in the manly art of swearing as the tension rose through the second half, confiding, "the man behind is spitting in my hair when he shouts".

I'm sure it was character building.

A Belter

Six months after it was shown in the US, and with the DVD already out over the pond, David Mamet's Redbelt has got a limited release in the UK.

Wimbledon being part of this limited release, I went along to see it yesterday.

Our beleaguered protagonist's struggles put me in mind of a Chandler quote, "down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid".

Sondra Terry: You think it was noble? The code of the warrior. You think it's noble?
Mike Terry: No, I think it's correct.

No Drugs, No Guns, No Slippers

I went to Manila once. It was like something out of the Wild West, everyone was packing heat. The Philippines is (are?) overwhelmingly Catholic and I have a vivid memory of an open air Mass in a park where most of the congregation appeared to be armed to the hilt.

I also treasure a sign outside a nightclub explaining its admittance policy: "no drugs, no guns, no slippers". Though we have drugs and guns in London we seem largely to have escaped the slipper menace, not that that is any reason for complacency.

All of which is a round about way of leading up to the fact that we went to Josephine's Filipino restaurant this week for pork, chicken, rice, noodles and vegetables.

Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

Airing Our Laundry

Chris: Please sir can I be let off reading "Daniel Martin"?

Myself: That my boy is a matter for you and your conscience. Looking through your records for this term, I also notice that you have asked to be excused "A Fighter's Heart". Very well, from my authorised list I assign you "Alexander the Great" by Robin Lane Fox. As homework, however, I expect an essay at http://grumunkin.blogspot.com/ on the rewards of the biography of a man who, among other things, introduced crucifixion and decimation across his empire. In particular, why should that be less disturbing than the tale of a comparatively guileless working stiff who merely trains for Muay thai in Bangkok, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Rio, boxing in Oakland and MMA in Iowa?

Prodnose: It must be tremendously interesting to be a schoolmaster, to watch boys grow up and help them along; to see their characters develop and what they become when they leave school and the world gets hold of them. I don't see how you could ever get old in a world that's always young.

Myself: Silence! Silence! I'll have no more of it!

Prodnose: No more silence, sir?

Myself: I shall state silences more competently than ever a better man spangled the butterflies of vertigo.

Daniel Martin

As I opened my latest Amazon parcel today, I realised that - although I finished it some little time ago - I hadn't recorded my opinion of the 700 page Daniel Martin on the blog. Suffice to say I didn't like it. Mostly I imagine, as I did not share the eponymous character's high opinion of his own aesthetic sensibility. He seemed rather a tawdry figure to me.

I've adapted the book for the attention span of the MTV generation below. I don't think I've missed much out, for all that Daniel sits around interminably feeling condemned to pursue emotional dead ends:

Jane: Uggh, that woman in the reeds is like totally drowned.
Daniel: Gross!
later
Jane: I'm still like totally freaked out. D'you wanna like ... hook up?
Daniel: But I'm like with your sister and your like with my friend, Anthony. Isn't that a bit like gross? Um, alright, I s'pose.
25 years later.
Jane: I'm calling 'cause Anthony's got like cancer and wants to see you?
Daniel: What 'cause me 'n you got jiggy back in the day? Gimme a break! These days I pimp movie stars.
He flies to London never the less
Barney: Dan, remember when you totally nailed Jane in College dude? Now I'm totally nailing your daughter!
Daniel: Gross!
Anthony kills himself conveniently
Daniel: Jane, now Tony's dead do you fancy coming to Egypt you old tart? I gotta - you know - write like a screenplay exorcising the ghost of Imperialism and all that lot.
Jane: Sounds lame. Um, alright but no funny business.
They cruise down the Nile.
Daniel: Everyone except us is like a total loser man. Germans, Arabs, Russians, even the Yanks; everyone they're all total losers.
Jane: They can't help it, they didn't go to Oxford.
Daniel: Like that's my fault! Makes me think we oughta like ... hook up again? I'll tell that slapper in LA to sod off.
Jane: Um, alright, I s'pose. Whatevaaaah.
They live happily ever after

Bryn

Brinley ("Bryn") Newton-John was born in the New Market Tavern in the Hayes, Cardiff where his mum worked behind the bar.

He went to Cambridge, where he married Nobel Physics laureate Max Born's daughter with whom he had a daughter called Olivia Newton John, was an MI5 officer on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park and the officer who took Rudolph Hess into custody during World War II. The family emigrated in 1954 to Melbourne, Australia where he worked as a Professor of German and became the Master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne.

That is quite a story arc. I must catch up with this BBC show.

Mal Aware

I may be a Linux novice, but I'm a Microsoft Systems Engineer who knows his way around Windows pretty thoroughly, and I'm always happy to help friends and acquaintances out with PC problems.

This weekend I was removing Antivirus XP 2008 using Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware for someone who had clicked unwisely in an email message.

The good people at bleepingcomputer.com tell us that:

Antivirus XP 2008 is a new rogue anti-spyware program that is advertised through Trojans and other malware. It is advertised in the form of fake security alerts and warnings on web sites that state you are infected with malware or are being attacked in some manner. When you click on these ads, it will automatically download the installer for Antivirus XP 2008 and install it on your machine. In some cases, this program is installed without any intervention at all from you.

Once installed, AntivirusXP 2008 will scan your computer and display a variety of security risks found on your computer that can only be removed if you purchase a license of the software. These risks, though, are all fake and are only being displayed to scare you into thinking you are infected and thus purchase their software. Another tactic that AntivirusXP 2008, and the accompanied malware, uses is to change your desktop background to be a message stating you are infected, popups and fake alerts stating your computer is being attacked, and a fake Internet Explorer page that states Google has found your computer to be infected.

Whoever us behind AntivirusXP 2008 is a monumental scumbag. People should go to prison for this sort of thing. It causes real distress to folk who aren't IT specialists.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is available as a free download and its what I used to kill AntivirusXP in this case. It hoses the infection away completely then politely and discreetly asks you to consider purchasing the professional version. This is model citizenship on the internet. I respect and praise the people behind it as much as I hate and despise the people who write malware in the first place, so I'm throwing this post out as an expression of goodwill to them,

Panache

I've had a long standing project in the back of my mind to translate Cyrano de Bergerac into English in heroic couplets. I took a first swing at it yesterday, starting at the end, and so:

Que dites-vous? C'est inutile? Je le sais!
Mais on ne se bat pas dans l'espoir du succès!
Non! non! C'est bien plus beau lorsque c'est inutile!
Qu'est-ce que c'est tous ceux-là? Vous êtes mille?
Ah je vous reconnais, tous mes vieux ennemis!
Le Mensonge? Tiens, tiens! Ha! Ha! Les Compromis!
Les Préjugés, les Lâchetés! Que je pactise?
Jamais, jamais! Ah! te voilà, toi, la Sottise!
Je sais bien qu'à la fin vous me mettrez à bas;
N'importe: je me bats ! je me bats ! je me bats!
Oui, vous m'arrachez tout, le laurier et la rose!
Arrachez ! Il y a malgré vous quelque chose
Que j'emporte, et ce soir, quand j'entrerai chez Dieu,
Mon salut balaiera largement le seuil bleu,
Quelque chose que sans un pli, sans une tache,
J'emporte malgré vous, et c'est. . . mon panache.

becomes

What now? It is not practical I know.
To cast a loaded dice for one more throw.
No, no; a beautiful, a hopeless stand
What is this horde? I shall not stay my hand.
I know you now, old foes, old enemies!
Dissembling, Prejudice and Treacheries!
Deception! Here's my sword's point, ask no truce.
I fight and will die fighting. No excuse.
Take what you will, you send me to repose.
Am I the prize, the laurel and the rose?
You've done your worst and yet I still retain,
Respect you cannot strip me of or stain.
And when I leave tonight to meet my Lord
May heaven's azure vault be my reward.
All I leave behind on earth is ash.
Despite you all I kept, and keep still my .... panache!

It was an interesting exercise. Google language tools did the grunt work on a literal translation but I had to loosen it up quite a bit to render 12 syllable French lines into rhyming iambic pentameter, including nicking a line from Joan Armatrading as I don't know what "the laurel and the rose" signifies.

I finish with an alexandrine to doff my cap to the original.

Bringing It All Back Home

There was a party downstairs last night as Tess - who introduced the Bomber to art - is shutting up shop and leaving the Mills. I gave her a copy of Bringing It All Back Home, as a going away present, track 2 seeming curiously apposite; Egyptian ring wearin', paint slingin', globe trottin' vagabond that she is.

She's got everything she needs,
She's an artist, she don't look back.
She can take the dark out of the nighttime
And paint the daytime black.

You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees.
But you will wind up peeking through her keyhole
Down upon your knees.

She never stumbles,
She's got no place to fall.
She's nobody's child,
The Law can't touch her at all.

She wears an Egyptian ring
That sparkles before she speaks.
She's a hypnotist collector,
You are a walking antique.

Bow down to her on Sunday,
Salute her when her birthday comes.
For Halloween give her a trumpet
And for Christmas, buy her a drum

One

I am off to Brighton this morning as BBC's The One Show is filming a report on our auction system for broadcast about a month from now.

It's all good.

Where's your head at?

Chris phoned me and Rob emailed me about the Aspire One. I've also been asked about it numerous times when pecking the keyboard in a public place with wi-fi connectivity.

So where are we at? Here's what I wrote to Rob ten days ago:

I am very happy with my Linux box. It is small enough to throw in a gym bag and take everywhere (note that there is no CD or DVD drive). I am using it to educate myself on Linux. Though there is a good range of applications, the box is pretty much tied down when it arrives. I've really had to get my head under the bonnet even to get the chance to play around with it. I'm not even sure if I can do drive mapping to Windows on it yet. I'll get there but it will take a while.

My advice to you would be that Windows (and your experience with it) is worth the extra forty odd quid when getting kitted out and I do recommend that hardware.

I still agree. You add applications like so, but though I've installed an RDP client to access Terminal Server I can't find it to run. Similarly I'm bemused as to how to set up a VPN connection. I've got a VNC client working but that is just by downloading and running an executable.

Next job: setting the resolution for an external monitor.

(While I remember I have installed a printer connected to a Vista box over a Windows network as well; Samba was involved.)

MacKenna sallies forth

Rod has lit out of my gaff on his way to work with Alan Doss (a Cardiff boy I am reliably informed) at the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mission fatalities to date: 81 military personnel, 9 military observers, 2 UN police, 11 international civilian, 23 local civilian; 126 total.

A vast country with immense economic resources, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been at the centre of what could be termed Africa's world war.

This has left it in the grip of a humanitarian crisis.

The five-year conflict pitted government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. Despite a peace deal and the formation of a transitional government in 2003, the threat of civil war remains.

The war claimed an estimated three million lives, either as a direct result of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition. It has been called possibly the worst emergency to unfold in Africa in recent decades.

I take my hat off to him.

Potsticker Dumplings

The Bomber (now officially the world's coolest child) has introduced me to Wagamama, which has replaced the Ivy as foodies' favourite restaurant according to the Telegraph.

When there he eats gyoza, "five steamed, grilled chicken dumplings filled with cabbage, chinese leaf, chinese chives and water chestnut. served with a chilli, garlic, sesame and soy sauce".

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiaozi.

Sounds like Potsticker Dumplings to me.

I think we need to visit Hoo Hing and add a home-prepared version to our repertoire if only for the sake of my bank balance.

A bit parky

I was out of the house very early for a 9am meeting in wildest East Sussex this morning. I'm just back in the office and busy as a boy can be, so yesterday can only be linkblogged.

I took the Bomber and two friends to The Thames Festival Jubilee Gardens site where they very much dug UK beatbox star THePETEBOX, then the Urban Freeflow crew.

Bye bye. Work calls.

Infamy

Gordon Brown suffered a shattering blow to his authority today as one of his own whips called for a contest to replace him as Labour leader.

Siobhain McDonagh confirmed that she was among a growing band of Labour MPs seeking to trigger a leadership election in the party’s conference in a little over a week.

My MP is in the news. She has always been an ultra-loyalist. Brown must really be in trouble.

I wasn't keen on her at first, but she's grown on me over the years.

Benevolence

I was back on my old stamping grounds last night at Kneller Hall to see Ryhthm Force featuring Jools Holland in aid of the Army Benevolent Fund.

I was only too pleased to put my hand in my pocket, but reminded how deeply shameful our treatment of retired Gurkhas is.

They should all have rights of residence and to take British citizenship.

Digital Dining

Inamo is a pioneering Oriental fusion restaurant and bar where the control of the dining experience is placed firmly in your hands. Our mission is to provide delicious cuisine with charming and timely service in a warm and vibrant atmosphere.

At the core of Inamo is our interactive ordering system. Diners place orders from an illustrated food and drinks menu projected on to their table surface. You’ll set the mood, discover the local neighbourhood, and even order a taxi home. Our dedicated and friendly staff are always on hand to help with whatever you need.

Sounds rather impersonal, but it will have to be done.

Seeing Double

On a rainy day in Wales this summer (was there any other kind?); the bomber, his cousin and I went along to a matinée of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I was surprised in one of the action scenes to see Maria Bello getting medieval on someone's ass with an old-school shoulder mounted drop elbow to head Muay Boran move (c.f. himself), but (hey presto) we see from the trivia section of her IMDB biography that she does Muay Thai herself.

Similarly when we saw Star Wars: The Clone Wars, it seemed to me that the idiosyncratic way that Ashoka wielded her light saber owed a lot to Krabi Krabong (c.f. himself). You can see it 1 min 46 secs into the trailer.

It makes me wonder what I'd be able to see if I knew about other styles.

Speaking of Thai action:

Chocolate is the latest from director Prachya Pinkaew, the man at the helm of Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong/The Protector starring the inimitable Tony Jaa.

The movie stars Nicharee Vismistananda who has been training for years in preparation for this role.

This all kicks off 1 min 20 in.You go girlfriend!