I was clearing out my hard drive and came across this picture, which I’d quite forgotten about. It’s the scan of an old page from the November 1988 issue of MacUser that I found when I was putting together the 20th anniversary feature. I dug it out and sent it to Phill Jupitus, who in turn passed it on to the Jonathan Ross people who went through all sorts of hoops getting me to agree to them showing it on TV. I did, but they didn’t use it in the end.

I like the wording of the ad, though. Directly below the pic it explains why he picked a Mac instead of a regular PC:

Jonathan Ross demands the best – designer suits, designer shirts, designer ties. so when he wanted a PC, it is hardly surprising he chose the Macintosh SE because, like Jonathan, it is stylish to look at, very, very productive and extremely versatile.

It’s the 3D sudoku puzzle. Simply arrange the sides so that each one displays the numbers 1 to 9.

I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just me, but this reminds me of something. Can’t quite put my finger on it. Six sizes. A cube made out of blocks. Perhaps a different colour on each side, which you rearranged by twisting around the pieces…

I have spent the weekend not doing the things I should have been doing. Most specifically, I’ve not worked any more on researching the book. Or writing the damned thing.

I’ve not been idle. I’ve now made two batches of toffee: one butter and one treacle. I’ve visited Andrew and looked at the 22 staples in his leg. I’ve tidied up the huge box of cables in the bottom of my cupboard that has been like that since I moved here. In fact, since before I moved here as I specifically recall moving it out of the flat like that when time was getting tight, promising that I’d tidy it up in due course. That’s almost 18 months ago now.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, I’ve started to copy my tapes to MP3. It’s a daunting task. There must be miles of magnetic ribbon waiting to be copied, and already I’ve found some cringeworthy candidates.

There’s appearances on BBC Essex, BBC Three Counties, BBC Southern Counties, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC London, TalkSport, hours and hours and hours of stuff on LBC, Link FM, Pilgrim FM, news-reading and adverts.

And one advert in particular, which I’d completely forgotten about. Probably with good cause: Tango.

The fizzy drink people wanted to run a campaign of unknown nobodies doing the voices of the better-known nobodies who had already been doing a series of instantly-recognisable ads for pop for the last three or four years. Somehow, I’m not sure how, I was one of the chosen nobodies.

It really is quite terrible.

Fortunately there is all sorts of useful and highly listenable stuff in there, too, to the extent that my iTunes now boasts volume 1 of Paperweight by Stephen Fry, The ‘Best’ of Rambling Syd Rumpo (of whom nobody will ever have heard) and the Julian and Sandy double tape.

There is no longer any room for Tango adverts, I’m glad to say.

Two hours of inconsistencies.

The following contains spoilers.

The premise is simple: Nicole Kidman is a multilingual interpreter working at the UN, and overhears talk of a plot to assassinate the corrupt leader of an African nation. She reports it to the UN security team, who gets the US secret service involved, a chase ensues and, eventually, Kidman herself is the one who is holding the gun to the leader’s head in the safe room behind the podium of the General Assembly.

But how?

How did she come to be the one who was set to assassinate the leader when she apparently overheard other people plotting it? She was obviously not in it with them, or they would not have tried to knock her off.

More to the point, what was the United Nations doing calling in the American Secret Service? And why were American Secret Service agents allowed to run around the UN building waving guns about.

I know America likes to think it runs the UN, but it is an international organisation outside the jurisdiction of US law. Even the UN compound and buildings in New York are not on American soil. The actual plot of land on which they are build was donated by John D Rockerfeller Jr, as explained by Wikipedia:

The United Nations headquarters building was constructed in New York City in 1949 and 1950 beside the East River on land purchased by an 8.5 million dollar donation from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. It is a declared international zone belonging to all Member States, and as such will survive in perpetuity, forever belonging to the Member States as an asset of the UN.

It has its own security service, which should surely be the team chasing assassins around its property. You wouldn’t, after all, expect to see Italian police, or Iraqi security agents running around the UN corridors fully armed and imposing their brand of lawmaking. Although, having said that, refering back to that Wikipedia entry, it does explain that:

The site of the United Nations headquarters has extraterritoriality status like embassies do. This affects some law enforcement where UN rules override the laws of New York City, but does not give immunity to crimes that take place there.

It all sounds a bit fuzzy, so perhaps I’m being a bit harsh on it, but there is a line early on where a security guard refuses to let them in, telling them they aren’t in America any more, but are on international territory. If this is the case, then what follows is a major plot inconsistency.

I don’t understand how this can have been allowed. This was the first film ever to have used the inside of the real UN building in New York as a set, so I find it hard to believe the UN itself didn’t insist on passing its eyes over the script to see how it was going to be portrayed before giving permission. Surely if it had done, it should have pointed out the inconsistencies and demanded at least a partial rewrite.

It’s an entertaining enough diversion, but not one of Kidman’s better appearances. Ho-hum, so-so, middle-of-the-road. Five out of ten.

Everyone remembers their grandparents for different things. One of the things for which I remember my grandmother is her cooking, and in particular the toffee she used to make when we all had colds. It is a lot softer than the toffee you get in the shops; very buttery and sweet. So today I set out to make a batch, following her rediculously simple recipe. It was headed up Good Toffee. I’ve yet to find the recipes for either Average or Bad Toffee.

6 table spoons of sugar
4oz of butter
3 desert spoons of milk
3 desert spoons of treacle
a little vinegar

Boil gently for 20 minutes until a little dropped into cold water forms a ball.

I couldn’t believe it would really be as simple as that, but it was, and after pouring it into a small baking tray and stacking it in the fridge for the rest of the afternoon I now have 28 twists of treacle toffee neatly wrapped up in greaseproof paper to take into work on Monday.

You have to be very careful with the boiling. The whole mixture seems to be highly volatile and you need to keep the temperature down very low to stop it boiling. So low, in fact, that you couldn’t even see the flame on the gas under the pan, which was right down to its lowest possible setting. The bit about dropping it into water is quite clever, too; you simply scoop a little of your mixture out using a teaspoon and let it drip into a mug of cold water. If it solidifies into a little ball of toffee and sinks to the bottom you know it’s ready.

I think, tomorrow, I might make another batch, this time swapping the treacle for Golden Syrup, so I can mix up the batches for variety.

If you’re ever looking for me at lunchtime then, at least one day every week – sometimes two – you’ll find me in the British Museum. It’s a few minutes’ walk from my desk, and packed to the gills with fascinating stuff, like mummified sacred bulls stolen from Egypt, precious marbles stolen from Greece and temple bells stolen from China. To not take advantage of it would be a crime.

And so I went there today, spending most of my time in the money gallery looking at the Bank of Hell notes that, in Eastern cultures, are burnt to make offerings to the spirits of long-gone ancestors. I remember seeing them in use in real life when I was in Taiwan a few years ago at the Lung Chan (excuse my spelling) temple in Taipei. There were small earthenware kilns by the temple walls, red hot despite the fierce heat of the day, with wide open mouths into which bereaved relatives were shovelling the immitation cash they had brought as an offering.

There is so much to see there I’m still finding new things after several years, but the one thing you can’t help but see on every visit, is the airy atrium surrounding the reading room. Today, for the first time, I took a picture, although to get it all in required more frame than I’d originally thought, as can be seen from the picture above.

This story appeared on the front page of CNN this afternoon:

And at the same time this one appeared on the front page of the BBC:

That 3,500 member troop increase is an enormous number when you realise that the UK currently has only 850 personnel stationed in the country. They are being sent as part of the Nato peacekeeping mission, but you can’t help but wonder, on past analysis, whether this is as much for the benefit of the US as it is for those who live in Afghanistan.

Proper cold in the garden this morning.

Now call me naive, but I just don’t get it. Where are they going to store this artificial sun? It’s life size. That’s going to take one hell of a big warehouse.

Me estis simila malbona knabo. Me havis laboron fari, sed me ne gxin faras gxis hodiaux vespere. Hieraux, mi ekfaris gxi, sed la familio da Paulo arivis por trinki kafon je dekunu horo, kaj gxi estis unu kaj duona horo antaux ili iris kaj mi povis dauxrigi.

Hieraux vespero, ni iris al domo de patrino kaj Andreo por tagmangxo. Gxi estis tre bona; legomo torto por mi, kaj kokajxo kay hxamo por ili.Gxi estis bona vespero, sed tro por mangxi do Paolo kaj mi mangxis la postrestijn cxi vespero.

Cxi posttagmezo, ni isis al domon do gepatro de Paolo por luncxo kun la familio (kaj kusinoj), do ni ne havis multa tempo por la laboroj. Do, gxi estis hodiaux vespere antau mi gxi finis.

Sed, gxi ne estis problemo. Mi havis bona semajnfino kin la familio.

Ambaux familioj.

J’ai ?