No geek
is an island

I missed last night’s semi-final because I went to see a film and forgot to set the video.

I note, though, that of those tracks I identified as good, several have plunged out of the contest. Iceland, Slovenia and Lithuania were all knocked out, leaving only Switzerland and the UK from my Top 5. F.Y.R. Macedonia (who, I seem to remember, don’t like being called that) also go through while Spain had pre-qualified.

From my list of The Bad, it tended to be the dull, rather than hilariously bad, that lost: Belgium and Finland, although Croatia got through, amazingly. Portugal also went out. Sadly, Saturday’s viewers won’t be treated to the shockingly dire Irish performance as that too was ousted in the semi-final. Moldova and Norway made it through so we can laugh at them - unless they win, of course, in which case it’s tears of shame all round.

Greece and Norway have been tipped by the bookies, followed by Hungary. The latter came top of the semi-final and will be opening the show, followed by the UK. (Running order.) Opening will likely boost Hungary further, although Switzerland may still benefit from being near the end. (Sweden - for Stuart - are near the middle of the show, performing 14th.)

I’d just like to say: “Ha ha ha.”
It’s my birthday and I’ll laugh if I want to. Thank you.

Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is better than Episodes I and II. It was dark (although lighter, in the sense of being more fun, than it’s immediate predecessors). It succeeded in rounding off Darth Vader’s life story with a pretty satisfactory ending.

The lead actors were improved, although still a little deficient, and the script was similarly better - there were even one or two good lines. Ian McDiarmid was excellent again, right up until he became deformed, at which he turned into the hammiest man in Hamburg.

Little things bothered me. It really takes 18 years to build a Death Star? So the one in Jedi was already being built during A New Hope? The Qui-Gon Jin bit at the end - what was the point? To explain Yoda’s and Obi-Wan’s ghostly appearances in the original trilogy? And how can you discover the secret of immortality after you’re dead? What a coincidence that Yoda should know Chewbacca. I also found the close-up space battles at the beginning initial exciting but soon very hard to follow, and some other scenes seemed a bit too obviously to be using CGI for human characters.

Oh, and Padme’s death made little sense either. She is supposed to have lost her reason to live just at the moment her children are born. <Yoda>A very strange mother that makes her.</Yoda> Why not just give her proper injuries?

These (and other) niggles were offset by the good points. The spaceships are clearly evolving into the familiar craft we later see, and Leia’s ship from Episode IV makes an appearance. R2D2 gets some good sequences at the beginning and Yoda gets some good lightsabre battles. The highlight, though, is not a setpiece battle but Palpatine’s talk with Anakin in the auditorium, recounting (not explicitly) the story of his own Sith master.

I couldn’t not recommend this film - it is, after all, part of one of the greatest film series of all time - but despite endless computer graphic and an emotionally charged story, it still can’t quite take the new trilogy to the level of the original three.

Apparently my facetious suggestion re: hoodies and CCTV made more sense than I thought. Tuesday’s Daily Telegraph blames hoodies on “Big Brother”. I was expecting an anti-Channel 4 rant, but it’s Big Brother in the 1984 sense.

This is the usual law of unintended consequences. Just as the increasing sophistication of home-security systems has led burglars to conclude that it’s easier to wait till you’re in, knock on the door and punch you in the face, so the ever-present 24-hour surveillance devices have ensured that, even if you get a look at your assailant, you’ll never be able to pick him out of a police line-up. “Er, well, he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, officer.” “Did the shadow on his upper chest indicate any other features, such as the length of his nose?” “It might have, but I couldn’t tell, as the sweatshirt was black.” “Hmm. A black sweatshirt. Well, that narrows it down a bit.”

Via Nick: an anti-ID card Pledge.

PledgeBank, from those lovely mySociety people, provide the means to set up a pledge of the form “I’ll do X if N other people do it.” In this case, “I will refuse to register for an ID card but only if 3,000,000 people will sign up.”

If you’re prepared to join 2,999,999 other people in a mass protest, sign up and spread the word.

Supposedly, all young people wear hoodies and baseball caps so their faces can’t be seen on CCTV. That suggests this line of logic:

1. Crime in shopping centres
2. CCTV is brought in to video ne’er-do-wells ne’er-do-wellin’
3. These young ne’er-do-wells wear clothes that hide their faces, frightening shoppers
4. Identities concealed from the CCTV, they go about their ne’er-do-well business

In which case, perhaps this would help:

1. Get rid of CCTV
2. Ne’er-do-wells revert to morning suits (top hats not permitted of course) and ball gowns
3. Shoppers are no longer frightened
4. Ne’er-do-wells do as much ne’er-do-wellin’ as above, but without shoppers experiencing The Fear

This is, of course, a flippant addition to the debate. As is suggesting that for the uglier chavs, it’s better for all of us that they keep their hoodies up.

See also Liberal England, and the answer to chavs’ favourite song from Simon Titley.