Please, people, not another four years

Geoffrey Perkins, the former BBC TV head of comedy has died in a road accident in London.
That is really, really tragic. Perkins was the producer of the first Hitchhikers radio series as well as being involved with pretty much all of the best television comedy since then.

Ever Decreasing Circles
We've only recently lost John Esmonde too. Here's a lengthy analysis of his finest half hours.

This Hillary Democrat won't vote for Palin
As one Egon Spendler said: “This could be extraordinarily bad.” The problem with new Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is that she has the appearance of being horrendously inoffensive (though not the politics), which perhaps makes her about the most offensive (in both senses of the word) thing that party could have done. They’re clearly desperate to suck the disillusioned Hilary supporters under her event horizon and some will be caught in her wake (despite the whiff of scandal). And here’s the thing I don’t understand -- that there may well be people who profess to be Democrats yet will vote for this other party, the very party which brought the rest of us in the world George Bush for eight years, simply because they’ve picked some woman who to be fair has nothing in common with Senator Clinton other than her gender and a lack of baggage, even though it was the very baggage and experience which made their ideal candidate interesting and useful in the first place [somewhat via].

If Obama Loses it's because of racism
But then I can’t understand why anyone would look at McCain then Obama and then pick the man who doesn’t know how many houses he owns simply because he's in the same age group and white. McCain's actually campaigning on a promise of change. Well, yes, there'll be a different man in the White House but will you or we really be able to tell the difference? Please, people, not another four years, the rest of the world, particularly the environment couldn’t take it. I'm a staunch Liberal Democrat and proud of it or hadn't you already noticed?

Is blogging dead?
I think it's changed. I think bloggers are far more aware now that they're using a communication tool and have often changed their style accordingly. I also think that there are less people taking their fingers to the keyboard rather than picking up a camera or microphone but I also think that to an extent that the quality of the writing has improved too. Plus this Metafilter thread on a certain subject shows signs of life.

The unpredictable way that useful emails arrive makes checking for them as addictive as slot machines.
Great piece from Suw about how email now commands our lives.

Giving My Sport A Bad Name
Keith Topping quite rightly calls out a Mirror tv reviewer who sarcastically refers to the BBC's apparent 'celebration of mediocrity' and fundamentally misses the point that a relay team coming fourth in the olympics is still better than coming twentieth.

Serious Macy's Shoppers

Caligula's sex and excess is bizarre and depressing
Having attempted to watch this in the late 90s when Channel 4 showed the cut version, I can only imagine that the full version is horrendous. And I agree, having oddly enough watched the I, CLAVDIVS version tonight, that John Hurt's interpretation is scary and superior.

Google Workplace
Mork calling Orson. Come in Orson.