Joe asks 'Is it me or what?'

Enough Already

Okay, we all know that News International shouldn’t have hacked into people’s voicemail, although I think hacked is giving their technology skills a bit of a compliment given that they just seem to have tried to access by hoping the user hadn’t changed from the default code.

But now I’ve had enough, it just seems to be gloating by business rivals, the side issues of the police, press and government are interesting but they seem to be swamped by the sensationalist revelations of who the latest victim was, the Dalai Lama etc.

There are awful famines in Africa, the usual collection of wars and accidents and financial issues, so many things worse that someone listening to old messages on my voicemail. And another thing, what would you learn listening to voicemail? All I get is Hello, it’s xxx, call you later. Surely it would be more interesting to listen to messages the people concerned had left rather than received? Hello, this is the Dalai Lama, sorry you’re not in but I’ve just about had it with the Chinese and needed to get it off my chest, that sort of thing.

And that bloke with the pie, what an idiot…

People Power

I wrote last time about the growing pile of rubbish in my street and other parts of Exeter. My appearance on TV and in the papers seems to have had a good effect. The day after the TV interview the binmen came, unannounced, and cleared away the bags (they left all the spilled rubbish but you can’t have everything). They also cam again two days later for the standard pick up.

To follow that we received a letter from the council stating:

Following resident’s (sic) complaints they would be changing to  bins being collected from the front of the house

rather than bags thrown into the alley, just what we’ve wanted all along. Hopefully the next step is weekly collections…

A Load of Rubbish

My fifteen minutes of fame has come and gone. Exeter decided, against most people’s wishes, to switch to fortnightly rubbish collection last September. Given that we also cannot leave out our bin, but have to put the actual rubbish sacks out the previous evening, this has been inconvenient. The main failing of the plan has now been exposed, one missed collection now means a month’s worth of bin bags piling up and that has happened following a missed collection at Christmas, the council citing health and safety reasons when the snow came. Needless to say the council has blamed the residents, apparently we should have known that, although the buses, trains and just about everyone else in Exeter was coping, the binmen would be curled up inside with a mug of cocoa – and we should have not put the rubbish out. I was contacted by a press photographer about a picture of me next to the rubbish looking annoyed, no problem as that’s my normal look anyway and this seemed to open the floodgates. I thought it was just for the local rag but it then appeared in the Sun, the Mirror and others (with plenty of misquotes of course). I was then asked for an interview for TV, that went out yesterday on Daybreak and the phone hasn’t stopped ringing for days.

The council hasn’t come across well, the leader was quoted as saying it was a minor issue, that’s because there’s no bags piled in his leafy close and the person in charge of collections, coincidentally, was one of the first to have his cleared away. We, on the other hand, haven’t had a collection since 7 December…

I haven’t actually got around to asking Max Clifford how I can capitalise on this publicity, I always dreamed it would be for something a little more exciting – that’s the fickle finger of fate for you.

More Arrests Imminent

I am loathe to write about I’m a Celebrity…, in my house it’s often on two televisions simultaneously, Ant and Dec drive me mad, I don’t recognise more than ten per cent of the celebrities and it all seems so pointless. However, I am amused by the story that the winner and someone else whose name escapes me are to be taken to court over the fact that they killed and ate a rat, presumably the killed part of that anyway.

Apparently it’s not acceptable to kill an animal for entertainment purposes. I certainly don’t agree with the entertainment part of that and presume it’s just a publicity stunt. Are the two really going to fly back to Australia to face trial?

Anyway I’m looking forward to the next arrest, Katie Price, for all the bugs she squashed with her famous bosom while doing those bush tucker trials. Exhibit A alone should be worth another TV series.

Strictly Arithmetic

You may have heard about the new furore on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. Basically there were three couples and the judges' vote means they get points of three, two and one. They receive the same points after the public votes and the winner is exempt from the dance-off to see who is eliminated. What happened was that two couples tied for first and the BBC, being unaware of basic arithmetic and elementary game theory, decided to award them three points each, the third place getting one point. Now the third could not win, even receiving three points from the phone-in meant they were second at best so people, who pay for their calls, were wasting their money voting for them.

Had the BBC done the correct thing, awarding the two leaders two and a half point from the judges, an average of the first and second points available, then the third placed couple could have caught up in the unlikely event of them winning the phone-in and the other two couples drawing, they would then get two and a half plus one and a half, four points. Then everybody would have been equal and they all could have gone through without the BBC having to refund the disgruntled callers, that fifteen pence being a large some to these people, obviously.

Don't Call Us

I made my TV debut yesterday, well recorded it anyway. A few friends, all bridge players, entered as a team on the BBC TV quiz show Eggheads.

I was apprehensive, it's easy enough shouting the answers out at home, less so in front of the camera. Fortunately I didn't make a fool of myself, to see how we did you'll need to watch the programme when it's broadcast in March 2009.

It's quite an experience being on TV, make-up, wardrobe and the famous green room where you relax before the recording.

Other highlights of the day included:

• London's newest tube station, Wood Lane, just outside the BBC studio
• Meeting Sir Tom Jones, albeit in the gent's loo
• Meeting this enemy of the Doctor

XML goes mainstream

I subscribe to the XML DEV list. It's a great place to learn and my XML skills pale into insignificance compared to those of some of the people who give their time to answer questions and join debates.

I recently posted a topic about XML arriving which I repeat here:

We have in the UK a quiz program named "University Challenge" whereby student teams compete over a number of rounds for a token prize.

The questions are normally fairly technical, such as chemical valencies, or art and literature, such as identifying classical music.

This week's episode had a question on XML, can't remember verbatim but something like:
What XML formatted files are used on web sites to provide machine readable content summaries and are often visually marked with an orange box?

The answer, of course, was RSS - which one student answered correctly.

It was great to hear a question related to a topic that dominates my professional life, the first time I've seen something like that on popular television.

Since then a couple of people have pointed out that a syndicated comic strip called FoxTrot, which appears in a number of US newspapers, mentioned XML in the strips from the week beginning 19 September 2006.

Someone also reminded me of an advert which appeared on English and US television that mentioned XML namespaces and the infoset, although unfortunately as examples of boring and incomprehensible techno-babble. Needless to say I can't remember what was being advertised...