base optimism or economic with the facts?

I was passing the Bank of England in the City on Wednesday and noticed the news being filmed on the pavement. Interesting to hear a news outside broadcast in real life instead of from the television.

An ITN broadcaster was talking to camera about the gloomy IMF forecasts for the economy and the subsequent speculation whether or not there would be a further base rate cut Thursday. The rashbre central bet is another .25% reduction.

Our UK Chancellor Mr Darling says the UK's growth has been downrated less than everyone else and that is supposed to build our confidence.

When he goes on to say that UK economy could grow by up to 2.25% in 2008 and 2.75% the following year, he seems to be saying something at odds with the rest of the economists, who seem to be revising downward now to 1.6% for 2008.

Darling's statement predicts a range of 1.7%-2.25%, but the implication of the range and his statement of "optimism" are to direct thinking into to the 2%+ zone.

Of course it is great to have someone with such decisive visionary leadership skills managing our UK economy.

repeat offender

Back from seeing Jimmy Carr doing a stand-up comic show. I arrived about 2 minutes before the start, and as I hadn't arranged the tickets, I was somehow expecting it to be the guy from the Friday Night Project. Jimmy Carr made a quip about this very topic in the first few minutes.

Carr mixes smarm with smut and I think one of his previous tours was called Charm Offensive. This one is called Repeat Offender and in between some cracker humour there were pops at just about anything that would get spoken about in hushed tones in the back bar.

There was a huge amount of content, good ad-lib banter with the audience and a pretty swift response to the occasional heckle. It was entertaining enough and felt like a good evening out.

My sort of 'but' is that when I've seen Dylan Moran or Peter Kay do stand-up, they can use wit over political incorrectness to drive their humour. Jimmy Carr did a slew of excellent one-liner gags and a few slightly longer ones, but I found the reliance on pivoting his jokes around political incorrectness a little wearing.

Judging from the hoots of laughter from the audience, I suspect I was in the minority.

hello boys

"Hello Boys" rises to a new level with the new Agent Provocateur advert beamed onto the side of Marble Arch.

baa

Out in the Cotswolds today, for a meeting this morning, and then across to another one this afternoon in Surrey.

Passing through the countryside, with hardly a trace of yesterday's snow and showing green shoots on trees and plenty of new lambs bouncing about in the fields.

Of course, lambs have brown adipose tissue; that's different from white adipose tissue and helps keep them warm and snuggly.

Tomorrow, I'm in Watford!

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Smashing

The Wondermashers of Doctor Who's new series grabbed 8.4 million viewers on Saturday, apparently by taking an early screen time as 'the gateway to the evening'. Sounds more like something from the Torchwood rift to me.

The horse race earlier in the day attracted just over ten million viewers and the rather cheap ITV1 television filler programme TV Burps (offcuts from shows with apparently humorous commentaries) took the highest commercial television entertainment programme rating with 5.5 million. The Anne Robinson breast groping incident had about 5.5 million too.

No wonder there's cutbacks in TV drama production budgets, when a horse race, some crass and limp editing and titivation of a quiz show get nearly the same audience figures as a flagship BBC series.

I'll stay loyal to the idea of Doctor Who as good family 'hide behind the sofa' Saturday entertainment although this week the monsters were a tad too friendly looking to pose any real threat - maybe they grow up all snarly later in the series.

The Ms Foster character who 'foster mothered' them was modelled on the aforementioned Anne Robinson, albeit with different hair colouring. The new slapstick relationship between The Doctor and the Catherine Tate character was pretty slick. I've never really enjoyed the Catherine Tate shows and her comic book characterisations but since I heard her interviewing David Tennant on a Radio 4 show a couple of months ago, it was clear that the two of them had really hit it off.

Of course, most fans are probably waiting for the real monsters to show up, rather than a fairly tame set of squeaky micro Mr Blobbies. I know they were supposed to kill one million people as part of the plot-line, but it all seemed a bit detached in the way of a spreadsheet calculation, when you only got to see half a dozen non speaking extras writhing on the floor before being saved.

We also had a fleeting flash of Rose's eyeliner before she disappeared into a parallel universe again but the multiple ex Doctor Who assistant storyline has been well leaked so I guess that will help ratings further along the series.

The spaceship involved seemed to pay homage to Close Encounters (spinning top shape, flashing light, spiky bits) and it had multiple tractor beams to retrieve the so handy pack sized Adipose made of white fat tissue (WAT?) extracted from humans. I assume the Beeb is flexing its CGI muscles with the spacecraft and little aliens before the real baddies start to cut up rough in the rest of the series and I hope there will be some other dues paid to famous scenes.

I've series linked it on the Sky Plus now, and am sure I will watch the whole series. UK needs a few institutional television shows beyond the pure soaps.

Secret Winter Bomb Detonated

In a leaked memorandum, it can be exclusively revealed by rashbre central that the UK Government authorized detonation of a Winter Bomb over southern England early this morning. Scientists at the closely guarded Chillingston Weatherby facility have been waiting for an opportunity to use these capabilities for over two years.

Reliable sources informed rashbre central that the escalated reason to use the officially named 'Climate Modification Capability' (CMC) was linked to today's planned run of the Olympic torch through Central London against the backdrop of protestors linked to China's civil rights record. The intention has been to create a weather-based diversion to reduce the impact of the event.

Other factors receiving beneficial side effects from the detonation include the London's Heathrow airport, where plausible weather based delays to flights allow workers a chance to relocate the 28,000 missing luggage items. The snow also mitigates against global warming concerns which this weekend saw gratuitous pictures of sun drenched British beaches in many of the red tops.

Across the capital, unseasonally early barbecue plans were today halted as children switched from finding sun-blocker to looking for bobble-hats and scarves and prepared to build snowmen.

A spokesman for the Meteorological Office commented "We noticed an excessive buildup of snow clouds suddenly this morning at about 02:30. The weather pattern was unusual, as was the way that synchronized snowfall occurred in a cell pattern very similar to the planned route of today's London procession. However, there was also significant wind strength last night and the main weather system seems to have drifted south west from the originally expected position."

There are now fears of people trapped indoors by the still rising quantities of snow drifting in some places to a height of several metres. The UK Government was unavailable for comment, having been delayed in traffic chaos caused by what has been described as the wrong kind of snow.

troubadour

A re-acquaintance with the Troubadour today, in the Old Brompton Road.

We were already right in the area and it seemed like the perfect spot to while away an hour or two. It used to be a regular spot when I lived around Gloucester Road, whether for very late breakfasts or late night music.

Re-assuringly similar as we sat by one of the big coffee-pot bedecked windows where we drank cider, chatted and listened to eclectic music.

torchwood finale

"Set the freezer to defrost in 107 years time!" - great line in this Torchwood finale, with its plot devices worthy of the crew from Moving Wallpaper.

Jonathan Pope in 'wallpaper' was always trying to get the best soap prizes and wouldn't care about blowing things up, who fell for whom or who needed to be in a horrible accident if it was in the best needs of ratings.

Torchwood seems to be moving to this approach with lots of explosions, mutants, time-travel, gunfire and character catastrophes. As genre television, its great fun and good to see the irreverence towards what would usually be the gang of stars in the series. And its good to have one where even Julie got it wrong about the plot line having said before it started, based on the link person's words that (a) someone quite important would be killed and (b) it would be the fella of the ex policewoman. How wrong.

Don't click the plot synopsis above if you havn't watched the episode, otherwise its the one minute recap of the whole show. And I'm wondering about another subtle plot-line that might still be in the background for Series 3 with 'Owen' returning.

circuit

After some office meetings in the City, I'd been standing on Blackfriars Bridge finishing a telephone conference call in the open air and sunlight. As I finished the call, I decided to take a round about walk back, to admire the late afternoon weather and have an excuse to take some photos playing with a 20mm lens. Manual focus and fixed length, much more like film photography.

I decided to do a circuit along the Embankment, across the Millennium Bridge by the Tate Gallery and then via Gabriel's Wharf and back towards Westminster. It is still a little early in the year for there to be huge quantities of tourists, so a large proportion of the people around were Londoners, walking with purpose to get home, or more likely to meet friends somewhere for an after work drink.


Late afternoon, low sun and most of London chilling for the weekend. By the Festival Hall hundreds of coffee drinkers and book fair browsers with nearby skateboarding and extreme biking in the graffiti zone.

London winding down for the weekend. Like me.

replica sun machine

Continuing the occasional references to rashbre central's penchant for psychedelic indie pop, The Shortwave Set's Replica Sun Machine has been playing in the garret over the last couple of days. Difficult to classify, I think they call themselves Victorian funk.

Mainstream references would be nods to the Scissor Sisters, Goldfrapp, and Gnarls Barclay but with unusual microphones. I'll add nome NMH and even Decemberist storylines into that classification.

Spiraling progressive rock style chords, synthy arpeggiation, warm pads of cushiony enveloping sound, thoughtful big sounding strings behind a bass rock and acoustic guitar mix. Fronted by clever lyrics, which seem to change on the page as you read their looped artwork.

Shakers and movers. Let 'em laugh, let 'em shout. Who's gonna care when its all messed up?A hundred thousand reasons why. I don't wanna know.

Shortwave Set have a subtle guerilla Replica Sun Machine site too, from the band's Andrew Petitt including musical references like Olivia Newton Control, who have also featured here in rashbre central alongside the related Apples in Stereo.

A fine album, which also includes John Cale on viola, all the way from Deptford to Hollywood.

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these foolish things

Oops. I wondered why rashbre central was a bit busy today. Now that Reuters has picked up the HP story from 1st April, I suppose I'll have to come clean before JKR sends an owl around with a wand to zap me. The date is a clue about that particular post. I wonder if I should leave it there or remove it??

flying penguins

My favourite amongst this year's gaggle of April Fool's posts is this BBC documentary insert about flying penguins. If you can't click through on the photo above, there's another version at the Telegraph's site.

I hope it gets added to the hoaxipedia list of great hoaxes, alongside the Guardian's ancient travel supplement about the Island of San Serriffe (Capital Bodini, Islands Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse) and the even more ancient celebrated Spaghetti Trees from Panorama.

And not forgetting the annual BMW contribution. This year its the new Canine Repellent Alloy Protection system which is designed to stop dogs fouling against the sparkling alloys of new BMW cars.

Dr Hans Zoff, Head of Automotive Security from BMW AG, explained that it uses energy that would normally have been lost during engine over-run and braking which is now harnessed as Rim Impulse Power. When a dog tries to relieve itself on the wheel of a suitably-equipped BMW, a small and relatively painless electric shock is immediately administered to the animal, thus deterring future fouling. Shocking, or what?

...and here's the 2010 update

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