The 9 Lines Of Twestival

The little idea
We dream't up in a pub
Evolved into
Something so much more special
Thanks to a little help from our friends
It was great to meet so many new faces and
Value our friend's support
And despite a sore head on Friday morning, I'm
Looking forward to seeing everyone soon to do it all over again.

MP Wanted

Far be it from me to join the Obamamania that seems to be sweeping every corner of the earth except the US particularly Brazil where not 4, not 5 but 6 politicians have taken it upon themselves to rename themselve's Barack Obama. (an odd and perhaps not the most novel way of boosting your search rankings and general popularity) but hey if it's working for them well good luck to them...

But all this madness did get me to thinking that perhaps we should do a similar thing in the UK. No not rename our Gordon Brown and the rest of the cabinet Barrack - I don't think their sports skills would quite match up to his for a start...

However instead perhaps we should send open invitations to unsuccessful presidential nominees (the good ones anyway) to take up roles in Westminster. I'm sure Barrack would love a nice cosy constituency perhaps in the south hams, perhaps Al Gore wouldn't mind running Glasgow South and hey if they like it - what's stopping them getting their full citizenship and running the country!

However seriously, behind all the razzmatazz which I feel we like to cynically snigger at - what the Americans are good at producing is leaders and politicians that inspire and cause debate - clearly I dont agree with Sarah Palin's view on a number of issues especially the Bush doctrine, what ever that is...but what she has done is brought another dimension of debate to the election and has made more interested in what she has to say - more so than our own party conferences taking place at the moment in the UK - instead our party conferences tend to be bogged down with headlines more often than not dominated by infighting or cross party squabbling than anything of real significance.

Policies are important (and clearly the huge scale of an American election has an effect) but there needs to be an added dynamism to our politics - I may not have always agreed with Tony Blair (and was too young to witness Maggie in action) but there was generally an ounce of interest in what decisions they were making which I feel is wholly absent today.

We need people that inspire people - current coverage of UK politics often feels like the skies of August this year - relentlessly grey and disappointing.

So good luck to Barracks everywhere from Illinois to Rio and hey if it doesn't work out then there's always a backbench seat in the South Hams a waiting....

Worgle

Well I've done my duty and downloaded Chrome and yes it's a web browser, not a lot more to say as far as I'm concerned - not exactly going to change my world for the moment but hey...

I did like the way that even Channel 4 seemed to fall for the story that the news was 'leaked' hmmm....I rather agree more with Drew Benvie's take on the story - a story this big...published by accident..I'm not so sure...

Anyway while the A-Ha inspired Take On Me cartoons seem to have got most people's attention a quick wordle of Google's bog post seems to suggest that the key aim of the new browser seems to be to be to push their applications more and more and more...not bad as for the most they are pretty useful...

as for the browser...meh...it's a browser at the end of the day...seems to run pretty fast and of course...people who know their stuff will have more in depth views on the good points and bad points..but to me and my housemates as users (after 20 minutes) it seems pretty similar to most browsers...

anyway...enough of this boring post...it's all about enabling an enriched multimedia experience apparently so here is a taste of what people might be watching on it...