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• A video single by Bomb the Bass
• The book 45 by Bill Drummond
• Battle for the Trees by Merrick
• My heart, too many times when I was young (although I got to give it properly in the end)
• A Mega City Four cassette
• 3ft High and Rising by De La Soul

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I’ve remembered this week that I need to feed both my geek and my creative sides. Been too geek lately, just reading geek books. Thus the Louis Theroux book, and also getting a good way into the Julian Cope biography Head On (the only book I own a t-shirt of). Have read it once before, but it is a wonderful description of the Liverpool punk and post-punk scene (which seemed to happen pretty much simultaneously). I’m not a massive creative, nor a genius geek, but if I feed both in vaguely equal measures my brain seems to work better on both. Sorted out some annoying stuff at work today that had been like digging syrup into a wheelbarrow with a fork until today.

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Have just finished reading Louis Theroux – The Call of the Weird. Very odd book. The basic premise is that he goes back and revists some of the people he met and filmed in America during his various tv shows, and finds out what has happened to them. A varied and disperate bunch, UFOlogists, prostitutes, porn stars, rappers, white supremacists, and Ike Turner.

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Don’t make an effort yourself. Use a script…

What I would like at the moment is The Idea. Not an idea, but The Idea. The Idea is a new way of pulling together a few existing web technologies and/or successful sites, and mashing them up into a new and exciting formula that is smartarse enough for a Google or Yahoo to buy for lots of money. The execution of The Idea is potentially not as tricky as having The Idea in the first place. I can program, I can learn, I can configure software. I can make it happen. It is having it in the first place that is the problem.

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Have I really written this much crap? Well, it would appear I have. Ouch. Well, I have been posting backwards as well as forwards, I know have posts going back 21 years on here, culled from old diaries and the like. And I can sometimes be prolific with my regular stuff.

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Well, we’ve spent the weekend up at the home of flotskyfamily, and everything is good, flotskydad is out and fighting fit, so we are all happy. had a very good time catching up, meant a lot to see him and see he was doing ok.

It is strange, because in our immediate family, we don’t do serious illness normally. We do clumsy and accidents well, but we don’t really tend to stay overnight in hospital. In fact, in my reckoning, my dad was the first of us to stay overnight in hospital since my sister was born. So I think it worries us more than people who are a bit more used to it.

We spent most of the weekend just relaxing with them, needed it. So I am a happy chap.

Sad to report that flotskydad has been in hospital this week. Nothing too serious thankfully, but obviously a big worry. Happily he is due out tomorrow, and even more happily, we will be there to see him. Really looking forwards to it, he hasn’t had a great time obviously, and it will be very good to see him and catch up, and obviously see my mum as well.

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Article discussing the right to free speech on the internet, in context of current situation involving Gina Ford and mumsnet forums.

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I’ve been following this story closely for a few days, there are several issues here involving freedom of speech on the internet in the UK. What is fair criticism? Is downright nastiness actually libel? Should an ISP be liable for possible libel committed on their servers. If as seems possible, this ends up in court, it could well be a landmark case. We have Demon vs Godfrey, which established what seems to be a large swathe of precedent over what seems to me a narrow set of circumstances. It would be very interesting if this case was fought, as a result in favour of Mumsnet could change that substantially, and potentially make ISPs a lot bolder about standing up for their users.