George Michael must be pleased with his latest public sex scandal. The momentum of the last one must have run it's course by now. Now his whole raison d'etre has had a boost he can write a dozen more preposterously self-indulgent, po-faced, soul-baring songs about the view from his implausibly high, morally superior closet ivory tower.... What else does he ever write about? It's like Cliff Richard vowing to make records until the end of his days. What else is he going to do? settle down and have a family? Maybe they should collaborate....

(I must be feeling particularly catty tonight - miaouw!)

You know it's too hot when (you're home alone and) you think "I'm going to take my clothes off in order to cool down" then realise you already have...

Not sure if it was caused by the heat but my VCR has gone screwy. When I sat down to watch my tape of big brother their voices were completely wrong and sounded like chipmunks. For some reason when you record on a tape now, it leaves the sound of what was on the tape before and because the last thing on there was recorded in Long Play mode and big bro in Short Play mode, the sound was playing back at double speed.... very odd. I wonder how easy it is to fix. I first thought it would be dirty recording heads then decided the effect would not be so sudden and complete so maybe it's some circuit or other that's fried - bugger. It's not so easy to find a cheap VCR these days, except in places like cash convertors...

more big brother ranting, sorry! Michael must be hoping that it's Richard gets booted out tomorrow, and I would too. Richard is so in love with his gayness in a way that's quite pompous and naff. He talks about himself as "a gay man" in the same way someone would say "I have an MBE" or "I'm the Queen of Sheba", and just because Michael doesn't make a big song and dance about it, or dress like something out of an old Frankie goes to Hollywood video, Richard mistakenly interprets this as being in denial or insecure. He's always saying "he's a young gay man (that pompous expression again) and has clearly not been out long". Richard is from a different era in which you had to stand up and say "we're here we're queer - get used to it" and act like it's something special, whereas nowadays a lot of people don't care, just as it should be, and find all that a bit naff and anachronistic. I would find Richard's self-indulgence and misguided patronising very irritating too.

I can't help but be reminded of Gimme Gimme (again) when pompous actor Tom says in a very snooty way "I'm a gay man" and Lynda sneers and mocks him, saying "I'm a gaaaay man! - there's no such thing as gay, it's just laziness"

some guy is trying to invent a new kind of DVD disc that can store 50,000 gigabytes of data using a light sensitive protein derived from a bacterium. It all sounds great in theory though I wonder how easy it is to manafacture a device that can actually focus and read/write on such a tiny scale

via geeks are sexy

"Britain's new midsummer heatwaves are [..] likely to have severe consequences. European law states that governments must inform the public when hourly concentrations of ozone rise above 180 microgrammes per cubic metre. On 6 August last year, ozone levels over London peaked at 300 microgrammes. Other high spots were found in East Anglia and the Midlands."

I remember reading this article two years ago during the record-breaking heatwave. It was discovered afterwards that many of the deaths were caused not by heat stress and dehydration but by ozone. I haven't heard anyone mention this phenomenon this year though...

how stupid and annoying is that Jayne on Big Brother? She's the real life Lynda LaHughes (from Gimme Gimme). She has absolutely no self-awareness. Psychoanalysts would probably say she lacks a superego, meaning that she just blurts out everthing she thinks and does exactly what she feels like without stopping to moderate her behaviour or consider it's appropriateness, a bit like an animal. Nikki hit the nail on the head, telling Jayne she was a "bloody bull in a china shop". I find it quite hard to watch her on telly. If I was locked up with her, people would soon start to think I had tourette's syndrome I think....

on a different subject, aren't there lots of sexy people around in the sunshine. It's quite frustrating. Lots of gorgeous things to see but none for me to have (insert sad face icon here). Having said that, I was followed home from the park by a lad on a bike yesterday. He cycled past me and stopped to take a picture on his phone, which is the kind of thing I'd never have the guts to do, though it's very flattering. As I walked past I said a blokey "alright mate" just to make the point I'd noticed him. I carried on walking and he caught up with me again and stopped me in the street and said "I don't normally do this but.... are you straight?" If he was older and less obviously cruising I would have been extremely intimidated but in this case I just said "er, no". He asked me if I'd have a drink with him while visibly cringing himself at how naff that sounded. I made my excuses and he said "oh I'm really embarassed now" so I told him not to be and well done for being so brave. It did make me chuckle. It's a shame he was so young and not my type, not that I would accept propositions from strangers in the park anyway (though I daresay there are a handful that could persuade me). Ho hum, one day my prince will come...

bye bye princess

wow look at all the groovy homemade things you can buy at Etsy.com. I'm going to have fun going through the site with a fine toothcomb...

Have you heard of Questionswap.com? You can ask any question, leave your email address and someone will get back to you with an answer. You have to provide the answer to a question too. I guess it's like a free version of that other one which I think is a pound per question sent by SMS text, but then they pay people to answer the questions (I applied for a job doing that but couldn't be bothered to find answers to their impossible test questions - I think one wanted to know how long it takes to drive from London to Marseille, and you're not allowed more than 10 mins to find an answer using the internet).

Here's a page of random questions and their answers. Some people really take time to think about them - I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

This was my question - and it's answer

"On Monday, July 10, 2006 you asked the following question;

what sort of person has this question reached?

The following answer has just been sent to you;

Good question, Male, 30 from west england, 6' 2", 13 stone, dark hair, neat beard, works in an art gallery, and is an artist himself and looking forward to next Lost episode, and wanting to be Zinadine Zidane- oinaylor at the mail that is very warm dot com"

it's compulsive, here's another one:

"On Monday, July 10, 2006 you asked the following question;

Have you considered that the person who answers your question could be one of the rare and precious people that could make you happy for the rest of your life - if only you could meet and get to know them?

The following answer has just been sent to you;

I haven't until now, but you make an excellent point. Some of the replies I have recieved have been really lovely and I wished I could say thank you to the person who sent it to me. Maybe I've even met you, stood next to you at a bus stop or held a door open for you to walk through. If I did, I'm sure you would have said thankyou.

another one:

On Monday, July 10, 2006 you asked the following question;

I asked this question: "Do you think men will eventually be under the same pressure as women to look good?"

and the reply was "Yes, they already are. Why do you think men are becoming gay these days?"

Do you think this is an insightful, well-reasoned answer?

The following answer has just been sent to you;

No, it's rubbish. Men are under the same pressure to look good because this is how the fashion industry makes money. Men don't become gay, it's just the way they are.

I could do a whole blog about this....

am I the only person on the planet to not have a Myspace page? I was amazed to see that those avant-garde electronic wizards Autechre have one (and typically perverse and subversive it is too). Maybe it's not actually an official page, but there are official pages for the two guys from Orbital - my all-time fave band. Here's Paul Hartnoll and here's Phil Hartnoll. They both have new material coming out soon - can't wait for that.

damn my ability to constantly underestimate my capacity for sunburn. I was in the sun for 20 minutes yesterday now my shoulders and neck are lobster pink. It's hard enough to sleep at night from the heat, without the burning prickly sensation in your skin. For the first time I actually got sunburned on the top of my head due to lack of hair - oh dear I feel a midlife crisis coming on....

I know it sounds like a chav's idea of sophistication, but this weekend I tried diet coke with a slice of cucumber - it's nice, try it! (I hate lemon in coke, lime is nice though)

this is like something out of Brasseye but instead comes to you in association with the Jonathon Ross show:

hitlercats

I was trying to encode some videoclips on my computer today (big bro of course) and it crashed due to overheating. It's not got the best cooling system but the intense radiation from the nearby star was the straw that broke the donkey's back. It'll have to wait till the heatwave has passed or I get some better fans/heatsinks put in (which will never happen). Oh well, nice to have sunny days anyway, especially now I'm well enough to go out and enjoy them for an hour or two at least. Amazingly hot though isn't it. Forecast looks like more of the same too....

so big bro has some new housemates. Spiral and Michael are both quite cute. I totally understand Michael's frustration with people and their impudent questions about sexuality. People think it's okay to ask what makes you horny before they know anything else about you (unless you're perceived to be obviously heterosexual which is seen as all the proof that's required on the matter - they don't ask if you prefer arses or tits), and then if you happen to prefer the same sex, it's seen as a green light to ask even more intensely personal questions. One day it won't be a novelty and people won't be especially interested in what your preferences are, but until then I guess we'll just have to be grateful that it's sometimes considered socially acceptable amongst the more civilised people... grumble grumble!