If you can...

Help this cause. The woman who runs it, as several of you know, is extrodinary...

Update - as mentioned in the comments, if you would like to get in touch, please use this email address, as the one in the article is wrong...

elenaATonelife-online.org.uk

Obviously, you need to change AT to @!

A slightly different tone

Compare China's response to everyone elses in this round up of world leaders' responses to the new pope.

This might be my favourite election joke so far

Via Doctorvee...

See it here

There's no way I'd vote for him

But you've got to love Boris

Via the 'heads

I'm a lefty

Courtesy of just about eveyone in the blogosphere (including the doc and Cllr Bob) I took this test and came out with these heartening results...Always knew I was a lefty...

Make Me

Innarressin' radio programme where Darcus Howe, who has not voted for ten general elections, despite being a political and social activist visits people committed to the cause of casting the ballot...

(I wrote that myself...I should be a copywriter...)

This is quite interesting - I tried to answer the questions honestly, and this is what I came up with:

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Labour

Your actual outcome:

Labour -10
Conservative -75
	Liberal Democrat 90
UK Independence Party -14
	Green 48

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

It's obviously weighted to specific issues, and there're still lots of reasons for me not to vote lib dem...(not least of which being it won't make the blindest bit of difference - and whilst I'm on the subject, I'm afraid that any campaign that advises voting tory for tactical reasons doesn't get my support...not that they'll lose any sleep over it!) but I just thought that it was so heavily weighted to the lib dems was interesting...

p.s. Sick of blogger! There may be a solution on the horizon - big things are afoot at itagi towers!

It's not just me

The warm response I've received for my rant is heartening, as is the fact that lots of people have arrived here after searching for "Are you thinking what we're thinking." Evidently lots of people it's not just me who isn't...What's less well received, of course, is my decision not to vote...I haven't yet, but at some point I will definately post something here in regard to that. I've talked about why I don't vote before(way back in the oldskool bob tidmarsh days, long time readers) so won't repeat myself...suffice to say it's not apathy.

On the subject of people coming here from internet searches, if you're looking for arrested development torrents, look here or here. And if you want to find duckman episodes, try emule, and the cute baby picture is here (and boy is she cute...).

Kevin Smith on the Radio

I like Kevin Smith. I like his films, but perhaps even more, I just like him, I find him really funny and charming. It's odd, because normally I don't exactlty dig really crude humour, and in fact I especially liked Jersey Girl, because it's Kevin Smith without the "adult" stuff. Having said all that, I loved An Evening With Kevin Smith, which is basically just him talking, and I was quite excited when I saw this. And I wasn't disappointed. It's 3 days of a morning radio show in San Francisco in which he sat in as co-host. I chuckled, laughed out loud and just generally revelled in it. And I felt sorry for American audiences who have to sit through SIX MINUTE ad breaks on radio shows...Not good...

My top five favourite movies I've seen so far this year

Random post, less heavy than the last one, like, and more than a little inspired by Phill's Important Movie Pass Experiment...

1. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - if I see a better film this year I will be very deeply surprised. I like Wes Anderson in general, and this film in particular.

2. Robots So funny. So funny. My favourite breaking wind scene in many years. If I'd seen this when I was eight I think it may well have changed my life.

3. Garden State Really enjoyed this, apart from maybe the ending...

4. Sideways When my friend Dave thinks something is great, he describes it as "grapes aplenty." Never more apt words were spoken.

5. The extended edition of Return of the King. The LOTR extended editions are just simply the best DVDs ever...Ever!

UPDATE

6. (Yes I know I said 5). How could I forget Melinda and Melinda? On paper it looks way too high-concept - same story told as a tradgedy and a comedy, but in actuality it's a really interesting meditation on the nature of literary art forms and their relationships with the essence of human experience. Of course, being Woody, he draws the wrong conclusions about the essence of human experience, but he is very very funny while he does it. And in this case very very tragic too...