Archive for the ‘Best of Badger’ Category

The undoubted highlight of my social calendar last year was the raucous week spent on Rhodes for Jonathan & Suzanne’s wedding. Although it fell during my somewhat extended blogging hiatus, I can tell you Lindos was lovely, we met lots of good people and had fun in rather epic proportions. Once back in Blightly I put together a little site for the photos, should you wish to view strangers getting married/drunk in Lindos: Escape to Athena (named after the classic Roger Moore/Telly Savalas war film which used several locations around Lindos).

Of course it’s never easy maintaining one’s sartorial elegance in warmer climes; the slightest fashion faux pas could even lead to one being mistaken for Johnny Foreigner. With that in mind I took it upon myself to put together a little fashion guide for the Groom and Best Man, well in advance of the wedding. I’ve kept the page in case it comes in useful for anyone else getting married abroad: looking cool at a hot wedding. Sadly Jonathan and Simon chose to disregard my advice.

For once I actually have a decent excuse for not having posted lately — work has been completely hectic, and to be honest I’ve felt totally drained.

A couple of weeks ago, in the early hours of the morning, there was a big power outage at the data centre that’s home to our main server (and this site). Unfortunately, rather than the UPS taking over until the backup generator kicked in, something fried/died, and it took the hosting company — DSVR — nine hours to get everything up and running again.

Even once DSVR had got all the servers back online, web and FTP were crawling, and mail was totally dead (something on the internal system was utterly screwed, quite possibly related to DNS).

The problem meant that not only were we without our main email accounts for the best part of two days, but so were over a dozen of our clients. As you can imagine, this didn’t go down too well, and when we weren’t sat watching the queue of emails growing in Exim, we were trying to placate clients.

Luckily we have our .com domain mail server hosted on a completely different server, for contingencies such as this, so at least we had some way of getting emails out. Nevertheless, it took until after the weekend for the backlog of emails to clear from our main server.

It wasn’t always like this with DSVR; when we signed up with them some years ago, we chose them because they had what turned out to be a well-deserved reputation for excellent service. Yes, they were more expensive than some, but the good up-time, versatility and great support was well worth the money. Support tickets were answered quickly, and the staff took an active role in discussions on the customer forums.

On the rare occasions when there was a problem with the service, DSVR’s status page would contain detailed explanations of the problem, and the steps being taken to rectify it and ensure it didn’t re-occur. The support staff would also happily discuss the problem in the forums, often with a refreshing honesty.

Sadly DSVR were bought by Legend Communications (formerly Business Serve, subsequently bought by Thus) in 2004, and the service has been going downhill ever since. Earlier this year there were big problems when they moved data centres, and despite lots of promised improvements, things just seem to be going from bad to worse. There aren’t any of the original DSVR staff left either.

Leaving aside the point that a power outage shouldn’t be able to screw up the servers for a couple of days, to add insult to injury the communication from DSVR/Legend/Thus has been almost non-existent. Little more than “Blah, blah, power outage, some customers experiencing problems with email, engineers working to restore service as soon as possible” on the status page for a couple of days. Certainly nothing like a decent explanation.

Rumour has it, because Legend/Thus are a PLC, any communication (including the status page) has to ‘go upstairs’ for approval by management in case if impacts on share price. Hoorah for capitalism!

Legend weren’t any more forthcoming when the Register reported on the problems:

They gave us a standard “we apologise for the inconvenience”-type response which, after days of their customers losing business, is unlikely to smooth relations.

They added that the email issues were caused by high volumes of traffic. Now, we’re not systems engineers lads, but we thought your business was all about dealing with high volumes of traffic.

Indeed. Except that the email issues weren’t caused by high volumes of traffic, they were a symptom of it. The problems seem to be related to their DNS system getting hosed, which is pretty worrying.

Sadly this is the large bundle of straw that’s broken the camel’s back, and we’ve decided not to renew our contract with DSVR at the end of October. It’s a real shame, but with the unreliability of DSVR’s service reflecting badly on us to our clients, our loyalty has been stretched to its limit.

So we’ve now started migrating our clients to our new server, which means lots of extra work — moving databases and domains, changing secure certificates, getting new IP addresses, updating payment gateways etc.. We’ve been pretty snowed-under with work lately anyway, so the extra hassle of moving servers is something we need like a hole in the head (we haven’t had a weekend off for a few weeks now). Anyway, enough self-pity….

I was planning on switching from b2evolution to Wordpress soon anyway, so the move to the new server seems like as good a time as any to convert. I haven’t yet finished the new look for World of Badger, which does mean I might have to go with the default Wordpress look until I’m less exhausted. Do not be alarmed though, the drabness won’t be permanent.

After watching the spectacle of Royal De Luxe’s Sultan’s Elephant on Saturday, there was no way I was going to miss the final day. Thankfully the weather was really warm and sunny this time, so I left my brolly at home. Got to Piccadilly at about 2.30 to see the elephant, then made our way down to St. James’s Park where a large crowd had gathered around the little girl as she slept in her giant deck chair (apparently earlier in the day she’d nipped round a corner and squatted down on the road to have a pee!). The girl awoke a few minutes later, and was soon lifted to her feet to begin a walk around the park. Every now and again she’d pause to lean forward nearer to people, or to just look around.

After a bit of a stroll, the girl knelt down so that kids could take turns to swing back and forth on her arms. It’s amazing how a marionette can be made to seem so expressive, with a real look of tenderness to the girl’s face as she played with the kids.

We left the little girl still playing in the park and wandered up to Waterloo Place to have a look at the site of the spaceship landing. Unfortunately we couldn’t spot the stitched cars though, and it was getting a little too crowded to go looking (the little girl likes to sew, and had sewed a row of cars together, partly crushing them in the process, with the stitches going into the tarmac).

By now, judging by the noise and the thousands crammed into Waterloo Place, the elephant was nearby. We decided to stop to watch it on the corner where it would turn in to Pall Mall, figuring (correctly) that it would have to swing right over us to make the tight turn. The crowd roared as the elephant came into view (as did the elephant), and it slowly proceeded down Waterloo Place, spraying water as it went. The feeling when the elephant eventually passed by us was incredible; 42 tonnes of power and beauty, ears flapping, trunk constantly exploring, eyes looking around and blinking… Breathtaking. Sod the Olympics, can’t we have Royal Deluxe here every weekend?

Once the elephant had sauntered off down Pall Mall, we returned to St. James’s Park to find the little girl again. We arrived just as she was setting off up the Mall on her scooter, hands gripping the handlebars, the other leg ‘propelling’ her along the road. It was at this point that I started kicking myself for forgetting to charge up the camera batteries, as the camera decided to switch itself off. Bugger. Not sure how many photos I’d have got mind, as the little girl got up quite a speed, and we had to run to keep up with her.

The little girl met up with the Sultan’s Elephant on the Mall and dismounted her scooter, before leading the parade back down to Horse Guard’s Parade (I managed to wring one more photo out of the camera before it died again). I had a grin a mile wide! It was at this point that we found ourselves stood next to Rolf Harris, which added to the somewhat trippy feel to the day (his shoes were covered in multi-coloured paint splatters, which I rather liked).

Horse Guard’s Parade was so crowded that we could only just see the show (and again got a couple more pictures). The little girl donned a leather flying helmet and goggles and was lowered into the rocket. The top was then lowered onto the rocket as the girl sat waiting inside, and once it was in place, the elephant touched it with its trunk. I’m not too embarrassed to admit that I tears in my eyes at this point.

The rocket then ‘took off’ — big pyrotechnics and lots of smoke, then the top of the rocket was removed to reveal that the girl had vanished (I’m sure there’ll be lots of pics on Flickr). The end of a truly wonderful and unforgettable weekend. Thank you Royal de Luxe.

Was it art though? I think so; it was possibly the most spectacular man-made thing I’ve ever witnessed, and it moved me like nothing I’ve ever seen in an art gallery.

Jesus, that’s really big! was my thought when I arrived to see the Sultan’s Elephant at Trafalgar Square at lunchtime today. Then, Jesus, and it’s sat down too!.

Unfortunately I turned up too late to see the elephant waking the girl up with a shower, then the little girl going for a stroll and letting kids swing on her arms, but I did watch the parade make its way up Haymarket and along Piccadilly.

Words and pictures can’t really do justice to the spectacle, but I’ll list a few fitting adjectives: awesome, engaging, magical, fun, lovely, enchanting, moving, incredible, surreal, wonderful.

After taking a break to dry off, I caught up with them again at Horse Guard’s Parade, where the Elephant sprayed the crowd and the girl danced, before both settled down for the night.

I’m going back for the final day tomorrow, and if you’re in London, you’d be mad not to do the same — Royal de Luxe’s show is like nothing you’ve ever seen (well, without ’shrooms or acid anyway).

Updated to add: I’d have liked to have gone into much more detail about the Sultan’s Elephant, but by the time I’d sorted out the photos, it was already Silly O’Clock in the morning and I was utterly knackered. I also meant to mention that the day ended on a sad note, when I learned that someone I was at school with had just died of brain cancer. We weren’t really friends as such — I don’t think I’d seen him for about ten years, and I had no idea he was ill — but it came as sad and shocking news nevertheless.

My Weekend With Keira, Gwyneth and Kate

OK, before I go any further, an apology: at the festival we had the opportunity to kill Vernon Kay and we failed to act. I am truly sorry. With that confession out of the way, on to my time at Glastonbury (this will probably be quite an unnecessarily lengthy account, more for my benefit – it was such an amazing time that I want to get everything down before I start forgetting stuff).
(more…)

Hurrah! That deranged wanker’s gone!

There’s no point in me displaying false modesty; clearly it was World of Badger that forced David Blunkett to resign (or for the Sun readers, It Was Badger Wot Done It). Let’s examine the evidence:

• November 25th: I announce my intention to stop Blunkett with my David Blunkett Voodoo Doll.
• November 27th: allegations emerge that Blunkett used his position to fast-track Ms Quinn’s nanny’s visa application.
• November 28th: Tony Blair expresses his “full confidence” in Draconian Dave — pretty much the kiss of death really.
• December 13th: yet again Blunkett’s lies are revealed to be scaremongering bullshit; the peace protestors that were stopped at RAF Fairford under anti-terrorism laws turned out not to be armed with “cudgels and swords” as he had previously stated. They were in fact armed with kites.
• Today: David Blunkett resigns at 6pm. Voodoo 1, Mad Politician 0.

So now I’ve demonstrated the forces of black magic, the question is, who’s next? Which corrupt, right-wing government minister shall next feel the power of the World of Badger Doll of Voodoo? Simon phoned in the adverts during the Simpsons to congratulate me and to put in an early vote for Blair. But there are so many to choose from, and perhaps we should leave the best til last…? I’ve always thought Peter Hain was a smug little turd, and of course there’s old Jack ‘Boot’ Straw, or Geoff ‘Buff’ Hoon. Feel free to nominate your least favourite politician.

I would suggest Kilroy-Silk, but it seems someone’s already on the case…

Found these drawings a while ago. Apparently they were done by the actual Simpsons artists around the time of Pulp Fiction’s release. Hope no one objects to me putting them up - thought they were too funny not to be shared…

Got a bit bored yesterday, so knocked these together…

Smartline: Kent’s War on Saddam

Arse-Covering:
“The Simpsons”, created by Matt Groening, is the copyrighted and trademarked property of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and its related companies. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, duplication, or distribution in any form is expressly prohibited. This web site, its operators, and any content contained on this site relating to “The Simpsons” are not authorised by Fox. This page is a completely unofficial, unauthorised and certainly does not represent the views of the above mentioned people/corporations – especially as Rupert Murdoch is in favour of the war and has connections to the PNAC — and was created as a non-profit parody of the media during this awful time. And Kent Brockman doesn’t actually work for the BBC.

Since discovering the flash South Park studio, Rob, Si and I have been busy creating South Park versions of ourselves. Compare and contrast…
Click a picture to see full size in new window (Flash 6 required where indicated).

Me by me

Morning me by Troy

Night me by Troy

Troy by Troy

Troy by Rob

Rob by Rob

Rob & Emma by me

Rob by Troy

Emma by Troy

Pat by me

Jon & Lynda by me

Abo by me

Abo by Troy

“What democracy looks like.” — Tim Robbins

Yesterday millions of people around the globe protested against the war, in 603 cities as diverse as Moscow, Kiev, Amsterdam, Budapest, Lyon, Marseilles, Sofia, Brussels, Stuttgart, Toulouse, Thessaloniki, Warsaw, Bern, Paris, Mostar and Copenhagen. As the Independent put it, a groundswell of dissent encircles the globe. Some of the biggest demos included:

• 3 million people in Rome;
• 350,000 in Berlin;
• 1.3 million in Barcelona, 200,000 in Seville and 600,000 in Madrid;
• 3,000 Jews and Arabs in Tel Aviv;
• 1 million in Sydney;
• 60,000 in Oslo;
• 25,000 in Glasgow;
• 100,000 in New York;
• and my favourite, 600 people in Lerwick in the Shetland Islands!

I went on the anti-war demo in London, which turned out to be the largest political gathering in British history! My plans to meet up with friends went a bit pear-shaped at the last minute, so I ended up going on my own (given how cold it was, I was tempted to stay in in front of the fire and watch the footie and rugby, but I knew I’d just feel guilty if I did).

I hurried to the starting point (one of two) from London Bridge an hour-and-a-half after it was meant to start, fearing I might be too late. Yeah, right… I popped up onto the Embankment at Blackfriars and suddenly found myself in the midst of a mass of people. It was still some way from the official start point, but there were thousands of people queueing up to join the march. The queue extended back across Blackfriars Bridge, and all the way along the south bank to Waterloo Bridge, which had been closed by police. Have to say, I was really amazed.

I did take my cheapo digital camera with me, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to charge it up, and it conked out after a couple of pictures.

The march consisted of a complete cross-section of society: parents with kids in pushchairs, little old ladies, posh totty, beardy liberals, crusties, blacks, whites, asians, anarchists, trade unionists, muslims, christians, athiests, war veterans, scountry gents, students, middle-aged couples — every type of person you could imagine was represented. I found myself near a group of drummers, which helped take my mind off the biting cold as we slowly shuffled west along the Embankment.

Progress was slow because of the sheer volume of people, but it didn’t matter with it being such a carnival atmosphere (people dressed as clowns, jedi knnights, drunken soldiers in gas masks; musical instruments of all descriptions, amusing chants etc.). There were some great home-made banners and placards too — “Make tea not war”, “Middle England against war in the Middle East”, “Notts County Supporters Say Make Love Not War (And a Home Win against Bristol would be Nice)”, a drawing of someone’s crotch, complete with stuck-on pubic hair, below the words “The only bush I trust is mine”, and my favourite, inspired by the black and white Golf Sale signs of Oxford Street, was “Gulf Sale”.

It took nearly two hours to reach Parliament, and from there we marched up Whitehall, past Downing Street (shame Tony wasn’t there — think he’d have ended up swinging from a tree), to Trafalga Square. As we made our way towards Piccadilly Circus to meet up with the other section of the march (for people arriving from the North), things started getting a little squashed, so a lot of people tried to find shortcuts down side streets. I managed to grab one last photo.

By the time we were past the Ritz and heading past Green Park, I was found myself surrounded by Lib Dems, Sussex Student Union and “Dykes in Black”. I opted to temporarily align myself with the students. I eventually reached Hyde Park in time to hear the end of Jesse Jackson’s speech (having taken 3 hours to walk the 3 and a half mile route).

Shame I missed the other speakers — seems like they had some good stuff to say:

“[America is] a country run by a bunch of criminal lunatics with Tony Blair as a hired Christian thug.” — Harold Pinter

“What’s inspiring is it is a genuine, spontaneous movement of all politics, nations and religions meeting on a conviction that war is morally reprehensible without being told so and in the face of intense propaganda” — Tim Robbins

“I would rather be eating cheese and reading Sartre on the banks of the Seine any day than eat popcorn with a bible-bashing fundamentalist Republican from Texas.” — George Galloway MP

“Why listen to President Bush rather than the voices of British people. Why not listen to the voices of reason?” — Bianca Jagger

“We are here to tell Tony Blair openly that if one country needs a regime change it’s Britain.” — Tariq Ali

“Theirs is a position now that if a country has a lot of people killed from poverty and military dictatorship, if that number is smaller than that killed by war then the war is OK. That, to me, is totally illogical… We will lose this war. It will be the best recruiting campaign for terrorists that there could be. They will hate us even more.” — Mo Mowlam

The place was absolutely heaving with people, and I had no idea where the stage was, so decided to call it a day. I’d started off marching against war, and ended up marching for toilet. I was a little disappointed not to see any of the celebs that were meant to be on the march (Kate Moss, Tim Robbins, Alan Rickman, Chris Eubank to name but a few), but I guess they probably get to set off at the front in those little electric golf buggies.

What an absolutely staggering day it was though. The police say at least 750,000 people were on the march, and the organizers say 2 million attended Hyde Park; given that the police figures only count those on the official route — and I know loads of people took altrnative routes because of the overcrowding — and not those going directly to the park, I’d guess that the true figure was at least 1.5 million people. I don’t think for one moment it’ll make any difference to Blair, but at least everyone else can see the strength of feeling against his poodling-up attitude to Bush.

Returning home, I heard Blair’s response to the public’s opposition to war: “I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour, but sometimes it is the price of leadership and the cost of conviction.” Er, excuse me, but isn’t he meant to be the public’s representative, not our leader? He’s starting to think he’s Ming the fucking Merciless! That shit is heading for such a fall.

As Mary Riddell says in her article in today’s Observer, “Blair’s natural supporters and opponents have registered their opposition, and seen it spurned. As they get more strident, he digs harder. The hole in democracy grows more cavernous by the day.”

• Photos of the demo from Urban75
• More photos from IndyMedia UK
• Article in the Sunday Herald

Maybe his mum blew the money down the Bingo!!!
Wednesday turned out to be a more interesting day in court, with quite a few comedy moments (think stereotypical East-end types). Thankfully the we got through the rest of the interview transcript in about half an hour, then the jury was sent down to the canteen for about 30 minutes as the barristers discussed a point of law with the judge. After a little bit more evidence, we were sent away for a long lunch. Two of us met up with some other jurors who were waiting to be called for another trial, and the four of us wandered across the road to the pub (just the one Guinness — trying to be responsible). The defence began their case this afternoon, which proved to be very interesting, if not exactly conclusive either way. A few more comedy moments, one of which had the whole court laughing (including judge and both advocates). Anyway, we finished at about 4.15pm, with only the closing arguments and the judge’s summing up left for tomorrow. So it looks like we may be deliberating in the jury room by lunchtime.

Don’t Panic!
The “Dad’s Army case”, as we’ve started to call it, is getting slightly more interesting, with tales of drugs, mysterious characters called Victory, and witnesses using words like “scumbag”, “dirtbag” and “filth”. Unfortunately Tuesday afternoon was spent listening to the prosecuting advocate and a detective reading out the transcripts of several interviews with the defendant. Not the salient, juicy highlights, but the whole damn thing. And as neither of them is exactly Ken Brannagh or Robert De Niro, their monotone voices made it hard to concentrate. If there were any interesting points in there, we probably missed them. By the time the session finished, after about two hours of this, we still hadn’t reached the end.

Scumbags 1, Criminal Justice System 0
I was called for my first trial today. At 11am the Jury Manager called out 15 names, and we were led up to Court 12 on the 5th floor by an usher (there are two lifts exclusively for jurors’ use). Once inside the courtroom, we all sat down and waited as 12 names were called out at random. Those called (including me) then trotted over and sat down in the jury box. There were no challenges to the selected jurors, so we were sworn in.

Surprisingly I was one of only two people to take the affirmation, as opposed to the religious oath on the holy book of their choice (I decided against asking to take the oath holding The Simpsons—A Complete Guide To Our Favorite Family). I suspect that most people went with the default oath for sake of ease and embarrassment. The final guy to read the oath had some trouble — I was sat next to him and couldn’t understand a word — and after the judge asked him to repeat it, he was dismissed because of his dubious English. This meant that one of the spare jurors had to take his place. Then the trial began.

The defendant was charged with Wounding with Intent to do Grievous Bodily Harm (which I later discovered carried a maximum of life imprisonment). We had a pencil and pad of paper each, but it was hardly necessary to take notes, as only three people gave evidence — the victim, the defendant and the interviewing detective. At this point I have to be careful what I write, as I could find myself sent down for contempt of court if I give any details of my or my fellow jurors’ thoughts.

What I will say is that the prosecution was awful, totally amateurish and unprepared. It’s no wonder the police reputedly say that CPS doesn’t stand for Crown Prosecution Service, but actually Couldn’t Prosecute Satan.

We were in court for about an hour and a half; after the closing speeches and judge’s summing up, the 12 of us were led out to be locked in the jury room to consider our verdict. Sat around a large table (think 12 Angry Men), we introduced ourselves and said our bit (mostly along the lines of “Ooh, it’s just like it is on telly!”). At one point we had a question about the prosecution’s evidence, so we buzzed for the usher, who took a note to the judge. After a few minutes we were called back into the courtroom, where we were basically told that no, we couldn’t find out what we wanted to know. Back to the jury room. Sandwiches were ordered (no, not free), fags were smoked. Another question for the bloke in the funny wig, so back to court we went. Then back to the jury room again.

We eventually reached a unanimous verdict after about three hours deliberation. Our foreman was volunteered (as it was so hot, he was wearing t-shirt and shorts!), and we went back into the courtroom for the final time. Not guilty.

The jury was thanked and told to go home, so the 12 of us left via the jury waiting room. We left the building at exactly the same time as the cleared defendant, who thanked us. A bit weird (you’d think they’d stagger it, or at least send them out by a different exit). A few of us walked back to the station, muttering about the prosecution, then went our separate ways. Hmm, an interesting yet rather depressing experience.