It’s a double shame that Alexander Litvinenko went and died, because it takes some of the shine off the best news story of the year. And it gets better: a bit bored at work today, I tried to find out more about this mysterious Italian Mario Scaramella, who met Litvinenko in that sushi restaurant on the day he was poisoned. And what should I find but a blog-of-sorts run by everybody’s favourite maverick Italian lawyer, Giovanni di Stefano, who has this to say about Mario:

Where does one start? Lets start with Mario Scaramella the so called security expert and Italian Parliamentary Advisor. That part is at least correct. He has advised the Italian Parliamentary Commission investigating links with Russia. Did they need an advisor? We have had a red communist government since 1948 so did we need to establish if ‘there had been links with Russia?’ Its like asking if a bear poohs in the woods? Still, Mario Scaramella was appointed.
Lets look a little into background. Mario came to light in the Italian Public Domain on July 10th 1995 when he was a newsagent in Via Trieste, Trieste and he sold a winning lottery ticket which was a rejoice for many. He got a reward from the happy victor and with that he moved up in circles. What did he do? He bought an on-line degree from the United States and instantly became a ‘professor’ although in Italy titles frankly are two a penny [Ed: you’re not wrong, Gio]. He became an enviromentalist and formed the Enviromental Drime Prevention Programme and attracted much attention from politicians who had made the environment their winning ticket. He applied and obtained a temporary post at the University Federico II and became director of the centre for political studies-whatever that means. Now here is an interesting tale. On 13 March 2004 he says that whilst he was in a part of Naples near the vulcano (at 07.00am) he was shot at by a gentleman that allegedly heads a Naples Crime Family. Not only that he was shot at by others too and somewhere in his story Italian Prison Officers (Polizia Penitenziare)were present with him having met six of them in a bar purchance and there was lots of gunfire. YET, despite these hardened gangsters shooting not a single bullit hit him? Do you ‘Adam and Eve’ that (believe)? I know one thing for sure in Italy if anyone from the Naples camora shoots at you generally you die. If a load of members of a crime family shoot at you then you definately die. YET, Mario came out of it like James Bonf totally unscathed! The man accused will one day face a trial after a two year investigation. That my dear friends is the history of the ‘prof’ who was allegedly the last man to see the Russian KGB or ex KGB or maybe actually not ex but maybe still KGB except that they are now SVR agents before he became ill. Everyone said ‘Thalium’ but it now turns out its not that poisen and its not radiation. So what has come out of all of this? A whole heap of security and intelligence officers making calls to each other from all over the world and GCHQ has intercepted them ALL and their identities are now ALL known. Well done MI5 I always had a soft spot for Ms Manningham Buller the daughter of ‘The Bull’ who was Attorney General who prosecuted Dr Bodkin Adams and lost. His daughter is a winner.

Make sure you keep checking back on Giovanni’s blog for all the latest on his pals Saddam Hussein, ‘Charles Bronson’, Patrick ‘Dutchy’ Holland, and of course his bid to buy Elstree Studios.

Here’s a snappy headline:

We are part of a super advanced Type IV extraterrestrial civilization- projection of Zero Point Energy Module encapsulated as life on 3-D vector space with increasing span

India Daily’s ‘Technology Team’ has the rest of the story.

A charming, uplifting story from the people at New Scientist. A little in the vein of this.

It reminds me of Orson Welles looking over an old cathedral in this film. Orson was great at real, affecting bathos in counterpoint to gratuitous shots of him and his friends having some tasty nosh at a fancy eatshop. Good old Orson, unlike many film people, you get the feeling you might actually have liked him if you met him.

On a recent trip to Warsaw, I looked around a fancy 24 hour news station, which was all very technical and dull stuff. Much more interesting was the strange city that surrounds it. In parts, it is like a chocolate-box cross between Paris and Amsterdam, with large squares leading off to ornately decorated old streets. Apparently, Poland has quite the history of kings and queens ready to drop Zlotys on a grand architectural projects, not to mention Party leaders.

Naturally, the Nazis came in and destroyed a fair chunk of it all. Now Warsaw is a patchy town, with grand communist mega-streets, perfect for vast parades of military might, running into enormous buildings (like one of the concert halls which must be made from half the world’s supply of concrete) with heavy sculptures glorifying the factory, or field, or nuclear worker. Take a turn off these highways of efficient 60s urban design and you end up in a classic european city of winding streets, and ornate plasterwork.

The collision of styles in such proximity makes the city oddly cheerful, despite the later communist concrete work (all on a huge scale), a kind of accidental Disneyland. All it lacks is a miniature train to take people from “Old Land” to “WW2 Land” to “Party Headquarters Land”. Every Disneyland has a magic castle, and Warsaw has the Palace of Arts and Sciences, a giant building that looks like someone forced the Louvre and the Empire State Building together. Apparently, Stalin sent architects to New York to learn about American construction methods, and they ended up copying the Empire State. It is a striking building, but the Poles weren’t too fond of the great “present to the Polish people” (for being great communists), so some proposed blowing it up when the iron curtain fell.

And, with Poland’s accession to the EU a few years ago, the raging beast of market economics has added to the city. Dropping Novotels and Marriots from the sky like UFOs. Luckily, I was able to arrange my own accomodations, and got the work account to pay for the Polonia palace hotel. Nice rooms, and a brilliant gilded dining room, serving a remarkable buffet breakfast. Were it the ’50s I would have been Party member first class, drinking a breakfast vodka and gobbling the pickled herring while vigorously slapping others on the back and laughing uproariously (all the while spying on everyone else).

This is about as good as Polish food gets. Dinner at a traditional Polish restaurant recommended by the city guide ranked in the top three worst meals I have ever had (number one was probably at the Bayer chemical factory in Germany, I can still taste the acetone). The starter was soup and pastry. The waitress asked if I preferred meat or vegetable pastry, I asked which was better, and soon after received a steaming hot bowl of sour beetroot broth and two “meat” pastries, none of which was edible. I tried to eat out of politeness to the chef, but the “meat” had an indescribable taste. I couldn’t identify the animal it came from, so I’m going to say it tasted like a bus. Whatever it tasted like it was probably boiled until all the nutrients were sapped from it, and it had the texture of papier mache. Eating it brought a mixture of tears, laughter and the erratic, uncontrollable tremors of total disgust.

“Meat” returned for the main course, as a Pirogi (a kind of dumpling) filling, this time fried. Jammed into them was a selection of other fillings, the best of which was the pickled cabbage. Thankfully, it was marginally better than the beetroot opener, having been steeped in litres of lovely oil.

I didn’t get much time to do other things, apart from walk around, go to the national gallery (who knew that there were good Polish painters), and briefly visit the Russian market. I arrived too late, because I was delayed by a colleague, and I expect it would have been better had all the stalls been open. It’s like any open air market, with tarpaulin covered stalls hawking tat, except it is built on a delapidated football stadium, a relic of the cold war. I came across a 1940s Leica, that I would have bought, had it not had the Nazi insignia all over it. I’m sure it’s worth something, as most old Leicas are, but it didn’t seems right. There were also a fine array of normal household items like pirate DVDs, pots, pans, sniper scopes, Hitler Youth daggers, and christmas decorations.

I should have bought a communist badge though.

Randy Newman on the Colbert Report:

Oh and while I’m at it, here’s the video for “I Love L.A.”.

And Randy singin’ what he sees on Family Guy:

So, Robert Altman’s dead, then. For someone famous for not being able to get arrested in Hollywood for years, he sure made a lot of films. I haven’t seen that many, but I would like to recommend The Long Goodbye (trailer below) - oh, and Tanner ‘88 looks cool, so I went and picked up a cheap DVD copy of it off Amazon, hurray.

The great thing about prayers is that you can just make them up yourself.

Dear Lord
Thank you for your bounty on this day.
Thank you for the USA.
Thank you for letting me live here - the greatest country on God’s (Your!) Earth.

Dear Lord
Please kill Morgan Spurlock.
Please kill his vegan wife too.
She is a shrill woman who needs to eat some decent American beef.
And the sight of his mustache just makes me mad.

Dear Lord
Please take these liberals from our screen.
Please kill John Stewart.
And that Limey guy with glasses who’s sometime on the Daily Show, John Oliver.
Kill him most of all.
I don’t like his face and I don’t like his attitude.

And Lord, please kill those who would kill pre-borns.
Kill them so that then they know what it’s like.

Thank you for your justice LORD.

Amen.

Not to trample on anyone’s dreams, but I hope God doesn’t kill John Oliver “most of all”. I like him. The others can take their chances.

The humble prayer-writer is almost as informed about British politics as she is about the nature and meaning of God and the mystery that is his neverending love.

Our leading Ally in the fight against terror is the President of England, Mr Tony Blair. He is the leader of England’s Conservative party, a Christian and a true friend of our President and every American.

Tony Blair has stood by George W. Bush. Tony Blair is the only European leader who is not pro-terrorist. Tony knows that it takes more moral courage to support the war on terror. He will never cut & run. English voters respect him because he has a unique relationship with G. W. Bush, the greatest President ever.

The great thing about Tony is that he gets it: While some other European leaders are stuck in a pre 9/11 mentality, Tony is seeking to replicate the best of American policy in his own small country. Tony wants English citizens to have every safeguard that we Americans enjoy, for example Britian will be the first nation in Europe to implement a biometric ID card system. With security measures like this, 9/11 could never happen again.

Amen!

Simple, but powerful: if you sign up to support this Australian climate change campaign, they put a little dot representing you on a map of the country. Doesn’t sound like much, but I think it’s a really effective visualisation, because:

• It lets you make your mark in a visible way - they don’t just add you to their mailing list
• There’s something exciting about those little dots taking over your country: good excitement when it’s people signing up to fight climate change; bad excitement when it’s the news showing you the spread of deadly bird flu through the human population. It’s intrinsically motivating.
• Social proof: It’s good see how many (or how little) other people share your views, and feel appropriately comforted (or depressed) by that.
• It encourages an element of competition between states and locales - signing up more supporters could be another way to put one over those lousy New South Walesians

I reckon Oxfam should do something like this with their “I’m in” campaign. Actually, I reckon they should drop it because it’s a terrible slogan and a wanky idea, but failing that, nifty visuals might help make it marginally less offensive.

Cycling through a very wet London this morning, I couldn’t stop humming this song:

I Love L.A. - Randy Newman

Hate New York City
It’s cold and it’s damp
And all the people dressed like monkeys
Let’s leave Chicago to the eskimos
That town’s a little too rugged
For you and me, you bad girl

Rollin’ down the imperial highway
With a big nasty redhead at my side
Santa ana wind blowin’ hot from the north
And we was born to ride

Roll down the window, put down the top
Crank up the beach boys, baby
Don’t let the music stop
We’re gonna ride it till we just can’t ride it no more

From the South Bay to the Valley
From the west side to the east side
Everybody’s very happy
’Cause the sun is shining all the time
Looks like another perfect day

I love L.A. (We love it!)
I love L.A. (We love it!)

Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, man
He’s down on his knees
Look at these women
Ain’t nothin’ like em nowhere

Century Boulevard (We love it!)
Victory Boulevard (We love it)
Santa Monica Boulevard (We love it!)
Sixth Street! (We love it, We love it!)

I love L.A!

I like the song even more now I know that the Los Angeles Olympics adopted it as a kind of anthem in 1984. Yes, come for the Games, stay for the homelessness.

So a bunch of people want to sue Borat for making them look stupid. I feel a bit more sorry for the Romanian villagers than those frat-boys but I don’t fancy any of their chances, because the disclaimer form they all had to sign (assuming the clauses in Romania were similar, or as similar as they needed to be given the legal system there) is a doozy. I suppose it’s unlikely any of them read all the way down to the end of paragraph 4, but if they did wasn’t there even a twinge of discomfort at signing away the right to redress in case of

(d) intrustion (such as any allegedly offensive behaviour or questioning or any invasion of privacy, (e) false light (such as any allegedly false or misleading portrayal of the Participant, (f) infliction of emotional distress (whether allegedly intentional or negligent), (g) tresspass (to property or person) … (k) defamation … allegedly false or misleading statements or suggestions about the Participant in relation to the Film or the Film in relation to the Participant), (m) prima facie tort (such as alleged intentional harm to the Participant), (n) fraud (such as any alleged deception or surprise about the Film or this consent agreement )…

I’m especially fond of that last clause. I’ve got a question for the legal experts out there, though - does this kind of disclaimer really stand up in court? Or is it meant more to deter legal battles than to win them?

Another reason to love YouTube: whole episodes of Samurai Jack! I’ve just watched number 48, Jack vs Aku, in three parts here, here and here. It’s great stuff, mostly because it features a lot of Aku, who as a Shape-Shifting Master of Darkness naturally has all the best lines.

Aku was brilliantly voiced by the great Mako Iwamatsu, who sadly died this July, though not - you’ll be relieved to hear - before recording the dialogue for his role as Splinter in the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. Yes.

Today is Suppress the Vote Day in America, when, as Brad Plumer reminds us, “political parties the country over—Republicans in particular—spend millions trying to keep people, especially minorities, from making their way to the voting booths and electing their representatives”. Here’s a nice example from 2004:

[In] Franklin County, Ohio, fliers purporting to be from the county Board of Elections announced that because of high voter registration, Republicans would be voting on Election Day, and Democrats would cast their ballots the next day; they ended with the inspired line, “Thank you for your cooperation, and remember voting is a privilege.”

This guy’s name was Simon, only it wasn’t, that was just the anglicised name he got given given when he went to school, as generally happens with Maasai kids. He’s not really firing his arrow at anything, just showing off to a bunch of appreciative tourists. He is a traditionally dressed Maasai warrior who doesn’t fight or herd cows but spends his time either leading tourists around a nature park or serving them, in an eerily super-refined fashion, decidedly non-local food in the luxurious camp-site where they stay. He is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge about the local flora and fauna, most of which he learned from an actual encyclopedia during the “how to be a Maasai guide” course he did.

Still, I like the picture, he was a nice guy, and authenticity’s over-rated, especially when it comes to cultures as notably oppressive as the Maasai’s. “How long does it take to build one of these houses”, we asked a Maasai bloke leaning proudly on his squat, dark mud-hut in the village we visited. “Well, that depends on how fast your wife works”, he said.

This and other unrepresentative images of my recent trip to Kenya and Zanzibar are here.

Ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and several of his henchmen have been sentenced to hang for the revenge killing of 148 Iraqis in 1982, which they committed after an assassination attempt on the dictator’s life.

This sends a strong message to Iraqis, currenly locked in a bloody cycle of revenge killings, that revenge killings are no longer acceptable and will be avenged with more revenge killings.

Meanwhile (my favourite phrase right now), this documentary on Channel 4 on Tuesday night called The Death Squads claims that a minister in the current, er, democratic Iraqi government is behind the recruitment into the police the death squads which are going around beheading hundreds of people every week as well as torturing people to death with electric drills.

Horray!

My second favourite phrase right now: “Celebratory gunfire”.

Galway Fianna Fáil general election candidate and councillor Michael Crowe isn’t a bit impressed with the gintlemin who stripped off in front of 30,000 spectators at the international rules GAA/Aussie football match in Pearse Stadium last Saturday.
In fact he goes as far as to say that

Some people may think it’s just a bit of fun, but it really isn’t a laughing matter when it’s considered that young children were watching the match

Those involved should be treated harshly when brought before the courts, he says, and it could damage tourism and young, impressionable minds

It was also being televised in Australia, and it goes without saying that all the streaking and partial streaking incidents will not have created a great impression of Ireland abroad

But this raises the question: what is “partial streaking”? Does one boob count? If a fella takes down his keks but is hairier than the average gentleman - making his laughing matter less visible from the stands - will he get off with the Probation Act rather than a stiffer penalty?
And doesn’t Galway Fianna Fail general election candidate and councillor Michael Crowe know that taking out one’s mickey in public is an essential part of the day of every Australian male?
Meanwhile, Michael has nothing to say about this.

This Aussie international rules player, Brendan Fevola, was sent home for getting a Galway barman who was slagging him in a headlock on a night out on the rip.
On his return to Aussieland, Bren said he did it because

Everywhere we’ve gone, the people have been giving us shit, and when a few of the boys were at the casino playing poker, they were sledging the Aboriginal boys … everywhere we’ve gone they’ve just hammered us. With everything.

“Everything”? So the streaking must have gotten to him. That’s what Galway Fianna Fail general election candidate and councillor Michael Crowe was worried about, the sensitive Australian players.
But seriously, ladies, a player of a hybrid of two of the most violent and bad-humoured sports in the world (Gaelic football and Aussie rules) gets in a fight in a pub - not necessarily because of or excused by the racist taunts his team-mates have been getting in the land of a million-billion welcomes - and Galway Fianna Fail general election candidate and councillor Michael Crowe is worried about rampant nakidity on the pitch.
Hey Michael! Kiss this!

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This is part of a press release put out by the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, in October last year.

Greens Must Come Clean on their Proposals to Tax Fuel
Dick has called on the Green party to stop prevaricating and started telling the truth about their proposals to put additional tax on petrol, diesel & home heating oil through their proposed carbon taxes.
On a number of occasions over the last week Green party spokespersons have tried to dodge the issue when asked directly precisely how much their carbon tax proposals would cost consumers … Fine Gael & the Labour Party should also make it clear whether they endorsed the madcap Green Party policies. The people have the right to know! Minister Roche said.

But yesterday this appeared on breakingnews.ie.

Minister for the Environment Dick Roche has said he would be in favour of changing the car tax system to one based on emissions rather than engine size.
Yesterday, a major British government report warned consumers would have to accept new green taxes on travel if climate change was to be tackled in the coming decades.
Asked about the matter in Dublin this morning, Mr Roche said he accepted that changes were needed.
“If we actually change the taxation system so that you’re taxing vehicles on the basis of the emissions rather than necessarily on the basis of the cubic capacity of the engine, you can encourage and incentivise people to use, for example, bio-diesel, to use renewable energy sources and to use lower carbon producing sources,” he said.

Dick wouldn’t be advocating some kind of crazy “tax” on “carbon emissions”, or, as some crazy people have called it, a “carbon tax”, would he?

What a madcap policy!

Apart from that, there’s some real gold on the Wicklow Fianna Fail TD’s website including press releases entitled “Fergus O’Dowd discovers he’s FG spokesman on the Environment” and “Dick Hails Groundbreaking Shannon Callows Agreement”.

This surely isn’t the worst thing to happen to a cat at Hallowe’en, but it’s pretty unusual.
On Saturday Mark, Fionnuala, Eithne and I were looking for something to do after an enjoyable lunch in the Country Bake.
Says I: “I’ve a cat at home which we can play with, I’ll buy a brack and we’ll have some tea.”
So off we toddled and were sitting in the living room drinking tea and eating barm brack when I bite into the ring, which I leave on the table, still wrapped in greaseproop paper, and still covered in a bit of brack.

It turns out that my cat, Jinx, has a taste for brack, and swipes it off the table.

“Oh look, she’s got the ring,” we said, noticing that she had the ring and was chewing it.
“Ah no, she’ll never eat it…” we all thought, as the cat, just out of reach under the table experimented with different methods for getting the wrapped-up, bracky ring into her mouth.
“Ah no, she’ll never… oh she just has. Oh shit.”
A quick phone call to the vet, who says: “That’s very serious, she’ll need surgery” and most importantly “Do you have insurance?” to which the answer was “No” and a silent ”Oh crap.”

There followed a mad dash over to Phibsboro where Charles the dashing young vet operated on her.
So now 400 euro later the cat is Jacobean Flea Collar Cat, with a flea collar to stop her going at the stitches which are keeping her belly together until she heals.
She’s on extensive courses of antibiotics, medicine to stop the antibiotics from making her sick and every time I give her her painkillers she ends up staring into the distance for the next two hours.
I reckon it’s probably like having a furry baby.

Visited our usual vet, Paddy Treanor in Dun Laoghaire, today and the stitches are healing nice and good. You should have seen the look on his face when I showed him what the cat had eaten.

Charles said it best when he said: “Keep her away from the brack.”