email disclaimer

You know the thing, the lines at the bottom of a big company email...

This email may contain legally privileged and/or confidential information. It is solely for and is confidential for use by the addressee, unauthorised recipients, confidentiality, blah, received it in error, notify, rubarb rubarb, unless expressly stated, contractually binding, whatever, liability, blah, intended recipient, sanctioned, viruses transmitted, blah, blah...

Sorry. Nodded off there for a mo...

So it was a bit of a breath of fresh air to get this today - am sure the lawyers would have a field day with it, but hey.

We have an email policy* which we would like you to take note of. It’s not the most exciting of reads but it is important. Deep breath - here goes…

We love emails; they are quick and environmentally friendly and if we ever print an email we promise to use recycled paper and then dispose of it responsibly. Please try and do the same.
This email and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If this email has come to you in error – do not panic! Take no action based on the email, nor copy or show to anyone, simply reply to this message highlighting the error. We would be awfully grateful if you could do this.

Although great time and care has gone into creating this email from [company], please be aware that Internet email is not a 100% secure communications medium. Bear this in mind…you can always give us a call or pop in for a coffee instead.

Although we have tried our very best to make sure that this email and its attachments are virus free, we do advise that the recipient (i.e. you) ensure that this is the case. Be careful!

Oh and enjoy your day. Well done for reaching the bottom - call us for a certificate.

*not really an email policy but an important message all the same.

busy bee

I have been particularly so these last few weeks (work, life, stuff, more work). But I'm back now. Well a bit more than the last month or so anyway.

Blogging - it's the thing that fills a gap when the rest of life's stuff calms down a bit.

100 days

100 days.

We wait for news (which you used to bring us).
We sign petitions, we lobby, we hold vigils, we blog.
We wait in hope.





technorati tag: alan johnston

webby five word acceptance speech...

Neat! Here's some I like...

News
BBC News - Webby: Alan, we're thinking of you.

Newspaper
The Guardian - Webby: Please free Alan Johnston now.

Science
HubbleSite - People's Voice: houston we have a winner

Artist of the Year
Beastie Boys: Can anyone fix my computer?

Lifetime Achievement
Meg Whitman: Bidding starts at 99 cents.

Lifetime Achievement
David Bowie: I only get five words? Sh*t, that was five. Four more there. That's three. Two.

Person of the Year
Chad Harley & Steve Chen: YouTubers, this is for you.

Social Networking
Facebook - People's Voice: im just here for bowie

Fashion
ZOOZOOM 'The Original Online Glossy' - Webby: not just a pretty face

Lifestyles
DIYNetwork.com - Webby: Now let's get hammered.

Religion and Spirituality
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly - Webby: to all our colleagues, thanks

Religion and Spirituality
What Is Enlightenment? - Webby: get enlightened, or die trying

Youth
Nick.com - Webby: have sex, make more kids


technorati tag: webby awards

editors

OK, OK, I’ll admit it. We really wanted to go to Saturday’s The Best Disco in Town Live 2007… But somehow M and I found ourselves standing in the spring sunshine of a Warrington Tuesday evening waiting to see these blokes called Editors instead - and no, Sec C, it’s nothing to do with books! ;-)

Last night, two years on from The Back Room, those nearly-Brum boys made their comeback appearance at the Parr Hall in Warrington. Yes you read that right – one of the UK’s bands of the decade playing in a municipal hall in a small northern town sandwiched between the urban corridor of Liverpool and Manchester. You may well ask why…

Tom Smith was on fire – the comparisons with Ian Curtis are fair, but he’s much much more as well. It’s like he’s got an electric pulse running through his veins, making him convulse and twitch. His guitar’s more like a piece of armour AND a weapon, than an instrument. Chris Urbanowicz wouldn’t be out of place playing guitar with Franz Ferdinand or Placebo, and Russell Leetch as part of Robbie’s backing band (sorry – it was the jeans and suit jacket). And Ed Lay just sits out there at the back, getting on with the real business of bashing your heart into the rhythm of his drumming…



But as ever when you're trying to convey something no-one else experienced, all of that completely undersells them. This unstyled, rag bag of slightly geeky musicians played above, beyond, out of themselves, giving us way more than everything they had, whilst still checking we were ok, they weren’t losing us, it was going ok?…

My gig of the year by far – subtle, electric, buoyant, and yes (that awful muso journo short-hand) anthemic. The new stuff from the upcoming album An End Has A Start sounds just as good as The Back Room – maybe even better, but it was hard to tell on one listen… Time will of course tell.

And thankfully all this – a neat hour and twenty of short, sharp rocks - without the swagger of the Kaiser Chief’s pitiful attempt at a second album (everything is average nowadays – you bet).

technorati tag: editors

happy 45th birthday, alan johnston...

To Our Own Correspondent, Alan: "For more than 50 years on this programme, the news has been broadcast from our own correspondents. Today - with apologies to you - I want to send a message to one of our own. Day 66 of Alan Johnston's captivity is also his 45th birthday. Most likely there will be no candles or cake. But my hope is that somewhere, somehow, Alan will be able to listen. His family, his friends, his colleagues all miss him. We want him home. Our birthday wish is his immediate release. Happy birthday Alan."

(Jon Williams, World Editor, BBC News, Jerusalem)


technorati tag: alan johnston

birthday wishes for Alan Johnston...

Another way to show that you haven't forgotten Alan Johnston's abduction - 64 days today since he vanished - the Media Guardian site reports:

The BBC's kidnapped Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston turns 45 on Thursday and the corporation has issued an address for people who want to send birthday cards as a show of support. Johnston has not been seen since he was seized at gunpoint in Gaza City on March 12.
Last week, he was named broadcasting journalist of the year at the annual London Press Club awards, where the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, paid tribute to Johnston and the courage of his family. Readers who wish to send cards should post them to the World Affairs Unit, Room 410SE, BBC Bush House, Strand, London, WC2B 4PH.


technorati tag: alan johnston

in the middle of the room...

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to present...
a man whose musical and comedic talents stretch to clowning about whilst singing about funerals
the smaller-in-real-life-but-still-somehow-larger-than-life
vaudeville-esque
tragi-comic musician
and Huckleberry-Finn-The-Musical-wannabe (better they never make a reality find-a-star show about that!)
...Duke Special!



At the end of last night’s rapturously received Manchester Academy gig, for the last encore, he and the band leapt off stage, walked through the crowd, busked an improv number about being in the middle of the room, someone playing the spoons, etc. And then ended with a fantastic necessarily-unplugged version of John Lennon Love. And all about two feet from where we were standing!! I always say that M picks the best spot to stand at a gig… ;-)



Catch him now while you can still see him in some intimate venues – or at Greenbelt. Do it – or have another boring bank holiday weekend.


technorati tag: duke special

breathe deep

As seen this morning on Oxford Road...






technorati tag: oxford road

the day before yesterday...

film sense-orship

Too young to see the film you star in because of the BBFC rating? Then make sure you get it shown in Bristol (a la Shane Meadow's This is England).

At last, an authority showing some sense over film censorship - and adjusting the certification to a 15. If only this had happened for Sweet Sixteen as well. Sadly, it's too late now.


technorati tag: BBFC, this is england

The Wiki-master interview

A fascinating glimpse into Jimmy Wales' take on everything net-ty.

> So what prevents renegade users editing each other into oblivion, and Wikipedia from becoming the world’s most unreliable resource?

> “It’s really about having a good community, having certain values within that community, and making sure the community has the tools they need to monitor the quality and maintain it over time,” says Wales. “Those are the real keys to what makes it work.”


technorati tag: wikipedia, jimmy wales