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April, 2005

  1. And now we join…

    April 9, 2005 by dafyd

    BBC Radio 4I can exclusively reveal on this blog that BBC Radio 4 has invented a time machine.

    Yes, that’s right – if you are listening at the right time, you magically get transported back an hour…

    Listen to the Midnight News at, surprise surprise, midnight. Then the Book of the Week. Then Sailing By and try not to go to sleep during the Shipping Forecast. Then the National Anthem. “And now we join our colleagues at the World Service”…

    …with the Midnight News again!

    How strange. Yes, I know – the World Service works on GMT while Radio 4 works on BST… but all the same, I was a little shocked when I was just dozing off last night to find that I had a chance to relive the last hour!

    Thank you Radio 4.

    Oh – I’ve not tried waking up at 5.30 (or 4.30) to see if I lose an hour when Radio 4 starts back up again. I must do, I guess.

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  2. Bizarre Chocolate

    April 7, 2005 by dafyd

    Peanut Butter Smarties BarIt turns out that in Japan there is a limited edition Green Tea-flavoured Kit Kat. And in Australia they have a Mars Lava Bar (a Mars Bar with orange filling). And Canada has an After Eight Bar. How strange. I’d love to try the USA’s Triple Chocolate Kit Kat (incidentally, the “customer from Nottingham” on that product page isn’t me … in case there was any confusion!). Not too sure about the Peanut Butter Smarties Bar, though.

    I’ve been posting quite a bit on my linkdump recently, but I still haven’t found a suitable way of incorporating it into this page…

    Anyway, there’s some interesting stuff there, such as Alistair Campbell’s blog (possibly) and a Pi Pie.

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  3. Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)

    April 5, 2005 by dafyd

    I know other people have written about this before me, many in a far more elegent way than I will. Bob, for example, has approached it from his own (unique) standpoint… But I wanted to write something about it anyway.

    I’m not in any way a Catholic. That doesn’t matter, though. I still had a great deal of respect for the Pope and his accomplishments. He lived a long, full life. He was a voice for human rights and human dignity, and he was one of those who helped bring an end to Soviet communist domination in eastern Europe. I didn’t agree with all of his policies, but I know that he was a good man.

    As George Bush said in a statement on Saturday, the Pope “left the throne of St. Peter in the same way he ascended to it — as a witness to the dignity of human life”.

    In his native Poland, that witness launched a democratic revolution that swept Eastern Europe and changed the course of history. Throughout the West, John Paul’s witness reminded us of our obligation to build a culture of life in which the strong protect the weak. And during the Pope’s final years, his witness was made even more powerful by his daily courage in the face of illness and great suffering.

    Pope John Paul II was, himself, an inspiration to millions of Americans, and to so many more throughout the world. We will always remember the humble, wise and fearless priest who became one of history’s great moral leaders. We’re grateful to God for sending such a man, a son of Poland, who became the Bishop of Rome, and a hero for the ages.

    Pope John Paul II with a dove

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  4. April Fools

    April 5, 2005 by dafyd

    OK, so I was away on April 1st, but I’ve been catching up… so I thought I’d do a quick round-up of my favourite online (or, in some cases, not) pranks from Friday:

    1. Most definitely in first place, Google launched their own soft drink brand: GoogleGulp. It’s a “limited release beta product“, “available to anyone who turns in a used Google Gulp bottle cap at any local retailer. If you don’t have any Gulp caps, ask a friend to give you one.” An obvious spoof of how they spread GMail… And will it ever come out of beta (a lot of Google software seems to stay in beta for a long time – or forever)? “Man, if you pressure us, you just drive us away. We’ll commit when we’re ready, okay? Besides, what’s so great about taking things out of beta? It ruins all the romance, the challenge, the possibilities, the right to explore.“

    2. Radio 4′s Today programme ran an “awesome story”* about Tom Parker-Bowles becoming second-in-line to the throne as a result of an obscure 19th Century law governing succession in the Royal family.

    3. BMW (as every year) took out a full-page advert in the Times about how they have found a way to combat an EU regulation where right-hand drive cars cannot be driven in left-hand-drive countries from 2007 – by removing the steering wheel from the car.

    4. GMTV ran a story about a farmer who has discovered how to “make his cows produce fruit-flavoured milk – no additives, no sugar – straight from the cow.”

    5. “Emperor penguins looked up in awe on Friday as Tokyo’s main zoo unveiled its latest addition – a giant penguin said to be suspiciously close in height and weight to a human. The press release – which stressed the newly discovered animal would be unveiled on April 1 – said the giant penguin’s favourite food was ‘white fish meat with soy sauce.’“

    6. The Register ran a story about Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, becoming the CEO of Ikea… “For Jobs, who has no furniture at all in his Palo Alto house, it’s an opportunity to reinvent an industry once again.“

    And finally, the BBC has a list of 10 stories that could have been April Fools but weren’t…

    *Not my words…

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  5. Stuff to do

    April 4, 2005 by dafyd

    So, back from France…

    I’ve been writing blog entries all day (on and off), but nothing is actually ready to post at the moment. Weird. Anyway, it’s all coming soon – expect a huge rush of posts in the next couple of days… I have a list of things to talk about blu-tacked to the side of my monitor!

    In the meantime, I’ve stumbled across ChezJones.net. Scarily similar site name to mine, that’s all.

    And Bill Bryson (Notes From a Small Island etc) is the new chancellor of the University of Durham. But for more about that I’ll point you to David and Durham21.

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