June 2003 Archives

It seems even crazy landlords have fathers. My crazy landlord has his in Portugal. His name is Johnny and he's a charming Scottish builder and one of the few supposedly English-speaking people I've met whom I can't understand.

I mean his accent, of course. His actions and motives are perfectly lucid to me. He recently moved to Portugal because it's warmer and cheaper and more relaxed. Very sensible, I think. He bought a boat to lounge around the high seas with. Also sensible. His wives and girlfriends have all been about ten years younger than himself. Well, I'm not sure if that's entirely sensible, but I can understand the motive at least.

I suspect the man does have some secrets though. For one thing, I only have the vaguest idea what he's talking about any time we have a conversation.

He came by the house to visit about a month ago. Despite the language barrier, I discovered that he and a friend had grand plans to buy a chip van to make some extra money during the tourist season. This also seems a plan that makes some sense.

However, we've just heard the news that somehow the chip van has turned into a bar and that Jools Holland will be performing in it in the near future.

Others believe that the business plan must have changed somewhat and the chip van was never purchased. I prefer to think they've just converted it. I have a lovely picture in my mind of a chip van alongside a Portugese beach someplace with a little awning rigged up shading a grand piano.

Jools steps down the little metal steps of the chip van and waves as he walks to the piano, sweltering in his black suit and turtleneck. A crowd of curious men and women with faded blue tattoos and crimson sunburns stand around dazed by the heat. Jools starts banging the old ivories. picture Johnny is visible through the counter window singing along as he works the deep fat fryer.

Anyway, it's always good to hear about someone's dream coming true, no matter how surreal and modest that dream is.

There's a bit of a brouhaha between the UK goverment and the BBC going on at the moment. Basically, the BBC reported that a senior British official said that Downing Street had a report on Iraq's WMD "sexed up".

First of all, here is an AudioFile of the report that caused all the kerfuffle from the BBC's Today show on Radio 4.

And then here is the letter from Alastair Campbell to the BBC. Alastair is the Tony Blair's director of Communication.

And here is the response from Richard Sambrook. Richard is the Director of BBC News.

I just think it's interesting in these cases to look at the actual correspondence between the parties involved.

-- Added the following on June 28, 2003 --

And here's Campbell's reaction to the BBC letter.

-- Added the following on July 7, 2003 --

The BBC Board of Governors' Report supporting the BBC

Extract from foreign affairs select committee report regarding the 45-minute claim

And this report by the Guardian on Commons' Dossier Report has a number of useful links at the bottom including both the September and February Dossiers and

-- Added the following on January 29, 2004 --

Here is the full text of the Hutton Report:
HTML version
PDF version

In particular, it may be useful to read the Terms of Reference of the report which lays out which questions Lord Hutton intends to address in the report.

And the Today programme has put together an archive of all the Today Programme broadcasts on the controversy from the first radio report onwards.

-- Added the following on February 1, 2004 --
A Fight to the Death Transcript of a Panorama programme about the Hutton Inquiry and more specifically how the dossier at its centre was put together.

My aunt and uncle are visiting and I just thought I should get this snapshot of them recorded for posterity.

Raina: Oh, Sylvan lake in August. That will be very interesting. You'll be fighting off mosquitos. Oh! And the grasshoppers! In August there will be grasshoppers everywhere.

Bill: You'll be picking grasshoppers out of your drink. You know. [MAKES DUNKING GESTURE]

Raina: Oh, but they're very good that way. You pick the grasshopper out of your drink. It's pickled now, you know? And then you dip it in the chocolate sauce. Delicious!

Bill: You'll be picking grasshoppers out of your grasshopper.

Raina: I have a great recipe for Queen Anne ants as well. We used to make that when we lived in South Africa.

The pix are at
/Yanda/pix/2003_06_07/

The event was made particularly raucous by the attendance of my aunt and uncle from Canada who are in their 70s and were the absolute stars of the night. They partied hard enough to shame Wayne and Garth themselves, only retiring to their bed chamber at 2:30am.

One of Sinead's prize gifts was a hair-straightener which eplains some of the rather straw-coiffed pictures in the collection. Robin was particularly pleased with his new look.