That Cabinet reshuffle

Posted on by

The media consensus is that Blair’s last-ditch reshuffle of his Cabinet was “brutal”, and so indeed it was. Two days ago, for example, he refused to accept Charles Clarke’s offer to resign; today he sacked him. But for me the really interesting aspect of the reshuffle is the way it has brought to the fore young Blair loyalists like David Miliband and Alan Johnson. Regular readers will remember that some time ago I surmised that Blair doesn’t want Gordon Brown to succeed him and is therefore trying to ensure that there is a credible younger candidate in place to challenge the Chancellor when the time eventually comes for him (Blair) to stand down.

One way of reading today’s reshuffle is that it has been designed with that objective in mind. And to be fair to Blair (though I have no desire to be), he might be motivated by something other than spite. He may want Labour to continue in power after he’s gone, and suspects that only a younger man stands a chance of defeating the new bicycling Tory leader.

Later: Then there’s the interesting question of why Jack Straw was demoted? I was puzzled by this — he seemed to be doing ok, relatively speaking. But Ewen MacAskill has has sussed it: Straw said a military strike against Iran was inconceivable. Blair thinks differently. So Straw had to go. Ye Gods!

The naked interviewer

Posted on by

From BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson’s excellent Blog, on his interview with the sacked Home Secretary, Charles Clarke…

I’ve often interviewed resigning ministers, but this was amongst the bizarrest. When I was called to be told the news, I was naked in bed in a Westminster hotel hoping to get at least an hour’s sleep, having stayed up all night covering the local elections. The interesting discovery I’ve made is that you can go from being in bed to attending a resignation statement in exactly seven minutes.

Er, bizarrest???

Summertime 1

Posted on by

Our crab-apple tree has done its stuff. I know I shouldn’t be amazed by it, but I always am. And gratified. It always summons up memories of Sue, whose pride and joy it was, and who loved with a special passion the magical day every year when it would explode into blossom. And I remember how anguished we both were this time in 2002, when we gazed at it with the same unspoken thought: would this be the last time she saw it happen? It was. C’est la vie…

Quote of the day

Posted on by

From MercuryNews.com…

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told an online advertising conference Wednesday that he’d prefer not to be the richest person in the world.

“I wish I wasn’t,” he said in a session in which he was being interviewed by Donny Deutsch, the host of an interview show on CNBC.

Gates is ranked by Forbes magazine as the world’s richest individual, with an estimated wealth of about $50 billion.

“There’s nothing good that comes out of that,” he said. “You get more visibility as a result of it.”

Monotonic dates

Posted on by

Useless but interesting… Just noticed that today’s date is 04.05.06

Later: Lots of nice emails about this. Sean French wrote:

I’m afraid I can outdo you in trainspotteringness. If you’d set your alarm clock last night for three seconds past 1.02am you could have been awake when it was 01.02.03.04.05.06.

And James Cridland was actually awake at that magic moment:

I was listening to the radio this morning just after one o’clock. The exact time?

01.02 03″ 04/05/06

Virgin’s Robin Burke rather ominously played “The Final Countdown”: but the world hasn’t ended quite yet: possibly to Tony Blair’s irritation.

Scientists harness the power of pee

Posted on by

Ahem. No sniggering at the back. This is a serious subject.

A urine powered battery the size of a credit card has been invented by Singapore researchers.

A drop of urine generates 1.5 volts, the equivalent of one AA battery, says Dr Ki Bang Lee of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. He says the technology could provide a disposable power source for electronic diagnostic devices that test urine and other body fluids for diseases like diabetes.

These currently need lithium batteries or external power sources. But with this system, the body fluid being tested could power the unit itself.

Lee, who reports the new battery in the latest Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, says a smaller version could potentially power mobile phones in emergencies.

The battery is made of a layer of filter paper steeped in copper chloride sandwiched between strips of magnesium and copper, then laminated in plastic.

It’s activated when a drop of urine is placed on the battery. The urine soaks through the paper providing the necessary conditions to generate electricity. The magnesium acts as the battery’s anode, shedding its electrons, while the copper chloride acts as the cathode, gathering them up.

This electron flow delivers power greater than 1.5 milliwatts, the researchers say.

Coming soon: electricity generation from hot air emitted by University Committees.

Thanks to Quentin for the link.

Piracy Cost Studios $6 Billion in ’05, Study Says

Posted on by

Los Angeles Times report…

Hollywood’s major studios lost $6.1 billion to film theft in 2005, according to a Motion Picture Assn. of America study.The global survey of piracy, which examined how much revenue the studios lost through bootleg movies and illegal Internet downloads, found that the bulk of theft — about $4.8 billion — occurred internationally, with China, Russia and Mexico the worst offenders.

Of the $6.1 billion, $3.8 billion was lost to bootlegging and illegal copying, while Internet piracy cost the industry $2.3 billion, according to the study. Among the more notorious examples occurred last year when an illegal copy of “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith” appeared on the Internet before its big-screen premiere.The study by LEK Consulting is the first of its kind commissioned by the MPAA, whose previous surveys of the problem did not encompass Internet piracy.

So the studios’ legal campaigns are really working, then.

Teflon Tony

Posted on by

Nice blog entry by the BBC’s Political Editor, Nick Robinson…

Today Tony Blair claimed that the deportation of foreign prisoners was not a problem his government had created – but one that they were solving. (“Oh that’s alright then” I hear you cry). Having airily dismissed his failure to implement his old policy, he turned to the future and pledged to introduce a new one. A change of the law will mean that the working assumption will be that all foreign criminals will be deported whatever their crime rather than – as now – merely considered for deportation if their sentence is longer.

Just like Margaret Thatcher before him, Tony Blair has the ability to ask what on earth the government is up to – like a caller to a radio phone-in – and then promise to sort it out…