Iceland Theme Night

Wish my teacher looked like this.

(now Listening to - Valley Of The Dolls)



Resolution for the week is to stop using Exclamation Marks! Damn! And Again!

Anyone see The Girl In The Cafe? Did it have you crying? It should. It got me thinking about how it is not possible to address the issues this tried to address without being told that one is naive and that the issues are complex. Well they are not that complex. At every turn in these things, the vested interests of the people involved come out, either overtly or covertly. Yes we do need to address the corruption that diverts so much aid into the hands of various undeserving partners - Still got the limo I hear them say. Who'd have thought that that particular monster would still be in charge twenty years down the line. But the most pressing matters are not matters of supply; they relate to simple delivery of medicine that provides relief that we get down in Tescos. Stuff that is just convenient to us stops people dying and costs the same.

Well done Brazil for threatening to break the patent on Aids drugs. Call me simplistic again but epidemics of such scale should be the preserve of Governments or publicly funded institutions with no commercial axe to grind. It worked with the Human genome project. Here's a thing for you. There were two rival attempts to map the human Genome, one commercial and one academic. The academic one was eventually the definitive answer to the problem partly because a well-funded and well-directed Charity - The Wellcome Foundation - poured money in to the project. From the site I link to, all the data is available, no password, no subscription - the genetic equivalent of Freeview. I have only just discovered this and it is mind-blowing; the tracks of the two projects are described in The Backroom Boys. Richard Dawkins adds something to this in The Ancestor's Tale when he relates how the public project involved a generic 'person' - an average collection of Genes collated over various racial groups so as to provide a more representative base from which to work. The rival commercial project - run in part by J. Craig Venter used the DNA from one person - namely one J. Craig Venter! He then went on to map the DNA or his own poodle. A poodle is a very apt animal.

I wish I could concentrate on one thing. It may seem wrong to trail into thoughts about Glastonbury from such important stuff but Sir Bob was there, being shouty so the link is valid. Actually, the excitement of the music which I saw seems not really viable as a post today. I am one of the sad TV watchers who, while dry and free of Trench Foot, was not part of the atmosphere and never has been. A colleague here has tickets to Live8 and is very happy about it, though she has said that some of the new music as heard at Glastonbury would be better that Madonna and her other Stadium-bound friends. I will say that it was strange to see the reincarnation of Joy Division that is Interpol just before New Order. NO were bad enough for me not to feel cheated when we had to turn over for The Girl In The Cafe. We were taping a Picture Of Britain for my daughter and so Glastonbury is spared being dumped onto a tape which I will never watch. Reykjavik 101 was also on at the same time so the BBC has finally come out with a full house of shows I wanted to watch at the same time. The beauty of BBC3 and BBC4 is that they will be on again sometime. On that theme, I am waiting for the PJ Harvey set to shown again.

If you don't think about this, or even just dismiss the naivity of the people who think the solution is simple, then you are part of the complexity. The main players are like those annoying people who take the micky - or don't but claim they are when they upset someone. It is impossible to decide on how they really think. Some things in Black and White would be useful now. Compromise for the sake of the Status Quo is what really happens. Or for the sake of a quiet life or not being really bothered. The £408 Million raised for the Tsunami in this country alone, except for a few cases, has not put any of the donors in serious hardship. They could do the same every month and probably not notice it. Formalise this giving inside the Tax system and we'd never be really bothered, just as people who complain of "What's in it for me?" at every budget just get on with it when it all pans out. I know I am generalising and simplifying but all I can hear is that three-second finger click. What do I have to do? Someone tell me? My head hurts.

Last paragraph with no spellcheck!

Rats!