h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I see Denis Skinner got sent home by the Speaker today for calling Cameron 'Dodgy Dave,' Quite mild by Denis's standards I would have thought, Denis must be mellowing in his old age!

Stephen Fry ruffling feathers again. Watch the whole interview, I say. I find him a very listenable commentator, if you want a commentator on life, the universe, and everything. Dangerous undertaking of course.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJQHakkViPo

Fry's a smug boorish so and so dreadfully over exposed on the BBC, the nations favourite luvvie or so he thinks, can't stand him.

I enjoyed it.

Great example in that clip of his formidable intellect 'empirical science is very important!' Well who'd have thought that! Proper Renaissance man is Mr Fry.

I find it quite paradoxical that whilst Stephen Fry describes himself as am empiricist, he suffers from bipolar disorder. Sufferers are often prone to introspection, which can only lead to very subjective conclusions.

Unlike Hammondorgan I admire Fry's robust form of argument, even if it is sometimes very flawed. For instance in that video clip he seems a little derisory towards people who don't share his broad reading and knowledge. Socrates, who thought the wisest people claimed to know very little, would I'm sure metaphorically kick Fry's ass for such pomposity.

Fry can also put his point across quite aggressively sometimes, but thats just bluster. He has to be one of the biggest, wussiest bags of wind on the planet.

UK cabinet minister (responsible for press regulation) admits his relationship with a professional dominatrix and fetish escort.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36031743

Regulate that!

"Four newspapers knew about the relationship, which ended in 2014, but decided not to publish the story."

Sounds like efficient press regulation to me.

I wonder what regulatory concessions they managed to extract from him while they held this story.

The papers knew, but decided not to run the story because they felt it wasn't newsworthy. The man wasn't a member of the Cabinet at the time, never mind being in charge of press regulation. He met the woman through a dating site, didn't know her job and ended the relationship when he found out.

Personally, I think it's a lot of fuss over nothing.

Well, if you believe what you read in the papers...

Plus all the time "we" are reading this we are distracted from "panama paper" stuff...

Not news as such, but a beautifully-illustrated article celebrating 80 years of trig points:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-36036561

Woman addicted to having sex 10 times a day

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/7084425/Woman-addicted-to-having-sex-10-TIMES-A-DAY-with-her-exhausted-boyfriend-lost-her-job-and-friends.html


A wedding ring will cure that.

A racehorse has been named Horsey McHorseface, in homage to Boaty McBoatface, which is itself a rehash of the old (at least seven years) tag Bitchy McBitchface http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-36052242

Palmyra arch reconstructed from 3D photographs:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36070721

I just popped down to Trafalgar Square (as you do) to take a look. Annoyingly it's draped in white sheets, just so that Boris can turn up and 'unveil it' some time later today. A shame, as there are thousands of tourists gathered around staring at it.

I was one of those tourists there 31 years ago. I've been meaning to post some of the pics I took back then and share them here to see if some folks might recognize some of the less obvious locations. Places like Trafalgar Square, Battersea Powerstation, and Stonehenge I have no problems remembering, but there are some small parks, manors, castles, school grounds and various street scenes that I'm just lost looking at. I did manage to locate a few by finding clues in the images and searching Google Street View. I'll need help with many others.

I'll happily do my best if you post them somewhere. Guys like MMF would be helpful too - there's nowhere he hasn't snapped a charity elephant.

As I was moving furniture round today, what phrase kept repeating itself in my head?

Booky McBookcase.