Dominic Sayers

Alan Bennett's mobile phone number

I have Alan Bennett's mobile phone number and I'm happy to share it with you. Please feel free to call him and congratulate him on his wonderful work with Thora Hird and Dr Jonathan Miller.

Dear Friend,   I am contacting you in good faith with a proposal of mutual benefit.I am Mr. Alan Bennett, AUDITOR of GUARANTY PRIVATE CREDIT BANK(GPCB),London,United Kingdom.I discovered the sum of (£16,000,000.00) SIXTEEN MILLION POUNDS in a dormant account at our bank. We intend to credit this fund into any of your nominated bank account for investments.I will give you directives and all needed information as soon as I receive your positive response.Please get in touch with me by my alternative email: alanbennett101@live.com for better clarification.

 

Sincerely, Mr. Alan Bennett, Phone Numbers: +447024018524 or +447896149937

Domain name geekery

If you're not technical, there's nothing to see here. Move along please. OK, I'm writing an email address validation function. Why? Because everybody else has and why should I be different? The catch is, I'm trying to make it RFC-compliant rather than use the same noddy regular expressions everybody else does. Ask me anything you like about RFCs 1035, 2396, 3696, 4291, 4343, 5321 & 5322. Go on. Try this one: RFC 1035 says the following:

The labels must follow the rules for ARPANET host names.  They must
start with a letter, end with a letter or digit, and have as interior
characters only letters, digits, and hyphen.

(A label is a component of a domain name, i.e. the "example" in example.com) So is 3com.com a valid domain name? No? Somebody should tell them.

Which infrastructure projects would you invest in?

Firstly, IANAE (I am not an economist). There seems to be some sympathy for the Keynesian notion that one way out of recession is to (a) reduce interest rates and (b) make substantial investments with public money into infrastructure projects. Well in the UK we've done (a) to the extent that interest rates are at a record low. It would appear the only thing left is to start with the infrastructure investments. So what would you do to stimulate the UK economy? Here's my list:

1. Fibre To The Home (£29bn)
2. New airport in the Thames Estuary (£14bn)
3. Crossrail (£15bn)
4. High-speed rail link to the Midlands (£20bn)

A total bill of £78bn, a staggering amount in normal times but looking less intimidating compared to the sort of money the UK government is putting into rescuing the ailing banks. All the items on my list are existing proposals. Two of them are actually Conservative Party policy, so there is no lack of support for Keynesianism there. Crossrail is struggling to get the private finance it needs to get off the ground. This is not surprising given the current problems with the availability of credit. The government should just do away with the PFI smokescreen and get this project on their balance sheet. There's lots of other possibilities, but I've tried to include projects where the benefits are obvious and immediate and nothing is added to the operational cost base of the government - all these things would generate operating profits once built. And they would all benefit me personally. So get on with it please, Gordon.

Just the facts, ma'am

In my mind I can picture Ricardo Montalban as a regular member of the cast of The Virginian. Which just goes to show what a poorly-calibrated instrument my mind is. Turns out he was only in three episodes, and played a different character in each. What I am remembering, after some Wikipedia research, is Henry Darrow in The High Chaparral. Different actor, different fictitious ranch. Puerto-Rican, not Mexican. Another cherished illusion bites the dust. One day I'll only have the facts left. Not looking forward to it.

Don't f*ck with the mouse

Don't let Microsoft Update or Windows Update install the Ideacom Technology - Input - HID Touch Screen (PS/2) driver on your PC. If you do, it will replace your mouse driver and your mouse will not work. This update is offered as Optional but there is no indication of what it will do to a PC that doesn't have a touch screen that uses this driver. To avoid seeing it in the future, right-click on the update and choose "Hide Update". If you have installed this update and your system is hosed then bad luck. You will need to find out how to drive Windows without a mouse. Try the following keystrokes to get you to Driver Manager: Ctrl+Esc: Same as clicking the Windows Start button (bottom left corner of your screen) Alt+Tab: this will let you choose which window or application you want to control from the keyboard Tab: this will let you choose which button or input field you want to control Enter: this will click the default button Space: this will select and deselect a check box Alt+letter: this will click the button which has 'letter' underlined. i.e. If you press Alt and you see an underscore under the letter N on the button you want to press, then press N while keeping the Alt key pressed. Use these keystrokes to uninstall the touchscreen driver. If you are offered the chance to delete the driver then accept it gratefully. Good luck. p.s. The name of this post comes from a popular saying about Disney Corp. I can't find any attribution for this phrase and it's not as common on Google as I would have guessed. Any idea who first said it?

These we have loved

It's traditional at this time of year to list all the dear departed from the past 12 months. I profoundly regret the loss of two websites that were the source of considerable unproductivity for me: Accidental Light Malcolm Dick's faux naif blog could have been so much more. I'm sure he has more to say but perhaps he has chosen another medium in which to say it. Perhaps he is simply too busy. Malcolm: if you read this let me know where I can follow your inquiries. Ludgate Circus A website that hit several of my sweet spots: the City of London, the construction industry, beer and middle-aged grumpiness. Ludgate Circus tracked the ongoing transformation of the City's diversity into a concrete and glass wilderness, meticulously documenting all the construction projects in and around the square mile. As an aside it also described most of the eateries and drinkeries in the City too - a considerable personal achievement on the part of its anonymous author. If either of these projects resurrects itself I would be grateful for a tip-off. Edited to add: Blackbelt Jones Aaaargh! Matt Jones has disappeared too. I guess Dopplr and Howies are keeping him a bit busy to wibble on about other stuff.

Environmental cooking

It's a well-known fact that you can cook salmon in your dishwasher. And cooking with your car's engine is so common there's even a book about it. Me, I'm heating a pie on the radiator in my office. Look it works, alright. I don't want haute cuisine for my lunch, just a hot pie. Well warm anyway. Warmish. Environmental cooking. It's the latest Thing. There must be alternative uses for the steam dispenser on that coffee machine you never use any more. What about that 3GHz processor in your PC? It generates enough heat to roast an aurochs. My wife has just published a cook book written by the artist-in-residence on a building site. It features a recipe from each of the 57 nations represented in the building site's workforce. It's a good book and as soon as it's available on Amazon I'll link to it. But I'm thinking - now there's a precedent. InSite Arts is a cook-book publisher. Send me your environmental cooking recipes and I'll get them published somehow.

Sport, or not

A friend, let us call him Mushy, defines a sport as any activity that cannot be accomplished while smoking or wearing slacks. As a definition, this leaves something to be desired since clearly Synchronised Swimming is not a sport despite being a bit difficult to do while smoking or wearing slacks. Even in the office. The obvious Third Law of What Constitutes A Sport is that it has a clear result without resorting to subjective judgement. This neatly excludes Synchronised Swimming, Ice Skating, Ballroom Dancing and Ski Jumping so we are onto a winner. Until now. News has just reached me of a sport that cannot be practised while smoking and the wearing of slacks is prohibited by its Laws. Moreover, it has a clear winner: everybody. I cannot decide whether this means Western society has now reached the acme of its achievements, or whether perhaps this is a clear sign that we are in a decadent spiral of decline. Here come the Goths!

Birdsong

Years ago, when Classic FM was first starting up, they did some test transmissions on the new frequency. I happened to tune in one day while driving. The test transmission was simply a recording of birdsong in woodland. Wow. I didn't listen to another radio station in my car until the proper Classic FM programming started. Obviously I tuned away pretty darn quick at that point. Henry Kelly. Enough said. Fiddling with a DAB radio at home yesterday I happened upon a digital station called Birdsong. Yay! It's the same recording I think. I cannot recommend this station highly enough. It's incredibly calming to hear the sounds of the countryside when you're sitting in an office surrounded by technology. Do try it.

Am I a man?

	Yes/no
I can keep my head when all about me Are losing theirs and blaming it on me	Yes
I can trust myself when all men doubt me, But make allowance for their doubting too	Yes
I can wait and not be tired by waiting	No
Being lied about,  I don’t deal in lies	Yes
Being hated, I don’t give way to hating	Yes
I don’t look too good, nor talk too wise	Yes
I can dream—and not make dreams my master	Yes
I can think—and not make thoughts my aim	Yes
I can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same	Yes
I can bear to hear the truth I’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools	No
I can watch the things I gave my life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools	Yes
I can make one heap of all my winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at my beginnings And never breathe a word about my loss	Yes
I can force my heart and nerve and sinew To serve my turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in me Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"	No
I can talk with crowds and keep my virtue	Yes
I can walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch	Yes
Neither foes nor loving friends can hurt me	No
All men count with me, but none too much	Yes
I can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run	No
I am 72% Man

It's possible Kipling meant this to be a binary choice. In which case I am clearly not a man, nor is the world and everything that's in it mine. Here's a handy Manliness calculator for you.