Sunday Roast: don’t get a gig on

As you’re never going to guess where this week’s title has come from, I’ll tell you now to spare you the misery: it is courtesy of a particularly fine example of the Chav-sub-section of humanity who sat behind us on the bus on Friday morning. I’m not sure of the direct translation, but I suspect from the context she was telling her friend not to get stressed out about a particular situation she found herself in. I do so love traveling by bus – you get to overhear some truly amazing conversations!

I’m writing this whilst Moose has banned me from the kitchen (and consequently the living room as well – damn open plan!) I shouldn’t really complain about this ban as it’s due to birthday cake creation (yum!) but… Well, you know when you’re told you can’t do something you instantly want to do it? Yup. Anyone would think I was 2 tomorrow, not 25.

But this is a perfect opportunity to write the Roast without distraction of the TV, so write the Roast I will (here’s hoping I can get it in before the F1 starts…)

Hamlet has long been my favourite Shakespeare play (of the dramas. I’ve got a soft spot for Taming of the Shrew from the comedies). I’m not sure why, but I just like it. One of my ambitions has always been to watch Hamlet by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). If I could see it at the Globe, even better. So when it was announced they are putting it on again, I was over the moon. And then I read that my favourite actor, David Tennant will play Hamlet and my cup runneth over. Now I’ve just got to score some tickets…

The pint survives. Kind of.

I’ll agree with this scientists who feel the UK must have a human space role.

The BBC is to televise the Super Bowl. My question is why? We have football (soccer) which demands more skill – even I can see that. And let’s face it, all American Football is is Rugby for wooses. I mean, what’s with all that padding?!

Google has recently called for coherent web privacy laws. I’m thinking back a little while and struggling not to go “pot, say hello to mr. kettle”. They do have a point though.

The Archbishop has called for the Monarch to remain defender of THE faith, not defender of faith. I’m a closet monarchist at heart. I love that we have a queen which, theoretically at least, limits the potential god-like power of the American presidential model we seem to have been going down the line of lately. I also like the history and the pomp and stuff. It gives an identity to the nation. However, I do *not* like that the monarch is ‘defender of the faith’ that is not my faith and is not the faith of a significant number of people who are also British. For once Prince Charles seems to be talking sense when he wants to become defender of Faith in general. Because how can having the monarch just defend one faith actually be less divisive, as the archbishop claims? Also, what’s with his attack on extra-curricular activities?! The main reason parents put their children INTO these programs, which include learning a musical instrument, sport, or a foreign language, are because those are the very classes schools themselves no longer teach. Grrr.

A lady on Hong Kong has brutally attacked a python in defense of her pet dog. Yes, congratulations to the woman for saving her pet and, as she points out, small children are potentially at danger from evil snakes, but… I just can’t get the image out of my head of some Paris Hilton look-alike ineffectually kicking a python with her stillettos in defense of her rat-sized dog…

Here are lots of pictures of gorgeous libraries. No reason, they’re just nice to look at.

Look after your Introvert and they will look after you.

Run! It’s an Alien Fish! Nooooooo…

Got yourself Google Earth? Well, now you’ve got yourself a flight simulator (thanks to the Crazy Canal Man for this one).

“It still shocks me that the term “career woman” exists, with no counterpart for men; being ambitious with one’s work or not pursuing romance still has a stigma attached if you are female.”

As a Mac user, I frequently crow with unholy glee over my PC user friends who don’t have the great freeware that us Mac people use. So, for all you poor Windows-Slaves out there, here’s ten pieces of software you don’t have to pay for, but that do a damn-good job. Got anything else to add to the list? Drop into the comments and share 🙂

Look! It’s everyone’s favourite digital publisher talking about e-publishing and e-books on Radio 4. A few good points get made in the piece, not particularly one closing statement that says (I paraphrase) “e-books and digital publishing currently take the worst parts of the book world and the worst parts of the digital world and smash them together. Till we reverse that, people aren’t going to use them”. I did want to hammer one of the participants over the head with a hardback copy of War and Peace everytime he talked about “leveraging the Community”, but other than that, it’s a great 13 minutes of radio.

Masters of Media has a great preci of Andrew Keen’s book “The Cult of the Amateur” which I’ve previously mentioned in a Roast – the dark side of web 2.0

We’ve had pretty libraries this week, so why not 7 big holes? (Thanks Moose)

And now we end, as all the best Roasts do, with a movie trailer: Iron Man. *shiver* Looks good 😀

8 thoughts on “Sunday Roast: don’t get a gig on

  1. I didn’t ban you from the kitchen, I banned you from backseat baking!

    I think the Archbishop is right – kids should spend less time in extra-curricular music lessons, language lessons and sports and more time playing Nintendo Wii in their bedrooms where they belong. Although actually, Wii can get pretty competitive. Maybe they should sit quietly watching DVDs instead. Wouldn’t want to stress them out.

  2. Funny. I just read a bit in a Dutch newspaper that our Queen has received criticism for supporting Pink Saturday, an event for gay people, and writing in a letter that she wishes local church etc. a good service. Speaking of royal families and religion.

  3. Regarding free software for PC users being in short supply, that wasn’t very likely really was it – I’ve been using http://www.nonags.com for the best part of the last decade. I’m sure there are many equivalents as well.

    I heard the You and Yours e-book piece – it did seem a little silly interviewing a load of old biddies who just loved the smell of books! The whole thing was very British and very Radio 4 🙂

    Happy birthday too!

  4. Happy birthday Cas Cas… Cas Cas its your birthday.

    So… i sent you an email saying the same thing… but lord knows which address I sent it to!

  5. publicenergy – yeah, the old biddies were a little twee… But they had a point. As did one of the kids interviewed who said “I love to own books.When I finish a book and put it on my shelf, I feel a sense of accomplishment”. ebooks, as they stand, just can’t compete with that. I’m going to hold my judgement till I see an implementation of a reader that does what I want:
    * waterproof (at least splash proof)
    * some form of interface – I’ve got a digital book, I want to be able to search, tag etc
    * wifi so I could interface with folksonomies and create my own fields of tags, metadata etc… Oooh, dreamy 😀

    And illyna – you sent it to the right one that time, thank you 🙂 (my fault for having work & personal emails so similar!)

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