buy anything, that is.

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Our family is partly American, so we do thanksgiving, but we're compromising by doing it on Saturday. You can find out why Americans (apart from turkeys and native Americans, and ...) are giving thanks here

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Remember Camper Van Beethoven? 'Take the skinheads bowling' is the blindingly obvious choice as opening number in Bowling For Columbine. It's blindingly obvious and it's low budget (sound quality really pretty poor) but still great to hear it again. And that pretty much sums up the movie too. The question it asked was: what is it about Americans that makes them go around killing each other? The big surprise for me was that the answer isn't just that there are too many guns. (Canada being the big counterexample). I still think you can't shoot someone if you haven't got a gun, though.

Anyway, I enjoyed the film while feeling guilty about enjoying something that's reminding me how bad things are. I felt guilty again the next day taking the kids to see Pierce Brosnan and co playing with guns and things.

What's the world coming to when seven year olds are so media savvy that they go in knowing about the film's classification as containing 'moderate action, violence and one sex scene' and then object when they see Pierce getting horny with Rosamund Pike after already having 'sexed' (that's the word they use for it) Halle Berry?

They know about the classification because the Odeon emailed us this message:

The certificate for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is confirmed as 12A. However, the correct certificate addendum is in fact, "contains intense combat and fantasy horror scenes". It is NOT, "contains moderate action, violence and one sex scene" which was attached by mistake. This is in fact the correct certificate addendum for James Bond: Die Another Day.

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I guess all teachers have fantasy students, don't they? And I guess we'd all pick the same dream students. I mean, Eminem and John Lydon would be on anybody's list, wouldn't they? And the scariest thought in the world would be to have Billy Bragg show up in your seminar (only joking, of course).

But do people make lists of teachers manques? (Sorry, dunno how to do the acute accent).

Anyway, I'm one of the few who never got bored of Jamie Oliver. I even took the 'mullarkey' phase in my stride. I'm enjoying the fact that he's managed to keep making must-see programmes after all these years.

The main interest for me is discovering what a good teacher he is. I mean, I knew he was a good communicator in general, but I'm really impressed by how he deals with his 'problem students' (and by the patience and goodwill of the teachers at the catering college). The one mistake I think he's made is hopping into a car after some of his hardest one-to-ones with Nicola or Kerry-Anne or Michael and telling five and a half million people what he was really thinking.

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Mojo's free CD this month contains Dillinger's Cocaine In My Brain'. Thanks, guys, I'd forgotten.

'...a knife a fork a bottle and a cork, that's the way we spell New York...'

(For phonologists, I'm pretty sure the /t/ in 'bottle' is a /k/, btw)

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The taboos they are a-changin'

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she's giving up

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The play was called Anton in Eastbourne and was about Chekhov checking into a hotel in Eastbourne. Apparently, he wrote it specially for Paul Schofield, a big Chekhov fan, who played Anton. It was great but I was a bit put off by the similarities between Schofield's way of speaking and Robert Robinson on Brain of Britain

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Peter Tinniswood is a bit of a god among radio dramatists, and his work is always inventive linguistically as well as in other ways. He wrote today's afternoon play. The extra good news is that you can now 'listen again' to the afternoon plays for seven days after they're broadcast. So you've got until next Tuesday to catch it if you missed it.

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samizdata discusses this poster which has been appearing all over London. So spooky that some non-Londoners thought it was a joke. But I can confirm it's true. I've even picked up a leaflet which I've carefully analysed and I can confirm that it contains no markers of irony whatsoever.

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Sadly, I might be the only person left who didn't see Buffy's famous musical episode. Luckily, this meant I was in for a treat yesterday.

After the massage Ohna treated me to, where I not only got my back a good seeing to but also found out more than anyone needs to about building and racing bicycles and motorbikes, including a few tips for motorbike pursuits (Alfie Cox for a groovy biking holiday in South Africa, Si Pavey in this country, 'a wet weekend in Wales won't prepare you for Dakar') and the shocking news that they have traffic cops specifically out to catch speeding cyclists in Richmond Park (speed limit is 17mph), and after a visit to Ivor Mairants where I got to play for as long as I liked with some extremely beautiful guitars by Amalio Burguet, Manuel Rodriguez and others, I visited the getting-ever-more-popular cafe in the basement of Virgin, which now has listening posts and really old computer games like Galaxians and stuff on the tables. I've always been a fan of the Virgin cafe, which used to be upstairs and next door. The new version is pretty ugly as an environment but I enjoy the functions.

Anyway, imagine my delight as I found a listening post with the soundtrack to the Buffy musical episode (aka Once More With Feeling) and got to discover what all the fuss is about.

It made me wonder whether there's anyone left out there who still thinks that the nation with the most well-developed sense of irony on the planet doesn't get irony. (I mean people who really think it rather than just people who say it ironically). I have heard a theory that presidential election results are affected by people who just can't resist voting for the most absurd candidate, as their sense of humour makes them forget how serious the consequences can be...

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This is a tragic tale if you're a fan of Word of Mouth

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Just found out about the Rosetta Project via this wired article. The Rosetta project is an open-source collaborative project with the aim of creating a modern Rosetta stone (in this case a 3-inch nickel disk) archiving 1,400 of the 7,000 (who counted, btw? and how?) world languages.

Reading about it also led me to OLAC which is:

'an international partnership of institutions and individuals who are creating a worldwide virtual library of language resources by: (i) developing consensus on best current practice for the digital archiving of language resources, and (ii) developing a network of interoperating repositories and services for housing and accessing such resources.'

All this collaborative, open-source grooviness. And the joy of following one interesting link to another. It's like some kind of 'world-wide-web' or something. How long until it all gets spoiled by commercialism and we end up with pop-ups all over the place?

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ps 'interoperating repositories' - wish I'd coined that one

Went back to the Institute of Visual Culture yesterday with Alan and some students.

I was quite impressed with my stamina, having only slept for two and a half hours the night before. It was an enjoyable day. It began with a traditional one hour wait before the third of the timetabled trains decided it could be bothered to go to Cambridge. Before going to the gallery, we strolled through Cambridge and Alan explained some stuff about the town and the university and everything. Luckily, none of the students decided to transfer.

The exhibition was 'Cognition Control', a collection of work by Stephen Willats and a few others. The work on show was from the 60s and 70s and, as they say, it:

'represents a vital period in British art, when Willats and his colleagues proposed activating the audience as an integral factor in the conceptual formation of a more open-ended and inclusive art practice. Each of these projects shares a common objective to use visual arts practice as a tool for social enquiry and transformation. Their radical intervention in the cultural infrastructure of the time still resonates with, and influences, many artists working today.'

Part of the idea was to break down barriers between art and science/academia, partly by carrying out research projects that ignored the usual conventions.

The exhibition was a bit perplexing, partly because it's hard to leap back through the decades and imagine what it would have been like then, and especially to feel confident that you understand what they were trying to do. Was it ironic? sincere? incoherent? incompetent? Were they poking fun at scientists/academics? Or what?

Luckily, Stefan, the director of the institute, was there to discuss it all and I enjoyed listening to Alan and Stefan discussing it all.

I like the idea of using the world and the people in it as the materials for your art. And it was interesting to look at similarities and differences between this work and some of the work that goes on now. Stephen Willats hadn't really bothered to keep track of his work, catalogue it or anything. There aren't many artists around now, who would be so relaxed about what they do.

One thing it got us thinking about was hippiedom and the extent to which remnants of that survive. One of our students grew up in a series of communes. Are there any communes still around?

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John says that Steve Jones played all the guitars and bass on Never Mind The Bollocks and that he only used two fingers. is this possible? I want to see a picture.

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Been up half the night working a couple of times this week, and keeping dug awake even though he's still suffering the results of multiple workstation destruction.

Now I've got time to catch up on all the important work I let slip. But first, it's time to carry out some serious research. I've started with a project to find good internet radio stations. At the moment, I'm enjoying radiomagnetic, a groovy station operating from Glasgow which Jonathan told me about.

I've got to use today wisely as tomorrow I will mostly be on strike

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Here is an obituary of Allen Walker Read, who just died. He was mad about words and apparently traced the origins of 'OK' to the Boston Morning Post of 1839.

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Yet another article on how texting is changing English (or 'what txtng is doing tot he English language'.

John Sutherland suggests writing might be taking over from speech. On the other hand, David Crystal thinks email (+mayB txtng 2?) is a new medium, distinct from both speaking and writing.

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I don't know anyone who isn't a fan of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

I'm pleased to read here that they've sountracked 28 Days Later but I'm confused and ashamed that I wasn't aware that they'd moved the exclamation mark. When did I fall out of the loop?

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For any family members out there who haven't seen Bessie's newest great grandchild yet, I've got three (fairly big) pictures here, here and here

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So it seems the UN resolution finally came down to whether to use 'and or 'or'.

Who says linguistics is irrelevant in the real world?

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John thought Joseph's language might be too rude for me. Ha! I thought. I'm not scared of three year old toilet humour!

Then I got an email from the machines at the place where one of my students works telling me that my email (I sent them the text of the Simon Hoggart piece) 'contained profanity' and that it was in quarantine pending deletion in 30 days. I thought quarantine was something you got let out of after a while when they thought you were safe? So inhumane. As my student quipped when I told her:

Ha Ha! Our IT department will be happy with you. Ha ha!

Whatever happened to deference? I'm sure they never spoke to Mr. Chips this way ;-)

Joseph from Glasgow writes:

Bob the builder He can poop Bob the builder On! Your! Head!

(Joseph's 3, btw)

Then Ohna comes home and tells me that she got Neil Morrissey to sign some Bob The Builder Christmas Crackers for her (don't ask) and then had them nicked before she got home.

I'm sure all of this must mean something.

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Have a look here if you're interested in the ongoing debate about grammar teaching in schools. I'm off to spend the afternoon discussing this along with questions about linguistics in education more generally. One particular question we'll be discussing is whether grammar teaching can help kids with their writing. What do you think?

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Top piece by Simon Hoggart today. It's hard to pick one bit to quote at you cos it's all so funny. But here's one little extract:

Another [Tory MP] said, 'That bastard was the most disloyal bastard of all the bastards John Major had to cope with. And do you know why? Because he's a bastard!'

'Come off the fence and tell me what you really think!' I wanted to cry.

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Jed drew my attention to this seriously depressing article about the drug problem in Fraserburgh. My mum and sister live just along the coast from 'The Broch', as the locals call it, and my niece is in Fraserburgh hospital with her new baby boy as I write. I knew things were bad there, but one misjudgement I'd made was to infer that things were bad everywhere rather than that Fraserburgh was particularly bad. It doesn't make the situation any worse but it somehow makes me feel worse about it.

By the way, does anyone know how many 'drug capitals' various countries have? Scotland, Britain and Europe all seem to have quite a few. Is it that the charts keep changing or is it that there is more than one chart?

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Today, Apoa and Kiloh spontaneously adapted the lyrics to 'Bob The Builder' to make reference to two builders they know.

Original lyrics are:

Bob the Builder Can he fix it? Bob the Builder Yes! He! Can!

Apoa's new lyrics were:

Fred the Builder Can he fix it? Fred the Builder May! Ay! Be!

Kiloh's new lyrics were:

John the Builder Can he fix it? John the builder He hardly! Ever! Comes!

(names have been changed, btw)

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For Mark and anyone else interested, here is the Gore Vidal article from last week's Observer. Thanks to unanswered questions for presenting it to the world.

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Told you.

Is it just me or do you think there's something a bit simplistic in the conclusion he draws from noticing 3,500 unemployed people in Tottenham and 4,000 vacancies in nearby jobcentres?

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Mark writes:

Dear Billy,

I enjoyed the paragraph where you cycle locally but worry globally - interesting to see Gore Vidal is on the case with September 11th.

That there were plans to bomb Afghanistan before then is fairly clear now, but if he can prove that extra claim the administration sat on its hands as the hijackers approached, that would be serious for Americans, wouldn't it? Making Bush into a sort of SuperNixon.

I can imagine Vidal alone might have the connections and tenacity to follow that one through, terrier-like, all the way down the tunnel. Since I'm in exile, I can't buy that Observer - did you get that issue to read his full claims?

Cheers, Mark

I did read the article but I didn't keep it. I wonder if dug kept a copy?

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The kids did notice more than the sweets. On the way to school this morning, I listened to ten minutes on the delights of the Nicholas Nickleby (our local pub) and all the other sweets they scored. Then they moved on to eggs and things. Kiloh told Aidan that 'some people were kicking old men all over the place!'

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I'm just off to Tottenham to do some work and I've heard that in today's speech Gordon Brown (our chancellor, i.e. the guy who spends our money for us) will be picking on Tottenham as a place with over 3,000 unemployed people even though there are jobs in other bits of London they could do. Why doesn't he send them all to University? I've heard there are some good ones in London full of teachers sitting around just waiting for someone to teach.

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So, if you ask the kids I was with tonight what halloweeen was like, they'll tell you it was fun and that they scored loads of sweets.

If you ask the grownups, they'll also tell you it was fun. But they might also mention that three houses they visited had had eggs chucked at their front door, that two pumpkins on the doorstep of Jessie's house were smashed to bits (Jessie and the other kids who live there will tell you how 'two of our pumpkins EXPLODED!'), that they watched five guys kicking the shit out of someone and when they checked it out they found the five guys were workmen and that the other guy had been trying to steal stuff off of their van (a 'pick-up' kind of thing so you could just take stuff off the top without any 'breaking and entering'), that when we were in the local pub (the kids trick-or-treated the pub and found tables of sweets there waiting for them) they heard the same guys boasting about how enjoyable it was to feel their feet connect with the thief's face, that they saw a woman walking down the street talking to her mobile in tears while a kid from the gang who had traumatised her followed her asking 'are you all right?' while his mates yelled after him to 'fucking come back here, you fucking idiot!' (none of these kids could have been over 12 years old), and so on. Rashomon!

Reminds me of the moment at woodcraft when we sent the kids into a patch of woodland (left there by a WWII bomb) to find green sticks for marshmallows and the leader of the session had to explain to the naive 6-9 year old kids that they might find things there that they should 'NOT TOUCH!', i.e. condoms and syringes.

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