David Blaine wants to Eclipse Houdini

So David Blaine continues his attempts to become more famous than Houdini...

Blaine wants to eclipse a similar Houdini stunt, where he would go three minutes without air while freeing himself from his shackles inside an oversize milk can.

"On the way to holding his breath under water for the longest period of time ever, he would surpass the great Houdini, who managed a then-astonishing three-minute breath-hold," read the media notice for Blaine's stunt.

He carries out some impressive stunts, but in this age of Blockbuster Movies, Playstations and Jackass who really cares anymore? Houdini was a legend in an age where entertainment was somewhat limited, and hence he was extremely popular. Blaine gets media converage for doing strange things, but I don't think people are really very impressed. A momentary distraction but not much more.

Advert Complaints on the rise

The BBC Reports that the number of complaints about print and TV adverts rose 16% in 2005.

"Just because people find something rather distasteful doesn't really mean the Advertising Standards Authority should ban it,"

So are the Brit's getting better at complaining about things, or are Adverts getting more tasteless? I'd go for a mix of the two. Personally I quite liked the second most complained about advert...
I also like the bit about how the reason complaints have increased is that they made the process easier. That would do it, but it also makes it impossible to compare one year to the next. The joy of statistics....

Not a Clever Car

Looks like a three wheeled motorbike to me....

A tiny, three-wheeled car that could help solve city congestion has been demonstrated at the University of Bath.

The prototype Clever (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) car is one metre wide and less polluting than normal vehicles.

The Power of the Blogosphere

Ok it's probably not that difficult to be more efficient than the US army (or any other) when it comes to communications with Soldier's Families regarding injuries, but this is a good example of the power of blogging.

Someone who read Carla's blog had got word to a nurse at Noah's hospital in Balad, Iraq.

"He emailed me and said: 'I've seen your son. His injuries are not life-threatening.'"

The blogosphere - as the online community of bloggers is known - had passed information to Carla literally days before she got official reassurance from the army that Noah's wound was not as bad as she was initially told.

Dahab Blast blow to Red Sea Tourism

Three bombs have exploded in the Red Sea town of Dahab. On the Sinai North of Sharm el Sheikh, site of another recent bombing which killed 60. BBC reports at least 22 dead. I'm amazed that this has happened again in Sinai given the response to the Sharm bombing. No doubt heads will roll once again in the Security services.

My thoughts are with the residents of Dahab, and the many Travellers and Divers in the town. My Cousin is in Egypt at the moment, but fortunately I know he is in Luxor as he called Family yesterday. I feel for those whose families are in Dahab. I have dived in the area and I'm sure this won't discourage the diving crowd from going. Hopefully the sun seekers will also continue to support the tourist industry in the region. It is well worth a visit for those who haven't been. Don't let this put you off, it could happen anywhere these days.

New Threat to Orangutans in Borneo

Interesting story on the BBC from their "our Correspondent" programme. Now that would be a fascinating assignment.

The rapid growth in demand for Palm oil is putting the habitat of the Orangutan under renewed pressure, and this raises and interesting point. Those of us in the affluent west have a nice comfortable viewpoint from which to tell the residents of Borneo that they shouldn't cut down the rainforests in which the Orngatans live, yet how many British or American Companies would hesitate if in the same position?

The question is how do people in the west who care to preserve these forests do so? In theory it shouldn't cost that much to buy the whole lot, but it is never that easy. Political pressure can dissuade the Indonesian Government from reducing the national parks, but it is difficult, especially in such remote areas, to enforce theoretical boundaries, particularly when such large amounts of money may be at stake.

New Tory

I joined the conservative party last night. I find that as I become more affluent my views move more towards the right of centre in political terms. I'd been thinking about it for a while, and the trigger was the Labour party stooping to the levels of portraying David Cameron as a Chameleon. This smacks of desperation as much as anything, and to be honest that is a big turn off in a political party.

I've never been a big fan of Tony Blair, particularly for his seemingly unquestioning alliance with George W Bush at a time when the majority of his people and much of his party felt the direction was wrong. I'm speaking of course about the Iraq invasion, a subject which has been done to death and which I'm not going to go into, except to say that I've not trusted him since then, if before.

Why the tories though? I've always been a Liberal, initially as that was the party of my parents, but increasingly that feels like a wasted vote. I hold the view that for any one party to be in power too long is a bad thing, regardless of their policies. You need a bit of bith in the long run to stay on the straight and narrow as it were. Labour hae had a decent crack at it, and appear to be running out of ideas, the Chameleon ad being the best they could come up with for a party political broadcast.

David Cameron seems to have some genuine enthusiam for bringing more humanity to the Conservative Party, something which I have always felt they lacked. A friend of mine likes to say his own political views are "Socially Liberal & economically conservative". He's talking crap mostly as he is more right wing than he likes to admit, but I like the concept. With David Cameron in charge, the Tories might well be moving in that direction, and I for one am willing to support him in that.

Winningest - a completely pointless word

I work for a Global company, which while actually Australian owned has quite an American style of internal communications. A recent copy of our company employee magazine quoted a well known NFL coach, describing him as "the winningest coach in the NFL".

Now I like new words, and I do believe that language should be a dynamic thing, not a fixed vocabulary. For some reason though, I find the word winningest to be quite irritating. It is unecessary, and to be honest it sounds a lot less elegant than "most succesful". No doubt we are only weeks away from words such as "losingest", "entertainingest" or perhaps "ridiculingest".

I for one find these words some of the confusingest I've heard for some time....

Blogging Vs Mainstream Media

I like the idea of interactive information. If I watch BBC News, or CNN or Sky News I can only watch. They might even ask me to SMS in an opinion, but basically it's a passive activity. I don't know about you people, but I answer back to the TV. And If I'm not on my own I get told off for being angry / opinionated. So I need a new outlet, and Blogging seems to be the way to go. So Hi to all you Blog readers out there.

I guess I plan to comment on news stories I see, and check out the views of others out there. Broadens the mind you know. If anyone wants to reply or make comment great. If not, at least I've got it off my chest.