Al Gore and His Lucky Number

In July this year, seven will be the number on everyone's lips as seven concerts are held in seven continents on the seventh day of the seventh month in this, the millenium's seventh year.

The concerts are all part of Live Earth - Al Gore's Live Aid for Climate Change. A call to arms for countries to act to prevent global warming.

They will be held simultaneously in London, New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Johannesburg, Shanghai and Rio De Janeiro, with an audience of millions watching live as proceedings are streamed on MSN.

Performances from The Police, Kelly Clarkson, Duran Duran, and The Foo Fighters to name just a few will raise awareness of the need to act on climate change and do for climate change what the Live Aid concerts did for poverty.

And that's where suspicion creeps in. What exactly did the Live Aid concerts do for poverty?

Very little really; plastering over the key issues behind word poverty, they provided a relatively insignificant amount of aid which made very little long-term difference. They raised awareness and we all donned white wrist bands and marched on Edinburgh to show our support. But for all the good intentions, very little came from it.

And that's the same worry with Live Earth. The main intention here is not to raise money (shame, considering its £55 for a ticket!) but to create awareness and pressure people into making a change - but at what cost?

With seven concerts on seven continents, musicians and celebritieswill be flown around the world to do their good deeds. This of course will require air travel which, if Al Gore has taught us nothing else, we all know is a major source of carbon emissions.

Only two line-ups have been announced as yet, with US-based bands The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Foo Fighters, Black Eyed Peas and Beastie Boys set to play in London whilst the UK's very own Katie Tunstall will join The Police in New York.

How many round trips accross the Atlantic does that make? You guessed it - 7. A total of 14 flights, travelling a combined 41,433 miles and splutterng a total of 16,158lbs of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

But it doesn't stop there. Artists from the UK and the US are sure to be playing at the other concerts. While the line-ups have not yet been announced, one can assume the following as, at best a very conservative estimate:

Sydney - Two acts from the UK (a 21,106 mile round-trip) and one from the US (19,887 miles)

Johannesburg - One from the UK (22,511 miles) and one from the US (15,934 miles)

Tokyo - One from the UK (11,884 miles) and one from the US (13,506 miles)

Rio De Janeiro - One from the US (9,599 miles)

Shanghai - One from the UK (11,446 miles) and one from the US (14,746 miles)

That comes to a grand total of 203,164 miles - contributing a whopping 79,234lbs of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Suddenly the concert isn't as green as we think, and if you factor in the energy to power the concerts themselves, getting people to and from the show and then all the millions of computers powered up to stream it live on MSN the likey total is probably double that.

Admittedly, this is not a great deal in itself - in fact, even a small undeveloped country such as Tonga produces up to 240million lbs of carbon dioxide each year.

The concerts aren't going to have the seas boiling and the Sahara freezing over, but as Gore himself once said, "If we do not drastically reduce this blanket of global warming polution, the world would likely cross the point of no return."

So perhaps the number on everybody's lips this summer shouldn't be seven, but 79,234 - because that's how many unecessary pounds of carbon dioxide we will be dumping into the atmosphere courtesy of Gore's good intentions.

Click here to see how much carbon dioxide your air travel produces.

You can have one hell of a party on Myspace

When you're 17 a houseparty is the best way to entertain your friends. Too young to go to pubs and clubs, millions of teenagers up and down the country have house parties every week where they can gather and have a drink... or 10. But for 17-year-old Rachel Bell from County Durham it all went rather sour when she broke the golden rule of house parties - never, absolutely never, make it an open invitation.

Just a rumour of a free house would have half the school planning an impromptu party. The key to success was always to keep it quiet - tell only those you want to arrive and tell them not to advertise it:

You got a free house? Having a party?
Yeah, just a small one.
Alright, I'll tell a few people.
Okay but no randoms.
Right-o.

Its one of the golden rules (along of course with no monkey business in your parents' bedroom). The rules developed over hundereds of years of teen house partying and to ignore them is asking for trouble. Otherwise hundreds of teens descend upon the house, keen for somewhere to have a few drinks and the reuslt was always carnege - it's hard enough to control your friends let alone hundreds of 'randoms'.

And that's exactly what has happened on a massive scale with the help of Myspace. Rachel Bell, 17, advertised her party on Myspace only to have hundereds of revellers turn up at the house - causing £20,000 worth of damage to her parents' home in Houghton-le-Spring in County Durham.



It happened again this week in both Liverpool and Croydon as people advertised their parties on the social networking site - with equally catastrophic consequences. The house in Liverpool was left in a particularly dire state as people travelled from as far away as London, hell-bent on wrecking the house.

What is most astonishing however, is their reactions. A shocked Ms Bell said: "The party wasn't supposed to start until 10 but at half 9 we saw people pulling up in cars. We didn't recognise them and didn't know what was going on so we bolted the door."

Albeit for me to call someone an idiot.

Perhaps it wasn't the fact they showed up early, but the fact she advertised a party with the tagline "let's trash the house" to an audience of millions of teenagers that caused the ensuing devastation?

Or perhaps she gave the wrong impression in the advert?:

"ok so bring more drink - were gunna run out quick & you will be shitted then. Bring food if you like & SQUIRTY CREAM!

Glowsticks etc etc

If you're on acid or something, take that or whatever you have B4 you come in. Please don't leave it lying around for any unexpected plods arriving"

Doesn't really read like your typical invitation for a cheese and wine evening does it? I mean, Squirty Cream? I've been to a fair few house parties in my time but never has the entertainment been provided courtesy of a tube of whipped cream.

Perhaps its about time the golden rules of house partying were rewritten with the first one being 'DON'T ADVERTISE YOUR PARTY ON THE INTERNET TO AN AUDIENCE OF MILLIONS'.



Or perhaps that's just stating the obvious. Either way, one thing is for sure, she certainly won't do it again - next time use facebook, there's a much nicer class of partygoer on there.

Virgin's New Image Is Wearing Thin

Do you remember Marathon bars? Or perhaps the Opal Fruit? Now of course, they are more commonly known as Snickers and Starburst - a fantastic piece of rebranding so efective that few now know the old names.

But rebranding hasn't been quite so sweet for Ntl. Now Virgin Media, they arrived amid a publicity storm, offering an alternative to Sky: combining TV, internet, mobile and landline phone services in one unique package.

But like an Opal Fruit, or Starburst, or whtever they're known as, it all went quite sour. Sky upped the price of their channels and Virgin Media refused to pay. The result? Well, two comletely diffrent TV packages - one with all the Sky channels like Sky One, Sky News and Sky Sports News and another without.

So instead, Virgin Media is no alternative to sky, it simply doesn't offer the same channels for a start. And if, like me you thought 'I don't watch those anyway, it won't make a difference I still have Sky Sports and the movie channels' then you were quite wrong.

Virgin have taken on Ntl, a company so famous for its poor customer relations it spurned a website, myntlhell.com. And the re-branding has seen no change.

This week I had a V+ box fitted. It's like Sky+ but by Virgin. Quite simple really. The only problem is, mine doesn't work.

I can record programmes to its hard drive, i can watch a plethora of near pointless channels (one, i found this morning offered a programme 'Britain's most embarrassing illnesses' - nice) and I can access most sports. But I can't access the interactive service - the very platform upon which they hope to challenge Sky.

I can't watch movies, because I can't key in my PIN code to confirm that I am old enough to watch a PG-rated film. Similarly I can't watch pay-per-view football, or golf and I can't get movies and music on demand.

But, don't let one faulty box dirty your opinion of Virgin Media I thought. So I phoned them in the hope of finding a resolution so I can get my snazzy new V+ working.

True to their predecessor's reputation however, Virgin Media sent me round the houses in a vain search for a solution. Four phone calls (a total of 2 hours) and three promises of a call back later, I am still no nearer to watching a movie, or sport or anything else for that matter.

As I sit musing over Britains most embarrassing illnesses, I wonder why bother. Sky may be a bit more pricey, and they may attach what looks like a Russian space station to the side of your house, but they at least offer a service that works - and gives you channels you actually want.



myvirginhell.com - if the porn industry hasn't already got it, you might be onto a winner with that one.

Okay, just one more...

To follow on from the story below, for fans of 80s pop music you can now study an MA in Madonna studies in the US.

And if you can't decide on the course for you then why not go to Luton Uni to study BSc Decision Making!

It would probably take half an hour for each lecture to start as eager students decide on where to sit. And as for course social events... 'where should we go?' 'I don't know you decide'...'no, you decide'... 'no, I insist, you decide' - you get the picture.

But with the intensive training the course provides, within three years you too can be a whizz at making decisions.

Hooray for British Unis! The future is safe in their hands.

Been to 'uni'? Who cares!

Never has a word entered the English language that has made me more disappointed in the Oxford English Dictionary. But now a new word has seeped through British culture and is now in use from every studenty-type with long hair, growing debt and a laziness that would challenge even the sloth.


And that word is... uni.

In 1992, the number of universities in Britain almost doubled, as 38 former polytechnic schools or colleges changed status and names - ending a distinction that had existed for hundreds of years.

Now, you an get a degree from anywhere - the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), Northumbria, University of East Anglia and a whole host of other 'unis' which have sprung up.

Almost 50per cent of school leavers now attend a university - many of whom go to uni to do what would, 15 years ago, have been a vocational course (see BsC Glass at Sunderland Uni for example) and come out with a degree.

The idea was quite simply ridiculous. The very notion that if we hand out degrees like sweets at a fun fair, we would make our nation more intelligent was, well, just wrong.

With 50per cent of 19-26 year olds now gettng a degree whether from Oxford and Cambridge or from Middle-of-Nowhere uni, there are far too many graduates on the job market.

A graduate used to be able to walk into a well-paid job, employed safe in the knowledge that he or she had had the very best education and was the best candidate for the job. Nut now, Sainsbury's are getting just as many graduates apply to be check-out girls as some of Britain's top companies.

And why? Because a degree is almost worthless - almost everyone has them now. We (and yes, I am a student) spend three or four years shielded from the real world living off state and parental handouts to get our degrees but, after three or four years of partying/studying (delete as appropriate) we are no better prepared to go out to work.

There is little to distinguish between people academically as governments try year on year to put more and more underacheivers into Uni simply to pad out their statistics - all the while making a bigger and bigger profit on student debt.

Surely it is time they realised that, in order for the cream to rise to the top, there needs to be more stringent selection and we need to stop handing out degrees in Celebrity Studies and, yes it does exist, BsC David Beckham.

Universities offering opportunities for only the brightest young students? What a novel idea, who'd have thunk it? And technical colleges offering good, useful vocational courses - why, by George, I think I'm on to something here!

Funny news for the hard of hearing...

Ah, Stanstead Airport!

Quite possibly one of the most painful traveling experiences you're likely to find - the queues, the security checks, the waiting... not exactly a stress-free way to travel.



The mainstay of the departure lounge is of course 'anxious dad' - the stereotypical man who sits watching the departure screen to see what gate to go to. GO! GATE 85! RUN! FOR GODS SAKE... RUN! 85! FORGET YOUR BAGS, GOOOO! he screams as the gate number pops up, still at least half an hour before the plane actually boards.

Usually, watching anxious dad brightens up my waiting experience as I chew on my jumbo toblerone (well, you have to really) in the departure lounge. But today I found even better amusement - courtesy of Sky News.

As i watched the screens, i noticed a subtitled Sky News bulletin and keen to see what was going on in the world - besides anxious dad and that stubborn bit of toblerone stuck in my teeth - I watched.

But what I read on screen as Eamon Holmes (or whoever) read the news was pure comedy.

Speaking of the notorious Kensal Green Tribe muggings on the London Underground outside crown court, the subtitles read:

'They asked people for their mobile phones. And when people refused they resorted to threats of violence - often with knives or sisters.'

That's right - SISTERS!



Trying my best to stiffle the laughter I continued to watch as the subtitle machine made a flurry of comedy errors one after the other.

I'm sure you can imagine, come to the Freddie Flintoff story, what the subtitles translated 'pedalo' as...

Move over Jamie Oliver!

If only they taught that in schools!

BBC spit out their dummy

A short entry today you may be relieved to hear - I have a presentation to give on Wednesday and it is about as complete as a Virgin TV channel package.

Today it was announced that the BBC was finally allowed to reveal the contents of a key document in the cash for honours enquiry.

'A cover-up' the BBC call it. John Snow announces it on Channel 4 news and many others see a victory for the BBC, with the story surely being carried in many of tuesday's papers.

But whilst the BBC may gloat and present this as a victory, it is something far short of that - it is downright childish.

Revealing it is not, surely. Afterall, it is one of their main functions to peel back the veneer of government spin and present us - the public - with all the facts. But when this flies in the face of the law it is something quite different.

The Attorney General postponed the reporting of the document by taking out an injunction against the BBC. This may scream cover up, but in fact, he is well within his rights to do so. Section 4 of the Contempt of Court Act allows "the postponement of publication of a report or any part of a report to avoid substantial risk of prejudice to the administration of justice" (yep, still haven't pawned my law textbook!).

The case is sure to go in front of a jury, and reporting on vital evidence would no doubt have an effect on potential jurors. Some may argue that any trial is a long way off and any potential juror would have forgotten the report by then.

But the case is now so famous that reports such as these would lead many to the presumption of guilt on the part of Ruth Turner - resulting in what could only be seen as an unfair trial. Afterall, it is a pillar of the British justice system that someone is held innocent until proven guilty.

So for all its gloating and declarations of victory, the BBC is misrepresenting the ruling as it was (and is) nothing more than a fair and accurate use of the law, one that upholds a key principle of our justice system.

While the BBC whinge about 'cover-ups' and Government having one rule for themselves and another for everyone else, they would be wise to read the law and realise that no, in this case it really is one rule for everyone and surely they should be big enough not to spit the dummy out when it's used against them!

10 Years in Prison - For Being Rational!

As I write this I am listening to 50cent – and guess what? I don’t have the sudden urge to go on a murderous rampage.

Well, that’s what many people would have you believe is the influence of this gangster-turned-superstar. After the spate of shootings in London this week, the BBC’s ‘Have Your Say’ site was filled with helpful hints from people on how to tackle gun crime.

“Ban rap music!” they shout. “Blame the single parents!” they roar. “Return to traditional values!” “Bring back National Service!” “Let people own guns to protect their homes!” (what more guns?) “Blame the immigrants!”… I could go on but for fear of sounding like a headline roll-call from the Daily Mail I shall stop there.

Ok, just one more nugget: “Enforce a zero tolerance policy like in the US!” proclaims ‘Jones’ from London. Funny that, I wasn’t aware the UK ever tolerated gun crime? I could spend hours picking holes in each one but I trust you would have already done that.

So why is it we look for such easy answers in what is a very complex debate. The politicians may have to, for the sake of publicity, blame it on one, maybe two key events but surely we can understand better than that?

Gun crime comes mainly from drug culture. Drugs culture leads to gangs on the streets. Faced with a low-paid job or a more ‘glamorous’ (and yes, popular culture does have some role here) gangland life, it is an appealing prospect.

As young people find themselves in the poverty trap – unable to make money or get a job, instead relying on the little that the state provides to get by.

And with little money and subsequently little education it is no wonder that many young men are turning to crime. So why not nip the problem in the bud? Reform the welfare state, legalise and control the drug trade and provide better education. Then we might have the answer.

Blaming rap music and calling for draconian measures can only make things worse. The same people who call for these measures would then surely be up in arms about state interference and a breach of civil liberties.

I’m no expert, the problem is complex and deep-rooted and it will take a lot to address it. In the meantime, I am going to continue to listen to rap music and watch gangster movies – if that makes me a criminal then so be it.