There is a term used to describe the point in time that exists for hacks and exploits before they are first identified or publicised outside the group of users that created and use them: zero day. Zero days exist at the moment of creation and purity; the moment when their sole purpose is defined by the intention of the creator rather than the observer. The smallest of sub cultures before the moment either dissipates or gains some level of integration into the homogeneity of general consciousness. In my more romantic moments I imagine an ethereal spirit of zero days overseeing discoveries and realisations, shunted aside as they gain traction.

A zero day is a pin prick of existence from which a myriad of possibilities radiate outwards from, some never occurring, several occurring at once and many mingling and interfering with one another to create waveforms of existence and reality that are unimaginable to the instigators of the original event and often wholly unpredictable to anyone. A bit like life in general. For instance: dynamite. Tri Nitro Toluene (and it may be sad that I can still remember the structure) was created by a chemist called Nobel who became very rich from his invention. He also didn’t want to be remembered for this and created an award in his name to reward the brightest and best in their particular fields. For a long time they acted to establish Nobel’s name with altruism, human advancement and achievement. However the Nobel Peace Prize has long since become a political award, given to embarrass establishments, reward token efforts in fashionable pursuits and generally trading on its reputation to highlight causes rather than pacifists. And so it is that Barack Obama comes to be awarded it for rhetoric about nuclear disarmament at the same time as pursuing a hawkish policy in Afghanistan. Something that will cause death. Something he may come to be inextricably linked to. And thus Nobel is once again associated with death.

As an aside, there is a movement afoot to have Barack Obama named as (American) College Football’s best player through a rigged write in vote. As I understand it the voting makes it impossible for him to win, but he is certainly going to place as a result. Brought to you by the same people who made Rick Astley the best performer of all time at MTV and in the fine tradition of Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf winning People’s sexiest people way back when.

On science and endings; Planetary 27 finally came out. As much as I think the Authority is the absolute pinnacle of super hero comics, as much as Transmetropolitan forever changed my world view, as much as Fell and Doktor Sleepless thrill and upset me, Planetary is Ellis’ greatest work. A century of pulp fiction and quantum and relativistic physics forced through the explorer hero archetype and distilled into some of the best comics ever made. And 27 reinforces the underlying themes of the series and provides a fitting conclusion with emotional heart while remaining utterly true to the characters and concept. If any other fiction moves me as much this year I will be amazed.

South Park came back. Not quite like the comet but probably like a swift kick in the unmentionables to popular culture. Really genuinely funny, but actually creepy with it. I can’t think of anything in the first half of the series I enjoyed as much.

I started an evening class in Book keeping. I thought the teacher was an absolute moron. I ended an evening class in book keeping. My other course continues apace. And, by apace, I mean at as fast as I can possibly manage.

I won an award at work for the month. Got a load of tat. Enjoyed the sentiment. Found out that we may all be working limited hours as a result of the postal strike. Changed the criteria by which I am looking for a new job.

Kanye West has become an internet meme. The basic joke is that you place him in a photo of an event and paraphrase his invasion of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to include details relevant to the photograph. For instance, you would have a photo of Kanye West invading Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech and have Kanye West at the side saying “Yo, Kanye, Imma happy for you and I’ll let you finish but I have to say that Jarvis Cocker wrecking Michael Jackson’s performance at the Brits is the best musical award show invasion of all time. of all time.” and the meme will have successfully eaten its own tail.

Speaking of which, I am sure he had a point. On the other hand, he was there in the first place which is a tacit acceptance of the rules and ridiculousness of the whole event so perhaps he should have held his tongue?
I have no strong opinion, I find it all faintly ridiculous these days.

David Cameron has been accused of being a con artist by Nick Clegg. Who reminds me nothing so much as David Cameron. David Cameron has also realigned his party away from the centre left in the European parliament and alongside lunatics from Poland. Who wouldn’t even be in the European parliament if it weren’t for the federalists. I am sure the irony is lost upon him.

I went and saw Gamer last night. It is a watchable and sporadically entertaining film that is, to say the least, confused. There feels to be 3 films merged clumsily into one and the crediting of two directors goes some way to explaining the schizophrenic nature of the film. Gerard Butler is largely under utilised as the growling bloke and the lead from Dexter given too little screen time as the main villain. But he is genuinely unsettling, which is a nice touch. Visually it is sometimes great and sometimes nauseating and does have some interesting points to make about online gaming. And also makes me glad I re positioned myself as a more hardcore gamer after years of fluffy mainstream play.

Before Gamer was a trailer for Ninja Assassin. This is from the creative team behind V for Vendetta and has been delayed by nearly a year. Normally a delay of that magnitude is worrying (to say the least) but it looks absolutely incredible. Probably going to be a very nice surprise to end the year on.

Oh, and I start evening class on Tuesday. With a second to follow soon on Wednesdays. So I think I will be online less and possibly less social.

Michael Jackson died. I know: there was nothing about it on the news or radio and you could quite easily have let such a happening pass you by. Even serious minded newspapers devoted days and days of front page coverage to his passing and I do wonder if he is the new Diana in so much as the Daily Mail and Express now have someone else to talk about. For the next ten years.

Bobby Robson has also died. It’s weird how some deaths affect you and some you care nothing about. Bobby Robson always struck me as thoroughly decent, honourable and kindly. A genial grandfather. Not my own, but someone else’s who you always felt had got some great family.

I saw GI Joe last night. GI Joe joins a rarefied pantheon of films that are so bad they’re eminently watchable in a sort of “I can’t believe they made this” way. It’s worse than Ghost Rider. It has special effects that look more akin to the place holders in the leaked Wolverine release than the actual finished article and features scenes so incredibly stupid that people were actually laughing at them. When they weren’t intended to be funny. One of the climatic moments of the film was actually lifted from a joke in Team America and several scenes only served to remind you how much better directed they were in the film that they originally appeared in. It is, in short, an abomination that seemingly exists only to make Transformers look like high art.

Two things: someone at work has contracted swine flu and id Software has sold up to Bethseda.

id Software has sold up!
Jesus. The last bastions of digital independence, programming heroes for whom innovation means freedom of the soul. When Frank Miller turned into a parody of himself and started strip mining his past rather than creating anything new or interesting, when Alan Moore seemed as petty as a six year old girl not being given a pony, John Carmack kept plowing the same path with zeal, integrity and ingenuity. He forced corporate behemoths to bend to his will, showed up his entire industry and became the de facto market leader in any segment he dabbled in. This is a man who is more responsible than any other for the longevity and adaption of OpenGL on the PC platform. Who bequeathed 3DFx, NVidia and ATI their entire (and lucrative) markets through sheer innovation and quality, who revolutionised gaming at every turn and very nearly went into space in his free time. I admired the man more than anyone else alive.

And now he has gone and (seemingly) sold out. More than George Lucas’ inability to realise not everything he does is great, more than Fatboy Slim releasing mediocre albums, more than bad films and dubious politics, this is the moment my childhood is laid bare and any certainty I had rent asunder.

Also, the lack of a sudo command in the command prompt in Windows Vista is really, really annoying.

A while back I complained about an advert with a faux American accent promising that a sale was strictly limited. This was then superseded with an advert using that same irritating voiceman but saying that the sale (while extended) would still end soon. This, duly, ran forever. And made an enemy for me of the store that it was advertising. Thankfully this run has finally ended. To be replaced by yet another advert with the same incredibly bloody annoying voice. So it shall come to pass: when he flies into a rage his enemies shall be struck dumb by his anger. And possibly incontinent.

Speaking of mad regimes, I felt proud to be British for the first time in a good long while yesterday. Too long, truth be told. The Ayatollah (I don’t know how to write or pronounce his last name, but it is not dissimilar to “ham and cheese”) has singled out Britain for particular scorn in a speech he made about how his country men should all stand behind his good buddy the mad holocaust denier in the cheap suit. You can judge a man by the quality of his enemies. Or country.

Bradford’s town hall clock continues to be a source of particularly inaccurate time. This week it was wrong on three of the mornings I went into work, stopped at midnight and two in the morning (or possibly afternoon). I live in a city where the council doesn’t even know what time it is. And possibly run by people so ugly their faces can stop clocks.

Up is bloody brilliant. Not as good as the Incredibles or Wall-E, but head and shoulders above most films. It’s genuinely touching, depressing and uplifting, beautifully animated and terse and pacy. Once again Pixar have opened up a gap on their competitors when it comes to quality of animation, knowing when to hit us with incredibly detailed textures and polygon rich scenes, and when to use the simple quality of their design. More than ever they seem to perfectly realise their vision, and their only limitation if their (very high) standard of writing.

Terminator Salvation looks like a good film from the trailer. Christian Bale has yet to turn in a bad performance (although he has been in some bad films) and the special effects look incredible. What I can glean of the plot is promising too. And yet. And yet it is a McG film. And he is one of those rare people with a reverse Midas touch. I’d say he is the anti-Christ of American cinema but that is unfair: the anti-Christ could at least blame his upbringing and parental pressure . . .

The Sunday Express has a headline screaming (I am paraphrasing) “Gordon Brown least popular PM since polling began – Worse than Michael Foot.” Now, I am confused. I know I was but a small child but I am sure I would remember Michael Foot’s triumphant victory following the Falklands War and headlines such as “Incontinent PM soils himself at peace summit” and “The wheelchair’s not for turning.”

The Inbetweeners finished a triumphant second series in the week. Not the saccharin ending of the first series, a savage and very funny look at exams and heartbreak instead. Often intermingled. Quite simply this series has been one of the funniest things ever broadcast and I would recommend everyone seek it out and hunt it down.

I didn’t go swimming this morning, I appear to have broken Wayne using the medium of water.

Wolverine is apparently doing quite respectably for a leaked, poorly reviewed film with bad word of mouth. Fox are not so much happy as breathing a huge sigh of relief. Or, at least, until nest week when the new Star Trek comes out and Wolverine loses over 60% of its sales.

South Park seems to be on summer hiatus without having delivered any truly great episodes. Stewart Lee has finished and The Inbetweeners is already on the penultimate episode of the series. The Inbetweeners may be the biggest loss, the new episode is brilliant and the series has been consistently better than the last one.

Swine Flu, luckily is the new SARS rather than the new Spanish Flu. The media reported it in hysterical terms, then reported on the panic and hysteria they created, and are begrudgingly reporting how it isn’t that dangerous really while trying to suggest everyone got it wrong but them. All the while I stood wondering what the big deal was, only for the thing I was wondering about to be in a constant state of flux, just not my reaction to it.

Gordon Brown is being rallied around. At the moment there seems little going round to rally round him because of, which either means it is pre emptive or the leading lights of the Labour party (a phrase chosen for alliterative value rather than any semblance of accuracy) are so used to him needing their collective support that they just do it out of habit.

A guy I work with was apparently resident at Bradford City’s Valley Parade ground the day it caught fire. It’s one of those things I understand as an abstract but never really had any first hand appreciation of. Shocking, really, considering I live in the city that it happened in.

I got a book on Escher, all the things I remember as being examples of his great use of perspective are, in fact, isometrics. All the things I thought looked a bit odd are examples of perspective. It’s a funny old world and I don’t know how to draw any of it.

I went swimming at an unearthly hour this morning with Wayne. There were 3 partitioned areas, one for the slow, one for the less slow and one for serious swimmers. Unfortunately I am above less slow in less speed and nothing like a serious swimmer. I kept running into the person in front while being lapped by people who actually wear swimming caps. I now ache in places I didn’t even know had musculature.

Last night I went through a lot or Jim Lee art and was inspired to draw. Which I have done, and it looks nothing like Jim Lee. It’s hard lined and has no feathering or hatching, at all.

Apparently you can now catch death from sausages. And Mexicans. Especially from Mexicans wielding sausages.

The Guardian is the most transparent, honest and fair purveyor of financial news and recommendations in Britain, if not the world. I know this because The Guardian tells me so. In an offensively smug manner. Do you know how you can tell how good it is?
Because it has the financial news before the comments and not after them. On this basis the Sun and Star are even better at reporting the death of Jade Goody because they had it on the left hand column on the cover rather than the right hand one. And the Independent and Telegraph are utterly useless at reporting her demise because they don’t have her death on the cover at all. How can they sleep with themselves?
As an aside, the Star costs less than half as much as my local paper. And has just as little you’d actually want to read in it.

On the topic of newspapers, did anyone catch David Baddiel’s piece in the Times at the weekend about starting off his career with the Mary Whitehouse Experience?
Crap, isn’t it?

The new South Park starts with a Watchmen parody and descends into a sub Batman rip off. It has a couple of good jokes but isn’t great. In fact, I only laughed out loud a couple of times.

Apparently, as soon as the US government acknowledged there was a recession, consumer confidence there dropped measurably. In this country companies are going bust left, right and centre. These are the end times.

Apart from they’re not: Barack Obama gets sworn in inside a month and, at some point, the economy will cease contracting. One thing that cheered me up more than it should is a list of billionaires who have lost significant quantities of their paper fortunes to the global recession. Paper fortunes could be the key words here, with the whole thing brought about my 63 trillion dollars that never existed vanishing. Part of me feels that a similar sized contraction has to occur, but the whole recession is about confidence and perceived worth rather than anything more tangible.

Comics wise I have no idea how the year has been. Both Marvel and DC are doing huge crossovers and steeping their books in inter-connectivity and continuity. This doesn’t interest me and a lack of time and money means I haven’t been following them as I may have otherwise.

Films-wise it hasn’t been spectacular and, again, time and funds have conspired to make sure I didn’t venture to the cinema often. The Day the Earth Stood Still is a mixed bag of a film with great sequences and large swathes that just don’t work. The Dark Knight is very good indeed, but is less good when you actually ruminate on it. What else was there?
Tropic Thunder isn’t as funny as one would hope.
Jumper was a special effect stretched into a movie.
Wanted was wrecked by being utterly stupid.
Iron Man wasn’t bad, actually.
Speed Racer looks fantastic but it is aimed at kids and not for adult consumption.
Indiana Jones 4 is the continued rape of childhood by George Lucas.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is really funny, and quite brave for a mainstream sex comedy.
Righteous Kill is singularly disappointing but doesn’t allow Pacino to be as awful as normal.
The Hulk is ok, but pales in comparison to other superhero films this year.
Get Smart isn’t funny and is too obvious.
The Love Guru I seem to be the only person alive who likes.
Wall-E is brilliant, daring and beautiful.
Hancock has the beginning of a much better film and a fairly awful ending around a standard middle.
Hellboy 2 is visually great, but the tension seems missing.
How to lose friends and alienate people is good for 20 minutes. Then an insipid romantic comedy.
Quantum of Solace is like a tacked on sequel to the previous James Bond film without being a James Bond film. Some of the action sequences are a bit shaky, but I actually prefer it to Casino Royale.
Zack and Miri make a porno isn’t very funny.

Still, to 2009 and all the promise I will bemoan squandering in 12 months’ time.

I found a half written post. I have no idea what it was going to be about. I posted it anyway.

The financial system may be melting down, it could just be a sudden contraction caused by the realisation there wasn’t the liquidity in the system that it appeared. Billions in borrowed and lent money has vanished, never having actually existed anywhere apart from on balance sheets. The housing market is duly contracting and businesses with real assets and inventories gain and lose ridiculous amounts of perceived value on an hourly basis. Against this backdrop the media knows something is happening and scares us all, but how much it will actually affect any of us is hard to say. The Mirror (in particular)’s craven headlines have annoyed me greatly.

One thing it has done has buggered McCain even more than Palin opening her mouth ever could. The week of his convention he looked like he was on course for the White House. George Bush interfering with the markets and he is on the receiving end of a landslide . . .
He’s even started pulling staff from what were quite winnable states.

Igor. Igor is very, very funny. Spiritually (and visually) it is very similar to The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s also not for young children. One of the main characters is an immortal bunny rabbit with his brain pan exposed and a death wish. There’s a recurring joke involving a dismembered limb. And idiots take their children to see it without noticing what rating it has.

Speed Racer (I know, I know, but I only just saw it) is visually super saturated and probably features lots of things never before seen. It’s also insipid. See it once to marvel at the sheer brilliance of the effects. And then never see it again.

Sweeney Todd. I found myself skipping the musical bits. It’s not quite as comedic as I expected. The cast are all brilliant. Some of the visuals are quite lovely. I still got very bored.

Love Guru. But for the toilet humour a truly funny and enjoyable film. Far better than I expected it to be.

21. Lawrence Fishbourne has put on weight. Kevin Spacey is great in everything he does. The book (hell, even the half written articles on the internet) is much better.

Tropic Thunder. First half brilliant, Robert Downey Jr is great. But there aren’t quiet enough jokes to sustain it and (barring Tom Cruise’s frankly incredibly cameo) there is too much sentimentality creeps in.

No Heroics is quite funny when it is on narcissism and the peculiarity of fame. But there is too much comfort and familiarity. It’s best when it is savage and when it’s something you have seen before you just feel underwhelmed.

Gordon Brown has brought Peter Mandelson back. I know nothing can really revive his premiership, but even on that basis it is an utterly peculiar move. Is he just trying to remind us of the worst parts of Tony Blair in an effort to make us appreciate him more?
Or does he think he will be helped by negative headlines every morning?

Ian Blair has resigned. Jacqui Smith has rushed to defend and laud him. That tells you everything you need to know about both of them. He has tried blaming Boris Johnson for his removal (which rather endears the fop to me) but I think the corruption allegations (two batches), incompetent operations in which innocent men have been shot (does anyone remember the Asian gentleman they decided were terrorists and could find nothing on save the fact they hoarded money and perhaps had an indecent photo or two?) and absolute PR disasters also played their part in his removal. He’s the first public servant I have ever hated with as much venom, and as much as I take pleasure in his removal I would rather he was punished and humiliated.

I saw The Dark Knight. I loved it. It made me cry.

I am lobster red, after the carboot yesterday. The day started off hazy, but turned hot and then hotter. Wandering around the carboot I stood on a hill and saw a literal mile of cars, vans and people. Heat shimmer and the promise of sweat, yapping dogs and screaming kids. But it was a good day.

The guy next to us had a nightmare day. He was getting a table out of his car when he clipped the window. Now, the table was a softish plastic and caught the window with no force, but it exploded outwards in shards of blue tinged glass. Then, as he was setting up and distracted by a customer, his partner sold the Playstation 3 he was hoping to get £160 for for £20. It was very hard not to laugh.

Last time I wrote I compared Gordon Brown to John Major and noted how he had no civil war in his party. I’m unsure whether that was prophetic or not. Apparently Jack Straw (a stalking horse if ever there was one, the man has no core within the party) is mooted as his replacement. Can he be as bad?
Gordon Brown has resorted to pandering to his core, instead of completely failing to understand the whims of the majority. If ever there was a lame duck leader, this is it.

Barack Obama has been on a tour of Europe, looking like a president in waiting and concentrating one one of his two perceived weaknesses (the other is Militarily). McCain’s initial stunt of eating a sausage with some people of Bavarian descent looked cheap and utterly pathetic. Like much of his campaign. Getting some traction from Obama’s refusal to visit injured soldiers was actually brilliant campaigning. Unfortunately I fear the former will be typical of the coming months.

I have over 11 thousand comments on Greatwhitehype to screen. Yuck.

Work is one continuous stream of hair dryers, fans that would sell if only there were two hot days threaded together, kettles and dealing with people who tell you how much they’re worth and then pay you with the copper from down their sofas. I spent three days dealing with Nigerians trying to sell fans and, after conversing with one repeatedly, got a firm order for 32 of them. Fantastic, now if only I could sell the other 2 thousand or so . . .

I don’t want anyone to spoil the Dark Knight for me. I shall ignore more and more people until I get to see it for myself, finally escaping my self imposed coccoon of interaction deprivation.

Gordon Brown. He’s like John Major without the defining catastrophic failure of policy and leadership and without the open civil war within his party. But make no mistake, he is as unpopular, as reactionary and as clueless.

I don’t come here for a while and it is overgrown with the weeds of spam. Clarkkent wants to show me fake breasts. A woman in India thinks I have a great site. And no one says one real thing or one genuine thought.

Barack Obama. His funding has slowed but he really is running a good campaign. McCain has occassional moments of lucidity but I get the feeling his nurses don’t wake him from his afternoon naps often enough.

David Davis I have belatedly decided I like. I agree with him on something he feels strongly about. And he seems genuinely principled.

Michael Turner died. I was surprised and then discovered I didn’t really care.

Hellboy 2 is very good, but loses steam towards the end. Wall-E is probably a great technical achievement but I got really bored and gave up. Hancock is better than I thought but loses it’s way after the first half.

Ladytron have a new album. I couldn’t listen to it all the way through. They have gone from being a jolt of something new and jagged to sounding a lot like other people. It’s all got a bit serious and musically accomplished but considerably less weird. A lot of people put out music I like and then move in a way that I don’t care much for, very few actually come back stronger. Armand Van Helden. Miss Kittin. Primal Scream. Everyone else just sort of fades away.

Miss Kittin has a new album. I like it.

New South Park! It’s spot on as satire and quite funny. But it isn’t great. It has laugh out loud moments, but not throughout.

I was walking behind a woman the other day. Well, she crossed over the road in front of me. So I am walking there already and she cuts me up and has me behind her. Now we continue walking and I am walking on my normal route home. Which is clearly her route too as she turns round and looks at me fearfully as I take the same turnings as her. Granted, I looked like a mad axe man but she crossed out in front of me. If that makes me a stalker, that makes her the metaphorical equivalent of William Tell’s son jumping round with a target on her. Or something.

Leeds station is clearly intended as a fiendish maze from which travellers must never, ever escape. It isn’t enough for them to give the wrong list of destinations for a train. Or the wrong departure time. Or the wrong platform. No, they have to do all three. I dare say if I had managed to catch it there would have been someone stood just inside the door to push me off for my temerity.

Congratulations to Labour rebels for finally working out the ten percent tax abolition is a bad thing. Next up: Murder is . . . wrong. Idiots.

Easter came obscenely early this year. Apparently it wont happen again in my lifetime. It being as early. Not it being Easter.

To the surprise of absolutely no-one Heathrow’s terminal 5 is a mess. I read that the luggage handling system took 13 years to design and implement. This does not mean that it was thorough and every contingency prepared for, it just means it is at least 13 years out of date. It uses arrays of lasers to read barcodes on luggage when it screams out for RFID chips. They’d be more accurate and reliable and probably even cheaper in the long run.

I have worked out a slogan for politicians standing against the incumbent government: They don’t have policies, they react. They don’t have vision, they avoid oversight. You’re welcome.

Here’s how busy I have been with work: I only just discovered there is a new series of South Park started in America. I do aim to correct this shortcoming though.

We’ve had a rework of airconditioners to do at work. It wore me out completely the first day but I now feel fantastic for it. I recommend it as a workout to everyone.

If you want to give birth to a baby quickly and with a minimum of pain have Clive Owen act as a mid-wife. My extensive knowledge of everything (having seen him do it in Children of Men and Shoot Em Up) convinces me of this.

Apparently people abuse professional soldiers as protest against the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Somewhere where people wear turbans at any rate. And the government rightly admonishes the people who do this, but unfortunately on the grounds that these soldiers are defending these shores. By being in Iraq. And keeping the price of oil high. Obviously.

It’s five years since the UK went into Iraq. The army’s still in Basra. In temporary tents. And whilst politicians claim this is to bring security to the city it is really just a case of camping by the airport while “insurgents” lob shells with gay abandon.

My email is playing up. The folders are jumbled and sometimes I can’t see it at all. But when it does work it is more responsive than it has been.

I walked past two men sat on the canal bank, fishing. They had unfeasibly narrow and long rods. Too delicate for the litter and broken branches that makes up so much of the contents of his stretch of waterway; I suspect they are suitable only for minnows. But the chances of catching anything here seem slim. So they have basically decided to have a day sat in the late February sunshine on a canal bank. And they have probably been looking forward to being able to do this all winter.

The news is full of ‘orrible murders. No sooner has one depraved lunatic been found guilty than another joins him, awaiting the gallows of media assassination. Too many maniacs, the newspapers can’t wallow in the aftermath for the days they would like for fear of not giving sufficient column inches to the next madman. If the events were more media managed they would be spaced out more, no more than one a month.

Obama is, apparently, running Hillary very close in Texas. This must severely worry her. She has Ohio in the bag, and Texas would give her another couple of hundred of delegates to play with. Basically, it is the one she needs to campaign in. While the number of states may seem disparate and the popular vote tells a different story, American politics is very much regional and strong showings in key states (or just outright rigging them) can see you beat a more popular opponent.

We’ve turned so many corners and been privy to so many false dawns at work that I sometimes feel we’re walking around a circular tower in the Antarctic. But finally we have something quantititative to go with our gut feelings and outright optimism. We’re in the best position we’ve been in for months, and we’ve got fewer overheads to deal with.

Wayne, allegedly, no longer cares about building fast PCs. This is probably akin to Ferrari deciding to abandon their core market in order to make city cars or people carriers. Of no real interest to the vast majority of people, but something seismic and saddening to the few nonetheless.

It’s been a long year. I went from working in a factory and selling stuff to annoying market traders to being an ex pat to being a market trader. Spain was hot but hard to adjust to and moved at a snail’s pace. Market traders pleaded poverty and tried to squeeze prices. The general public asked idiot questions and promised to come back to make purchases and I never saw them again.

Manchester United will probably be second as the new year is rung in. Arsenal finally achieved their potential the year I stopped believing they would. Chelsea imploded. And Liverpool continued to be utterly unlikeable.

The comics mainstream became navel gazing and all about intricacies of continuity I can’t be bothered with. Non-superhero comics were actually very good. Doktor Sleepless is a little over-familiar thus far but like hanging out with a friend and dancing to music you already know. It’s not ground breaking but it’s fun in a way you can predict beforehand. The Mouse Guard was incredibly well executed and charming although I can’t be part of the intended demographic. The Nightly News was bloody superb. The Highwaymen was fun and cut down way too soon and Fables was consistently excellent.

South Park had a run of sub-standard episodes. It’s not the beginning of the end, but it was disappointing.

I don’t even know anything about popular music anymore. I’m ten years off the pace and take pride in it. I don’t know if things are really as quantifiably worse as I think they are (that sounds incredibly clumsy) or I just lost interest the second or third time I saw the tricks they are the latest iteration of.

Films-wise I thought it was a pretty good year. 300 was violent and stupid and wonderful fun. Hot Fuzz was spectacularly funny and layered. Oceans 13 was a return to form and enjoyable. There was the dense and rewarding climax to the Pirates trilogy. Tranformers wasn’t as awful as I expected. Shoot Em Up was also violent and gloriously stupid. I didn’t bother seeing Bourne, having hated the second one. Zodiac was overlong. The Simpsons was as bad as I feared and had reviews from another film entirely. Die Hard 4.0 was the least of an already fatally wounded franchise.

And Gordon Brown went from a man of integrity to incompetent hack in less time than it takes to change a lightbulb.

Harriet Harman is “true to the spirit of the letter of the law.” This is a euphemism for “a lying toerag.” As the only member of the cabinet who Gordon Brown can not sack she is ideally placed to do his government untold damage and, were it not for a canoeist from the Labour heartland of the North East, she would be doing so. The current iteration of the failed New Labour project seems to excel only in being yet more despicable and inept with every passing week. I remember when I couldn’t imagine hating a politician more than Charles Clarke. Now I have an entire front bench in the Commons to pick from.

Asda seem to be either stuck in an era before the First World War or to have failed geography massively. When not fixing dairy prices. I was doing my weekly shop yesterday and saw “Irish Beef” proudly displaying the Union Flag. Because we still rule Ireland. And subjugate their pig farmers. And, presumably, beef farmers.

We’ve been running a market stall in the run up to Christmas in an effort to maximise our return on products as well as keep some kind of cash flow going. And the general public can be very odd. One of the most noticeable things is how gentlemen of the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent (and their descendants) seemingly believe that female grooming products in bright pink are hair clippers. Because “Femme Fatale” isn’t non-masculine enough. Because “Bikini Trimmer” doesn’t suggest it isn’t designed to carefully trim around your ears. Because there is a cultural difference at work or they blatantly can’t read.

Apparently 20,000 alcoholics are long-term sick. And 50 acne sufferers. This is why we need a large migrant workforce: spotty white lightning drinkers who shirk work. It’s no longer just teenagers in parks with their friends, it can be a whole alternate career trajectory.

The second half of the latest South Park season is bitterly disappointing. It has some nice metaphors, but fails to sustain them (a 3 part joke on terrorists and intellectual mind share was clearly too much) and doesn’t really have the same incisiveness of much of the other episodes. A pity, but a handful of poor episodes is hardly indicative of a Simpsons-esque decline.