How come, in England, I can get 8mbit ADSL with unlimited downloads for £10 a month, but in Australia, I’d struggle to get anything close for $25? Screw the bush, I want decent service where I can get it. Honestly, as much as I am all for equal opportunity, I think the fact that the phone companies here are required to provide the same (approximate) level of service to the bush is holding the city service back. When the difference really is that great, it should be acknowledged and the market allowed to vary. ...

A 19 hour flight is a spectacular time to catch up on movie watching… Shrek the Third: proves everything I say about third sequels. Out of ideas, rehash, etc. ★★, with difficulty. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery: Would you believe I’d never seen this until this flight? I’d caught bits of it, but I’d picked up most of the references from the all-pervasive cultural impact this movie had had. What can I say, I’m a little bit behind the times at times. Good fun. ★★★ ...

My first proper holiday - in the sense that I’m not going somewhere new and possibly exciting, I’m just going to take it easy and relax - is about to begin! With a 20 hour flight ;_; Man, Australia really is a ridiculously long way away from the rest of the world/action. I’ll be in Melbourne from the morning of 3rd Sept to the evening of the 5th; all you people in Melbourne better have time for me some time in those 3 days because I’m coming a long way, dammit, and I don’t want to spend 3 days doing bugger all in Melbourne. I have better places to do bugger all. ...

Lord of War Nicholas Cage plays the good-bad-guy as an arms dealer. And, um, that seems to be about it. Ok, so maybe that’s underplaying it a little, but this is fundamentally a bio-pic of a guy that doesn’t really exist (except for the fact that he’s a little like this guy). Cage is working with a story that’s been cobbled together, and bits of this film certainly feel like that. ...

I have a theory as to why it was the English, and the Europeans more generally, who came to dominate the world, instead of say some racial group from the tropics, say. Something set these guys apart - something made them go out to other places and take over, something made them the inventive people who worked so hard. The reason? Cold. Miserable, wet, windy, cold weather you wouldn’t want to hang around in too long. Unfortunately enough for these people, that’s where they were destined to spend their whole lives if they didn’t go about changing things. So I say to you, an accident of geography and meteorology is more responsible for the European domination than anything else. ...