Monthly Archives: July 2005

Movies & TV

Penultimate Enterprise

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Enterprise

So last night we watched the last of the Manny Coto episodes of Star Trek Enterprise, Terra Prime.

It has to be said that many fans regard this episode as a better finale than the actual finale episode that airs next week, certainly a simple rearrangement of the last few scenes would finish it well. However instead we finish with the Berman and Braga effort which flips six years into the future, includes Riker and Troi from the Next Generation and for no apparent reason kills off a major character. Hardly seems like a celebration of the series on paper, but quite how it actually turns out we’ll see next week.

In some ways it is a rather sad passing. Whilst the early stories weren’t really great, season three started to improve, and I really enjoyed season four, especially as they started to sort out a lot of the continuity problems that had been introduced by the earlier seasons. In amongst that they even had time for the Mirror Universe two parter complete with special credit sequences. However by this point the damage was done, and despite the improvement, the US networks were shunting the series around the schedules, so it never recovered, and it became the first series since the original to get cancelled.

However whilst it’s sad to see the end of the series, Manny Coto is off to join 24, and whilst one long running sci-fi series ends, it is looking good for the reborn Doctor Who. (A series that perhaps should be stamped ‘By Royal Approval‘!)

Politics

So Just What Did Happen At Stockwell?

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Listening to PM tonight, they played part of a press conference given by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian shot on Stockwell Underground station last Friday. Oddly enough, it is not on the BBC News web site, however a report of the press conference is here.

The generally accepted description of what happened is described on this BBC news page, key points being that Police said he was wearing a padded jacket, and that he vaulted over the barriers. However what is concerning about the information in the news conference is that the station CCTV video apparently disagrees with these points, instead showing Menezes in a denim jacket using his travelcard to go through the barriers like any other underground user.

This is following on from news yesterday that although security sources say he had an out of date visa, both his family, and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw disagree and say that he was in the UK legally, and also that he was shot eight times, rather than the originally reported five.

All of this seems to muddy the water, and also adds to concern in that we have several ‘facts’ given by the security services, that subsequently seem to be totally incorrect. He had been tracked from flats that the Police were watching, and had not raised suspicion until getting onto the train. Could it be as simple as Menezes simply spotted that a train going his direction was in the platform and ran for the train? That he had the misfortune to live in the same tower block as the terrorists and not want to miss his train? Who knows, but I suspect it may take many months, even years before we find out.

Update: The BBC now have a report of the press conference here. The IO Error blog has also collected more details here.

Church, Geocaching

Tower Open Day 2005

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Tower Open Day 2

After heavy rain all morning, this afternoon we were very lucky with the weather for the annual opening of the tower.

The rain stopped by about two o’clock, and by the time I arrived at the church at 3 o’clock the sun was starting to break through. The photographer from the local paper made it to the top of the tower this year, and took a picture of Maurice Driver and his two grandsons, so hopefully that will appear in next weeks paper.

When I got back, I also discovered that some Geocachers had logged the tower for one of my caches, which I was slightly annoyed to have missed!

Anyway, I’ve uploaded some more pictures from today, plus a few other shots of the church to a picture gallery.

General

Scoble Goes Off On One

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Usually Robert Scobles blog is a pretty good read, however I’m not quite sure what he was on yesterday, but he seemed to throw a massive mud slinging session over a MacDailyNews article about the recent Microsoft announcement that when released Longhorn will be called Windows Vista. The general gist of the article is that many of the features that will be included in Windows Vista, MacOS X has already in Tiger, or are fixing problems introduced in previous versions of Windows. To some extent it’s the kind of post, and on a site that I wouldn’t really have registered had it not been for Scoble’s reaction.

However, it seems I’m not alone. Later on Scoble printed a summary of some of the responses, perhaps the one that best sums up my opinion being the one from John Wulff called “When Cheerleaders Sneer“:

I really enjoy Scoble’s blog, but sometimes he crosses the line from entertaining evangelist to petty mudslinger.

The key point from my point of view is that looking just at the two operating systems, Tiger is already out there and shipping. However some of the earlier announced features of Windows Vista, for example WinFS are being dropped out to ensure a timely release. Indeed there is speculation that the next major release of MacOS X, Leopard will ship by the time Windows Vista finally gets released, so there is really no point in comparing either two future products, or an existing product with a competitors potential product. You can only compare two existing, shipping products.

Really all these school playground style mud slinging sessions don’t get anybody anywhere, and it was somewhat of a surprise to find Scoble having a go.

Church

Voces Cantabiles take Italy by Storm

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Today was our first chance to catch up with Barney Smith since he and Voces Cantabiles performed in a memorable candlelit concert at St James, I also got a chance to talk to his parents during the opening of the Church tower.

Basically they took Italy by storm. To quote from their website:

23.07.05
WINNERS! Voces Cantabiles have just returned from Italy as winners of the 44th International Choral Grand Prix in Gorizia, Italy. The choir entered six catagories, and won a total of eight awards. First places were gained in the areas of Polyphonic music written for double choir, performances of music by Stanford, Parry and Harris, Jazz sung by the Corporate Entertainment group, and an award from the Public for ‘best choir’. To top off a fantastic week, Artistic Director of Voces Cantabiles Music, Barnaby Smith, won two awards for the most artistic programme, and best director. The success of the choir’s week abroad can be measured by the amount of invitations back to the continent that have been received.

Many congratulations to Barney, Paul and the choir, and we wish them much success int the future. Hopefully they’ll find space to fit St James in again at some point in the choirs packed schedule.