Look mum, no wires!
This post is coming to you without wires. Well, actually there's a whole pile of wires involved, but they're all buried under the bed. This laptop is wireless though, and that's pretty cool.Even cooler is the fact that it really was plug and play. I clicked through a few dialog boxes but that was it. Now though I think I've got to go through some security stuff, but that's it.
The unreported resistance
To read the Iraqi Blogs at the moment you'd think there was some kind of surge in the Iraqi resistance going on. Reports of heavy bombing, more explosions than anyone remembers for months, and rumours that the resistance are deploying an anti-aircraft gun. Meanwhile nothing is reported.Some of you doubtless think this is a conspiracy theory and that if there was anything to this the news would pick it up. Sadly tis not the case. In the UK dozens of bombings and shootings in Ireland went unreported throughout the troubles, it just wasn't news anymore. When I holidayed in Ireland I was amazed at how routine reports of murders and shootings had become on the local news - and how none of them ever made it to the broadcasts of the mainland BBC.
Riverbend under fire
Salaam watching movies and listening to the explosions
Other Iraqi blogs
Time to get out of the house
Or maybe I should take a leaf out the book of these three bored German teenagers.My better halfs' company backed credit card could be perfect for this. If only I knew where she keeps it.
Brilliant Orange
I've almost finished reading this very fine book. According to the cover it's about 'the neurotic genius of Dutch football', which is true. Really though it's about the Dutch mentality and Dutch culture over the last thirty years or so. There are interviews with architects, rockers, artists, buskers, sociologists and of course the odd football player or coach. While nominally about football the books theory is that the dutch play football the way they do because Holland is the way it is.
Holland is flat, and the Dutch had to make their own space ergo Dutch footballers think differently about space, this is a typical idea explored in the book. Ruud Van Nistelroy was recently quoted saying that the idea was interesting, but he wasn't too convinced by it.
On the other hand in the same interview he went on to explain why he doesn't think he's that good a footballer, he wants to be a Dutch number 10, all perfect passes and clever through balls. The fact that he's a classic English number 9, a relentless goal machine, physically imposing and mentally focused isn't all that admired in Holland. The book nails this perfectly, and then tries to explain why the Dutch would rather play well and lose than win with ugly football.
Mostly though the book is great because it uses football to open up Dutch life in a way that the Dutch don't. There's a look at how Holland went from dull, conservative and old fashioned in the 1950's to vibrant, thriving and trendy in the 1970's. All this combined with explanations of how total football actually works, why no one plays like that anymore, and why Louis Van Gaals Ajax side were at once better and worse.
I've almost finished reading this very fine book. According to the cover it's about 'the neurotic genius of Dutch football', which is true. Really though it's about the Dutch mentality and Dutch culture over the last thirty years or so. There are interviews with architects, rockers, artists, buskers, sociologists and of course the odd football player or coach. While nominally about football the books theory is that the dutch play football the way they do because Holland is the way it is.
Holland is flat, and the Dutch had to make their own space ergo Dutch footballers think differently about space, this is a typical idea explored in the book. Ruud Van Nistelroy was recently quoted saying that the idea was interesting, but he wasn't too convinced by it.
On the other hand in the same interview he went on to explain why he doesn't think he's that good a footballer, he wants to be a Dutch number 10, all perfect passes and clever through balls. The fact that he's a classic English number 9, a relentless goal machine, physically imposing and mentally focused isn't all that admired in Holland. The book nails this perfectly, and then tries to explain why the Dutch would rather play well and lose than win with ugly football.
Mostly though the book is great because it uses football to open up Dutch life in a way that the Dutch don't. There's a look at how Holland went from dull, conservative and old fashioned in the 1950's to vibrant, thriving and trendy in the 1970's. All this combined with explanations of how total football actually works, why no one plays like that anymore, and why Louis Van Gaals Ajax side were at once better and worse.
This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke This is not a joke
Whats right with the right
(and wrong with the left)
(and wrong with the left)
Five reasons to love the right. Normal service will be resumed shortly.
The right likes liberty
Man was born free and is everywhere in chains. On an ideological level the right tends not to like chains. Worship what you like, believe what you like, do what you like. Free speech, free press, free everything. Small governments that keep their nose out of people's lives. Ultimately this cannot be reconciled with collective action and paternalism.
The right likes property
If you have stuff the right pretty much believes you can keep it. The left is not always so forgiving.
The right likes potential
The right really does hold that anyone can be anything they like, if only they put the hours in. Create a free enough society and the rewards will all flow naturally to the people who put the most effort in and deserve most. It's a nicely egalitarian idea in an odd kind of way.
The right likes growth
Economic growth is a pretty big thing. If you've got it all is well, if you haven't all isn't. The right cares more about increasing the size of the pie than distributing it fairly. This is not an entirely bad idea as most of the eastern block found out.
The right is unashamedly patriotic
Largely because they tend to have been responsible for most of it the right tends to feel strongly about the past achievements of the nations they live in. This is much neater than the situation on the left where you can only feel properly patriotic about stuff everyone did, so the whole British Empire is a cause for handwringing and apologies since it was an elitist concern. If you're not careful this can take the fun out of (say) thrashing a bunch of colonials on their own turf at a game invented in a posh school because just kicking the ball with your feet was too hard...
Not Raging
Chris Locke has escaped his Rageboy persona long enough to write something interesting. It's at Mandarin Design and is an article about all the cool freeware tools he uses to run his blog.Chris' blog looks stunning, and there's no doubt the guy can write. But unlike his idol Hunter S Thomson Mr Locke long ago gave up writing about anything but himself. So I stopped reading his blog, it was, despite the general insanity and anarchist tendencies, dull. Looked stunning though.
Here's a bonus three word review of his last book, Gonzo Marketing. 'Too much style'
A different kind of terrrorist
For some reason there's been almost no news beyond the syndicated wires about the arrest and conviction of one of America's ten most wanted criminals. Even though he's a terrorist.Read about it here
There's a longer piece at Salon But you need to click through the ads to see it.
Could it be because he's white, american and claims to be christian?
Oh, and if you're not annoyed already, read this.
This is worrying as well. I'm not sure that it represents value for money either.
Tunes!
Yesterday afternoon I remembered that now we have broadband I can plug in my headphones, turn on my Radio@Netscape radio and rock out. U2, Tori Amos, Nine Inch Nails and right now a blues? singer called Joe Henry. I've missed you all.Bring the noise.
update Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer covering Bob Marley's Redemption Song. Wow!
Sinterklaasavond
Or Sinterklaas Evening as it might be known in English is the 5th of December. However our Sintaklaas party was postponed due to illness, so my introduction to this rather lovely Dutch ritual was postponed until the 7th. Here's how it worksGuests arrive and like all good guests they throw candy on the floor. Called pepernoten this is special Sinterklaas candy, a mixture of small ginger nuts and sugary shapes. Decorations over it is time to move to stage two
Singing Sinterklaas, as I mentioned earlier on this blog, is attracted by singing and has been known to leave candy as a result. On Sinterklaas day though there is a chance he might leave even more so you sing extra hard, especially as in our case we were two days late and he was probably already on his way back to Spain. We weren't sure things would work but then...
A knock at the door I was sent to investigate and lo and behold there was a sack full of presents outside! I looked around for evidence of who might have left it, but they'd gone. Given the time it takes our lifts to do anything I think you'd have needed some kind of magic horse to leave the sack!
Present giving Each present comes wrapped in a package, and attatched to it is a poem. Sometimes there are other instructions on the present, such as 'wait five minutes' or 'don't open A until you have B' and so on. Presents are handed out, poems are read and everyone is very thankful that Sintaklaas is so kind.
Here is a poem that was for me. It's from one of the Swarte Pieten, Sint's helpers.
"Dear Martin
When Sint came down to Osdorp square
English Martin was standing there
Hoping for candy and toys
But who got it? All the smaller boys
Later that evening, Piet was told
Martin isn't 27 years old
Inside he's really only three
You must give him something from me
Something that will give him a laugh
When playing games in th bath
And so Piet did
Is this OK kid?
Piet
Although this poem was nice (and I got blowing bubbles!) some are a little more pointed. Poems about how I need to get a job (and things to help me do it) and a suggestion that my other half could be a little more patient with my language skills both appeared. Observant chap this Sint, but always good humoured.
Is there anyone out there?
I've just added some tracking stuff to the site courtesy of web-stat. I was a bit inspired by the work I'm doing at the moment with Web-Abacus, but no-ones going to give me enterprise strength software to run on a blog.Not that I need it. I'll be surprised if I'm getting more than ten distinct visitors a day. Of course I have got page rank now, a whole two points of it, as far as I can tell thats thanks to an early link from Lucky Goldstar. My old blog has five (down from six).
Questions for interviews?
I'm in the middle of writing a job application for ASICS. The question I need answered but can't find information on is whether or not they're ethical when it comes to manufacturing their products? The only thing on their website about corporate responsibility is a decision not to use PVC cause it's bad for the environment.If anyone knows please leave a comment.
Will the Republicans ever learn?
This video (.ram download) is of a commercial aired by the Republican Club for Growth.No sooner has it aired than Dean slaps a fundraising request on his website and the money rolls in to respond. He'll get another $200000 and get to air an advert directly refuting these points. Its exactly what happened a few months ago when the Bush campaign ran attack ads elsewhere in America.
Someone somewhere needs to slap them with a big cluebyfour.
On the other hand someone should slap Dean with a big cluebyfour about his trade policy. Hes right to talk about the need for fair trade not free trade, but the whole steel tarriffs issue was a non-starter. Not only did the economist suggest that they were doing about four times more damage to the US economy than good, but they're naked protectionism of a very bad kind indeed.
Raising the bar
Sigh, its tough this freelancing business. Like in every business you've got to have an angle, and like every business some old pros have got the best ones stitched up. Take my old boss Steve Johnston, he's decided to freelance some dough while he waits for his new business - which is about supplying posters of cars and other things to hang on your walls - to take off.I mention this because Steve's angle is that he's a 'google consultant'. So he knows why I've linked the words I have.
(course he also knows I'm currently PR 0, must do something about that...)
Not given a different job
Sigh, not only did one employer not want to interview me, but when I wrote attempting to change their mind they complained to the recruitment agency. Chief complaint - how had I got the email address?Anyone who runs an online company - as this one was - has got to consider their email address common property. I've been lucky enough to meet the heads of some big internet companies, a couple of billionairres, founders of hot silicon valley start ups and world class design agencies. The one consistent thing is their email address. Its always either
firstname.lastname@company.com
or
firstname@company.com
They're switched on enough to know that being contactable is not a bad thing, that email addresses are best when they're simple and that talking is good. I suspect that despite all impressions I previously had to the contrary, this was not a company I wanted to work for.
Once given the job...
If I become Internet Deployment and Communication manager for Philips my first act will be to have the job application tool rebuilt. It's awful. I have just sent in an application after following a link in a job description to 'apply online'.Having filled in a form I have now been told that 'should they find any matching vacancies' they'll get in touch. In otherwords I have just spent an *hour* (no helpful .doc upload here) pissing about with the formatting of a html document in word (and word is not an HTML editor anyone with a brain would choose to use) only to be told that I might have to do it again.
I am off to find an email address and cause problems. Likely to be more effective than chancing everything to this system again.
Update It did infact work, it just gave me a message at the end of the process telling me it failed. Which is about as poorly as one can design a user interface.
Numbers go all fuzzy
Yesterday *every* news channel (and I have many to choose from) was dominated by the news that US soldiers had killed 54 attackers following an ambush. Around 8PM a story emerged that Iraqi police could only confirm 8 dead including one definite civilian. That story is now something of a footnote to the main news.This report is interesting. The figure of 54 was based on soldiers reporting casulaties they saw / caused. The figure of 8 is based on counting bodies. That's not to say the idea that some bodies were removed is ridiculous, but 46 bodies? Surely there'd be blood, not to mention bits.
This is like Vietnam reporting, when any firefight was reported as a victory and troops regularly made up casualty numbers after battles. This is important. Yesterday we were told that 54 dead attackers represented 'the heaviest fighting since the end of the war', the kind of event that could impact on policy decisions. 8 dead might not have that kind of influence, but no-one seems to know for sure and the figure of 54 is in the public consicousness. It is at this point and many others like it that policy and reality start to diverge.
Liberty closed!
I had no idea that the Statue of Liberty had been closed to the public for security reasons. Here's a link to a campaign to reopen Liberty. She's my favourite gal in all of New York, and its a terrible shame she's been locked away.On a slightly more serious note the muesum and other bits and bobs inside the statue are fantastic, and seeing her from the ferry just isn't the same as looking up from Liberty Island.
A big Presentation
Labour have announced a 'big conversation' which will be held online between politicians and the nation.It looks like a good idea, we can fire questions to assorted ministers and presumably at some point some heavyweights as well. They answer and we all learn that little bit more. Except that when you look at the rules on the questions they are these...
What we're really getting is interactive Prime Ministers Questions, with all the difficult questions taken out. Wouldn't it have been more effective (and more of a conversation) to wander round the country taking questions at local venues from interested public? The results could have been videoed and put online.
They could have done every constituency with a labour MP and then every constituency they're challenging in. People could have gone to the next election able (if they wanted) to have watched an hour long Q and A session with their local candidate.
As is so often the case when politicians try to engage the point of the exercise seems to have been lost in the small print. Still, I guess its a good start.
Update Apparently this is loosely connected with Tom Watson, a labour MP who is genuinely conversing with his constituents.
Oh and you could look at New Wave Labour, but it might be worth waiting until there's some actual content on the website.
Upgrading
This blog now has comments courtesy of Haloscan, and archives, courtesy of me bothering to add the code for them.I've also sorted out the Timezone (I now appear to be in Amsterdam, not Los Angeles) and the date formatting at the end of the post. (I now know what day it is) all in all a productive thirty minutes.
Culture Crash
Doc Searls is looking for Republican Hackers, by which he means programmers not criminals. He's having trouble finding cool uses of IT (specifically Linux) which are in use by Republican campaigns.I'm not sure he'll find much. I think there's something in the culture of the two parties that pushes the Democrats toward the kind of lo-tech, distributed, hi-idea platforms that are tying together some of their campaigns and makes Republicans want hi-tech, centralised, easy to understand solutions (probably from Bill) for theirs.
Its probably all part of the tradition of leftist imaginative dissent. From suffragettes chaining themselves to the railings of Buckingham Palace and Ten Downing Street to Flash Mobs in Seattle the left - short on resources but long on imagination - have come up with the more memorable protests.
The two right wing protests that stand out for me are the Nuremburg Rallies and the KKK marching on Washington, both of which were organised by groups so extreme I'm not sure they belong in this post.
Donkey Carts and Stealth Bombers
David Hackworth is America's most decorated soldier, and he's been an odd mix of supporter, critic and commentator on the iraq war from the start. Here's his take on what's going on at the moment.Drug Dealing
Tony is currently unsure about what to think about Intellectual Property law and generic drugs for AIDS treatment. For me this is one of those issues where the moral side of the thing 'it extends thousands of lives' obliterates all thoughts of economics and such. It may event prevent the emergence of several more failed states in sub-saharan Africa which would make the world a far safer place.In any event here is some reading to help Tony make up his mind
Word Bank Paper on the scale of the problem
Globalisation Trade Deals and Drugs
a Canadian Doctor on the implications of TRIPS
Brazils successful treatment program
Includes pricing data
The Medicin sans frontiers
campaign site
This report on an Overseas Development Institute
allowed someone from Medicine sans Frontiers to debate with someone from Glaxo Smithkline
The last one is interesting since the guy from Glaxo has a lot of interesting statistics. The MSF guy has some good data on missing markets and market failures. Also addresses the Glaxo guys argument that despite patent free drugs 30% of people needing TB treatment don't get it therefore the problem isn't with the patents. For HIV the figure is 95%, so maybe it is.
Things to object to
I'm feeling a bit behind on the blogging. Stuff I'd liked to have ranted about but missedEnglish sporting triumph, plus why when rugby is played by men the size of Martin Johnson is the cup so small?
The remainder of Bush's visit
Bush goes negative before the election starts (Bush attacks, you respond)
Love Actually (actually not as clever a script as it seems but quite a nice film)
Oh yeah, and having heard from Bush that freedom is a beautiful thing Blair has decided that the British should have some too.
More later.
New LastMinute.com MD not blonde/female enough, shares drop
Its market behaviour likes this that makes me view 'strong form efficient' descriptions of the stock market as bollocks. Martha Lane Fox, a 30 year old entrepreneur has quit as MD of LastMinute.com and been replaced by her COO.Given that she's staying on the board LastMinute.com can still rely on her to pop up on TV or in the newspapers doing her 'young, blonde, oxbridge' thing, or to smile sweetly at the banks. Was 10% of LastMinute's value really down to her? Is the new guy (who's been COO for years) really that bad?
Besides which its at about this stage in a companies life that you're supposed to ditch the entrepreneur and bring in the kind of hardened big company businessman who looks good in a suit. Market efficiency - don't believe it.
Mouse pads, shoe leather, and hope
Found this great article via Doc Searls. Taking my partisan hat off for a minute its a very solid summary of something I'd been meaning to write about. Dean's campaign isn't doing well because of the blog or the websites - its performing because its using those tools to do things in the offline world.Like so many things about internet marketing its all terribly old fashioned really. They've got people writing letters - Amnestly International has been doing this for years. They've got people getting together to talk about politics - the American War of Independence was planned in a similar way in the coffee shops and tea houses of Boston (less Starbucks then I suppose) and I have no doubt that the conspirators who brought down Ceaser enjoyed a convivial beverage as they planned their coup. It's what politics should be, a big discussion.
New Memorials
The BBC have pictures of the finalists in the 9/11 memorial design contest. I like numbers one and eight. I don't know how they're choosing the winner, one would hope there'll be an open ballot of New Yorkers or something similar.New comic to read?
Bloom County never made it to my regular comic reading, what with it being the 80's and me not being American. So it's good to know that it's creator is launching a new strip and that it's probably going to be my kind of thing.Click through the Salon advertisements to read about it here.
Protests warming up a bit
If the way the interwebnet.org server is slowing down is anything to go by updates on the protests are a fairly popular service. In the mean time Tim has nearly been arrested for 'upsetting tourists' - the horror.Prime Ministers Questions today featured a back from the grave Michael Howard laying into Blair for considering supporting Ken Livingston as mayor of London and followed up with questions about the Minister for Children. Blair promptly exploded into a serious rant about the last Tory government the like of which hasn't been seen since the Tories were in power.
I have a theory. Having a genuine reminder of Conservative horror stalking him may actually remind Blair that he's supposed to be on the left. This may actually be a good thing.
In other news, I have a job interview with an e-learning company. So far today is shaping up quite well.
Bush's speech in advance
According to the Guardian this is what Bush will be saying todayThe speech will be about what the Bush administration sees as the "three pillars for peace and security". Those pillars are: "strong support for international institutions and alliances (except when they might get in the way)", and recognition that "the use of force is sometimes necessary (especially in the West Bank)" and democratic countries have an obligation to spread democracy through the rest of the world, including the Middle East (democracy is best introduced at gunpoint).
I added the bits in brackets.
Surely this man is too good to lose?
OK, so he's wobbly on guns, but it's not like any US president can do anything about that anyway... In the mean time someone should start the campaign to make Howard Dean head of the Labour Party if he loses in America.Here's his very sensible internet policy
Good boys can't spell
If you head down to the post on Sinter Claus you'll see a note at the end suggesting that some of the spellings may be less than accurate. It turns out that about the only accurate thing in the whole post was that note. Correct spellings are as follows...Zwarte Piet
Sinterklaas
Sinterklaas Kapoentje
Gooi wat in mijn schoentje
Gooi wat in mijn laarsje
Dank u Sinterklaasje
Which at least explains why I was having trouble pronouncing Gooi / Hoy. I am however confused about the spelling of Sinterklaasje only because I'm sure I saw it spelt differently on a poster...
One man and a website
Regular readers of Bloggerheads will have been able to trace over the last year the transformation of mild mannered marketeer Tim Ireland into online crusader and activist extraordinaire. For the next few days Tim is going to beCHASING BUSH
Should George Bush come to England?
Today Bush arrives in London and you can bet there will be massive protests. Meanwhile the authorities have played all the cards they can to try and reduce protest numbers and diffuse the impact. We've had news stories about how children played truant to attend the stop the war demo and how schools will take a dim view of this behaviour happening again. We've been told, despite the stop the war protests passing off without incident, that the anarchist fringe will be intent on starting riots. We've been reminded again and again about trigger happy US security staff and islamic extremists. The bill for all this will be massive.More importantly if this goes well for Bush it'll be a step on his road to re-election. Last time out it was suggested (fairly accurately it seems) that he wasn't going to be much of a diplomat. Years of unilateralist bullying, posturing and intimidation later it seems we were right. There will be those who point to various Bush coalitions as evidence to the contrary but this is disingenious. Bush plunged into Iraq with only the British and a handful of of Spanish and Polish troops for company. I still believe the only reason the British are there was because Blair thought that only by being involved could he try and talk Bush into going through the UN - and if that failed we'd have no choice but to go in ourselves. The coalition of the willing apparently numbers 45, but once you're including places like Eritrea and bribing your allies with aid money it looks more like the coalition of the affordable.
Still I'm sure the plan was for Bush to come here and present it as a triumph of his foreign poicy. Look everyone, George can get on with the foreigners - those know it all Democrats were wrong again!
So plenty of reasons for him not to come then? I don't think so. I think we should send him a bill, but more importantly I think we should send him a message. It's not about whether or not he comes, it's about what he gets out of it. I sincerely hope that at some stage he does come face to face with the protestors - the notion of 'free speech areas' that US demonstrators are confined to it one of the most Orwellian notions I've ever come across. I hope that Charles Kennedy gives it to him straight over the war and makes it clear that a lot of British people don't like, trust or respect him. Not because we've been infected by the 'liberal media' but because we haven't been.
So get out there and protest or support. Take to the streets and remind Bush what a functioning democracy actually looks like. We can remind Blair later, assuming Brown doesn't get him first.
Sinta Claus Capuncha
Sinta Claus day is the 5th of December in Holland and its then not the 25th that good Dutch boys and girls get their presents. However there is something of a run up to Sinta Claus Day as the good saint arrives in the country well in advance - this year he arrived on the 15th November.He arrives on a steam ship and the event is covered on TV. He rides a horse and is accompanied by dozens of Svartie Piets a kind of Dutch Elf (only they're from Spain) who dance about and distribute candy to all the little boys and girls. Maria and I weren't in to see the steamboat arrive, but that was OK because Sinta Claus is magic. He can be in many places at once, which meant that even as he was disembarking from a steamship he was part of a parade around our local supermarket.
The parade was definately cool, and felt a bit like small town America meets German village. There was a marching band playing oompah versions of carols, there were assorted groups of schoolchildren carrying banners and there were dozens of Piets. The Piets incidently appear to be Moorish in nature, all of them being black (or at least white people blacked up). No-one in Holland seems the least bit bothered by what in other countries would be a very unPC event indeed.
Once the Piets had been round Sinta Claus himself appeared riding in a carriage drawn by two horses. Sinta Claus is a very stern and slightly forbidding character - the harsh judge of good or bad. No "Ho Ho Ho" here, just a lot of handshaking and occasional waving with a white glove. Meanwhile all the children clamoured to say hello to him and shake his hand.
Then he was gone and we went home. However Sinta Claus is generous during his time in Holland. From now until Sinta Claus day children can get themselves candy by doing the following...
Sing a song for Sinta Claus
Leave your shoe out when you go to sleep with either a carrot or some straw for his horse
Be good
When you wake the carrot will have been replaced with candy. I know this is true because I tried it and it worked. Here's the song I sang.
"Sinta Claus Capuncha" / Santa Claus Capuncha
Hoy vot in mein Schoontche / Put something in my shoe
Hoy vot in mein Laasha / Put something in my boot
Dank u Sinta Claus" / Thank you Santa Claus
(spelling and grammar of the above needs tidying up...)
Lets get started
The two posts that preceeded this one (ie the ones further down) were trial posts to check that this thing is working right. Last night my better two thirds pointed out that 'you should be blogging, you've had so many adventures here.'She's right. When you move to a foreign country lots of things become adventures. My most recent adventure concerned Santa Claus or Sinta Claus as he's known here (and it's pronounced different btw.) You see I met him...
Great TV
I've just seen something called 'No Comment' on EuroNews. They show news footage without any commentary at all, just a time and place on the captions. So today we had footage of protests in Georgia, I know there are allegations of vote-rigging in Tblisi, but I couldn't tell you who the man in the suit with the megaphone was, I couldn't tell you what the army was doing there either. It was a very odd experience seeing this kind of footage stripped of all context.After that was footage of what I presume were US soldiers in Afghanistan. They were dropped off by helicopter, they wandered through the mountains, at one point they fired a mortar round - it was impossible to tell what at, they certainly didn't seem to be in combat. Later they blew something else up and then got back on their helicopter and went away again - back to base I guess. It was, I suppose, a routine patrol. Watching it like that was interesting, good.
Unvarnished TV. I think there should be more of this stuff.
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