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Ben Folds is an incredibly talented guy.  How many other artists have the talent, and whose songs have the versatility, to perfrom solo sets one day, in a three-piece rock band the next, and with a 90-piece orchestera and operatic tenor the next?  Let alone do all three on the same night, and still have room for improvisation.  With a whole orchestra (much to the clear and amusing distress of the conductor).  And do all of them excellently.  Now that is pretty incredible.

This is the DVD of Ben performing locally composed arrangements of some of his most popular tracks with the West Australian Symphony Orchestera, live in Perth.  At first, the sound takes a little bit of getting used to – to go from Ben’s typical small-band or piano solo sets to ones with a full orchestral backing requires some mental adjustment.  But once you get into the swing of it, this is one of the best sets I’ve heard from him.  Yes, it’s very different to, say, Ben Folds Live, but to hear his tracks played in this way is an experience.  And requires a fairly good sound system!

For Ben Folds fans, it’s fantastic.  But, really, it’s not the ideal kind of material for the uninitiated, simply because it’s so different to his normal act.  But it’s still absolutely amazing.

This is something that’s been happily sitting down in the bottom left-hand corner of the page (under ‘Recent Finds’) for a little while, but I can now bring it to you directly…

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I’ve had more emails in the last few days about captioning a picture of Charles Kennedy with the word ‘Quitter’ than I have on anything else about this website. I therefore feel some need to explain myself!

Regular readers will already know that every time someone resigns from anything, I caption the picture ‘Quitter’, and always have (see here and here for prime examples). It isn’t designed to be some kind of cruel insult to the person, and nor is it designed to act as a comment on how their resignation came about. It’s supposed to act as satirical comment on the way that, in tabloids at least, no-one resigns any more: Everybody ‘Quits’. Mainly due to the fact that it makes for a punchier headline.

Similarly, the pictures I choose of people are intentionally ridiculous, again to satirise the way tabloids chose pictures with expressions that suit the story – whether or not the event at which the picture was taken is related to the story.

So, to clarify, calling Charles Kennedy a ‘quitter’ was not some kind of slur on his personality, as I hope was clear from the text. It was just one of my satirical traditions. Please do not be alarmed or insulted!

From the Beeb’s article on Blair’s ludicrous ‘Respect’ laws:

For example, somebody spitting at an old lady in the street would not be prosecuted because it used too much police time and the only result was a fine.

Mr Blair accepted that on-the-spot fines for some offences reversed the principle that people were innocent until proven guilty.

But he argued: “To get on top of 21st century crime we need to accept that what works in practice, in reality on the streets, is a measure of summary powers with right of appeal alongside the traditional court processes.”

Spitting in someone’s face is a great many things, first among which must be disgusting. It is not, however, a 21st century crime. Or does Mr Blair think that this is some newly-evolved ability?

I suspect he doesn’t realise that this provides the perfect example of why legislating in this way will not foster a culture of respect. In times gone by, people didn’t refrain from spitting at old ladies because they thought they might be prosecuted. They did it because they had respect for their elders. Now, respect for elders, and for authority, seems to have been lost in certain minorities of the community. So an authority for whom a youngster has no respect officially saying “Don’t spit in grannies’ faces or we’ll fine you” if anything provides an incentive to spit at them. It doesn’t help the matter.

Respect works two ways. Just as there are sections of the youth community who spit at grannies (something I’ve never personally seen or experience), there are equally antisocial grannies (who I’ve personally experienced, and who have hit, pushed, and shoved me in bus queues). To focus solely on the youth and try and foster respect in youth culture misses the point entirely. And to try and foster a culture through legislation is ludicrous.

And just when you thought this plan couldn’t come any further out of the tree, Mr Blair announces that he wants to reduce crime by making people homeless:

People could be evicted from their own homes for three months if they are nuisance neighbours, under a new action plan for Tony Blair’s “respect agenda”.

Eviction by court order would be a “last resort”, says the government but it could, for example, be used against students who annoy their neighbours with loud music.

Well, I guess it’s inventive, if nothing else.

Last Friday, Google officially launched Google Pack.  This is essentially a bundling of a whole load of Google sofware (Toolbar, Picasa, Desktop, Talk, Earth, and Screensaver) along with bits and pieces of non-Google software (Firefox, Norton Antivirus, Ad-Aware, Trillian, Adobe Reader, RealPlayer, and some GalleryPlayer HD images).  These all come with the Google Pack software, so that through one manager all of the programs are downloaded, installed, and kept up to date.  It’s quite a good idea, and makes owning the internet essentials – and keeping them updated – easy for even the most basic internet user.

More than this, though, it puts Google in a unique position.  Presumably, when they release new software – be that Web Accelerator, or some form of Office software, or whatever – Google Pack will present the user with some kind of a pop-up window, asking if they’d like to install this new, free software.  And a lot of people will just click ‘yes’, and Google Pack will go away and get it all installed for you.  Hence, take up of Google software, and therefore Google’s prescence on the desktop, increases.

It also allows Google to form strategic partnerships with any number of companies – what agreement was necessary for RealPlayer, for example, to be installed by default for everyone who downloads Google Pack?  Google could make an absolute fortune through this – as long as enough people download Google Pack, which they almost certainly will since it provides such a good package, Google has a hand-hold on millions of users’ desktops. And the user can be assured that they will always have the best software, fully updated, free of charge.

It is, quite simply, everything Windows Update could have been, if Microsoft had a bit more nous.

Charles Kennedy, the most successful leader of the Liberal Democrats in many years, has been forced by his own MPs to resign as party leader, despite huge support by the party at large, and huge public support.

Charles admitted earlier in the week that he had openly and repeatedly lied about having a drinking problem. He called a leadership election so that the party membership could decide whether or not he should continue as their leader, and yet a cabal of MPs decided that the membership might make the ‘wrong’ decision, and so chose to announce that they wouldn’t serve under Kennedy, forcing him into resignation.

This is a great achievement by these rebel MPs: They’ve destroyed their most successful leader, split the party down the middle, alienated the party membership, and left the Lib Dems in turmoil going into the May elections. There can hardly be a more destructive thing to do, particularly when we’re seeing the Conservatives reviving and moving more towards the middle-ground which has traditionally been Lib Dem territory. And, just when David Cameron is repositioning his party as the different party avoiding ‘Punch-and-Judy politics’, the Lib Dems have successfully positioned themselves as the same back-stabbing, puerile idiots which turn the public off. Well done.

Having said all that, it was clear that Charles couldn’t continue as leader. Except in the world of The West Wing, you can’t openly lie about a serious medical problem, especially during an election campaign, and not expect it to come and destroy you at some point in the future. But would it really have been too difficult to convince him in private to resign, and hence avoid all of this mess and a big party split? There must have been a better way to deal with this: After all, it can’t have been handled much worse.

Even his resignation announcement has been badly handled. His statement, critical of the Parliamentary party, will now run in the Sundays, and again in the Mondays. That’s two days of Lib Dem bashing where it could have been just one had he announced yesterday or tomorrow. Whoops.

Who will replace him? Well, to be perfectly honest, there don’t seem any particularly startling candidates that spring to mind immediately. But then, Kennedy didn’t seem startling. He was the different, down-to-Earth ‘nice-guy’ of politics, which is what made him so popular in the party and in the country. We can only hope that his successor will be as popular, or the still-progressing era of three party politics will go into serious regression.

I found this incredibly funny.  Yes, I’m easily amused.

A radio phone-in contributor in Liverpool has died on air. You really wouldn’t think the DJ would want to be featured in the national news if he bores his listeners to death…

Having shown yesterday how terrible I am at making predictions, here’s one for 2006…

Patricia Hewitt will be forced to resign as Health Secretary before year’s end… or, if there’s a reshuffle, her sucessor will be forced to resign.  One way or another, we will see the resignation of a Health Secretary this year.

Let’s see if that’s better than last year’s prediction…