Some are supporting The Hoff to become Christmas Number One – but I’m tipping Peter Andre and Jordan. Yep, the duo have recorded ‘A Whole New World’, from Disney’s Aladdin. Click on the play button if you’ve got four-and-a-half minutes to waste.

Now, if you’ve stopped listening at the Peter bit, you’ve finished too early. Keep listening. He might be cringeworthy, but at 1:11, she starts. Earplugs at the ready.

At the moment, it’s only destined to appear on an album of covers. But I beg of the producers, please release it!

This just has to be Christmas Number One.

Read the full story in the Australian Daily Telegraph.

On Tuesday, a friend and I were stuck in Newcastle, and were rather bored.  Having been to get some lunch, and having whacked seemingly thousands of moles on Holey Moley on the nearest iPlus Point, we decided to conduct a highly unscientific experiment. 

Over the course of a couple of weeks, we’d noticed that people on the Tyne and Wear Metro look, almost without exception, unhappy.  We determined to walk through the city smiling at people, to see how many would smile back.  After about two-and-a-half hours of experimentation, we had counted five smiles.  And some of those were questionable.

So: Why don’t the people of Newcastle smile?

It could, of course, be that two people suddenly smiling at you whilst walking along is more than a little unnerving, but that’s a boring explanation, and I want to think a little deeper.  It sounds a perfect challenge for the people of the interweb – and where better to challenge them than the all-new Yahoo Answers?

Expect an update in three days’ time (I’ll bump the post up, too).

The Results: 17th September 2006
The definitive answer, according to the Yahoo community, is

Sorry, which Newcastle Upon Tyne is this then?? It is a far cry from the Newcastle that I love!! The people there are lovely and have a fab sense of humour. I work in Longbenton, Newcastle Upon Tyne and I love my job to bits!!! Maybe they sensed that you and your friend didn’t like their beloved City!!!

That’s a little unfortunate, becuase it implies I don’t like Newcastle which couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a great city, with great people, and that’s why I was surprised enough to make the post in the first place. But hey ho.

Other notable contributions included these gems:

Because they are always drunk on Newcastle Beer.

They are depressed and you would be too if you had to live there.

Take a look in the mirror. I have never found this.

Don’t ever conduct your survey were I live they would probably thump you first then ask you why you smiled next

It’s called stress, anxiety, and all the other things that make up life in 21st century England, its wiped the smile off our faces.

Coz you should be in the Aussie Newcastle. Even with their problems with unemployment and what not, they still have a great football team (rugby league) and one of the prettiest women ever to win a beauty pagent (Jennifer Hawkins Miss Universe 2004).

Lots of food for thought, and most of all lots of fun.

Thanks to all who contributed.

Whaddya think? Don’t worry, it’s never going to happen.

Courtesy of Web2.0V2LogoCreatr

Earlier this year, you may remember that a plan was launched to introduce ‘101’ as a non-emergency alternative to 999. I’m now wondering whether such a system has been employed in the US. If this recording is anything to go by, it’s badly needed:

Only in the USA.

Dr Monica Whitty, a newly appointed psychologist at Queen’s University, Belfast, is conducting some research and wants your help. This isn’t usually the kind of thing I’d post, but the slightly surreal fact is that this unexpectedly dropped into my email inbox whilst I was actually walking past Queen’s, having never been anywhere near the place before in my life.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain how individuals in different countries use their work computers and/or laptop computers. It also asks how they protect their work computers and/or laptops from security risks.

I’m looking for individuals 18 years or over and currently live and work (full time/part time or casually) in Australia, the Netherlands, Singapore, the UK, or USA, you are invited to fill out this survey. Only people who use a computer and/or laptop at work are invited to complete this survey (although you don’t need to use one regularly).

A summary of the results will be published from about November 2006 – December 2006 on my website: http://www.psych.qub.ac.uk/staff/teaching/whitty/profile/index.aspx

It’s a very short survey, and can be found here.

Throughout Stockton-on-Tees, graffiti has appeared stating ‘Shak Grass’. In some places, it’s ‘Big Nose Shak Grass’. In one place, it’s been spelt wrong and corrected. But it’s all over the place in Stockton, right from one end of the town to the other: Far too widespread for one person to have done on a drunken rampage (and anyway, it’s continuing to appear). I’ve counted at least twelve different sites, though some of it has started to be cleaned up now.

The graphic above doesn’t show the best example, but I feel I bit of an idiot taking photos of graffiti, and then worried slightly that I might be arrested on suspicion of creating it myself, so we’ll just have to make do with it. But, more importantly…

What the heck does it mean?

There are a couple of theories here:

I think it’s one of the asian guys that live near me. Some dude called Shakif (I Think) got a coke dealer sent down.

It’s a new indie night!

This guy has used it as a comment on YouTube.

But none of these are particularly satisfactory explanations. Does anyone have any other suggestions, or actually know what it means?

Bad books sell better than good ones because so many people are semiliterate.

That’s the opinion of Andrew Brown in his thought-provoking piece “Unputdownable but unspeakable” over at Comment is Free.

Well worth a read.

Dave Hill has written an entertaining piece over at Comment is Free about his experiences of visiting the doctor with embarrassing problems of the nether regions. As he says,

Seeing the doctor about an intimate ailment is embarrassing for any man. But it can be richly entertaining, too.

Well worth a read.

…Much the same as v20.0, to add intents and purposes.

Yes, it’s my birthday today, as well as Lizzie’s. I’m sure the lack of national pomp and ceremony is related solely to the fact that I’m fifty-nine years younger, and no reflection of importance within our modern country 😉

Thanks for all the birthday messages in my email inbox – they certainly made me smile.

Just to flag up the funniest, laugh-out-loud piece of journalism I’ve read this year:

They are one of the irritations of modern life – prerecorded messages that tell us to press a button in order to join a queue to speak to a real person. But who are the people behind the disembodied voices? Jon Ronson meets them

Read it on Guardian Unlimited.