Buffy (in case you didn’t already know)

The other day Michael Jennings and I sat down to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the American TV series, which ran from 1997 to 2003.

Here are some highlights.

Michael is in the enviable position (in that I envy him) of having watched the series when it was first on while I am very much a Johnny-come-lately.  Not that it matters much - we both love the show - as you may be able to tell.

Warning: there be spoilers.  Though I guess anyone who hasn’t watched it yet probably never will.

Dream house

This is sad. Bloke wants to build his dream home. The government says no. He hides the construstion site behind straw bales (wonder what that must have looked like(1)) builds his dream home and moves in.

A few years later he removes the bales. The government demands the building's demolition. Bastards(2). He may get away with it. Let's hope he does.

Notes
1. Actually, I don't have to wonder as there's a photo of the straw-bale castle accompanying the article.
2. As far as I am concerned they shouldn't be able to. See Against Planning. Also see the Filing Cabinet page on Planning.

Heh.

The evil that is Toblerone

Hamish McRae: "One of the great things about Independent readers is their loyalty".

Peter Briffa: "Indeed. The same is often said of people who watch films on Betamax..."

Someone at the Policeman's Blog writes about the Garry Newlove case. This was the man who was kicked to death on his own doorstep after asking some youths to stop vandalising his wife's car.

Looking for root causes he says:

For four decades now, we have been living in a test tube while the liberals conduct a huge social experiment with our country.

Which is true enough. Whether it is the whole truth is another matter. I suspect that (as Brian says) the welfare state has a lot to do with it.

Al Bangura allowed to stay1

As predicted.

Notes
1. According to the Telegraph and loads of other people.

James Hamilton is doing a series (here and here so far) on how to stop smoking and a whole load more. Good.

Many readers will have seen the reports on the news yesterday about the banning of good, old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs and their replacement with these new-fangled, all-the-mercury-you-can-eat low-energy ones.

But, as Philip Stott points out3 there’s more to it than that:

1. They can’t be used with all sorts of light fittings
2. There are all sorts of people who won’t be able to use them
3. Councils don’t know how to dispose of them1
4. In terms of life-cycle costs they may not even reduce energy consumption2
5. This all comes from the EU

Notes
1. So, how come they can deal with traditional fluorescent tubes then?
2. Mind you, if we go all-nuclear then this won’t be a problem.  But then, why ban incandescent bulbs at all?  Lobbying perhaps?
3. On Apple’s evil blogging system