Man In San Fran 13

Well I now have my new computer and superfast internet connection up and running and E by Gad, it's opened up a whole new world. Now I can do funky things like listen to music and watch videos online. Fantastic stuff. The best thing is that I can now watch and hear the BBC News, broadcast from their excellent website, www.bbc.com. Each of the One, Six and Nine O'Clock news programmes are archived and put up online within about 30 mins of broadcast. You even get Newsroom South East ("There are concerns tonight in Barnet after blah blah blah..."). Actually the shows are pretty much essential given the parlous state of foreign reportage on American news programmes. Austrian Nazis? Good Friday agreement in peril? Not in Utah, buddy.

Now that the Superbowl has been and gone and the old American Football season is over (I'm in cold turkey already), I've got to try and think of something else to write about. I suppose I could talk about the Superbowl advertising - a stack of dotcom companies paying upwards of $2m each for a 30-second spot. The advertising during the big game is supposed to be some of the best that American advertisers come up with (Apple Macs were launched in 1984 with a fantastical one-off advert directed by Ridley "Alien" Scott). But this year's crop were stupor-inducing to the max. There's something fundamentally unexciting about adverts for websites cos basically all they're saying is switch off your TV, park your arse in front of a computer and log on and go to our webpage where we'll do our best to try and sell you something you didn't really want to buy in the first place. It's not like adverts for adventure holidays where they say switch off your TV and get off your arse and go out and do something less boring instead.

Keeping with the internet theme just for a moment, I was most interested to hear about my good friends (is there a sarcastic typeface available?) over at the Conservative Party committing another massive PR gaffe, this time with their ill-fated ISP (Internet Service Provider). Their website (www.tory.org) was offering free email accounts and webpages. So one smart alec took up their kind offer and within minutes was offering a special "cash for questions" e-commerce service - hosted, naturally, at www.tory.org. F***ing hilarious! The page was deleted swiftly, leaving the volunteer no alternative but to subscribe again, this time running the appeal on a new page, www.tory.org/home/bollocks/. Even more hilarious! Tory.org has now suspended all new subscriber registrations. Presumably to stop Jeffrey Archer trying the same trick. You can view a copy of the offending web page at: http://www.ntk.net/2000/02/04/dohtory.gif.

Attached are a couple of piccies of me attempting to iceskate for the first time up at the Olympic Village in Squaw Valley near lake Tahoe (which I visited back in November - see previous misf report for details!). No wonder all those five year old kids were laughing. And as for Pic 3 - that was taken after a tequila bender with Muzik magazine's Declan (he's the one leaning over in the photo) and we have absolutely no idea who the other geezer is. Sorry.

Make mine a triple.

Namaste,

Kieran

Superbowl advertising - Tory party fuck-ups (PIX).