Check your smoke alarms.

This might help remind you, for a while anyway. RTÉ have made a series called "Rescue," shown on a Sunday evening, highlighting 6 different rescues that have taken place in Ireland over the years. Last week's (which I only saw tonight) was a programme about the 1986 rescue of 2 children from a 3-storey house on fire in Cappoquin, Co. Waterford. You can watch it here (RTÉ, realplayer, about 30 mins), if you haven't seen it already.

That family escaped because they were woken up by a noise, not by the smoke. Check your alarms weekly - maybe do it on bin night, or Sundays, or after badminton on a Tuesday. Use the test button on the alarm, or try using one of those smelly incense sticks

Every night before you go to bed, switch off your appliances, extinguish the candles, don't leave cigarettes balanced on ashtrays (as they burn down, the balance will change....) and importantly close your doors.

Download fire safety advice brochures here and here, and there are more available (in different languages too!) at the bottom of this page.

Top Gear

Great to have you back! I can't help it, I love this programme. Smiling ear to ear for an hour - it's so entertaining. It turns out the best supercar for the current petrol prices is an Audi R8 - 5mpg. Don't buy the Ferrari - 1.7MPG isn't very good, is it?

And they proposed replacement cars for the police, instead of the ones they have at the moment. Budget of 1000 pounds, plus 500 for livery (painting and lights and whatnot) - some of this included wheel-mounted bars, like you see on Roman chariots....yeah, I can see that working. Though one of them used a rearward firing paint dispenser to confound the villain's vision - maybe use vinyl instead of emulsion though.....

All in all, an informative and intelligent automotive magazine programme. I commend it to the house. 2000 on a Sunday evening on the BBC2, or whenever you want if you've Skyplussed it.

Trying to blur the lines betwen reality and silicon based lifeforms...

I came across a news story yesterday, which mentions the case of a young man who has been sentenced to death in Alabama in the US after murdering 3 policemen. Almost unthinkably, the defendant attempted to use a defence based on influence exerted on him by playing computer games, apparently Grand Theft Auto 3 chiefly among them.

Aside: Grand Theft Auto is a game wherein the player takes part in criminal activity generally involving homicide, gun crime and vehicular rampage in order to further his position within the gang system inherent in the game.

Of course, as an occasional and one-time frequent computer game player, I have never killed anyone nor considered it right to do so based on what I'd seen on the monitor in front of me. (no doubt many of you are relieved....) Nor indeed on things seen on the television, or even read (heavens forbid) in books, and the books can be worse than the computer games and telly.

I'm glad (but also gladly unaffected) by the decision of the court in this case not to accept that defence. Naturally I'm saddened at the sentence (it being capital in this case) but if a defence like that were to become legal precedent we'd be in awful trouble.

Interestingly, the family of the defendant in this case is pursuing the creators and vendors of the game in a civil action. We should watch that space.

Sky+

We got it in a while ago, just before Christmas in fact. Useful. I'm sure I could live without it, but it is handy to be able to record programmes quite easily. At the touch of a button you can record something that's on at an ungodly hour of the morning and watch it when it suits you - like Red Dwarf for example, showing at 12:30am. And you can get it to do the entire series! Automagically!

Or a film that's on another channel, you can record that and still watch something else at the same time. Yay!

Nah it is useful. We got it free (well, as a special offer anyway) and it's about 150 euro if you don't get the offer - though I'm not sure I'd have paid for it if it wasn't free. If you do like your telly a lot though, it is very useful. Reasonably recommendable.

The things people come up with.

I suppose, in fairness, I must tip my hat to the ingenuity of the producers of Big Brother. I saw the opening evening of what, is it the tenth? series this evening, and we were getting the grand tour before the wonderful contestants were presented and I must say, it's original. They've dispersed the kitchen throughout the entire house......

There's a sink in the sitting area.

The fridge is outside in the garden. Across the garden.

The oven is in the bedroom (in which there is also a single bed, a double, a triple and 2 quad-beds)

There is a food preparation area, but I wouldn't call it a kitchen.

Imagine if these people applied themselves to world hunger, or cold fusion or something. Instead of ratings.

Belated Christmas Greetings, and on with the show!

Happy Christmas. Well, season's greetings now, seeing how I've missed the 25th. Hopefully all my faithful reader(S?) will be having a nice and peaceful break at the moment. Anyone to whom Mr. Claus came, I hope he was as generous as ever!

So, sales time. We went looking for television. One shop assistant told us that there was no difference between 2 different television models, 32 inch LCD models. He couldn't explain the 200 euro price difference either. So that was useful. Oddly enough, when we went back to see if anybody else could "help" us, the price had gone up that 200 quid. In 5 minutes. That was explained by "there was limited stock at the earlier price." Ha. V. No. Man, that. Great stuff. So we didnt' buy any telly there. The same shop, somebody else was buying a printer. Would you like some extra cartridges? Yes, why not. Assistant, oddly, picks up the 4 single cartridges, rather than the multipack which was cheaper. We may not buy anything there in the end.

And on to other shops where we were bewildered by the choice and similarity of all these tellies. Madness. And then you see a lonely CRT over in the corner for pocket money, and wonder why wouldn't you buy it? It's widescreen, and flatscreen too, so why not? High Definition hasn't quite become the all-pervasive medium yet, so why not save a few clams?

Beyond that, it's just relaxation time here in Monasterevin. Bloatedness abounds.

And onwards the calendar marches, inexorably......