How refreshing.  And how typically unusual.  Rather than doing the usual, boring, upgrade – you know, the one where the new product is significantly better than the old one, Apple has reinvented the new release!  They thought differently and released a product which is significantly worse.  I’m talking, of course, about the new AppleTV.  Sure, it’s smaller.  It’s cheaper too.  But they’d need to reduce it to the size of an SD card and price it accordingly in order to justify the loss of functionality.  I like the iOS bit.  I like the efficient A4 bit too.  I could stomach a drop in capacity to 64GB if it meant having SSD rather than a hard drive – but they dropped the storage altogether, thereby making it impossible to use as a stand-alone HiFi separate.

You know what though?  I reckon that His Steveness is probably using the last generation, and I reckon he’ll keep doing so.  I reckon he’s quite aware how awful this new TV wart is – but that he’s gambling on the rock bottom price seeing it through.  Well, fingers crossed – I hope that it bombs.  And that they replace it with a device with built in storage. Until then though, I’ll be patching the hell out of my wonderful Mark 1 AppleTV.

I can smell a rat.  Humour me while I try to find it.

The iPad.  It looks very nice.  In fact, despite the mumblings of the nay-sayers, I think I’d like to have one.  I don’t even mind that it doesn’t multitask.  I wish it did, of course, but I’m a geek.  Most people don’t really care about browsing the internet, e-mailing, editing a photo and playing Super Whambot Massacre IV simultaneously; provided that they can switch from one to another quickly I suspect that most people won’t notice if those apps aren’t actually running in the background.

I’ll go further.  I think that the iPad might end up being the replacement for the Mac.  Think about it.  It doesn’t even matter that you can’t write software on it. In the very early days of the Mac you couldn’t write software either.  You needed to buy another, vastly more expensive, system (Lisa) running the Mac development kit to do that.  Substitute iPad for ‘Mac’ and Mac for ‘Lisa’ and that’s exactly what you need to do today.  The Mac won’t disappear tomorrow, or even next week, but one day it will – and the iPad is its replacement.

What I can’t abide, though, is being in thrall to Apple for all my software.  I don’t want to get everything from the app store, DRM’d to the hilt.  I don’t want to be told that I’m not allowed to run an emulator, or that I must pay a subscription for the privilege of writing software – even free software – for their system.  One day, I suspect, Apple plans for us to get all our content, software, media, the lot in this manner.  And that isn’t just unacceptable, it’s a very big rat indeed.

A man, and it would have to be a man because women aren’t usually this stupid, invents the worlds most perfect gun in order to protect his property.  It is a weapon so advanced that it never misfires, it never jams, and it will always work regardless of the conditions and its level of maintenance.  One day, whilst cleaning it, he accidentally blows his head off.

Imagine if DRM had been invented in the sixteenth century.  If it had, then there is very little chance that we’d be enjoying the works of Shakespeare today.  We wouldn’t be able to – especially if the company which held the keys, the sixteenth century equivalent of Apple, Amazon or Microsoft, had since folded.  Some might argue that this is no bad thing.  After all, the real wonders of Rock’n’Roll were recorded in a pre-DRM era – and I doubt that future music historians will care all that much if the oeuvre of Lady Gaga sinks without trace into a digital morass.

If you want someone to be trustworthy, you need to trust them.  If you regard everyone as fundamentally untrustworthy then you shouldn’t be surprised if they turn out to be just that. Many developers and artists understand this concept.  You buy content (software, music, video etc), you install it, and there are no checks to see if you acquired the content legitimately or not.  This freedom means that you can give your content to someone else, provided that you stop using it yourself.  That might not be strictly in the terms of the license, but the content provider doesn’t lose out and it generates good feeling.

Unfortunately, the situation with an increasing number of providers is slightly different.  Once you install the content on one machine you can’t install it on another machine.  So if you upgrade your machine you’re now left with bin-fodder and you need to buy the content all over again.  Fair?  Definitely not.  And the result is that there are a remarkable number of ingenious crackers breaking the DRM and uploading the resultant file.

It’s true that DRM free content is no less likely to end up on a torrent site than that of less enlightened providers.  On the other hand there’s very little advantage (other than the financial one) to gaining it in this manner – and several significant disadvantages, not least the lack of support.

Piracy of heavily DRM’d content is a different matter.  In this case you lose the support but, in addition to the financial incentive, you also gain the ability to use your content wherever you like, on whatever you like, without the need for an internet connection and without the risk that one day your content will cease to work altogether.  Put like that, Piracy may be a crime – but it’s a crime that you’d be daft not to indulge in.

The obsession with DRM can be seen as the last thrashings of a dying industry. I’m not saying that we’ll no longer listen to music, watch video, or play games  – just that we’ll get our entertainment from other, DRM free, sources in the future.  This has already happened with music (so, unfortunately, Lady Gaga might be with us forever after all) and DRM free music is now commonly available.  Video is still locked down, but at least the locked down files can be played offline – and DVDs (and now BluRay) can be copied without too much difficulty. Software is a trickier proposition, with DRM that either requires the CD to be inserted during game play (wrecking battery life on portables, and rendering gameplay all but impossible on a MacBook Air) or, worse, that requires a constant connection to the internet.

DRM won’t kill software, video or any other media, but it will kill any provider who burdens content with protection more strenuous than a serial number.  Treated as criminals in this manner, users will either download the unencumbered version from a filesharing site or run into the welcoming arms of Open Source.  Linux.  Open Office.  Tremulous.  Hedgewars.  All good quality, and all absolutely free.  And best of all, nobody gets their head blown off.

Picture the scene.  It’s time for the baby to sleep, but he won’t. He’s teething.  He’s crying fit to burst, and all he really wants to do is bite his mummy and then cry some more.  His mummy, quite understandably, doesn’t want to be bitten again, so she offloads baby onto daddy.  That would be me.

Baby redoubles his efforts and, although it would be quite interesting to see exactly what shade of puce he can manage this time (as calibrated by Pantone) or whether his eyes will actually pop out from the exertion, I’m getting a headache.  I’m also running out of options.  He doesn’t want a teething ring.  He never liked dummies (which might explain his objection to my ministrations).  He isn’t thirsty.  And his nappy is freshly laundered and, as yet, unwetted.

Inspiration strikes.  I dandle him on my knee, and fire up iTunes on my Mac.  Turning the sound off, I select something monotonous and middle of the road (Jack Johnson, since you ask) and turn on the visualiser.  Baby is struck dumb by the gently flowing patterns. Result!  Even better, when I look down a couple of minutes later, he’s fast asleep.

For the record, this isn’t a fluke.  My wife and I have used iTunes induced hypnosis on Daniel several times now.  It must be said though that it only seems to work with her music.  My tunes just seem to make things worse (the patterns are far too frenetic!).

And now, excuse me, I think that I need a nap.

A pox on all Multiplexes. They’re ruinously ugly, uncomfortable, purveyors of the worst kind of dreck. It’s true, I suppose, that they occasionally show a film worth watching – but even then they manage to badly mess up the experience.

You might grumble about having to pay extra for 3D glasses. My grumble is that the hellish Multiplexes ruin a good film BY PLAYING THE SOUNDTRACK AT ANTISOCIALLY LOUD VOLUMES. Why? I’m not deaf. Nor do I wish to be. Are they planning on charging extra for ear-defenders in the near future? Or hearing aids for those customers whose hearing has been irrevocably buggered? Can we please have a campaign for cinemas to turn the bloody volume down before I turn into a curmudgeon. I’m not old enough for that yet.

Praise then to the Picturehouse and Screen chains and all ‘arthouse’ (I hate that term) cinemas. Small. Comfortable. Sociable. And sadly non-existent in south-east Hertfordshire.

A dictionary has been censored by Apple prior to its acceptance on the app store. Not only have unambiguously rude words been removed; words like ‘screw’, ‘snatch’ and ‘ass’ have been purged too.  Whoever made that decision is a cock.  It’s a type of bird, you know, although the bird is apparently extinct by Apple’s request.

Personally I have no problem with rude words.  If your child can’t get them on your phone then they’ll underline them in a paper dictionary instead.  Maybe Apple are trying to protect me.  I’m grateful.  Really I am.  I shall send over my copy of Rogers Profanisaurus without delay so that they can censor that too.

I do have a problem with all the gun simulators on the app store though.  A rude word has never resulted in injury to another – but guns kill hundreds, if not thousands, of people around the world every day.  Surely that is more offensive?

To quote South Park it seems that “Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don’t say any naughty words.”

As every good reviewer knows, one should never judge a book by its cover.  If one were to ignore that rule then the Penguin Great Ideas edition of Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard would garner the highest praise.  The cover design of slightly embossed text is plain but beautiful and, unlike many publishers these days, Penguin employs typesetters who understand the importance of ligatures.  This is a book that feels wonderful and is a joy to look at.

No, one should never judge a book by its cover.  The only sound way to review a book is by its smell.  Open it up and bury your nose in its pristine pages – only then will you truly know whether the book in your hand is worth a second glance.  A book may have many smells: knowledge, excitement, adventure, romance, paper, ink and glue.  Mainly paper, ink and glue I concede.  Try it for yourself.  Grab your favourite novel and, lets say, the Microsoft Windows user manual.  The Windows manual will probably have you reaching for a bucket – which is entirely appropriate considering the subject matter.  Fear & Trembling, on the other hand, smells unexciting but mind expanding which I put down to the high solvent content of its raw material.

I mentioned earlier that Fear and Trembling is a joy to look at.  It isn’t, however, a joy to read.  That isn’t to say that it’s not interesting – but it is a bit of a headful and it’ll take longer to read than its diminutive 152 pages suggest.  I’m a fast reader, I can polish off the Lord of the Rings in a week (although I admit that I do tend to skip the dire poetry and the boring battles, which helps).  It took me the same amount of time to read Fear and Trembling, because I’d reach the end of a section and, realising that I hadn’t fully grasped the concepts, have to reread it.  If you have no interest in philosophy and theology then you probably won’t want to put the necessary effort in and if, like me, you’re an amateur in the field then you’d be better off dipping into it rather than reading it in one go.

It’s a dangerous book too, because it doesn’t present a cut-and-dried philosophy for the reader to accept or ignore.  It retells and then dismantles the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, subjecting it to the kind of forensic analysis that’ll boil the blood of any dyed in the wool ‘it’s in the Bible so it must be true’ zealot.  It considers whether Abraham’s faith was justified and whether or not he was on ethically sound ground.  There are people who attempt filicide today, claiming that their offspring are demonically possessed or that they were acting under orders from God.  We, rightly, lock them up for the loonies that they are, but how are they any different from Abraham?  Of course, the Bible, and the Old Testament in particular, is full of nasty, violent, prejudiced and contradictory claptrap.  The intelligent mind questions it and excises the poison from the basic worthwhile message, but one can understand how the socio and psychopathically inclined (think of Alex from A Clockwork Orange or any number of real life cult leaders) are drawn to it like flies to rotting meat.  All Kierkegaard does is shine a light on this paradox.  According to Kierkegaard, Abraham chooses faith (do as God says, unquestioningly) over morals (thou shalt not kill).  In doing so, Abraham surrenders free choice and becomes an automaton for another Mind.  Even today, there are zealots in every creed who claim that, like Abraham, their faith is the most important thing in their lives.  Like Kierkegaard I’d argue that they are dangerous and that the world would be better if they lived their lives morally instead.  A truly faithful person can abdicate responsibility for their actions and commit the most appalling atrocities.

I’ve long believed that one should never accept only one point of view and that everything should be questioned – and Kierkegaard goes far beyond my own limited enquiries.  Fear and Trembling should be read by anyone, of any faith, who claims to have any interest, however limited, in religion.  It is not an easy read but, if nothing else, it’s laid out nicely and it smells quite pleasant.

With a son in the first few months of his life, the time that my wife and I spent going to the cinema has been sadly curtailed.  I don’t like renting DVDs, partly because I hate sitting through adverts for films have no intention of watching, and partly because I hate being told that Piracy Is A Crime.  Every. Bloody. Time.  A patronising message which is made more irritating by the fact that if I had pirated the damn film I wouldn’t have to watch the message or umpteen adverts.

So, at the risk of sounding like a cheap radio commercial, I was delighted to discover that rentals and purchases from the iTunes store are not only reasonably priced but also free from annoyance.  You pay.  You watch.  You aren’t forced to sit through crap.

One thing that the nature documentaries fail to cover is quite how bad the Galapagos islands smell. There’s no doubt that the Galapagos are a little slice of paradise, but they’re the slice that smells of faeces mixed with stale anchovy paste.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sarah and I honeymooned late, in fact we left it until January this year. It is with a little sadness that I write these words because I’m fairly sure that we will never again have such a wonderful holiday or see such amazing things. We were, for example, transported back in time to the 1970s as soon as we stepped onto Iberia’s rickety old Airbus. It’s been a very long time since I saw so much brown in one place (other, of course, than my wardrobe). There was no choice of film and, quite apart from the fact that the actors were all speaking Spanish, the nearest screen was too far away to be of any use to us. So we contented ourselves with the worryingly easy task of removing bits of trim from the aircraft.

By some miracle we landed safely at our destination – Quito, a picturesque town which was constructed little better than the aeroplane which conveyed us there. We didn’t let that stop us though and even Pascal scrabbled up the scaffolding to reach the highest room of the tallest tower of the basilica to be with his one true love. Let me be quite clear here. Sarah and I both have vertigo in peculiarly different ways. Pascal is quite happy with trees and cliffs, certain as he is that if nature constructed them then they can probably be trusted to stay standing. Sarah doesn’t trust nature at all and would rather put her life in the hands of an overweight chain-smoker who wears the wrong sized trousers and shouts ‘Phwoar! Bristols!’ at every girl who walks past the building site. Both, of course, trust gliders – but that’s just a matter of physics.

After a day or two of exploration we jetted off to the Amazon rain-forest to swim with piranhas, anacondas, caymans and all manner of betoothed beasties. We acquainted ourselves with insects and spiders which only seemed to come in large and enormous sizes. And we witnessed monkeys crashing through the trees, much to the annoyance of the owls and vampire bats. The lodge, of course, was beautiful and the food excellent.

The rain-forest was swiftly followed by the even-rainier-forest, a land of frogs, millipedes and humming birds. Actually, it seemed to be a paradise for twitchers – but there was only one bird that I was really interested in watching. The even-rainier-forest also provided us with our only encounter with Incan ruins.

Nearly five kilometres above sea-level the air cannot be described as rich in oxygen. We struggled up the slopes of Cotopaxi, burning nicely in the sun, whilst being guided by a mountain goat Amerindian woman. I’m afraid to say that I took advantage of Sarah’s breathlessness to hurl snowballs at her. Snowball fight on the equator! You’d think it’d be great, right? Wrong, alas. The snow was like powder. Never mind, we both made up for lost time when it snowed in London in April – and we made anatomically gifted snowmen and women. Having decided that the islands themselves were far too smelly, we toured the Galapagos in a sailing boat. We went ashore regularly for walks with iguana, sea-lions (the cause of most of the stink) and boobies. We swam with iguana, sea-lions, turtles, sharks and, of course, boobies. The boobies were most impressive and, as has been commented on in the past, I’m rather fond of them.

The first move of 2008 was from Sarah’s flat in the increasingly stabby south-east of London, but not before Pascal upset one of the neighbours by shouting at her. We moved to a little house in Hertford and immediately set about the task of trying to find somewhere to buy. It was during our stay in the noisy little house that we found the time to unpack the modelling kit and make a little Waggle. Waggle is currently baking, and we expect hir (him’n’her, alright!? Really! Mi spellin int vat bad!) to be complete in March. Ish.

Having honeymooned so extravagantly in January, we decided that our summer holiday should be spent in the U.K., in Cornwall. We camped and it rained. The tent leaked so we patched it up with old bin-bags – it was a veritable tramp palace by the time we decided to donate it to the Eden project for recycling. We will camp again, we promise, but our tent will be bigger, sturdier and more expensive next time! And, dudes, I learned to surf. I caught the waves and stayed on my feet all the way to the beach. Excellent fun, party on – I want to do that again. Any day now I’ll be peroxiding my hair, growing it long, and moving in to a VW camper van. Poor Sarah, waggled up as she is, could only watch and take photographs as she got shot blasted with hail. The holiday was a lot of fun though, and the weather was miraculously fine when we went to see War of the Worlds at the Minack theatre.

We found the house we wanted in Ware and made the necessary arrangements to be seriously inconvenienced and pissed about by the mortgage company. Which they duly did. So well done to C&G – I don’t think that you missed a single opportunity to mess us about. Thankfully, we were assisted by a supremely competent solicitor. Since then we’ve been nesting – mainly lining the nest with books, I think. Our kitchen is almost finished, although I still need to sort out the under-stairs cupboard. Our living room is almost finished, although the floor needs finishing. And our bedroom will be finished once we’ve slapped some paint on the walls and I’ve papered and painted the hoofysaurus cupboard. Then we can get to work on Waggle’s room.

It’s been a busy year. Busy and fun. We’ve been to paradise, sold a flat and bought a house, and we are expecting our first child. I have a sneaky feeling that 2009 will be even more eventful.

Let’s get the positive stuff out of the way first. I like trains, provided that I can get a seat.  I especially like long train journeys in first class – I get a reasonable cup of tea, a fairly peaceful journey and I can read the paper.

I hate the underground.  It’s smelly, stifling and there’s nothing to look at except for the armpits of ones fellow travellers as they grasp the hand rails (there’s never room to sit).

I hate buses but, since I live beyond the reach of the underground, they’re a necessary nuisance.  I particularly dislike many of my fellow passengers and, in particular, the spineless wimps who put up with hooliganism meekly – or, worse yet, thank me when I don’t.

Strangely enough, I don’t particularly hate the inconsiderate ‘yoofs’ who do so much to ensure that bus rides are as unpleasant as possible.  I was yoofish once and, whilst I never graffitied or listened to my music at disturbing volumes (mainly because I didn’t have the means), I’m aware that I was probably quite unpleasant in my own way.

No, I hate the spineless wimps who won’t stand up for peace, quiet and good manners.  Their excuse is inevitably that they don’t want to get stabbed or happyslapped.  What?  And I do?  I’m hardly built like a boxer myself – I’m in no position to defend myself from a knife or, worse, a gun.  The difference is that I have a healthy sense of perspective and I realise that the chances of being attacked are tiny.  Let’s face it, if they weren’t then such attacks would cease to be newsworthy. The streets will, I promise you, be far safer when everybody firmly (but politely) learns to say ‘excuse me, but would you please stop doing that (whatever it is)’.  Trust me. It works. But if you see me doing it and you’re grateful, please don’t thank me. Just remember not to be so much of a coward yourself next time.

Most of all though, I hate Ken Livingstone for giving free travel to yoofs – come on.  Make them pay like everybody else, and put the extra revenue into paying conductors – life will be so much more pleasant for everyone who has to use public transport.