Spare any change?

What happens when a world-famous concert cellist goes busking in London? Will anyone notice?

(She wasn't dressed as in the picture, needless to say.)

Madge

On the left of the picture, Emily Bell as Madge, the silent and long-faced friend of Dame Edna Everage. (And Ozzy in the middle, just beacuse we love him.)

The Guardian published this obituary on Friday when she died, aged 100.

Learning murder

The writer of the first Lewis of the new series turns out also to have written for Z Cars back in 1963. In fact, Alan Plater's filmography is a mighty list. Here he is in this week's Radio Times:

"I've also had to learn to write murder stories (we rarely had murders in the early Z Cars), but adapting Agatha Christies, Ruth Rendell, Georges Simenon, Arthur Conan Doyle, Margery Allingham and the great Reginald Hill helped overcome my shyness of homicide to the extent that I drowned a chef in his own gazpacho and electrocuted a fitness freak on an exercise bike in Midsomer Murders with bravado and a merry laugh."

Compete

I love this example of why competition works, from last week's Economist.

It asks why government has been less successful than business and industry in using the internet "to lower costs, please customers and raise profits", suggesting that public bodies do just fine at putting information online, but less well at delivering services through new technology. One of the reasons it offers is a "lack of competitive pressure".

"Governments have few direct rivals. Amazon.com must outdo other online booksellers to win readers' money. Google must beat Yahoo!. Unless every inch of such companies' websites offers stellar clarity and convenience, customers go elsewhere. But if your country's tax-collection online offering is slow, clunky or just plain dull, then tough. When Britain's Inland Revenue website crashed on January 31st - the busiest day of its year - the authorities grudgingly gave taxpayers one day's grace before imposing penalties. They did not offer the chance to pay tax in Sweden instead."

Funny guy

Jon Stewart hosts the Oscars this evening - and here he is on Larry King Live. Several great moments. (Is he nervous? Would he take David Letterman's gig? And what does he think of Larry's new studio?)

No hiding

From South Korea, news of the mobile phone which can tell you how much your caller loves you. And how truthful they are.

Shuffly

This little beauty (also available in black) is an iPod Shuffle alternative - the Zen Stone from Creative. And it's only £22.

Cuby

How quickly the days will pass, once you've tried Mr Picassohead.

Easily confused

Mixing up a nuclear physicist and an Antarctic explorer. (Second para.)

Dream kitchen things

We've seen kitchen knives before on John's blog (here and here), so please don't think I'm obsessed with sharp implements if I send you here, for an excellent set by Katana.

The same website also includes specialities like the three-way ice cream scoop ("uniquely shaped to work in any direction" - a benefit which is only mildly baffling) and a collection of goodies for your bar.

Life (partly) without Microsoft

I'm not anti-Microsoft by any means, but I've been experimenting these last few weeks with alternatives. I've ended up preferring Safari for Windows as my browser of choice - it's a bit slower than Firefox, but the screen just seems to look nicer - and OpenOffice gives me everything I've needed by way of word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software.

Now, a fuller list of free, functional alternatives to Microsoft software, here.

Music mapped

You know how, when you're loading music onto iTunes from CD, it looks up the album's details for you in a very helpful way, talking to a central thingo called "Gracenote"?

Well, it turns out that the search engine it contacts saves overall information about how many people, in which countries, are loading which artists and albums.

And it can tell you, here

Pumping water, not gas

The first remote controlled car powered by hydrogen -
here. The neat little docking station recharges the car with water - but it needs power to do that, so it's got a solar panel. And so has the remote control. No batteries anywhere, just sun and water (and a mains power adapter for the charger in case it's a cloudy day. Or you're night racing).

Every radio station known to man

Now this is pretty cool. It's a combined DAB and Internet radio, picking up web stations with built-in wireless . Oh, and it's got FM too. It's Revo's Blik Radio Station.

Two inches from cyber-doom

How is the internet held together and what would it take to disconnect us all?

Ferntree

Just a photoblog.

The discovery of the Crooked Man

As Norman Wisdom celebrates his 93rd birthday, news that a lost film of his from 1960 has turned up in Darwen, and is due to get a proper screening.

Just rustling a little something up

I've fiddled around with this website, but haven't actually tried cooking any of the recipes yet, so on your own head be it.

But the idea of CookingByNumbers is that you tell it, on the opening screen, what you've got in your fridge, and what you've got in your kitchen cupboards, and it then comes up with a recipe. Nice work.