Despite its apparent real life premise (author corresponds with writer of groundbreaking autobiography who may not exist), this film quickly descends into conventional psycho-horror mode (Williams is creepy anyway). Wants to be a slasher movie, but can’t quite cut… it.
A disappointing 4 out of 10
Director: Patrick Stettner……Starring: Robin Williams…… Toni Collette…… Rory Culkin
An Inconvenient Truth……Clerks 2

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Alongside Norm’s call for civility, it was remarked at Urbis’ pre-Labour Conference political blogging event that nobody seems to blog about Blair-Brown rivalry, although it seems to be the only topic proper political correspondents can find to talk about. Let’s face it, a Brown government wouldn’t be that different from one headed up by John Reid, Charles Clark or Alan Johnson.

Given that leadership was, thankfully, never a formal topic for debate, it makes you wonder if any correspondent spent any time in the debating hall. You certainly wouldn’t get much clue as to what was going on from TV; news that might actually change lives is buried deep in the broadsheets.

Bill Clinton, a genuinely charismatic speaker (even a cynic like me has felt moved to grab an opportunity to shake his hand) with an impressive international perspective, talked about the role of government, economic success, education in developing countries, working with Ken Livingston on global warming, globalisation, healthcare, how we can stop people turning to terror and much more. He warned that Labour’s achievements are taken for granted.

The biggest headline was for his apparent endorsement of Gordon Brown.

Tony Blair’s speech will be a useful historic document. It outlines many important achievements; too many to list here, honest. It goes from getting the economy right, through gay rights, trade union rights, devolution, investment in public services (last ‘traditional’ NHS winter beds crisis six years ago and all the schools near me have been rebuilt), banning lots of bad stuff and legitimatising lots of good stuff.

The BBC transcript misses the ad lib that got all the headlines.

Of course, you can’t rest on your laurels. Nor can you go on about how the Tories broke Britain with mass unemployment (when I graduated in 1991, not one of my cohort had a job to go to), high interest rates, inflation and negative equity all at the same time. Or talk about how so many of us were ashamed to be British because Britain supported Pinochet in Chile, Saddam in Iraq and defended the Apartheid regime from international censure while insisting Mandela was a terrorist. But the poll tax riots were fun!

Yet media news values seem to have changed too. Today politics is only reported in the language of soap opera… that our ignorance is scary is illustrated by this photo of a blue rinse grandma attending an anti-Iraq war demo and smiling at a ‘stop dictators support a caliphate’ sticker… how dumbed down is that!?

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Hearing that Prince Charles has staff boil seven eggs slightly differently in his search for the perfect yoke left me with mixed feelings.

On the one hand there’s the obvious waste of it all. Added to that is the annoyance that Charlie’s system seems all wrong. He has seven eggs boiled and numbered from soft to hard. The quickest route to the right egg should be to start with number four, then six if too soft or two if too hard. If they’re wrong the next egg will be the one; found in three goes tops. But Charlie appears to start at five, if that’s too hard his best next best choice is two or three, if three’s too hard one or two could be right; it could take up to four goes to find the right egg (knowing Charlie, even more).

Charlie takes his egg at the end of a day’s hunting, during which he’s given vent to his animalistic side and proved himself closer to nature than those of us who shy away from inflicting pain and suffering in the name of fun. So having won some environmental brownie points, he perhaps feels enough credit has been earned to waste six eggs and however much power and water went into boiling them.

On the other hand, I’m partial to a boiled egg myself and news of Charlie’s latest eccentricity came just after I’d ordered an egg boiler from Amazon. Boiling an egg is never as simple as it seems. Lately I’ve been fighting off the risk of cracking by placing the egg in cold water, so as not to shock the shell. This doesn’t always work so I add vinegar, which stops the white spreading, as insurance. Even so, my timing is far from perfect.

The egg boiler is a great gadget, though rather than boil the egg it steams it. You place the right amount of water in a tray (far less than you’d normally use) and an alarm goes off when it’s run dry and the egg’s ready. Sure there’s a little experimentation with water levels, but consistency is more or less assured. Why not buy an egg boiler for Charlie? Get Amazon to gift wrap it and send it to Prince Charles at Clarence House, St James’s Palace, London, SW1 1BA.