I just have to big up Garrick Van Buren’s WP-iPodCatter WordPress Plugin. It’s allowed me (with a few modifications) to add videoblogging information to the standard RSS 2.0 feeds that WordPress spits out by default so that it’s compatible with iTunes. I’ve been busy debugging the Plugin this week, and it’s now up and running on The Spirit of Football site. If you plan on podcasting, videoblogging, vlogging — or whatever it’ll be called next month — through WordPress, check out this neat Plugin.

[UPDATE]

I guess I ought to mention that this has now been folded into the eminently sensible podPress plugin and I’d advise using that instead now.

In which the poster for the latest Temporary Autonomous Art exhibition holds a surprise.

This story was prompted by my visit to New York to see Christo’s Gates and the subsequent discussions that took place during a most entertaining and enlightening evening at my friends Bob and Ashton’s apartment the night after their party.

A sample of the material used in Christo’s Gates

Last week, I visited Christo’s latest artwork, The Gates, in New York’s Central Park, and went to a party some friends were throwing to celebrate the arrival of the installation.

Another entry about language – this time regarding another phrase which has been troubling me for some time: “The Third World”.

I have travelled extensively in countries which would usually be categorised under that term, and have always suffered from a dissonance between what I could see around me and the received wisdom of what these places “ought” to be like. True, many people live in great poverty and there are indeed slums in many cities. However, things are changing so fast that I feel that the term “Third” no longer reflects the nature of these places…

I was reminded recently by a former college lecturer of mine of a talk that I gave to students in which I described my experience of working in Bollywood in 1998. I showed some pictures of Mumbai to them and asked where in the world they thought the picture was taken. Noone said India – indeed it looked more like Manhattan than Mumbai. I warned them that this misconception was all too common, and that they would be surprised by what was happening in places like Mumbai.

And so, when I went to a conference in Oxford recently, I was heartened to find that other people were thinking along similar lines: my friends Bob and Ashton quietly told me that they had settled on using the phrase “Majority World” to describe these places. I instantly warmed to the phrase, recognised that it has none of the implicit hierarchy that “First”, “Second” and “Third” World imply.

So then, from now on I’ll use “Majority World” to describe those places formerly known as the Third World.

Update: Appropedia has an article stub about this term now — you can help describe it here

I’ve been struggling with my techobabble of late… getting bothered by the angry and violent tone of many of the terms I use daily in relation to computing: “abort”, “execute”, “kill” and so on. Most common of all is “slash”, as in bbc dot co dot uk slash news, and I’ve decided to try and use the perfectly good description “stroke” instead. It just sounds much less aggressive. bbc dot co dot uk stroke news… mmm… stroke that news…

So then, dear CLANsters, happy birthday!

From where I’m sitting, the CLAN looks very much like the rock’n'roll of wifi. Richard, you’ve gone and done a wonderful thing… a DIY WIFI LAN that belongs to its contributors.

And yesterday, a significant step forward for the LAN: The Chelsea is now a node! Pints and surfing! Warchalking on the pavement outside! Bringalongalaptop! It’s going to be an exicting summer of free radio…

The implications of this project send me into conceptual tilt-a-whirls and loop-de-loops – Richard, nomadic soul that he is, prefers to live his thoughts, while I can only think them.

My friend Piers Gibbon is showing his superb documentary “Jungle Trip” and talking about his experiences at the LSE on March 13th. The event is called “Make Ayahuasca Not War” and it’s free to attend. If you have an interest in ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology or South American shamanism then this is a talk you won’t want to miss.

Click here for further information

Kittens in Jelly

What the hell were they thinking in Whiskas marketing?

After a discussion with a friend of mine who is planning travel tours of remote parts of Afghanistan, we got to wondering what might happen if, instead of protesting in our own streets against the proposed war on Iraq, we decided to do the same thing in Baghdad…

Would Bush and Blair drop bombs on Iraq in the knowledge that there were 10,000 tourists, many of them their own citizens, sightseeing around the country?

What if there were 20,000? Or more?