Nixta Sinks

Loizou moments before passing out in his own vomit

At Cambridge Crown Court yesterday, alleged "Portuguese Tramp" (actually a Cypriot artist, restauranteur and neologiser) Raynose Loo-ee-zoo cheated the Crown Prosecution Service in yet another flagrant example of Charles Clarke's failure to control those damned thieving foreigners.

Dressed in nothing but two second-hand oily dog-rags and delicately placed daubings of Ultramarine to provide some semblance of modesty, presiding judge Lord Lupin DeFeverille-Gnat was taken away by janitors and replaced with a fresh clean judge from the rack, Justice Charles "Polly" Howard of the Mill Road Judgers.

The following is a rough transcript of the proceedings. Some sections have been omitted for the sake of fuck:

Judge-babes: This court is in session in the case of The Crown vs Renos Loizou.
Prosecution: Your honour, me lud and all that, is there... er... a chance we can er... adjourn or whatever you call it?
J: Why?
P: Er. Well, you see, none of our ASBO criminal witnesses are here and half our lawyers are tripping out. We have the police out and about in Soham trying to round them up, but even if we do there's little chance we'll find the witnesses.
J: Hmmm. No. You've had a year and a half to prepare. We're not wasting any more of anyone's time, and I want to get home before lunch. Now piss off and sit down.
J: Oi, defense boys over there, Oscar old chum - you won't have anyone to cross examine. That a problem for you?
D: Well, we might get a bit bored, but no, not really. I can take a nap.
J [Turning to Mr. Loizou]: Has this man been sworn in?
Clerk: Yes me lud, quite a bit.
J: Excellent. Are you Mr Renos Loizou of no vaguely respectable abode in Soham? [Mr. Loizou, dressed in a long leather trenchcoat, a cravat around his neck and a wide-brimmed hat upon his head looked up from rolling a cigarette, a tad miffed at having been interrupted]
RL: Yes me lud ole chips and all that. I is in da dock!
[Sniggering from the clerks and the judge]
J: Quiet!
J: Now then, Mr. Loizou (or may I call you Renos)?
R: No, you Kunt with a capital K. Who do you think you are?
J: Sorry, of course. I'll get straight to it then. These people haven't turned up. Your barrister and I will retire with the persecution to discuss matters and get pissed. Please wait there.
RL: OK ole bean, I'll wait here. And wait of course. And take my banister with you. But don't take too long coz I want a fag and that allo-allo-allo with the 10-foot forehead over there won't let me light one in here.
J: Sod it then, go outside. We'll come and find you in a bit.
RL: And a bit, innit?

"Ta taa, ole chips" added Renos as he wandered outside, followed closely by the sound of knuckles dragging on the floor as the gobsmacked neaderthal po-leece lumbered after him.

With that the prosecution and Renos' solicitor joined the judge in his chambers:
P: We want to charge him with a firearms charge and affray.
D: Piss off, Mr. Loizou wants no criminal record.
P: OK then, we'll drop the firearms charge if he pleads guilty to the charge of affray.
D: All right, you old cock, don't you understand English? Polly, does this man understand English?
J: Rarely, petal, rarely.
P: Er. OK. Tell you what then...
J: No, here's what we do. We give Renos Loizou a bind-over for a year in the amount of 750 nicker, and you piss off. Oh, and also, you can pay 40% of his legal fees.
P: But me ludd...
J: Shut it.
P: Yes, me lud.
J: Now, who's for a game of snooker?
D: Yeah, all right.
P: I'm going to the pub.

Mr. Loizou was found outside chatting up a lamppost and painting a couple of quick nudes. He's now back in Soham and drunk as a bastard, being interviewed by the national press and Newsnight. Nobody knows why.

His dog, Igor Raskolnikov was unavailable for comment.

Google switches to the Euro

Another Google Maps posting - I wonder what I spend my days doing...

For a couple of weeks now I've noticed that Google Maps (not to be confused with Google Earth) has had a single tile of north-west Italian roads mapped out. It seems that Google were perhaps testing loading data sectioned not only by tile but also by existing geographic boundary because on the east and south it was orthographically tiled but on the north and west it was cut off at the Italian borders.

This seemed a little odd and arbitrary to me, but today I see why. They have loaded up all the road data of Europe (barring a couple of countries - pah!).

Of interest so far is that:

• Slovenia is not mapped (oh, and some other places).


• Greece *is* mapped. I'm guessing this is some slightly out-of-date EU membership thing.


• There is no road data for the Greek islands although there is for the Sicilian ones


• Some Greek labels are in Greek alphabet, some in Roman. That appears to be a breakdown of the data between mainland/main-islands and minor-islands, though some of the minorness seems arbitrary.


• Satellite imagery is of varying quality.

All in all, rather interesting.

17" and shiny

It's true.

Really stupid dicks (and lazy to boot).

The new Apple 17" MacBook Pro costs $2799 in the US. If you upgrade the 15.4" MacBook Pro which has been around for a wee bit now so that it matches the specs as close as poss, it's $100 more. I couldn't believe it when I found out yesterday. Somehow, Gizmodo failed to comment on that at the time (although engadget did, to a slew of stupid-ass useless comments from freaks around the world, including myself). Now, having had time to think about it and work it out carefully, the freetards at Gizmodo think it's the same price. They're so fucking stupid it makes me shit myself with rage. I wonder if they write up everything that gets put in their comments without checking it? At least now their comments are starting to fill up with people correcting them.

I've noticed Gizmodo going rapidly downhill since wotshisface left. Now it's like a poorly-written high-school newsletter ridden with nerdly sexual frustration and pre-pubescent slashdottery, and it's such a pain to comment that even the comments page is worthless. Welcome to the Wired Magazine of the internet. Wankers.

I hope they ban me from reading it ever again.

Update:
I've just discovered their commenter community includes some cocks that vastly out-dick the Gizmodo staff.

May Week was in Google

Take a look at google maps in Cambridge, and you'll notice that the Midsummer Fair is being set up.

The photo was taken in the morning (I'm guessing 9 or 10ish) as only the lazy carnies seem to be absent, though town isn't exactly busy yet.

I thought that was reasonably interesting in itself, but then as I panned around to take a look at some of the colleges, I noticed that things weren't quite right. St. John's college had red grass. Trinity had grown a field-hospital on the backs. In short, it wasn't World-War II in colour, but rather May week was in full flow. Even miniscule Trinity Hall had the whole front court covered in canvas (I imagine more canvases were to be erected soon or that would have been one let-down of a ball).

It has been over a month. Well well well.

Who cares? Not you, dear reader, I assure you. Or should I call you Mr. Web Spider thing? Unless your name is Rufus of course.

Take this, you swine. Finally the truth is out about England. And thanks to The Mighty Hogue and Sidekick Fagan, I've learnt the very old news that TPS Reports are real, and in doing so have found my word for the day: backronym.

My weekend is complete, except for the pending 3pm to 3am shift mauling data down in Guildford.