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Wednesday April 27, 2005

Book review - Our oldest enemy

Anglosphere

Old people still call them new media, but modern people like me (read: teens and twenties) simply refer to DVD, MSN, SMS, MP3, iPod and other wonders of the technological revolution as media. There is really nothing new about them and for the past decade I have enjoyed my fair share of these wonders while my parents continue to tell me to pick up a book every now and then. What is new, is that I seem to be listening: to my surprise I am reading more and more books these days.

Recently I finished reading Our oldest enemy by National Review contributor John J. Miller and Mark Molesky. The book covers the "history of America's disastrous relationship with France".

Although the historical facts in the book cannot easily be disputed, it must be noted that there is a substantial amount of bias and predictability in the writing. Fortunately the book never pretends to be an objective viewer of history, but because of the predictable nature almost every reader will almost certainly find spans in history covered by the book where the writers fail to capture the reader's excitement and interest to the full extent. Furthermore, a more subtle approach would be necessary to be able to call this book an insightful eye-opener.

But that doesn't make it a bad book, it merely limits its value to a few hours of fun for those who like to nag about the French. If that's what you're looking for, this one is definitely recommended reading.

Caption Euro - Europe's superhero!

European Union

I'm not sure whether this is scary, funny, both or neither.. Captain Euro to the rescue! Doesn't have a thing on Wonder Woman though, especially not when Joss Whedon is doing the writing and actress rumours include both Sarah Michelle Gellar and Charisma Carpenter.

In this climate of constant change the European Union, a union of prosperity and innovation, has emerged as a global superpower. The Twelve Stars organisation has been set up to defend the security of Europe and uphold the values of the Union.

Hrmph. Whodathunk the constitutional treaty is based on a cartoon, word for word! Come to think of it, that actually makes sense..

It's Wednesday, it's weekend!

European Union

It's Wednesday and I think I am breaking a law (or would do so in the future) merely by going to work today, due to another episode of brain-dead European Union decision-making: the Working Time Directive.

The EU basically mandates a maximum of 48 hours of work per week, overtime included. Some opt-out clauses were negotiated in 1993, allowing employees to work more when they individually consent. The Netherlands is amongst the handful of countries making use of the opt-out, although not as extensively as the UK. But worry not, last Monday Euro MEPs have voted to scrap the right of workers to opt-out of the Working Time Directive:

Meeting on 19th and 20th April, the Committee, by 31 votes to 14, with one abstention, adopted a report by Spanish MEP Alejandro Cercas calling for the opt-out to be scrapped after three years. The Committee also approved a proposal for all hours "on-call", even the "inactive part", to count as working time in most cases.

The "inactive part" is very interesting for engineers like me, because any week with stand-by duty will by definition let the weekend start as soon as the calendar flips to Wednesday. That means I could be sitting in the sun, picking up girls and getting wasted right now! And the best part is that somehow, at least in the bizarro mind of Brussels, all that leisure will cause productivity levels in the EU to skyrocket. Sure. And these are the people we should trust to write a decent constitution?

June is spelled g-i-g

Gigs

My dry spell for gigs has come to an end: June seems busier than ever now that Londonist found a Billy Corgan gig for me: June 15th at The Forum. Okay, I'll actually be at the Brixton Academy that night, but this Friday tickets go on sale for Billy's solo in Amsterdam for the 9th so everything works out just fine. I have to admit that Corgan alone is really not as interesting as The Smashing Pumpkins, but for a Thursday night it will definitely do!

So finally my upcoming gig list looks worthy of posting:

To be honest last fall/winter wasn't even that bad with London gig trips in October, December and March. But summer-time is definitely a lot nicer, having a gig almost every single week. Just imagine how busy I'd be if the HorrorPops were touring Europe this summer!

Next day: Thursday April 28, 2005 Previous day: Monday April 25, 2005

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