Expenses Row Becomes "X"penses Row

You'd need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the death scene of Little Nell, it was once said (Oscar Wilde I think...)
Similarly you'd need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the latest discomfort of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith; one of New Labour's most grating, hateful, authoritarian tendency.
Whilst constantly berating anyone who might not "share our values" (collaborating in torture, waging war against international law and putting porn on expenses are things that, I'm sorry, but I do NOT hold with... especially when you can get porn for free...) she seems to be fast becoming a target for embarrassing disclosures of hypocrisy and dodginess. And, to be fair, in this case, just plain poops & giggles.
Whether this news is the leaking work of some disgruntled civil servant, or possibly proof of some kind of god, I'm not sure.
But along with Jenson Button's "fairytale" Oz GP, it has certainly raised a smile. In a cackling out loud kind of a way.

Comedy paydirt, karma, call it what you will: but in these miserable times, laughter is good for the soul - and it's most welcome. I'm just astonished that it's getting to be that the architects of the misery are the ones bringing on the chuckles...

Vampire In Venice

National Geographic has released a pic and story on a discovery from a plague burial on the island of Lazzaretto Nuovo near Venice, which suggests that one of the plague victims was considered to be a vampire / undead and was neutralised by a large brick in the mouth (very much in the same way that Jack Straw could be neutralised by a large brick in the mouth I guess)... apparently an age-old exorcism technique aimed at preventing the undead from 'shroud-chewing' which was how they were perceived to spread pestilence.

Fascinating stuff and a striking photo. Full info here...

Extreme Shepherding

Conclusive proof that the Welsh have far too much free time...

Mmmmmm... Tinajones...

Mahou & Tapas, Bar Los Tinajones, Talavera De La Reina, 11pm 21_03_09

The Barclays Tax Avoidance Memos - Part 2

Given that some bewigged nutjob in the courts has upheld Barclays Bank's injunction against the Guardian newspaper, preventing them from publishing the leaked memos on its stunning tax avoidance schemes (a particularly ugly concept whilst it pushes for Government - that's "taxpayer" - insurance against losses) here's a few words of explanation about them from the paper's expert...

Project Knight

Three separate Project Knight transactions totalling up to $16.25bn (£11.2bn). This refers to a series of trades by Barclays Structured Capital Markets division using Luxembourg subsidiaries. One was envisaged with US bank BB&T. Tax opinion for UK from lawyers at Slaughter and May notes that HMRC might seek to challenge some of the tax arrangements. US tax lawyers give opinion that the trade is not disclosable in US.

The Guardian's tax expert comments...

By my reckoning, the scheme which has been highly engineered to get around tax rules for controlled foreign companies (CFCs) and tax credit avoidance on both sides of the Atlantic, looks set to save Barclays about £60m a year in tax on a £4bn loan outlay, and they are going in for a potential £16bn. I see that these two banks have had business before, another tax avoidance process, that still has a little while to run.

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Project Berry

£3bn rising to £7bn. Barclays acquires index linked gilts via an unregulated subsidiary, Barclays Aldersgate Investments Ltd, which it then swaps for cash with its plc, and plc can then claim them as part of the liquidity it is required by regulations to hold.

The Guardian's tax expert comments...

Fair chance that HMRC would see accounts for Aldersgate that would show income from index linked gilts (ILG) without declaring the underlying detail that the stock had in fact been loaned to plc and the income was a "manufactured payment". You can be sure that an inflation discount was claimed in the tax computation, however. It will have been near impossible to pick out of the accounts of plc the specific intra-group transactions with Aldersgate, unless they were highlighted. It MAY be the case that the FSA did not actually know that plc had borrowed the ILG stock, rather than own it as principal.

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Project Faber

£1.5bn. This document specifies details of a deal between a Barclays Isle of Man subsidiary and a Luxembourg branch of the German bank HSH Nordbank.

The Guardian's tax expert comments...

HMRC would home in on the Isle of Man accounts, only to find that there is (allegedly) no CFC liability. No details about the Luxembourg bank would be provided, because there is no obligation to do so, and HMRC has no way of finding out how the Luxembourg bank's final tax liability was computed.

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Project Brontos

Up to €3,500m (£3,288m). The scheme, involving a bank in Italy, the Milan branch of Barclays Bank, and an entity in Luxembourg, generated £55m for Barclays, according to the Sunday Times.

The Guardian's tax expert comments...

The Milan branch would be incorporated in the bank's accounts. HMRC may well not see the branch accounts at all. Consequently, the Italian bank's loan would be "lost'' in a mass of borrowings. The Luxembourg accounts would be submitted showing next to no profits, and little in the way of activity. If the scheme came to light, it would be explained away as the avoidance of Italian tax by a third party.

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Project Valiha

£381.4m. This was a trade between Barclays and Credit Suisse involving interest rate swaps that enabled Barclays to transfer the gain to Credit Suisse without triggering tax. Benefit of trade split 70:30 in Barclays' favour.

The Guardian's tax expert comments...

A piece of precision engineering by the master, Ian Abraham. HMRC would see accounts of the UK subsidiaries, where the tax consequences of the transaction may well be explained, but without the necessary detail of the whole picture. This could well be lost when the mischief gets into a partnership, especially when effective control moves out of the Barclays group. Imagine the answer to the question why did Credit Suisse pay X amout into the partnership, and what was in it for them ... the answer would be "I'm sorry, I haven't a clue''

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Brazilian Investment Strategy

This document details intended operations in Brazil, which went before the Structured Capital Markets (SCM) approvals committee, and were alleged by the whistleblower to involve tax avoidance.

The Guardian's tax expert comments...

With so many swap-type transactions (and the account revealing only the financial consequences, not the underlying strategy) it would be very difficult to tell what on earth was going on. Such a convoluted series of transactions would need to be laid out in context for them to be interpreted in any meaningful way.

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Luxembourg Office

This document details the meeting at which it was agreed that Barclays would set up a tax avoidance operation based in Luxembourg.

The Guardian's tax expert comments...

Structured Capital Markets, the very office that invents all these schemes and arrangements, moving to Luxembourg? Looks as if they are ready to move people out as well. My guess is that a Lux Co whose trade would be to help the bank cut corners would not be caught by the CFC rules, and I would expect such an entity to start charging very heavy fees to the rest of the group. So Barclays will not only get a UK tax deduction for tax avoidance advice, but they will get to keep the money, tax-free, in a haven.

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Beyond that, I've also had a some emails from people trying to track down copies of the memos and who'd seen links removed from the Guardian website or were having probs with the servers on WikiLeaks.
If it's any help here is the download link for the Barclays memos on WikiLeaks which still seems to be the best place to get them.
If you're having problems however, as some people have done from time to time, I have - following requests - put up this link too...

Off To Talavera De La Reina Again

In a moment of madness I’ve been persuaded (like I need much persuading!) to do a completely daft but brilliant last-minute trip to Talavera de le Reina this weekend to attend the inaugural party / Fiesta of Alvaro Bautista’s new “FAN’S CLUB”, which is being held at the town’s Palomarejos golfing complex.
As well as bar, F1 simulator and bouncy castle (bouncy castle? they must have known I was coming!) it’ll be a great opportunity to meet the new directiva and to also hopefully renew many old friendships too.

Incredibly excited. Like a bloody kid.

Shell Confirms Status As Genuine Beacon Of Idiocy

With almost sublime timing - coinciding with the release of Age Of Stupid - Shell (who only last year confirmed that biofuels will not solve the world's energy problems) have announced they are dumping wind, solar and hydro power in favour of... er, biofuels.
You can only hope that such irresponsible and blinkered short-termism might be rewarded by customers deserting them wholesale (sadly unlikely), and that any environmental PR guff they put out in future is treated with the utter contempt it deserves.
Being a Dutch company, they may want to keep an eye on those rising sea-levels too. Idiots.


(*Logo gag nicked from London Rising Tide)

Barclays Gags Guardian. But...

Barclays Bank has won an injunction against the Guardian newspaper preventing it from publishing documents which showed how the bank set up companies to avoid hundreds of millions of pounds in tax.
Nonetheless, it seems unfair that at this time more than ever these scumsucking banking pondlife should get ANY backing from the law to cover up how they've abused and robbed the nation at large - and so if you point your browser HERE you can find all the leaked memos online.
Please share...
Sharing is good. :-)

Teddy Bear Suicide

Whilst thinking ahead to watching Supernatural tonight (ITV2, 9pm each Sunday if you're in the UK) I suddenly remembered I meant to find and post a clip from last week's episode "Wishful Thinking"; one of the show's more entertaining and tangential instalments.

Supernatural tends to be really, really enjoyable when they lighten up a bit or go oddball once in a while, and this was no exception - in a town where a Babylonian coin in a wishing well causes all kinds of weirdness and gradually runs out of control and things turn serious.
The funniest, and weirdest bit, had to be the child's teddy bear - wished to life by a small girl - and driven to despair (and alcohol and porn) by the grim realities of life; eventually blowing his own brains - well, feathers and polystyrene - all over the bedroom walls with the help of a shotgun.

Really weird.

Honestly. REALLY weird.

Rendering My Arse...

Many thanks to 3D artist (see above) Chris for sending this on...

Wishlist For iPhone 3.0 Software

With Apple's announcement of an event on March 17th, centring on the next software version for iPhones - 3.0 - the geek and fanboy forums are abuzz with speculation and wishlisting about what v3 may bring...

It goes without saying that whatever Apple finally release, not everybody's going to be happy. They never are. Apple could include World Peace and an end to Global Warming & Poverty but there'd still be someone saying that they'd have preferred a new icon for the Calculator app.

Nonetheless it's becoming ever more clear (in a trend that has evolved over past releases) that there are a couple of key features that very many users would be pretty much universally happy to see (and may be extremely miffed NOT to see...)

• Copy & Paste
• MMS
• Push Notification System
• Video Recording
• Tethering

Personally, I'd be totally behind all of those - copy & paste in particular seeming something of a no-brainer. Beyond that however, there's a couple of other things that I'd rather like to see; things that are of varying importance / triviality and I have no idea how much they might mean to anybody else...

1 - Desktop/Spaces:
Although it'd be hard to imagine Apple opening up the iPhone's "desktop" to the kind of lush and flexible interface you have in the OSX Finder, I think there's more room for simple and efficient icon and app management than at present. A bespoke implementation of something like the "Spaces" concept from OSX might be quite cool, for instance by an icon effectively being a folder that contains whichever apps you choose to store in it - something you could do to reflect categories such as tools, games, fun, music, travel, etc. And maybe 'most used' or daily/frequent...

2 - Removing Apple's apps:
I hate having my various desktop screens hogged by Apple's unremoveable apps. Why can these not behave as your purchased or free downloaded apps; whereby they can be retained within iTunes and chosen to be synced across or not as you wish. I mean "Stocks" FFS!!!
Easy and obvious.

3 - Full Alert / Notification Customisation:
At the moment you can't even allocate your own sound for an SMS alert... Pah!
I'd love to see a complete system of customisable notifications across alerts - not only for which sounds you use, but also individual volume and vibrate controls, and notification repeat options.


So we now just have to wait for the iPhone 3.0 software preview on the 17th to find out what it's *really* all about....

Snow Leopard Set For June 8th Release

Fairly reliable sources are now pointing to June 8th as the release date of Mac OSX 10.6 - "Snow Leopard", the next major upgrade of the Mac OSX and notable most specifically for NOT introducing a bunch of spiffy new interface features (the kind of geeky fun we have come to expect from Apple) but instead putting its primary focus on under-the-hood performance improvements and enhancements.

Snow Leopard is expected to make great advances in processing, to include the new Quicktime shown a few posts back, to deliver huge OpenCL possibilities for developers of all kinds of applications, to continue to expand on multi-touch feature support, and to also have a considerably smaller footprint (or paw-print) than previous versions of the operating system, freeing up room for users like me to fill their hard drives with even more crap than ever before.

In the absence of any cool screenshots, I've just dropped in that cute picture above, plus a link to Apple's main info page about Snow Leopard - and also, for those of you who are so-inclined, a link to SnowLeopard.org - The Snow Leopard Trust, the world's leading authority on the study, conservation and protection of the endangered snow leopard out in the real world.

It's Amazing! No, It's A Beanbag...

Yep, it's a beanbag alright...

Okay; now I'm not saying that this 'gadget' (it's a beanbag) isn't useful... No, only that perhaps the actual trademarking of "Moviewedge" may be a tad unncessary. (Because it's a beanbag).
The Moviewedge (TM) is a $9.95 solution for propping up your iPhone (much as you could prop it up with, say - a beanbag) in order to watch movies on it.

And because it's so well designed to accommodate different shapes (*alternatively read: "because it's a beanbag"...) it works with a wide variety of portable media devices such as Apple's iPod Touch and iPod Nano, the Sony PSP and Microsoft's Zune; mobile phones such as the Apple iPhone, Samsung Instinct, Blackberry Storm and basically any other device.
A pretty nebulous product spec I'm sure you'll agree. You can only imagine that whichever caveman invented the beanbag is kicking themselves they didn't patent it now...

Here's the feature list as spelled out on the Moviewedge website...
• Holds your device in place on uneven and unsteady surfaces
• Variable viewing angle
• Compatible with almost any case or enclosure your device is in
• Soft microsuede covering perfect for wiping screen
(*Each of these points above can be translated as "it's a beanbag" incidentally.)

Is This The New Quicktime?

This is a screengrab image posted by Feber.se purporting to show the new minimalist interface of the forthcoming version of Quicktime, expected out with Mac OSX 10.6 "Snow Leopard" - very much in line with the basic 'play' interfaces of stuff like iTunes videos.
A nice clean interface like this - plus the rumoured integration of currently paid-for "Pro" features could be a real step forward for QT. Nice.

Quick Tip: Handling Marketing Phone Abuse

Don't know if you, like me, get stupid numbers of calls from every kind of Sales shitwit and Marketing bastard on the planet offering you every kind of special deal you don't want...?
If you're subject to any of this - automated or not - then best get yourself registered with TPS - The Telephone Preference Service where you can register mobiles and home phones to get them on lists to be excluded from all that kind of rage-inducing bollocks.
They reckon you should be fully protected within around 28 days; and you then also have a very specific recourse and warning-off line to tell anyone who bothers you.

There's way too much of this crap getting in the way of a peaceful life nowadays - and short of getting hold of these people's phone numbers and ringing *them* at home instead (which is pretty tempting of course) then this may well be a very good solution.
Gotta be worth a go...

Sony World Photography Awards

Had to post up these... some of the stunning, beautiful and touching entries from the Natural History category in the Sony World Photography Awards...

Bait Ball Symphony #2, by Alexander Safonov, Japan

A Cape gannet diving after fish during the sardine run off the east coast of South Africa.

Waiting for an amber, Motiejus Salkauskas, Lithuania

Amber collecting is an old custom along the Lithuanian coast of the Baltic Sea. Nowadays the custom is rare because the lack of large stones. If collectors are lucky, stones are sold at the local markets as ornaments.

Baby koala, by Lisa Maree Williams, Australia

A joey koala clutches a fake substitute mother at the Australian Wildlife hospital, the largest wildlife hospital in the world, on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.

A Couple Of Safari 4 Interface Hacks

Still loving Safari 4 BETA - although despite the blinding speed, Top Sites and overall Coverflow sexiness etc, those UI tweaks of putting the tabs at the very top of the app, and also losing the progress bar in favour of the little twirly device are really still getting on my tits a stupid amount.
Short of actually just getting over it and chilling out - which I think we all know isn’t going to happen - I should thank Gordon for sending on a couple of Terminal hacks to set these right.

I don’t often use the terminal I must admit - but occasionally it’s a very useful last resort; particularly if you’ve got a hack or command passed on or recommended by a reliable source (and these ones I believe come from MacFixit.com which is pretty much as good as it gets).

So, firstly, you can reinstate the tabs where they used to be by typing / copying this into the Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

and the progress bar can be reinstated by typing in / copying this:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO


It’s important to note that the progress bar hack will leave you without the Cancel / Reload button - but if you’re happy to do those with simple keyboard shortcuts (Apple and full-stop for Cancel, Apple and R for Reload) then it’s no great loss.
The progress bar is a very useful piece of UI - it not only indicates activity but shows you what kind of activity is going on (or indeed is NOT going on). If the progress bar is stuck at some point across a web address then this is actually telling you what the problem is. For example if it’s stuck over the http: bit it’s a protocol problem, whilst if it’s over the page name, then it’s a problem with that page or elements on it. Not a lot of people know that.

Hope these are useful and thanks to Gordon and MacFixit for spreading the hacks.

Creativity Is What Should Count On ITunes

Cult of Mac brings news that in an interview with TIME magazine Van Morrison has made clear his intention to withdraw from the iTunes Music Store; giving us the benefit of such dubious bits of wisdom as “I’m not a download artist” (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean...) to explain the curious decision - quite frankly I’d want my offerings everywhere possible in such tough times, especially when it appears that iTMS is operating in a pretty healthy way compared to offline purchasing in general.

What is interesting to me in all this is certainly not Van Morrison himself (who I only really know as a narky old curmudgeon who had the poor judgement to record something with Cliff Richard...) - no, it’s more his general attitude to iTMS in context of his portfolio on the Store.
Go look; he has a bog-standard list of albums.
And that’s it.
That’s his contribution to making iTunes work for him.
Lazy bastard.

If I was a recording artist who was working with iTMS, not only would I work bloody hard to ensure that all albums, singles and any kind of B-sides and bonus-y type stuff was available, I’d also be making sure I used the Store 100% to engage more with fans.
Get all the promo videos out there - and the “making of” videos. Podcasts of course - probably video ones. Why not “digital booklets” (that’s actually just a posh title for PDFs to be honest) of ongoing news and photos, of studio notes and tour diaries? Why not dust off old and rare material and get it out there? Look at digitising old live stuff that’s not worth pressing DVDs of, but which fans would download in a heartbeat? Documentaries, iCals, downloads of the winning entries from special fan-remix challenges? The potential is pretty much as limitless as your imagination.
Which in Van Morrison’s case would appear to be pretty bloody limited indeed.

As far as I can see if you’re not thinking of things like that then you’re a lazy dimwit who doesn’t deserve to succeed on iTMS. It’s a pretty sure sign that Van Morrison certainly should withdraw - I have no idea how far he’d be missed; probably not much so long as “Brown Eyed Girl” is still available on some oldie compilation album somewhere.
He’s as myopic as the record companies still tend to be.
Long live iTunes and all its possibilities for the creative artist.
And while we’re about it, let’s see a few more artists actually getting creative with iTunes...

Go Check Out: Fear Of Bicycles

Cool, brilliantly original improvisational stuff from Hull - including a couple of my old musical collaborators (Ian and Pete) - Fear of Bicycles is - Pete Cox on guitars, FX & loops; Ian Halstead on fretless bass guitar; Martin Hyde on drums/percussion; and Graham Beck on keyboards, Theremin, Stylophone, FX & guitar.

Their Myspace page - with stuff to listen to - is here...