Dr Plokta

Ponies Again

mike@plokta.com — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:39:37 GMT

We collected Jonny from near Gatwick today and installed him in the same livery yard as vgrumpybastard. Except that he doesn't actually have a stable of his own and is living outside in the field, which is what he's used to.

He did very well with a day full of confusing things happening. First he had to get into a horse box (he loaded very well) and travel for an hour, then he was immediately dragged off to see the farrier, and then he got the grooming of his life (almost certainly). And complained somewhat about flickgc trying to remove a tangle in a very sensitive area.

After a couple of hours of chilling out in a quarantine enclosure, he got taken out again to see the saddler, so he now has a brand new saddle, and both flickgc and I rode him briefly in the school to try it out. And then he got to go and eat his dinner and then go out into the field with the other field ponies for the night.

...and a pony

mike@plokta.com — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:56:01 GMT

I now seem to be sorted for ponies. Jonny passed the vet with flying colours (he has itchy back legs from mites, and he needs to see a farrier soon), and I'm paying a deposit tomorrow and probably collecting him a week on Monday. He's pretty much your classic heavyweight cob, and has been very well-behaved each time we've been to see him.

Picture below, behind a cut tag. He's a bit muddy, because he's been living out and the weather has not been all that dry recently.

Travel meme

mike@plokta.com — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 10:44:03 GMT

Nights spend away from home in 2012 (including forthcoming New Year's Eve). Asterisks denote more than one non-consecutive occasion.

Ras al Khaimah, UAE (5)
Boston, Mass. (3)
Heathrow (4) *
Sheffield (4) *
Troyes, France (1)
Isle sur la Sorgue, France (5)
Geneva (1)
Luxembourg (1)
Bruges, Belgium (1)
Tuddenham, Suffolk (3)
Reading (1)
Cambridge (2)
Chicago (5)
Walthamstow (2) *
Nottingham (2)

40 nights, only a bit over 10% of the year.

Locus Poll

mike@plokta.com — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 09:41:43 GMT

From nwhyte. Locus have published the results of their online poll of the best sf and fantasy novels of the 20th and 21st centuries. I give the lists below, with bold if I've read it, italic if I started but did not finish, and struck through if I did not like the book.

After some thought I have not struck through the Connie Willis books, because while her sense of what the UK is like is very bad indeed for someone who sets a lot of books in the UK, her books do have other virtues.

20th Century SF Novel:
1 Herbert, Frank: Dune (1965)
2 Card, Orson Scott: Ender's Game (1985)
3 Asimov, Isaac: The Foundation Trilogy (1953)
4 Simmons, Dan: Hyperion (1989)
5 Le Guin, Ursula K.: The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
6 Adams, Douglas: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
7 Orwell, George: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
8 Gibson, William: Neuromancer (1984)
9 Bester, Alfred: The Stars My Destination (1957)
10 Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
11 Heinlein, Robert A.: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
12 Heinlein, Robert A.: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
13 Haldeman, Joe: The Forever War (1974)
14 Clarke, Arthur C.: Childhood's End (1953)
15 Niven, Larry: Ringworld (1970)
16 Le Guin, Ursula K.: The Dispossessed (1974)
17 Bradbury, Ray: The Martian Chronicles (1950)
18 Stephenson, Neal: Snow Crash (1992)
19 Miller, Walter M. , Jr.: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959)
20 Pohl, Frederik: Gateway (1977)
21 Heinlein, Robert A.: Starship Troopers (1959)
22 Dick, Philip K.: The Man in the High Castle (1962)
23 Zelazny, Roger: Lord of Light (1967)
24 Wolfe, Gene: The Book of the New Sun (1983)
25 Lem, Stanislaw: Solaris (1970)
26 Dick, Philip K.: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
27 Vinge, Vernor: A Fire Upon The Deep (1992)
28 Clarke, Arthur C.: Rendezvous with Rama (1973)
29 Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World (1932)
30 Clarke, Arthur C.: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
31 Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
~~32 Strugatsky, Arkady & Boris: Roadside Picnic (1972)~~
33 Card, Orson Scott: Speaker for the Dead (1986)
34 Brunner, John: Stand on Zanzibar (1968)
35 Robinson, Kim Stanley: Red Mars (1992)
36 Niven, Larry (& Pournelle, Jerry): The Mote in God's Eye (1974)
37 Willis, Connie: Doomsday Book (1992)
38 Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
39 Sturgeon, Theodore: More Than Human (1953)
40 Simak, Clifford D.: City (1952)
41 Brin, David: Startide Rising (1983)
42 Asimov, Isaac: Foundation (1950)
43 Farmer, Philip Jose: To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)
~~44 Dick, Philip K.: Ubik (1969)~~
45 Vonnegut, Kurt: Cat's Cradle (1963)
46 Vinge, Vernor: A Deepness in the Sky (1999)
47 Simak, Clifford D.: Way Station (1963)
48 Wyndham, John: The Day of the Triffids (1951)
49* Keyes, Daniel: Flowers for Algernon (1966)
49* Delany, Samuel R.: Dhalgren (1975)

20th Century Fantasy Novel:
1 Tolkien, J. R. R.: The Lord of the Rings (1955)
2 Martin, George R. R.: A Game of Thrones (1996)
3 Tolkien, J. R. R.: The Hobbit (1937)
4 Le Guin, Ursula K.: A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
5 Zelazny, Roger: Nine Princes in Amber (1970)
6 Lewis, C. S.: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
7 Mieville, China: Perdido Street Station (2000)
8 Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)
9 Crowley, John: Little, Big (1981)
10 Adams, Richard: Watership Down (1972)
11 Goldman, William: The Princess Bride (1973)
12 Martin, George R. R.: A Storm of Swords (2000)
13 Beagle, Peter S.: The Last Unicorn (1968)
14 White, T. H.: The Once and Future King (1958)
15 Pratchett, Terry (& Gaiman, Neil): Good Omens (1990)
16 Kay, Guy Gavriel: Tigana (1990)
17 Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere (1996)
18 Wolfe, Gene: The Book of the New Sun (1983)
19 Vance, Jack: The Dying Earth (1950)
20 Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita (1967)
~~21 Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)~~
22 Tolkien, J. R. R.: The Silmarillion (1977)
23 Leiber, Fritz: The Swords of Lankhmar (1968)
24 Jordan, Robert: The Eye of the World (1990)
25 Donaldson, Stephen R.: Lord Foul's Bane (1977)
26 Bradbury, Ray: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)
27 Peake, Mervyn: Gormenghast (1950)
28 Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)
29 Powers, Tim: The Anubis Gates (1983)
30 Martin, George R. R.: A Clash of Kings (1998)
31 Bradley, Marion Zimmer: The Mists of Avalon (1983)
32 Hobb, Robin: Assassin's Apprentice (1995)
33 Pratchett, Terry: The Colour of Magic (1983)
34 Holdstock, Robert: Mythago Wood (1984)
35 King, Stephen: The Stand (1978)
36* L'Engle, Madeleine: A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
36* Pratchett, Terry: Small Gods (1992)
38 Ende, Michael: The Neverending Story (1983)
39 Peake, Mervyn: Titus Groan (1946)
40 Howard, Robert E.: Conan the Barbarian (1950)
41 McCaffrey, Anne: Dragonflight (1968)
42 Orwell: George: Animal Farm (1945)
43 Feist, Raymond E.: Magician (1982)
44 Silverberg, Robert: Lord Valentine's Castle (1980)
45 Lovecraft, H. P.: At the Mountains of Madness (1936)
46 Swanwick, Michael: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993)
47 King, Stephen: The Shining (1977)
48 Garcia Marquez, Gabriel: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1970)
49 Saint-Exupery, Antoine de: The Little Prince (1943)
50 Hughart, Barry: Bridge of Birds (1984)

21st Century SF Novel:
1 Scalzi, John: Old Man's War (2005)
2 Stephenson, Neal: Anathem (2008)
3 Bacigalupi, Paolo: The Windup Girl (2009)
4 Wilson, Robert Charles: Spin (2005)
5 Watts, Peter: Blindsight (2006)
~~6 Morgan, Richard: Altered Carbon (2002)~~
7 Collins, Suzanne: The Hunger Games (2008)
8 Gibson, William: Pattern Recognition (2003)
9 Mieville, China: The City & the City (2009)
10 Stross, Charles: Accelerando (2005)
11 Mitchell, David: Cloud Atlas (2004)
12 McDonald, Ian: River of Gods (2004)
13 McCarthy, Cormac: The Road (2006)
14 Harrison, M. John: Light (2002)
15* Willis, Connie: Black Out/All Clear (2010)
15* Chabon, Michael: The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007)

21st Century Fantasy Novel:
1 Gaiman, Neil: American Gods (2001)
2 Clarke, Susanna: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004)
3 Rothfuss, Patrick: The Name of the Wind (2007)
4 Mieville, China: The Scar (2002)
5 Martin, George R. R.: A Feast for Crows (2005)
6 Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)
7 Bujold, Lois McMaster: The Curse of Chalion (2001)
8 Mieville, China: The City & the City (2009)
9 Fforde, Jasper: The Eyre Affair (2001)
10* Bujold, Lois McMaster: Paladin of Souls (2003)
10* Pratchett, Terry: Night Watch (2002)
12 Gaiman, Neil: Coraline (2002)
13 Wolfe, Gene: The Wizard Knight (2004)
14 Pratchett, Terry: Going Postal (2004)
15* Gaiman, Neil: The Graveyard Book (2008)
15* Lynch, Scott: The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006)

Lost Opportunity

mike@plokta.com — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 08:53:48 GMT

I just realised that the window of opportunity for human spaceflight has been and gone. It's no longer feasible. The orientation sensors on your smartphone won't work in zero gravity, so everyone's screens would be the wrong way round, which obviously makes the whole enterprise infeasible until the invention of artificial gravity.

Out On My Own

mike@plokta.com — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 19:18:16 GMT

Since vgrumpybastard is out of work at present, flickgc has nothing to ride. So I went out in the woods on my own for the first time, on Bess, who I generally ride on Sundays (she's the horse in this photo). She's very sociable, and refuses to go in front if there's another horse to go behind, so I was a bit worried about taking her out on her own, but in fact she was absolutely fine, and I even managed to unlock and open the gates without dismounting (she's really too small for me, but an advantage of that is that I can fairly easily mount from the ground).

So we had an entirely successful ride round the woods, with plenty of trotting and cantering, and went round much faster than when we're with GB, who walks very slowly. And then I got back to the stable, where flickgc had vgrumpybastard on a lead rope eating some grass. She and Toni (who owns Bess) checked out my trousers for mud stains, to see if I had come off. And then vgrumpybastard lived up to his nickname by having a go at Bess, who shied off to the side, and I came off -- only my second fall ever. So after cantering successfully round Kent on my own, I fell off in the stable yard. Bah. It's lucky she's not very big -- less far to fall.

Comic/RPG Dealers Wanted

mike@plokta.com — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:36:33 GMT

My mother works in the Oxfam shop in Chester. They've just been given a large collection (she says 35 crates, and estimates at least 1,000 items) of comics and RPGs. Does anyone know of any dealers who might be interested in taking a trip to Chester with a view to acquiring it?

Gender Parity

mike@plokta.com — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 06:37:47 GMT

In view of the current debate about gender parity at SF conventions, there's something I didn't mention about the horse show yesterday. Eighteen classes (or thereabouts; it's a bit hard to count exactly, as some classes were merged or cancelled). Average of five entrants per class (approx.). Let's assume the average person entered 2.5 classes. That makes a total of 36 contestants, of whom two were male -- a bit over 5%. And of course since I'm writing about it because I was there, that actually biasses the sample in favour of male participation -- it would have been 1 in 35 without me.

This is a pretty typical state of affairs. And there seems to be no disquiet with or debate about this state of affairs -- it's simply accepted that that's how things are. When it's mentioned at all in horse magazines, it's nearly always "How can I get my significant other interested?", and doesn't address any wider issues of gender parity.

(At the highest levels of riding, the gender balance is much more even, which is of course also an interesting subject for debate.)

Horse Show

mike@plokta.com — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 19:10:26 GMT

Joyden's Riding Club show today, my first show. I came third of six in the Novice Senior Rider class (flickgc came first), which was better than I was expecting. "Senior" means over 17, so I qualify rather easily. And then second of four in the in-hand Veteran class (Veteran here being the pony, who is 17, rather than me).

Here's me:

And flickgc:

Also a couple of nice photos of flickgc's friend Toni:

And her horse Frani (she also owns Bess, who I was riding):

Julian Assange

mike@plokta.com — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:59:16 GMT

Just how vigilant can the police be as the days turn to weeks and the weeks turn to months? Embassies must get quite a few visitors, and they can't search everyone as they're coming and going. Suppose that Assange grows a beard and dyes his hair, and then one day in a couple of months' time one of the visitors to the embassy is a bearded man with the same hair colour and general build and face shape. They swap clothes, and Assange leaves. He's then put on a train to Bristol and a boat to an Ecuadorean registered ship in international waters. Then the other guy leaves the embassy.

Another Missed Olympic Disaster

mike@plokta.com — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 12:20:10 GMT

An otherwise satisfactory Google translation of an article about the Olympics in Der Spiegel reports that the snakes at the venues kept within tolerable limits. Thank goodness for that.

Open mouth without engaging brain

mike@plokta.com — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:59:35 GMT

Can you spot the deliberate mistake in this quotation from this page on the BBC's site?

"Many people haven't driven at night or in bad weather conditions and haven't driven with other people in the car. That is not part of the test. That becomes a problem when they get into their car with a licence for the first time."

Post-Scarcity?

mike@plokta.com — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:03:40 GMT

Since no other source that I follow has picked up on it, I thought I'd point out that FT Alphaville (which is not behind the FT's paywall) is running a really interesting series of posts on the current economic troubles viewed as the problems of a post-scarcity society. And there's Fuzzy Felt too.

Tube strike starts to bite

mike@plokta.com — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:01:08 GMT

Infinite Regress

mike@plokta.com — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:27:59 GMT

At Logan airport, waiting for a flight. The seat next to me says "You are required to offer this seat to Seniors or Persons with Disabilities" (their capitalisation), but makes no exception for seniors or persons with disabilities themselves. So I hope we don't get two of them turning up, or there may be a lot of back-and-forth offers and counter-offers.

Holiday Snaps

mike@plokta.com — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:50:21 GMT

We've been away. We got back yesterday from five nights in Ras al Khaimah (one of the United Arab Emirates, an hour's drive north of Dubai). We seem to have chosen the right week to get five days in the sunshine and warmth (mid 20s during the day, low teens in the evening), although coming back to sub-zero temperatures yesterday was a bit of a blow.

We were staying in the Banyan Tree al Wadi, which is a desert resort in the middle of a wildlife preserve (and also has a beach resort half an hour away that we never actually got to).

This is part of the resort taken from a handy sand dune (they have a lot of those).

Here's the view from our villa's pool terrace.

And here's the pool, which backs directly onto the desert.

This tower was outside our front door (I'm pretty sure it was built two years ago along with the rest of the resort — it's not a historic building or anything).

One reason we chose this particular holiday was that they have stables on site. We went for a moonlit horse ride across the dunes on Tuesday night, which was the full moon. It turned out to be just us, the stable manager (who is from north Wales) and a trainee instructor who had started the day before. But no photos, since the light was of course on the dim side.

But the next day we went for a camel ride, while the sun was still up. Camels turn out to be easier to get on than horses, because they will lie down while you mount them, but their walking gait is a good deal less comfortable.

(Our camel-driver was actually from Bangladesh and had never even seen a camel until he moved to the UAE a few years ago.)

Here's a close-up of Flick, I think taken right after the camel ride (and using my nice new 45mm (90mm 35mm equivalent) f/1.8 lens that I got for Christmas).

We went into Dubai for one day.

Here's Flick again in the Creek Park, outside a place where we did not have lunch.

The Dubai Mall, built as part of the Burl Khalifa complex, claims to be the largest in the world. It was slightly underwhelming, and very full of familiar brands (except strangely no Apple store). It has a good (if small) aquarium and a nice waterfall, though.

The Burj Khalifa itself is a ludicrous size — generally speaking there's great debate about what's the tallest building in the world, depending on whether you measure to the stop of the structure, the highest usable floor, or whatever. But the Burj Khalifa is the tallest by any measure, nearly three times the height of the Shard, which is itself going to be the tallest building in the EU. Alas, we timed our visit wrong to see the fountain display — they were just starting as we waited to be picked up to go back to Ras al Khaimah.

Here is the Burj Khalifa, all 160 floors and 828 metres of it. Bear in mind that the buildings to the sides are good-sized skyscrapers in their own right.

Travel Meme

mike@plokta.com — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:44:02 GMT

Places where I spent at least one night away from home in 2011:

Reading, Berkshire, UK
Walthamstow, London, UK (multiple visits)
Chester, Cheshire, UK
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK
Chicago, Illinois, US
Birmingham, West Midlands, UK
Dublin, Ireland
Westport, County Mayo, Ireland
Adlington, Cheshire, UK
Stockholm, Sweden
San Francisco, California, US
South Lake Tahoe, California, US
Reno, Nevada, US
Alturas, California, US
Chiloquin, Oregon, US
Grants Pass, Oregon, US
Eureka, California, US
San Rafael, California, US
Ludlow, Shropshire, UK
Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK
Amsterdam, Netherlands

EU Treaties

mike@plokta.com — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:24:04 GMT

Whatever one may think of David Cameron, on this occasion he is being blamed unjustly. There was no way he could accept a treaty change that in any way transferred additional powers to the EU, having previously pledged a referendum on any such change. In the current mood, we could have a referendum on whether or not the EU should give every UK citizen £1,000, paid for by the Bundesbank, and it would still fail because it has the letters "EU" in it.

In any case, the treaty has little chance of actually happening, because other countries will fail to ratify it. Just for example, Ireland will have to have a referendum, and there seems little chance of the Irish people voting to give Brussels or Berlin veto powers over the Irish budget.

That's What I Call a Minicomputer

mike@plokta.com — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 11:56:30 GMT

Attn: autopope. Bob Howard needs one of these.

Executing Corporations

mike@plokta.com — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 10:18:03 GMT

Theres a meme going round "I'll believe that corporations are people when Texas executes one". But Texas "executes" hundreds or thousands of corporations per year, most famously Enron. Bankruptcy is the exact equivalent of execution for corporations -- it's the state exerting its power and causing the corporation to cease to exist. So I guess that corporations are people.

Don't tell Flick...

mike@plokta.com — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 07:21:07 GMT

webuyanycat.com has valued my ~~cat~~ pony at £3.12.

xkcd

mike@plokta.com — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 06:53:23 GMT

I think it would be a good idea to avoid Angel for the next week or so, in case of imitators:

http://xkcd.com/954/

Holiday Photos

mike@plokta.com — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:06:13 GMT

We got back yesterday from 2½ weeks in California, Nevada and Oregon. Apart from the week we spent in Reno for Renovation, we saw lots of scenery, and here are my best photos (out of over 300). I recommend viewing larger versions of any that you like.

Before the convention, we stopped in South Lake Tahoe. The Gondola cable car (which is a ski-lift in winter) goes to over 9,000 feet, and was too high for us to walk around much at the top. But there's an observation deck halfway up (though still over 9,000 feet) with some great views of the lake.

Then we took a DUKW tour of the lake—which didn't really use the DUKW to best advantage, since it just drove a couple of miles down to the marina, went into the water and round the south-west corner of the lake, then went back out at the marina and drove the same distance back.

The next day we took another lake tour on a sailing ship, except that we were under power the whole way because there wasn't enough wind to get above 1 knot.

Note the face in the profile of this rock.

Then to Reno for the convention, which was a good convention but not very scenic.

After the convention, we went north through the Cascades range of volcanoes. Our first stop was Lassen Volcanic National Park—over 8,000 feet, which is still pretty thin air.

Then it was the Lava Beds National Monument, which is a collection of around 70 lava tubes formed by relatively recent lava flows. Caves are a bit tricky to photograph, but here's one where the top of the tube has collapsed to let the light in.

Our final volcano was Crater Lake in Oregon, which is what's left of a 13,000 foot mountain that blew its top off 7,700 years ago. The lake has no inlet or outlet—it maintains its level from each year's snowmelt. And it's quite unbelievably beautiful.

There's a small island in the lake called the Phantom Ship.

Here's the whole lake from one of the viewpoints—the colours are a little enhanced, but pretty much represent what it actually looks like.

Another shot of the whole lake from a different vantage point.

And a panorama from the same viewpoint (I really recommend full size for this one).

Finally, here's flickgc in front of the lake—it appears to be impossible to get a photo of someone standing in front of the lake that doesn't look blue-screened, but I promise that this is real.

To demonstrate advances in digital camera technology, here's an old photo from the last time I visited Crater Lake, taken with a digital camera that was state-of-the-art in 1997 instead of 2010.

From Crater Lake we headed down to the California coast and the redwood forests. First, the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway.

This one is called the Corkscrew Tree.

And this one is simply called the Big Tree—it's not the tallest redwood, being only 304 feet high, but its diameter is an impressive 21 feet.

Then further south is the Avenue of the Giants.

This is the Founder's Tree, which is about 350 feet high.

The Dyerville Giant may have been the tallest tree in the world when it fell down in 1991, at somewhere between 362 and 370 feet. Here's the stump (with a flickgc for scale).

And the trunk. Apparently it takes about 400 years for a fallen redwood to completely decay.

Then further down the coast towards San Francisco and the Bay Area, stopping briefly to photograph seals near Goat Rock Beach.

I also got some decent wildlife photos on Rodeo Beach, in the Marin Headlands area.

The Pacific coast was foggy pretty much the entire time we were there, which I gather is normal for the summer, so here's part of the Golden Gate.

And finally, here's a panorama of San Francisco Bay from Sausalito, stitched together from four photos taken on my iPhone and demonstrating the vast superiority of a proper camera for this kind of thing (c.f. the Crater Lake panorama above).

Stars!

mike@plokta.com — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 05:48:13 GMT

For our first night after Renovation, we're staying in Alturas in north-east California. Population a bit under 3,000. And there's nothing else for miles and miles around, which means no light sources. And there's no moon, and in fact no visible planets either.

So this evening we drove about seven miles out of town to the edge of a National Forest, parked, and waited for our eyes to adjust. My, there are a lot more stars up there than there are in London. Arcturus is orange! Antares is bright red!

I got a few photos, of which this is the best. If you look closely near the bottom left, you'll see a meteor that went by during the 30 second exposure -- there were in fact quite a lot of meteors, even though the Perseids have been finished for more than a week.

ETA: No, on closer inspection, that one is a plane. But there were a lot of meteors.

The Moment Cameron Lost the Next Election

mike@plokta.com — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:57:00 GMT

Three screengrabs from the BBC news website: