keris stainton

The strangest thing I've ever seen

I thought I should probably write something about yesterday's Michael Jackson memorial "show", but I don't think I've quite recovered from it yet.

I watched it online via a live feed from the Washington Post website while, in another window, tweeting about it along with practically every other Twitter user (or so it seemed).

I found the whole thing sad, fascinating, and utterly disturbing. I guess that's kind of an appropriate send-off, since I'd say the same about the way Michael Jackson lived his life, particularly in later years.

But it was uncomfortable viewing. I couldn't help wondering when many of the people giving tearful eulogies last saw him. I suspected that some saw it as an opportunity to further their careers. I thought it was completely wrong that his children were there, their faces uncovered, when he'd gone to such lengths to protect their privacy while he was alive (and, yes, I appreciate this may have been their decision). I resented it every single time anyone gave their condolences to Michael's gum-chewing father, Joseph, who was sitting on the front row with the rest of the family. I wasn't wild-about the Christ imagery of many of the photographs shown on the big screen and everyone getting up on stage to sing We Are the World was just so wrong. As author Jojo Moyes said on Twitter, "Please, Lord, tell me who thought it would be a good idea to make Jackson's children sing and dance in front of his casket."

And then, of course, there was poor Paris's tribute to her father. I hope she wanted to do it and she wasn't pushed into it by the family, but it broke my heart.

In the current climate...

I had a phone call from a catalogue company the other night. The guy started the call by saying something along the lines of, "You recently ordered this dress, this dress and this foundation garment* for which you're making payments of £20 per month. I'm calling to let you know about a special arrangement we can extend, by which you can save more than £15 per month. Your current payment terms are over 20 weeks, but if you pay over three years, your payments will only be £5. There is a higher interest rate on this offer of 29.9% so at the end of the three years you will have paid £147 instead of £90."

Glossing over the fact that I returned two of the items, can you believe they were offering to charge me 29.9% and acting as if they were doing me a favour?! So I said as much and he replied that "in the current climate" I might prefer to save money now - and put that saving towards "household expenses". I hooted with derision, told him I thought the call was ridiculous and irresponsible, and hung up.

Isn't it that kind of buy-now-pay-whenever bull that's contributed to the "current climate"?

*It was by Maidenform, which made me feel very Mad Men. Unfortunately it was horribly uncomfortable. (More Maidenform ads coming up - they are RIDICULOUS!)

It's not rocket science

This gentleman is astronaut Mike Massimino. He has just been up in the Space Shuttle on a mission to service the Hubble telescope. And I know this because, on that mission, he became the first person to Twitter from space.

I know. How cool is that?

His space-tweets were pretty amazing:

May 18th: From orbit: At the end of my spacewalk, I had time to just look at the Earth, the most awesome sight my eyes have seen, undescribable*

May 19th: From orbit: Eating chocolates in space, floating then in front of me then floating and eating them like I am a fish

May 19th: From orbit: We see 16 sunrises and sunsets in 24 hrs, each one spectacular as the sun lights up the atmosphere in a spectrum of colors

May 19th: From orbit: Viewing the Earth is a study of contrasts, beautiful colors of the planet, thin blue line of atmosphere, pure blackness of space

May 25th: favorite moment on last full day was night pass over Australia with thunderstorms and city lights below and universe above, a heavenly view

But it was this one, from earlier today, that just really freaked me out:

Getting re-adjusted to gravity, let go of a small bag of groceries and must have expected it to float, luckily no damage

It's so prosaic that it made me laugh, but then it also made me think what a completely surreal experience it must be, not only going into space, but coming home from space. No wonder the moon walkers apparently never recovered.

* Yeah, I know. But we have to let him off - the man's walking in space!

[You've seen the picture of me when I went into space, right?]

Good news

A few blogs, etc., that have been making my life better lately:

David Mitchell's Guardian column
Yes, I know I'm always going on about David Mitchell, but his Guardian column is always intelligent and interesting. Plus he recently took on the savage Guardian commenters!

No Sleep 'Til Brooklands
This blogger invites you to join him as he "wallows in the curious world of crap journalism, lazy journalism, evil journalism, pseudoscience and general media chicanery". As you can imagine, Daily Mail and Daily Express stories are often featured and exposed as the utter drivel they are.

spEak You’re bRanes
Mocking the commenters from the BBC "Have Your Say" site. They totally deserve it.

Russell Brand
Not only is Russell hilarious and a total sexpot, he's also intelligent and articulate and his blog is wonderful.

Can you imagine a UK magazine putting Sarah Brown on the cover?

Love Michelle Obama. Love Oprah. Love the colours.

Love the fact that Michelle is even on the cover. (Not on first name terms? Okay, the First Lady).

Not loving the actual photo, but what the hey.

Love O magazine.

I'm glad I'm not there, but...

... I do like this photo. I think it's the pink hat on the woman at the end...

This picture makes me happy

More David Mitchell

Just read this week's Guardian column on the subject of the monarchy. The analogy at the end is utterly brilliant.

Which is why Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris's attempt to fiddle with it is so enervating. He wants to change the Act of Settlement whereby Catholics can't marry the sovereign and end the discrimination against female heirs to the throne. He thinks this will make the monarchy more fair. I suppose it will, in the same way that throwing some bread into the Grand Canyon will make it more a sandwich.

My lovely friend Sarah just sent me this:

Sarah saw it on Jenny Crusie's blog and, as Jenny said, "I know, I know. But doesn’t that make you feel good?" and it really does. It made me well up and laugh out loud. And also guaranteed that today I will be mostly watching The West Wing (I want to watch the episodes with Ainslie Hayes. Season two? Three?)

Tax doesn't have to be what now?

Okay, so I just went online to check my tax bill and the figure was wrong. I had another question too, so I rang the helpline.

I spoke to a woman. First she told me I'd failed security (she asked me my name, address, date of birth and national insurance number - I'm pretty confident I got them all correct!) so she could only deal in generalities. So I asked about this payment on account business.

When I first learned of this heinous practice, I was told it only applied if you'd earned over a certain amount - a five figure amount. The amount I was told was actually a fiver (!) more than I earned in 07/08 so I wanted to make sure I wasn't paying when I shouldn't be!

Today, she told me that you have to make the payments on account if your income is over £500. I said I didn't think that was the case since my income was over £500 last year and I didn't have to make payments on account. She repeated herself a couple of times and eventually I said, "I think you're answering a different question to the one I'm asking" and she laughed and said, "I think so too." Good grief.

She then decided to change tack and tell me that it wasn't really payment on account because the tax due at the end of this month is actually for the current year. No, I said, the tax that's due at the end of January is for 07/08. The payments on account are for 08/09. No, she said, the tax due at the end of January is for 08/09, you will have paid 07/08's last year. I can't have done, I said, we're only halfway through January 09 now. She put me on hold. She got someone else. (Just reading that back now, I'm wondering if it's possible that she's confused tax year with calendar year? Surely not...)

He told me that the payment on account becomes due if your tax liability is over £500. Yeah, makes more sense, doesn't it. I asked him about the figure I was quoted last time and he said "not necessarily", i.e. last time they were wrong. (I should've guessed really when they said, "We've been told to say...")

I told him the figure it says I owe on the front page of the website includes the July payment on account, but says it's due in January (but my calculation has the correct figure). His advice? Ignore the figure I think is wrong. Wow. How helpful.

Do you know what's really mad? In 07/08 I earned almost exactly double the amount I earned in 06/07, but, including the payment on account, my tax liability this year is 20 times what it was last year. Yikes.