"Hello? Hello?" Oh dear. Someone's had their unimaginably important mobile phone conversation cut off, without warning, just as it was reaching a critical stage in the exchange of information.
"Hello? Eileen?" Our relentless communicator stares at their mobile phone screen in disbelief, searching for some kind of clue as to why Eileen is inaudible, not responding, possibly dead.
"Eileen? Can you hear me?" But the fact is that signal bars on a mobile phone don't always give a good indication of mobile reception. And nor, it seems, do those that indicate battery life.
A couple of blogs have been pondering this question over the past week or so.
This morning we published the results of our movie-watching map of Britain survey (conducted with the help of LOVEFiLM, the DVD rental service). Here's the main piece, and here are a few more things we learned by looking at the results:
1. Do we love James McAvoy, or just his movies? Either way, The Last King
of Scotland and Atonement, both starring McAvoy, are the most rented
DVDs of the last 12 months. McAvoy, who won the Orange Rising Star
award at the Baftas just two years ago, is already playing the lead in
a Hollywood action blockbuster opposite Angelina Jolie. And he got
there partly because he picks great scripts, British made but with a
Hollywood sheen that positively shout "Oscar!" He's versatile: his
character was flawed in The Last King of Scotland, and all but flawless
in Atonement. He was puckish centaur in Narnia, and a posh crook in
Shameless, the television series that first brought him to public
attention. Most of all, he's ours; a British talent (and alleged top
bloke) who, like his Atonement co-star Keira Knightley, looks all set
to make it over there.
British Rail and Spangles are among old brands people would most like to revive, according to a new poll. Crikey, folks, are you stupid? Or just mental?
Spangles were disgusting. They were the boiled sweet so loathsome that they remained uneaten at the end of my brother and I's Christmas Day binge of our chocolate stocking.
And British Rail...? The 2,200 adults asked by Superbrands which products they wanted to see again also hankered after Rover cars. Here is the top 10:
1. Spangles 2. Marathon 3. Opal Fruits 4. Texan Bar 5. Rover cars 6. British Rail 7. Aztec 8. Fry's Five Centres 9. Cabana 10. Triumph cars
Personally, I would resuscitate just one: the Texan bar; so I can acquaint myself with the cause of my dental downfall.
If you've ever wondered how there can be quite so many murders in Midsomer, look no further than Britain in Bloom. It tells you all you need to know about how seriously people can take things when it comes to the very local.
And DCI Barnaby had better be on the lookout, because for the next two weeks the Royal Horticultural Society's Britain in Bloom judges are taking their highly prestigious clipboards around the entire British Isles to check out the finalists for this furiously
contested title.
If you're not familiar with Britain in Bloom, it's considerably more intriguing than simple floral showing-off.
Despite promises of a male pill in the past, according to a story in Time, contraceptives for men will perpetually remain five to ten years away - all because of money. Just a few years ago, all of the major pharmaceutical companies were pumping millions into hormonal birth control development for men, and now they have decided there
isn't enough of a market to make male hormonal contraceptives worthwhile.
So, the first post in August, and after being all "oooh, look I'm here, I'm so hot"
for a couple of weeks, summer appears to have sneaked off somewhere else. No matter. It creates the perfect scenario for Shopping Bag to tell you about the Officially British Summertime exhibition (note: Britons-on-the-beach wallpaper by Belynda Sharples, left) which is currently showing at The Shop Floor Project.
It's not any run of the mill exhibition. It's virtual, because The Shop Floor Project is virtual. It's tongue in cheek because, as we know, the British summer-time is, well, unreliable. And you can buy everything that's exhibited.
On the face of it, this Twitter page doesn't look particularly remarkable. After all, why shouldn't an oil firm like ExxonMobil use an established social networking platform to unleash 140-character nuggets of promotional info? They certainly wouldn't be the first organisation to do so; the BBC, the LibDems and M&Ms are just three of a long list of Twittering brands.
The odd thing about the ExxonMobil page, however, is that the company have denied that it has anything to do with them. Why would anyone not involved with the company bother to start up a pro-ExxonMobile microblog? Beats me. But it's a good example of a phenomena known as "brandjacking".
Mumford & Sons are the new kids on the folk block. Headed by Marcus Mumford, this west London collective came together less than a year ago and are already making waves with lyrics more astute and music more mature than folk whippersnappers Noah and the Whale, whom they have inevitably been compared to.
Mumford is a dry-throated guitarist and singer who, with the help of his banjo and double basswielding mates, makes kinetic, bluegrass folk music. You'd be forgiven for thinking these boys wish they were living in a different era with their debut EP "Lend Me Your Eyes", which is an earthy and joyous calling card.
I am going to come right out and admit that I like Amateur Gardening. I don't mean I enjoy bumbling around in the garden not really knowing what I'm doing (though I am partial to a bit of that). I mean I really like the magazine. Despite it's being apparently targeted at the over-90s and being "downmarket trash".
There are many reasons I loveAmateur Gardening. Firstly, you almost always get a free packet of seed. In fact, you only don't get a free packet of seed when some thieving over-90 has got to Co-op before you, and swiped it. Not rubbish seed, either. Mr Fothergills, no less.
How many people have died in Darfur? It depends who you ask. And how you ask it. The Sudanese government once claimed it was 9,000, now they admit to 10,000. The UN once said it was 200,000, now they think it's 300,000. Some US activists put the figure at 450,000, or higher.
When the ICC's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, accused Omar al-Bashir of genocide last month he came up with a new figure: 35,000.
There are reasons for the discrepancies – and not just political ones. Here's the breakdown:
9,000: the number of people Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir said had been killed during the counter-insurgency. This figure, crucially, excluded those who had died from diseases and starvation caused by their forced displacement. The Sudanese ambassador to the UN upped the number to 10,000 earlier this year.
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