Seems like Microsoft Live account services have been down for most of the day. It's strange as I had no idea just how much I relied on my live login. I use it for everything I can, my Microsoft money account, MSN messenger and of course Hotmail. Seems like the case for open Id (myopenid.com) and de-centralised authentication is stronger than ever. At least then if the identity service stops working it's your problem and not the service provider.

Note to self.. Check the eye drop bottle before applying. Three otex ear drops in the eye stings like hell.

Other than trying to remove the wax from my eyeballs today I decided to find a recipe to make ribs. Ribs are tough to come across these days. Years ago my mum used to go to the butchers and ask for the waste ribs (This was way before ribs were marketed as spare-ribs). I remember the ribs had almost zero meat on them so I'd always call them bones. Apparently that really embarrassed mum when I'd ask, in front of my teacher, if we were having bones for dinner; I suspect our teacher was one digit away from dialling social services.

You wouldn't believe how hard it has come to find some ribs which aren't in some marinade. Waitrose's meat counter was closed, ASDA don't have a butchers anymore (tramps) and Morrisons butcher seemed offended that I'd asked for "the waste meat" he pointed toward the back of the shop and exclaimed "over their" -  By the way that "their" was not a grammatical mistake, he was the exact sort of person that doesn't understand the difference between there and Their. I felt like reminding him about the numerous exams he must have failed to end up working at a fake butchers (they probably don't even have to cut the meat up) anyway I got the ribs and began the hunt for a recipe.

The things some people call a recipe are shocking, www.cooks.com have the following listed as a recipe:

1 pkg. 15-minute meat marinade
2/3 c. cold water
4 lb. pork spare ribs

How bad a cook do you have to be to need this sort of recipe? Surely this is more directions as apposed to a recipe, I wonder if someone somewhere is thinking: Ok I've got ribs, Water and 15 minute marinade...if only I had a recipe to turn this into a meal.

I wonder what the shortest recipe in the world is, may I offer up:

Cheese Crunch Suprise

• 1 Pkt Of Wotsits (Cheetoes if your American)
• 2 Slice of bread

If you beat it let me know in the comments.

Seems like the government and supermarkets can't sort out the problem of selling alcohol to young children. Apparently reducing the price of alcohol doesn't effect the amount that's consumed, the price apparently is inelastic.

I have a two-prong strategy to solve the problem.

1. When kids want to buy alcohol the cashier should have to check there profile on myspace and check their age. If they're not on myspace or bebo they probably aren't cool enough to be buying alcohol in the first place.

2. White lightning and all other bottled ciders and extra strength larger's should have government warning stickers like cigarettes do , however, they should ensure they relate to youngsters. So instead of: "Smoking Seriously damages the health of you and those around you" it should read "My mums a rat!" and instead of "Smoking damages your unborn children" it should read "If you drink this your a massive gaylord"

Implement these two policy's and underage drinking will be abolished.

There comes a point in every man’s life when he decides he’s going to brake tradition, he’s going to stand up and be counted, he’s going to go against what society thinks is acceptable, he’s going to rap.

For the white British Male this is a particularly difficult thing to pull off.

He’s probably just watched 8 mile and thinks “Well if I can sing along to Eminem I could totally flow”. He grips the mike (A can of lynx) and begins “Hey Diddle diddle, I wish I wouldn’t piddle. I hit a mo fo then I learnt to riddle.” …Hmmmmm needs some work.

Luckily after about a week of exploring the difficulties of growing up in a 3 bedroom semi through cliché similes and a fake American accent, the phase passes. Most men realise, rap is a complicated art, much like playing an instrument, it’s something that takes years to perfect; starting out with an accent tainted by 3 years of elocution lessons isn’t going to help the cause. The can of lynx is placed firmly back on the table and the idea of becoming the UK’s first white rap superstar is put on the heap of whimsical dreams along with the juggling balls, snowboarding jacket and an unused unicycle.

That paragraph sounded distinctively autobiographic, but you’ll be glad to know that’s not my experience of rap music. My dream to be a rapper was born and then crushed when I was far younger. When I was 12 I’d listen to bootleg tapes of the Fresh price and Jazzy Jeff, I’d write the lyrics down and then present the work as my own to girls in my French Class. Now, I’m not quite sure why no one asked why I was writing so much about Philadelphia and my miss spent youth on basketball courts, but some how I got away with it.

My memory of events surrounding my brief HipHop career is ropey to say the least, but I do recall being asked to perform at a friend’s party. Now bear in mind, I had no idea what I was doing, I had no backing music and I hadn’t actually committed any of this work to memory, but that didn’t stop me, I accepted the invitation with glee.

Come the night, I was nervous, I hadn’t bothered to learn anything and I hadn’t rehearsed. I’d borrowed a Mic that worked as long as you spoke really close to it and on the left hand side. With 2 hours to go until the big performance I racked my brains trying to think of a way out… then it hit me. I’ll cover my face in paints and pretend I was too drunk to perform.

Now you maybe are thinking; why would you do that and in hindsight it’s a question I should have been asking myself. No one (me included) truly understood why I’d camouflaged my face, all it managed to archive was an awkward entrance and so I decided I'd best wipe it off. After that interesting entrance I made my way to the living room, I gulped and went to plug in… Imagine my elation when I realised that their HiFi didn’t have the correct plug for my microphone… I haven’t touched a microphone or claimed I could rap since and I think the world is a better place for it.

Saying that, there are some good UK rappers out there, have a listen to the song Jessica and tell me what you think about it. .http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=53106038

Hi I'm Martin. I've just put this new blog live and I'm currently tinkering with it. Please forgive me if anything breaks :)

Do you notice themes in the news? Themes that seem to run just under the radar, themes that gradually build an opinion. Today I've noticed one theme and its a consistently reoccurring one: British school Children are becoming stupid!

Firstly I'd like to point out... no their not. Children have more or less the same mental capacity as previous generations, there are clever kids and stupid kids.

When I was in senior school I had a boy in my class that you could get to run around the playground by promising half a twix, he'd run all the way around the playground and then you'd say "tut tut not fast enough" and not give him the twix... you could do this daily but he didn't learn - He was the stupid kid.

There was a girl in my uni that could write a 4000 word essay in one 2 hour sitting with out pausing, 'one take orla' could spew out a perfectly formed essay without stopping for a break or to review the spelling, it was incredible, perfectly constructed paragraphs first time - She was the clever kid.

Gradually, however, we're being told that children are performing worse than other countries and children in the UK are becoming stupid. In the last month there have been programs and articles about children that can't read, can't behave, and can't learn. And were presented this information as if it's a new thing, as if up until 1990 there was 100% literacy, perfect behavior and unquestionable intelligence. The way some journalists go on you'd think Stephan Fry was the lowest common denominator in 1950s Britain.

People like to believe that in their era or country things were better, things were safer. They look back on their history with rose tinted glasses forgetting all the bad things and exaggerating the good.

Intelligence, sexuality, promiscuity these are just 3 of the hundreds of traits that make up human nature. Across generations, across religions, things don't change as much as people imagine, what does change are peoples perspectives.

For example in Iran their President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says homosexuals don't exist. If you were from the west and you've never been to Iran, you might believe it, you may believe the Muslim religion is so strictly adhered to that homosexuality doesn't exist.

If you too believe that Muslim countries don't have homosexuals or that it's more widespread in the UK ... take a trip to Marrakech in Morocco. It's a Muslim country but in the main square Djemaa el Fna after the snake charmers and the tourist trappers go home; they brake out the rent boys. The whole of Djemaa el Fna becomes a huge gay cruising ground where Moroccans dress up in jeans so tight they could convert coal into diamond. They express their interest by walking behind other men and jamming their 'Attentions'  into their backs, this male courtship can be extremely confusing if your a tourist with your girlfriend walking around not realizing that your in the centre of the the Muslim equivalent to canal street, especially when you've been told that homosexuality doesn't exist in Muslim countries.

It's the same with history, we're led to believe that people didn't have as much sex back in the day, but of course they did. Promiscuity isn't a new thing, sex outside of marriage happened, People had numerous sex partner I'll argue with anyone that says people today are having more sex than people had in the 1940s, it's just we have more information and a different perspective.

The New advent is a Catholic encyclopedia, it shows the exact kind of denial that I'm talking about, take for example this passage in their section on marriage: "All authorities agree that during historical times promiscuity has been either non-existent or confined to a few small groups." http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09693a.htm

As we move away from a religious state in the UK it appears that things get worse, morals fall, people have more sex and kids get stupider, but this is in my opinion this has far more to do with the fact that we know more about other people than ever before. It's safer to talk about things in the UK than it was. If your gay your probably not going to be burned at the stake, if you call a teddy bear Jesus your not going to be put in prison.

I strongly believe human urges and behaviors are universal, the restraints that are placed upon them by governments and religion are what create the perception that things are better or worse in some places than in others.

Anyway! Back to my initial point, perception and the way we are presented facts are what makes us think things are better or worse, if were told by the media that kids are stupid a good proportion of people will believe that. The media has a great ability to make us think things are getting worse, below you can see how two different journalists can look at the same facts and draw very different conclusions.

UK among school science leaders 

UK schools beaten by Estonia in science skills

One goes with the theme that British kids are getting stupider one recognizes the fact that 14th place out of 57 isn't bad.

What is it with me everytime an Iphone Advert comes on TV I get all pissed off! And I'm not sure why, I'm not sure why I hate Iphones so much but I really, really do. I also hate Macs and I think the resentment stems from this hate. The real root though isn't the computer, the computer works great, it also looks good the real problem is the smug mac users that want to tell you, every wakening second, how great their mac is.

It Just works! That's what were told by Mac enthusiasts... but so does my PC I tell them... I haven't seen a blue screen of death for over 2 years and if your PC does crash it's probably because it's ancient or was put together by your dads fat mate in his porn shed.

It's just so much more secure. No its not! IE7 is only unsecure when idiots choose to download their security update patches from porn sites! Oh what's that popup obscuring this depraved porno! It's telling me my computer is at risk! Thank god they highlighted the warning message in red and made it flash other wise I'd be surfing the Internet un protected!