But my very late (or very early) New Year’s resolution is to write every single day, even if it’s only a “blog post”. I have never considered myself a “blogger”, even though I’ve used blogging sytems to run the MavArt site for I think over six years (first Greymatter, then MovableType, now WordPress). I use these blogging systems because they allow me to change the look of the site without changing its content, and visaversa. But being a “blogger” implies a certain dedication to regular updates and posts – a dedication I’ve never had.

But, my New Year’s resolution is to write every day, so I’m going to write every day, even if it’s just a little blog post or review on my website – like this one.

This post, as well as qualifying as my writing for today, is also a test of the idea of using my Palm Treo 650 phone to type and upload blog posts. I’ve owned several Palm handheld computers and loved all of them, even the crappy plastic one that fell apart, but when I first got the Palm Treo I disliked the weeny little keyboard it had. I ‘d gotten quite good at the stylus-based Graffiti system for entering text on my other Palms, and clicking on the tiny little qwerty keyboard on the Treo seemed a lot slower.

But I recently discovered that I’d been pressing the keys the wrong way – using the tips of my index fingers, fingernails, or even the stylus pen in an effort to only press one key at a time. Now I realise that by pressing the keys with the end of my whole finger/thumbs, it may press more than one key, sometimes as many as four, but the PalmOS almost always guesses correctly which key I meant.

And if you’re reading this then I guess I figured out a way to upload it…

But when we came home tonight after seeing the film “In America” (a fun and often moving film with terrific performances from two young sisters) it was to find the street lights out and the lights along our unit complex’s driveway dimly lit, glowing at about a quarter of their usual brightness. I assumed it was some kind of clever battery backup, but we quickly noticed that our house lights and those of most of our neighbours were the same (but not all – some of them must have other sources of power, clever buggers).

At first the whole situation was oddly cool, as if the whole house was on a giant dimmer control and someone had set it to the lowest, most romantic level. But the novelty quickly wore off when we realised how few of our devices worked on the reduced voltage. Tungsten light-bulbs dimly work, but flourescent lights do not (I assume there isn’t the required voltage to charge up their starters). Our Foxtel satellite receiver works, and our TVs do too (in a slightly wobbly way) but not our amplifier, so no audio. Our fridges are dead and my PC’s subwoofer was giving out a continous and loud hum until I switched it off (time will tell if it’s damaged).

Somehow I have to update my presentation slides for a weekend course I’m giving in five hours (it’s 3:48am as I type this), but without power that’s tricky. Luckily my obsession with making backups of my data might save me again, allowing me to take in one of my backup CDs to the QSFT early and do the prep work there. Pity the poor students that get me as their trainer with only four hours sleep – if you were one of them, sorry if I wasn’t firing on all cylinders.

But there are upsides to being cut off from power. I’ve wasted no time tonight reading blogs online or watching news on PayTV, which is saying something. I’ve had a chance to learn to use my early birthday present, a Palm Tungsten E handheld computer – I’m writing this text on it while lying in bed in a pitch-black room. This Palm uses the new OS5 pen method of entering text called Graffitti 2, and although it’s probably a lot more intuitive for a first-timer to use, I’ve used the original Graffitti method for so long that unlearning it is proving difficult. That’s why this post really exists, it’s a combination of brown-out-induced insomnia plus a need to practice Graffitti 2.

Thanks to the lack of entertainment I’m using my battery-powered radio to listen to more talk radio than I think I have ever heard before, or probably will again. I’ve listened to talk radio from local Brisbane stations, national stations, and BBC World. Tonight’s talk radio has taught me the following:

� There are a surprising number of over-sixty Australian women awake and feeling chirpy at three in the morning. This represents an untapped national resource. These women could be stuffing envelopes or designing web pages.

� At three in the morning, talk radio hosts find even the most banal comment or lame joke from a caller absolutely hilarious. Although often it is painfully obvious that the host’s laughter is forced.

� Many government-funded artists seem to genuinely believe that Australia would be “crippled” if these artists do not continue to receive government funding. No really.

� These same artists seem to believe that colourful metaphors and atypical anecdotes are not for embellishing or illustrating their arguments, but actually are their argumemts. Much easier than backing up their positions.

� Many members of the public seem to trust journalists more than they trust democratically-elected politicians. This is remarkable to me given all the scrutiny, checks, and balances placed on politicians and political power compared to the largely unaccountable careers of most journalists. I’ve met several politicians and many public servants and they’ve almost all been genuinely sincere about their work.

� Most of the BBC seems to be deeply in denial over the implications of the Hutton report, or at least those that I heard seemed to be. It was very disheartening to hear all that rationalising and bluster from a respected broadcaster. I love almost everything that the BBC has given me over the years; the Goons, Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Dr Who, Blake’s Seven, Yes (Prime) Minister, Blackadder, and all of their news and current affairs, which makes it so hard for me to watch as they attempt to diminish and obfuscate Hutton’s findings.

I keep hearing most BBC people (and those they uncritically interview) failing to make a strong distinction between “the UK government honestly used faulty intelligence to justify war” verses “the UK government knowingly used faulty intelligence to justify war”, as if their was little difference between the two, as if being mistaken was the same as lying. And the less said about that first reluctant and highly conditional BBC “apology” the better. Sure, no one likes to receive criticism, but who would have thought that BBC News would have been so thin-skinned about such well-deserved findings?

At first I didn’t see the big deal – a BBC journalist got a few things wrong, but that’s OK, mistakes happen. He got carried away and “sexed up” his report, he wasn’t the first and he won’t be the last. But then BBC management compounded the error by defending the journalist even though it was pretty clear he couldn’t back up those claims that made the Blair government most unhappy. Even then I was willing to cut the BBC some slack, since it has always highly prized it’s independence, though placing independence above journalistic integrity was a bit much. But the way they are now trying to spin Hutton’s findings is beneath them.

And now it’s time for me to go teach a class (plus I think I’m getting the hang of Graffitti 2).

But today I discovered this one, which converts any web page into poetry. I fed it the MavLog page and I got this:

2001 several people I admired and
a piece
of
the Goons is dead,
The end of us
forever. but the last
two weeks to do it.
in the phones. Interestingly,
it And the Pulpit
column, to stop by kidney failure. I wipe this cream Is here.

Interesting. Try it on a news site or your own home page. The sad part is that the above poem is a lot better than any poem I have ever written myself…

I liked the fact that it worked for dictation and for commands. I thought it was cute that the demo dictation program that came with the SDK lets you switch from dictation mode to command mode by saying “computer”. Someone at Microsoft is a Star Trek fan I think…

Anyway, after many training sessions I thought I was getting good results, so I read out part of a draft scipt I am working on. Here’s what I said:

The attorney’s office is large and well furnished with dark leather and book spines shining in the light. The pompous attorney sits behind his desk with a piece of paper in his hand. He is staring expectantly at Isabella, who is seated opposite him. Isabella, in widow’s dress, stares back at him, a look of astonishment on her face.

Here’s what the Microsoft dictation software thinks I said.

If the attorney’s office’s lives and will face with the eleven and puts by shunning in the light. For all those attorneys 65 his desk the piece of paper is hand. His daring experiment with Isabella, who is seated opposite him. Isabella, Dean Witter’s stress, stays back again, a look for storage of the phones.

Interestingly, it got the name Isabella correct, which I wasn’t expecting. But otherwise not very accurate. If this kind of accuracy it typical, then it’s no wonder I cannot find many demo versions of competing products. I’d spend more time correcting than I do now.

Ah well, back to typing…

Today the memories came flooding back. I was a teenager living in Perth, Western Australia, and I was in awe of Milligan. You see, I had mental lists of people I admired, and the lists would change as my tastes changed. I had a long list of comedians that could make me laugh. A smaller list of novelists that I enjoyed reading. A tiny list of poets that could move me. But Spike Milligan was on all three lists, and he was usually at or near the top. Unique.

I was a member of a local Goon Show fan club called the Goon Appreciation Society of Perth (GASP), led by Brian Allanson. Milligan was in town for one of his eclectic shows, and twelve of us got to meet him one afternoon. And for the first time in my life I asked someone for an autograph – I admired him so much I broke my own “rule” and actually asked for an autograph (as did everyone else I think). He signed my GASP newsletter with his name, and he wrote it in that precise, ornate, unique handwriting I had become familiar with from reading the margin scribblings of Goon Show script reproductions. I still remember being amazed at the slow deliberate way he wrote his name, creating the letters in that unmistakable Milligan style.

While signing our autographs, Spike commented that he always found autographs to be strange, pointless things, and he was especially surprised that Goon Show fans would ask for them, as he always thought they would be less likely to want them – as anyone who liked the Goons would surely be less likely to want something so mundane. I was amazed that he and I shared this view on autographs, but I didn’t say anything did I, since I’d just asked him to give me his autograph…

And now he’s dead.

The last of The Goons is dead, killed by kidney failure. I knew it was coming, in fact Milligan seems to have been ill for so long, and at death’s door so often, that I’m surprised at how shocked and saddened I am by his passing. It’s odd that someone who I met only once has had such an impact on me. But he played a large part in the formation of my mind – The Goons, his war novels, the novel Puckoon, his stance on cruelty to animals and noise, his poetry, and the Q TV series.

I’ve always seen Milligan as the creator and heart of the Goons. As the writer (often co-writer) of the Goons he changed comedy forever, but others have already said this better than I can. I used to harbour a deep wish that one day I would get to work with Milligan on a project, perhaps a documentary or something. That fantasy has to be shelved now.

Thanks to the internet, Spike will be with us forever. But it’s not the same.

On a side note, you know you’re getting old when the death of someone you don’t actually know affects you so deeply. Helen Darville (yes, she of the Helen Demidenko infamy) expressed it well in an article she wrote after the death of Douglas Adams:

News of Douglas Adams’s death on May 12 convinced me of two things. I do have a favourite author, and I am now old enough to experience nostalgia.

A great article. Go read it. I’m off to listen to some Goon Shows and mourn Spike’s passing. Fine fine fine…