bookmark_borderOnly in the UK

The Naked rambler completes his trek. Bravo that man. I think his motives were correct, and he never deviated from his core ideals – more power to him for that.

However I do think that this is a uniquely British thing (eccentric? Maybe… slightly mad… definitely), no, not the ‘naked trek’ bit, the ‘naked trek in the middle of winter’ bit. I can only assume he is.. let’s say… more than adequate in the middle leg department, because let’s face it (and you guys will know what I’m getting at) the cold is not your best friend when you are THAT exposed…

bookmark_borderCount them

So here I am, wittering on in an unstructured manner about blog cliques and the like, whilst Tom (that’s Mr.Coates to you) is asking the important question: How many weblogs are there in the UK?

He also points at a couple of ‘geographic portals’ which I should be listed on… er.. I think… better check I guess.

bookmark_borderWorld AIDS Day

I don’t know where to start. Just this morning another news article about rising figures in the UK, are we heading back to the hedonistic days of the 80s? Haven’t we got the message?

“The global HIV/AIDS epidemic killed more than 3 million people in 2003, and an estimated 5 million acquired the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—bringing to 40 million the number of people living with the virus around the world.”

The Link and Think campaign urges participants to publish links, discuss personal stories, comment on news headlines, and more. The frustrating thing is why we need to at all. The information and knowledge is already out there, yet people seem to be choosing to ignore it. A quick fuck, a quick hit from a shared needle, such transitory pleasures. Is society to blame? The buy everything, do everything now, faster, faster, faster environment we find ourselves in may be one of, the many, traps which are causing the figures to rise again.

In parallel, the ban on using mobile phones whilst driving is seen as the first step towards making that activity socially unacceptable, something I thought had already been achieved in the fight against AIDS.

Yet it doesn’t seem to be going away. Do we make the message harder? Shock treatment? Or try harder to educate? CAN we do more in this country? Or are we resigned to the fact that AIDS cannot be beaten? What do we do when we reach 100 million HIV+?

Picture this: How many people work in your office, or live in your street? On average 8,000 people die from AIDS every single day. CAN you picture that?

And the reason that you, statistically, don’t directly know someone who is HIV+ or has died after contracting AIDS is because 95% of all AIDS cases occur in the world’s poorest countries.

Today is World Aids Day – do you have the time?

bookmark_borderMore Moore

And finally (before I go to bed) Alex shares his thoughts about Michael Moore, and I think we came to the same conclusions (even if it doesn’t read exactly that way…).

And I can vouch for his point about Moore’s portrayal of Americans being aimed at a UK audience, as I was sitting next to Rebecca for the show (the other side from Alex) I did feel a tad… guilty? ashamed? something anyway, at his presentation at points…

bookmark_borderCheap CDs

Number of albums bought hits new high . However, from the same article: “High street competition and increased discounting meant that profits from the album sector of the recorded music industry – much the healthiest, with the virtual collapse of singles – were actually down over the year by 2%.”

So whilst we are buying more CD albums the profit margin has decreased because we are paying less. You can see where I’m headed with this already, can’t you…

It’s kind of annoying that, whilst the RIAA in the States is still on the attack, and several ‘commentators’ are pitching ideas about how to manage and control the distribution of electronic formats (not to mention Microsoft launching “Music Club“), this kind of news doesn’t make the same kind of splash. Consider this little snippet from June of this year:

“The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has reported a 4% slump in UK music sales, the biggest downturn since the launch of CDs in the early 1980s. It blames piracy, including illegal duplication and distribution by international criminals, for the decrease.”

Hmmm, so which is it? Is it piracy or competition that is to blame for lowered profits? And is the music industry really surprised that, when lowering prices, we buy more albums?

As an aside:
Consider FOPP. This record store has 14 outlets through the UK, and posted the following profits late last year: “December trading figures show a like for like sales growth of 8.45%, with a total sales growth reaching 60.64%.”

Now whilst that growth is not wholly because of CD sales (they go on to state that it is their ‘unique features’ that helped) I would imagine that they have one of the healthier CD sales totals due to their continuing policy of selling older CDs at discount prices. In fact, doing some rough arithmetic, I reckon that of the last 50 CDs I purchased 40 of those were from FOPP and 35 of those were discounted (?7 or less) older albums. Was I encouraged to buy more CDs because they were cheaper – hell yes!

Listening to: Jurasssic 5 – Acetate Prophets