Congratulations, Gerard and Jackie.

A regular from my website badscience.net took McKeith to the Advertising Standards Authority, complaining about her using the title “doctor” on the basis of a qualification gained by correspondence course from a non-accredited American college. He won. She may have sidestepped the publication of a damning ASA draft adjudication at the last minute by accepting - “voluntarily” - not to call herself “doctor” in her advertising any more. But would you know it, a copy of that draft adjudication has fallen into our laps, and it concludes that “the claim ‘Dr’ was likely to mislead”. The advert allegedly breached two clauses of the Committee of Advertising Practice code: “substantiation” and “truthfulness”.

Excellent news. ‘Dr.’ McKeith is a complete fraud—one of her ‘qualifications’ is available for purchase online for a very reasonable $60, as Dr. Goldacre’s dead cat Henrietta can attest—and, worse still, her nutritional advice is as poor as one might expect from a woman who bought her PHD from a non-accredited distance learning institution/vitamin supplement shop.

Read the rest of Goldacre’s column to find out just how bad that advice is—the bits about chlorophyll oxygenating the blood and algae increasing the amount of DNA in your body are especially entertaining. Or, rather, especially worrying, considering ‘Dr.’ McKeith is probably the best known and most influential ‘nutritionist’ in the country.

I’m inclined to think that what we’re seeing is a mixture of racism, stupidity, xenophobia and class conflict, rather than simple deliberate, conscious, outright racism. It’s worth noting that we haven’t heard a racist peep from the racist contingent directed at Jermaine Jackson—he’s not perceived as ‘foreign’ because his accent is American, and the three women have felt no discomfort about the class gulf between them, because, unlike Shilpa, he doesn’t treat them like uppity servants.

Germaine Greer nails it, I think, in today’s Guardian:

The problem is that most of the housemates are too dim to convey what a pain in the ass Shilpa is without appearing to persecute her.

Not that I’m defending Jade Goody, Jo S Club and the Scouse one—the latter two in particular have made some pretty grisly comments—I just think that the issue is perhaps a little more complex than ‘OMG! They’re total racists!’.

Interesting, too, to compare this scandal to the first time Big Brother contestants, and the viewing public, faced accusations of racism. Back then, it was over Jade Goody, who is mixed race, and her ‘piggy’ nose.

Update, the next day:

Last night’s episode made great viewing.

Channel Four and Endemol covered their backs by including a segment in which Danielle Whatsit was confronted in the diary room about her opinion that Shilpa should ‘go back home’. Bizarrely, she seemed unaware that she’d been caught making a stock racist statement, instead dwelling on the unconscionable awfulness of suggesting that someone should leave the Big Brother house.

Jade’s spat with Shilpa was pretty ugly, but in the aftermath, it was clear that Jade couldn’t give a toss that her nemesis is Indian, homing in on the fact that Shilpa had said she needed elocution lessons, and that she looks down on her for being working class, and accidentally rather than deservedly famous. Jade also, with unusual eloquence, suggested that Shilpa should consider the position of her fanbase before she turns on people for being poor (formerly, in Jade’s case) and uneducated. Jo S Club’s ‘[Shilpa] can’t even speak English herself’ remark did rather make me wonder, though.

So, where does that leave us? Danielle Whatsit is a dim bulb, and a nasty little playground bitch, but unaware of how her comments will be perceived; Jade Goody is not nearly as thick as she appears, realises that a prolonged bout of bellowing will net her screentime, and has, understandably, a hefty chip on her shoulder about mockery from snooty, educated, middle-class people for her lack of education and, to quote Shilpa, ‘gutter’ ways. When it comes to the last, and least, member of the coven, I’m inclined to think that Jo S Club is just a racist little gobshite.

How about a Jarman retrospective next year, Han? You know you want to.

The terms of sale will not include any safeguards to preserve the auditorium, and the indescribably naff nightclub-owner Stephan King is in the frame as a potential buyer, so the historic building at the heart of the Edinburgh International Film Festival will likely be turned into a haunt for the city’s braying alcopop-swillers.

Thanks for that, City Screen. Thanks very much.

Image © Guy Veale

1. Plan to turn Tarantino’s top cinema into a big bar
2. Pub plan unveiled as historic city cinema is put up for sale
3. Fears raised that capital’s oldest cinema will become a ‘super-pub’
4. Save beautiful historic building to keep city in arthouse picture, says Hannah

Update: There is now a campaigning website to Save The Cameo, with links to news coverage, and information on how to object to the planning application that, if passed, will allow the cinema to be gutted. I tried to make a little banner for anyone wishing to link to the Save The Cameo site, based on their design, but I’m no good with fancy graphics. Anyone fancy doing a better version? (You couldn’t do a worse one!):

A good food holiday, specifically.

Highlights included Bob’s Cognac-infused fig and hazelnut crumble, with fruit and nuts both plucked from the branch that day, Donny’s superb courgette and wild mushroom risotto, which induced a coma in its creator, Janet’s cheese gratin, which included the remains of a vast (€39!) block of gruyere, and a collaborative apple and pear tart, with apples picked from the orchard by my own hand.

Thanks to Donny, Janet, Jess, Len, Niamh and Yesten for being there, and of course to Mr. Bob for being such a fine host!

I have an holiday photoset on Flickr, needless to say, though with only a smattering of telephone camera snaps uploaded so far, and a search for the LPM0905 tag should, in the coming days, reveal photographs by all of us. I’m particularly looking forward to Leon’s shots of the Roman amphitheatre at Saintes, taken with his fancy little paper pinhole.

Oh, and something appears to have gone awry with email in my absence - if you sent me anything in the last fortnight and I haven’t yet replied, do get in touch.

The laptop will remain at home, but I’ll be taking my mobile telephone with me, so if you really need to get in touch, ring it.

For a remote taste of my holidays, please gaze upon this pair of giant donkeys, who I will be visiting:

Every adult in Scotland is being offered up to £100 to develop and improve their computer skills.

Deputy Minister for Lifelong Learning Allan Wilson said: “ILA Scotland has already opened up opportunities for thousands of people on lower incomes who previously would have faced financial barriers to learning. From today, the practical support of ILA Scotland is extended to all adults in Scotland. We have chosen information and communications technology (ICT) training for the universal offer because learner research showed us that even where people might consider themselves to have basic ICT skills, relatively few have any formal qualifications as proof of their expertise.”

I think I know of someone in need of the £100 grant - the Deputy Minister for Lifelong Learning himself! His website is a frankly terrifying example of mid-90s eye-scorching ‘design’, complete with a deranged Java applet that displays three-dimensional mirror-finished rotating text. Yikes.

Sniping aside, it is unclear how far the pot of money set aside for providing these grants will go, and I suspect unscrupulous types will be launching crappy courses for a fee of precisely £100, or upping existing fees. That said, this should go some way to encourage technophobes in the direction of computers, which is a good thing.

My bit will be about, very roughly speaking indeed, hacking and art, with an emphasis on small interventions, loose couplings of existing ideas and technologies, stuff that I will take great pains to avoid calling ‘life hacks’, the formally experimental novels of B.S. Johnson, stuff about social engineering, stuff about art that requires the involvement of the viewer, the relationship between all these things (if there is one), and some other things, too. There will also be covert cameraphone videos of folk keying in their PIN numbers, and projections of exciting celebrity details drawn from Paris Hilton’s hacked Sidekick.

My portion of the evening will be, as you can see, a bit loose, but the idea of the Upgrade! events is to prompt lively debate more than to present a solid argument. That’s my excuse, anyway.

Do come along.

Update: Here’s the official blurb for the talk, which may or may not make clear what it is I’ll be banging on about:

> [Jack] will be talking about, for want of a better word, hacks. For the purposes of this talk, hacks are small actions or concepts that may have large effects, loose couplings of existing ideas that produce unforseen consequences, or any elegant intervention that changes our understanding of a system. Though the roots of the term lie in the world of computer hacking, it can be applied to everything from changes individuals make to their own lives, artistic practices developed to engage audiences, or small shifts in society itself. It remains to be seen whether there is a relationship between hacks and hacking in these different fields.

He has been given an excellent and sturdy name, too - Jack Dodd.

The last time I saw him, he looked like this:

He’s probably a wee bit cuter now.

(See also: It’s a girl!)