Good thing this town's big enough for the two of us

I have a blogging rival. Woof woof.

How not to boast about all your hard work, lesson 4

Is it me, or is it really a very, very bad idea to put a map on your website to illustrate all the hard work you're doing - and then not put anything on the map? I only ask because of this.

How not to take a political photo, lesson 21

If you're going to caption a photo of yourself as "meets voters" don't you think voters (humans or canines, I'm not fussed) should actually feature somewhere in the photo?

Exciting turnout statistic of the day

"India is perhaps the only large democracy in the world today where the turnout of the lower orders of society is well above that of the most privileged groups" (Yogendra Yadav)

Today's top cow fact

The first cow to be milked on a plane was called Ollie (a Guernsey, since you ask).

Highlights from the Treaty of Versailles, 1919

The first, and possibly the last, in a new series:

Article 246

It's a good one.

Mariah Carey newsflash

"Mariah Carey has claimed it broke her heart to give up eating macaroni cheese."

Well, there you go.

Voting, the nutritional way

If I had a hat, I'd take it off to this man (and then bite his ankles for disrespecting democracy).

As I'm not on Facebook, you'll have to read this instead...

My status is:

is

I'm shocked at Brian Paddick

How could he not mention the importance of recruiting more police dogs in this? We've got double the legs of any human police officer you know.

Calling human London politicians, calling human London politicians: haven't you missed something?

All us dogs have been barking about it for days now, but you humans seem to have missed Boris Johnson's Campaign Manager, Dan Ritterband, being not wholly positive about his own candidate:

Ritterband says he has little grasp of policy

When even your Campaign Manager says that...! Alas poor Boris. Woof woof.

I want this book - and I think you do too

Admit it, you do really want this book don't you? Shame about the price though - and that's despite it being a mere paperback.

Are you a better cyclist than David Cameron?

Find out here. And don't kill the dog!

Can anyone explain what humans have been up to here?

Although left-handers currently form about 11% of the population, only about 3% of those born in 1900 were left-handed, a more than three-fold difference which requires explanation. Whether the difference results from social pressure for left-handers to become right-handed, artefacts resulting from response biases that can occur when questionnaires are used, or perhaps a greater mortality of left-handers is still controversial.

McManus and Hartigan, Declining Lefthandedness in Victorian England See in the Films of Mitchell and Kenyon, Current Biology, volume 17 number 18, 2007

You think you've seen Star Wars?

You ain't seen nothing yet.

On a Windows PC, click Start, then click Run and type in

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

Then click OK.

(If you've not got a Windows PC, well you're smart enough to know how to run telnet anyway aren't you?)

If it's good enough for humans, it's good enough for me

I'm on Twitter.

I bet he now wishes he hadn't written this book

Ooooooooops. This book hasn't aged very well has it?

A handy tip for Thames Water

If you are going to send lots of your customers letters in March 2008, it's generally not a good idea if they are dated 3rd July 2007 and ask for an urgent reply by 23rd July 2007. Just a thought. Woof woof.

What are YOU doing for the International Year of the Potato?

You did know the UN had declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato, didn't you? The official website is here.

Where is the man with the banana?

Sadly, the most famous fruit carrier on the internet is not here.

Go Symantec, go!

Ah bless. I get two phone calls from Symantec within seven minutes of each other.

Only a pessimistic dog would mind that neither knew the other one was ringing me but both were ringing me for exactly the same reason.

It's great to know that Symantec Customer Support loves me so much it is doing things in duplicate now!

Woof woof!

Or should I say: woof woof woof woof!

And I'm so happy I really won't mention how the caller I talked to about my problems with Symantec Customer Service (computer) kept on ignoring them in the phone conversation.

Symantec Customer Service: hello to new readers

A special waggle of the tail to the new readers who have come to this blog via internet searches for "Symantec Customer service", "Symantec Customer service problems blog" and "Symantec Customer service is just quite simply the most wondrous creation on this heavenly planet of ours". Woof!

New readers I may have. But decent service from Symantec Customer Service I don't yet. Grrrrrrrrowl.

I tried the Symantec Live Chat support service again. The one that promises "Little or no wait time". After 15 minutes wait (I guess a little time on the Chairman Mao - let's not rush to a view of the French Revolution - timescale, but time enough for me to chew to nothingness THREE whole Fortnum and Mason bones), I get through to someone.

Hooray!

They give me some advice!

It doesn't work!

Booo!

They try again. This advice involves rebooting the computer.

I ask, "The installation has told me to restart Windows. What happens if I do that - do I then lose my place in this Live Chat queue? (Even tonight I had to wait 15 minutes to get through to you)".

The man says, "We will re-connect automatically to this chat after restarting your computer. Please do not click on End session while restarting your computer."

I do what he says. I restart the computer. The Symantec software still doesn't work. Oh, and I don't get reconnected to him or a colleague, but instead get dumped at the bottom of the queue again. 14 minutes and waiting so far...

Symantec Customer Service update

Ok, ok. I know I'm a dog with high standards. But really. So their live online support chat keeps you waiting for 45 minutes to move from 7th to 5th in the queue. I then tried their online support form. Pawed away with the details of my case. Checked the text. Hit send. And what happens? A day latter an email comes back from Symantec saying they've only had part of my message, because the email generated by their website truncated the last part of my message. Bless. Good think they're not selling themselves as computer experts really isn't it?

Symantec Customer Service

Or rather Symantec Customer Non-Service. Been sat at my computer chewing a bone for the last 35 minutes trying to use the Symantec Live Chat support facility, during which time I've moved up from 7th to 5th in the queue. Wooooooooooooo! Someone needs to go and bite some ankles in Symantec Towers if you ask me.

PS Dear Mr/Ms Symantec: thank you for the seven automated messages asking me to wait. I thought you might like to know there's a small typing mistake: where it says "an analyst will be with your shortly" I think you meant to say "eventually (if you're lucky)"?

Today's exciting Madonna statistic

She wore 56 pairs of earrings for her film role as Eva Peron. I think I'll file that under "slightly excessive".

Say it quietly, but I think the elephant is a bit greedy...

I have just discovered that there are thirty pieces of Lego available for each living human (leaving none for us dogs, sniff). A bit of inter-species Lego reclamation seems in order, but I fear the neighbourhood elephant has been a bit greedy on the Lego front over the years and may get us all into trouble.

Exciting internet statistic!

For every page on the internet that talks about potatoes, there are approximately three that mention chocolate.

That seems to me the right ratio (though glad to see that pages mentioning bones are way out there ahead of both. We dogs use the internet a lot you know).

Woof woof.

Headline of the day

Disease-free babies with three parents - Daily Mail

Scientist of the week: Brady Barr

Well done Dr Barr! In between the laughing, I guess we should remember that this is a very serious topic - better products for protection against the sun would mean less skin cancer - but when the poor chap ends up stuck in the mud, it's a little hard to stop you tail wagging away. Do read to the end for his final quote :-)

Lord of the Rings and the nitpickers

Error in one of the Lord of the Rings films or not? The nitpickers don't seem to be able to agree with themselves (not even when a Professor wades in).