I really hate the way the Red campaign is co-opting the global aid movment. My rage is impotent but at least this piece on Bono editing the Independent made me laugh:
“Inside lurk about 2,000 adverts for the new Motorola RED phone. If you buy one, an Aids charity receives an initial payment of

And… breathe.
Work is busy, busy, busy. My brain is slowly collapsing in on itself.
Otoh, I saw Tangram Theatre‘ s brilliant production of 4:48 Psychosis at the Arcola last night and had a lovely dinner then drinks at the Dalston Jazz Cafe.
My brother has been in London for a week now, and so far it’s all going well. We’ve had a few wobbles but that’s only to be expected, and generally we’ve handled them with maturity and consideration, which is just lovely.

It’s that time of year when I start collecting sites of travel information. I’m booking my flight to Turkey today, and I’ve booked my flight back from Krakow already, so all I have to do is fill in the gaps to get from one to the other. I’ve never been this organised about a trip, but we’ve already worked out how to get from Istanbul to Romania (via Bulgaria), and we’re starting to work back from when Min must leave to see what we can see in Romania and Moldova. I’ll have nearly a week in Ukraine by myself, but even then there are vast distances to cover so it’s not as much time as it sounds.
At least I’ll have two weeks of vegetarian food on site but then I’ll be needing IVU’s Vegetarian Phrases in World Languages and Vegetarian Phrases In Other Languages.

“The permits effectively make the right to pollute a tradeable commodity – giving companies the ability to buy and sell permission to emit extra carbon dioxide.” (BBC)

“The original Bagpuss. A dollop of medieval poo. A fingerprint machine. A skeleton or two. While national institutions grab all the attention, much of the UK’s regional identity is enshrined in small museums.” (BBC)