More bits and bobs

A few bits of news in a second, but first I need to mention that Jordi has now arrived in Mainz again, Alberto is in Naples, and I'm still stuck here in Birmingham.

Now a bit of internationalisation. Amidst fears of further economic collapse, Argentina has closed all banks, not allowing anyone to withdraw their money. Although this is for the good of the country, it really doesn't inspire confidence if people need to buy food or something. In fact, surely it means that businesses will go bankrupt because no-one can buy anything from them any more.

Next up is the 'friendly fire' incident. In case you haven't heard, an american bomber dropped a 227kg bomb on a bunch of canadian soldiers in the middle east. Certain scenes from South Park come back to me at this point. For those of you that still remember the Gulf War, you will recollect that there were more allies killed by 'friendly fire' than by the enemy. America says that accidents do happen, and people have been killed by 'friendly fire' before. But if you look at the details the 'friendly fire' has always come from the american military. I don't want to draw any conclusions (don't want the FBI knocking at my door), but...

Last, and most interestingly, if you look up into the sky just after sunset over the next week, you should see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all lined up. As the week goes on they will move closer together, so to be able to distinguish them better, look as soon as possible. The next time this will happen will be in over 100 years, so it's worth looking now.

Off to the symphony hall tonight, 'til then.