***Warning: Geek content below***

Yeserday I made a big decision, and ditched Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. I've been wanting to do it for ages, but you know how it is: MS products are very familiar, and you think there's no alternative.

These were the main things that had been stopping me:

1. Everyone expects you to send them files in .doc, .xls or .ppt format
2. My Palm syncs with Outlook
3. I love the Google toolbar

So imagine my surprise when I find that the Star Office suite, Mozilla Firefox browser and Mozilla Thunderbird email client do everything I need, albeit with a bit of elementary tweaking and downloading. Admittedly to download emails to my Palm I have to take them directly off the server, but that's no real hardship.

These open source programs are also a lot less bloaty and more secure than the MS offerings, and according to all the reviews they don't do all those annoying things that the MS offerings do. Like Word. I've worked with four or five different versions of Word - and why, exactly, have they STILL not sorted out the formatting of bullet points properly? And don't you just hate it when it arbitrarily reformats everything to 18 point TNR bold?

Downloads are faster, too. With IE, I was downloading at about 60kbps. With Mozilla, it's over 100.

I'll let you know how I get on. But so far, don't think I'll be going back.

/geek

Had a great time at the end of last week. Sam and I (without Isobel for the first time) went over to Ireland for the wedding of our friend Dave, who we knew in Stockholm.

It all started badly. Being cheap, we'd opted to travel Ryanair, which is one of those no-frills airlines you hear about. They fly from Beauvais Airport, which they rather optimistically call Paris, but which is in fact in the wilds of Normandy near Rouen. So it's a 90 minute bus ride.

We got there OK, but the plane was full of Northern Irish kids, who only seemed able to fight, shout and discuss whether they hated the British or the Irish more. Nice.

Then I found my phone doesn't work in Ireland (roaming apparently being something the French feel you should have to ask for).

Then the guy we were waiting for didn't turn up ( either he'd misunderstood or I'd said we'd be there an hour later) so we couldn't give him a lift, then the car was covered in dents, was missing the petrol flap and had a slow puncture. Which is just one of the reasons I won't be renting from Hertz again. The other is the fact that, with them, the final bill always comes to about twice what you thought you'd agreed when you booked.

But everything else was great. the church was lovely, the priest was bilingual (handy since the Bride was Brazilian) and the reception was alcoholic.

Things I own but never use

1. A Bluetooth Headset.
2. A Scandinavian Airlines Frequent Flyer card
3. A toaster. You can’t get the bread here
4. An FM/AM walkman
5. A bunch of VHS films
6. Some ties
7. A bamboo steamer
8. A 35mm camera
9. Some earplugs
10. A Swedish/English dictionary

McDonalds is, along with all the other fast food companies, trying to clean up its act. Go into a McDonalds at the moment anywhere in the world and you’ll see they’re promoting salads, grilled meat, fruit, mineral water and all the rest of it. None of which can be a bad thing.

The company is also a major sponsor of the Euro 2004 football championships. And in France, they’re running a huge promotion based on predicting scores in the tournament. And how do you enter this competition run by the newly health-conscious global fast food behemoth?

You buy a meal with large fries and a large fizzy drink. And if you get a Big Mac as well, you get another chance.

D’oh!

If you want to see what a bunch of arses the BNP are, check out this link.

JULIAN LEPPART - BNP MAYORAL CANDIDATE Interviewed on BBC London radios John Gaunt show

My postal ballot form arrived yesterday for the European elections. Unusually for me, I was sufficiently organised to arrange a vote this year.

I wasn't sure who to vote for. I've always voted Labour before (the party of the current government). But this time I just couldn't. They've been such a disappointment, constantly chasing the polls instead of doing the right thing, giving Bush legitimacy for his adventure in Iraq and all the rest of it. One day historians will discuss why this government, which has a huge and unassailable majority, has been so consistently unable to do the right thing.. So it was the first time in my life I've been a floating voter.

I took a look at my ballot paper, and it wasn't a very inspiring selection. As well as the three major parties, there was a bunch of weirdies like the Green socialist alliance, the UK Independence party, RESPECT and a couple of independents, plus the Greens and, rather disconcertingly, the British National Party - a bunch of racist thugs that are gaining ground in some of the more depressed parts of the UK where people are only too wiling to blame immigrants rather than themselves for their plight.

Given that choice, is it really any surprise that the turnover will be so low?

The really depressing thing about politics in the UK at the moment is that it's so nationalistic. None of the major parties are positive about the EU, having been bullied into negativity by the press over the last ten years or so. Which means there's no real way for anyone who is interested in making the UK drag itself into the heart of Europe to express themselves.

There's a good article about it from today's paper here if you're interested.

I think the way the recent accession of ten countries to the EU was handled says it all really. Most of these countries used to be in the Warsaw Pact, and even fifteen years ago the idea that places like Estonia, Hungary and Poland would be in the EU would have been laughable. It is a triumph of the ways of Western Europe over the forces of fascism and communism that we have got to where we are today, and here in Paris there were quite a lot of celebrations, as there were in states all over the EU.

And what happened in Britain? Dozens of scare stories about how people from the new member states would be flooding into the UK to find work, taking our jobs and probably shagging our women with their swarthy foreign ways. Not pleasant - and almost certainly wrong. The net migration is much more likely to be the other way, as expat Poles, Czechs and so on take advantage of the new advantages EU membership provides to go home and build their own economies.

Still, that doesn't sell papers, does it?

These people should be ashamed of themselves.

They showed the last episode of 'Friends' on British TV last Friday, apparently. There was the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth.

It wasn't a show I ever made a point of watching (I always found the teeth a little dazzling for regular viewing), but like most people I saw the odd episode and it was pretty funny. Good characters, a good situation and al the rest of it - and there were always a couple of good laughs in every show. But one thing troubles me...

Nobody I know can remember a single gag from the show.

Your try it. Can you remember a 'Friends' gag?