I’m typing this at Changi airport. About to board the A380 again, which must be the most fantastic commercial passenger liner to travel economy on, ever. The business class is unbelievable.  Lovely and quiet, very civil.

There was a do about iTunes U the other evening. Interesting stuff, cool gadgets, lots of Kool-Aid, wine and canapés. USyd probably won’t do anything though—UNSW are already on board so we can’t possibly. Which is a shame: central admin have no bloody idea, even though the Faculties of Science are actually pretty keen on this kind of thing (they’re paying for me to go to this, for example).

Anyway, the important thing is that I scored a cool freebie:

Woohoo!

It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of Corporal Barry Dempsey from The Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland, killed in Afghanistan on Monday 18 August 2008.

Funny, there’s been buggerall news about the rowing and cycling down here.

Yay team!

My heart bleeds. Perhaps someone should help these poor people.

My name is Richard Bromley, I have been diagnosed with a 
deadly ailment that was discovered very late. It has defied 
all form of medicine. I have only about a few months to live 
according to medical experts. I have not particularly lived my 
life so well, as I never really cared for anyone not even myself 
but my business. I want you to assist me in disbursing funds 
to charity organizations. Please reply me through my private 
email immediately so i can explain further. 
Email: richardbromleyeq101@hotmail.com

And this sounds like a nice lady:

Hello my dear,

Greetings and Nice to meet you, how is everything,hope all is well with you and your family. My name is Michelle Kouassi, I found your contact during my research in Internet and after going through your profile I picked interest to contact you.

I’ve something very important and profitable which I would love to share with you, but not in a public site like this,therefore,would advise you to kindly write me back on:mickouassi02@yahoo.com,so that I’ll give you details.

Waiting anxiously for your anticipated corporation,

Yours Sinclerely,

Miss Michelle Kouassi

If anyone were to sign these people up to unwholesome mailing lists, I couldn’t possibly condone that course of action.

It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of Signaller Wayne Bland from 16 Signal Regiment in Kabul, Afghanistan on Monday 11 August 2008.

I’ve just had a short SF-style piece published in Nature. Let me know if you’d like a copy.

Telstra has updated your BPAY View Biller Code. You will receive a letter from Telstra telling you about this change. Once you receive this, to continue receiving your bill electronically via BPAY View you will need to re-register for BPAY View with your new Biller Code.

Details on how to do this can be found at the BPAY web site www.BPAY.com.au

To avoid confusion we suggest you delete the existing BPAY View registration and BPAY biller details in your biller address book. Thank you.

This is an automatically generated email advice. Please do not reply to this email.

This is the Telstra we’ve … just given the heave-ho and finger to, right?

Riiight.

The one on the left is the slightly newer model, but an automatic. We hope his owner appreciated the joke as much as we did (it was gone when we got back).

I — like I suspect just about every civilized person on the planet — have a thing about old maps and books. So I like to keep tabs on BibliOdyssey.

I sent the link to CK, giggling at the phrase

Holland is impolitely interrupted during breakfast as a stray bomb lands in his cup of cocoa.

CK writes back that his

great uncle was one of four Dutch soldiers to be injured during WWI. He was in an observation post when the Germans ‘accidentally’ lobbed in some a small shell. The explosion set fire to their store of cooking oil and he was a bit burned trying to fight the fire.

Good enough for him to claim a war pension for the rest of his life.

As far as I can tell, just about every male member of CK’s extended family did something in one of the two major unpleasantnesses in Europe last century, from sinking U-Boats single-handedly to rescuing 45,000 Polish refugees using only a rubber dinghy and a bag of flour.

Amazing.