Thanks to UKNova, I recently aquired mp3s of 43 series of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, a total of 219 show (it's not as if you can buy them anywhere). Amongst the most consistently funny parts are Humphrey Littleton's anecdotes about Samantha, the scorer - tales of her in the gramaphone library, recounted before the game Pick Up Song, and the reasons why she is leaving early. Rather than keep them to myself I decided to begin transcribing them. I'm working backwards and have done series 40 - 43 so far - more to follow.

Samantha In The Gramaphone Library - Series 40 - 43
Samantha Has To Go Now - Series 40 - 43

**UPDATE 09/01/2005**
Ok, I've done another 4 series, 36 - 39. See this page for I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue quotes.

Congratulations to the BBC for not giving in to the vocal minority, and for showing Jerry Springer The Opera tonight. Thanks to the religious zealots and defenders of all things decent, as without them I'd probably have missed it.

As far as I can tell there were two groups of people complaining - those who objected to the swearing, and those who were worried it undermined their religion. To the first group: those buttons with numbers on your remote control change the channel; if something offends you, use them. And if the god squad are getting this upset that a piece of fiction questions their religion, I presume that none of them have read The Da Vinci Code.

Incidentally, this website belongs to Christian Voice, one of the groups mentioned in the BBC article. Just a quick skim shows that they aren't just pro-Christian, they are right-wing nut jobs. The list of things they are against is incredible: gay rights, abortion, against other religions in the UK, for some reason particularly Hinduism, and the teaching of safe sex in schools. Certainly not the type of organisation I want dictating to me what I can and can't watch.

I ran into an unbelievable problem with Intelligent Finance today - enough of a problem for me to start moving my current account back to NatWest.

I needed to withdraw £800 cash from my current account by the next day, so rang them up to ask them what the daily withdrawal limit was on my cash card - £300 was the reply. I asked if this can be temporarily raised to allow me to withdraw the money over two days. 'It can't be raised above £300, it's a business decision'.

Next I enquired about getting a banker's draft - 'sorry we don't do banker's drafts, but you can arrange a CHAPS transfer', which will cost me £12. So basically, there is no way to withdraw your own money from your account without having to pay for it.

If you're considering an Intelligent Finance current account, I seriously suggest you think again. The interest rates on the account may look attractive, but you soon realise there's more to an account than that.

Is there a reason why the UK edition of a UK news website paid for by UK residents has currency conversions to US $ rather than GB £? For example, this story about the Asian earthquake gives the economic cost to Thailand as 20bn baht, and then helpfully gives the conversion to US$. Helpful if you live in the US that is.

This isn't part of an argument against the licence fee, as I am all for an independent BBC (and I used to display an 'I Believe In The BBC' button on here until Manic changed it to an FBI one), but it would be nice if they at least give a nod to who's paying for it.

After having a brief introduction to DAB digital radio over the Christmas holidays, I realised that if I could get it on my PC it would mean I could effectively time-shift radio programs at a half-decent quality, rather than having to rely on the BBC's piss-poor 'Listen Again' service. A bit of Googling led me to DAB Bar, a piece of software that would do exactly what I wanted. And then I hit a brick wall.

There seems to be three DAB hardware devices designed for receiving DAB on your computer - the Modular Technology PCI card, the Psion Wavefinder USB device and the Aria A-6000, none of which are now available. I was particularly interested in the PCI Card to save having wires and boxes cluttering up my desk. There aren't any on ebay and I couldn't find any retailers with one available, so if you happen to have one lying around that you don't use and want to sell, please let me know.

...when you use your friends' domain whois information to get their address for Christmas cards.