I've somehow managed to make it through the whole of 2012 without writing a new post. So, what's been happening?

In March last year I was offered a job at Toshiba Medical Visualisation Systems Europe, so in June I moved back to Edinburgh to work there. This is the third time I've lived in Edinburgh. As they say, the third time's the charm!

I've started learning Swedish for no worthier reason than to better understand Sweden's cultural output. I used to struggle with languages at school, so enjoying learning a language is an entirely new experience for me. It probably helps that, as a native English speaker, Swedish is one of the easiest languages to learn.

I've become involved with EMPS again. See the films section for a recent prize-winning production.

Two of the aspects of Edinburgh I wasn't looking forward to seeing again were the long nights and terrible weather in winter, so after Christmas I took a three-week trip to Australia. This took in the east coast from Sydney to Brisbane, as well as Tasmania and Melbourne. This was also part of my mission to visit every inhabited continent before I'm 30, with only South America left to go. In fact, if you count the Americas as one, my mission is complete!

In October, I moved to Harrow, north west London. This is the first time I've lived near a tube station. Years ago, I would have taken the Underground to see London's most amazing sights. Now, I take it to go to the supermarket. Oh, the glamour!

I've added mini-updates to the main page of the site, so it's a one-stop shop for news, tweets, OpenJazz updates, and sporadic Wikipedia Articles of the Day. It's like a one-man social networking site, assuming you're bad at spotting oxymorons.

In other news, I now have my very own entry on IMDB, thanks to Anne LaBarbera!

So, there's been a lot of turmoil about lately. There's been rioting throughout England. There've also been quite a few people telling whoever will listen what they think of the rioters. Consequently, there've been many rants and counter-rants about who exactly is to blame for the destruction. It goes something like this:

Alice: The looters are bad people, and they must be severely punished.
Bob: The looters are predominantly socially excluded individuals and their actions are a consequence of our society's failings.
Alice: What are you talking about? These people had a choice, and they chose to do bad things.
Bob: How can you possibly think it's that clear-cut?

And so on. It's pretty polarised, and the "Alice" characters are vicious fascists. Right?

I don't think so. I've seen some terribly harsh things written about the rioters by friends who are ordinarily fairly progressive. They've been buying into the idea that the rioters are sub-human and deserve whatever can be inflicted on them, short of corporal or capital punishment.

Meanwhile, I've seen one friend refer to these others as bigots.

Now, before anyone invokes friendship divorce proceedings, take a step back. The riots are still fresh in people's minds. There's been massive, immersive media coverage. We've all been able to see the destruction to people's property and livelihoods, and the general fear and misery that's been inflicted. It's only natural to be angry, and it's only natural to direct that anger towards the rioters. However, anger fades.

Until that happens, I'd advise everyone to be very careful about what they say.

I, however, will opt for mildly inappropriate humour. Look, this guy's looting a lute!

I have now been living in England for a whole year!

I've been taking a look at the site's stats for last year. After OpenJazz, the most popular search phrase was "Doctor Who clipart". Apparently, a non-insignificant portion of this site's visitors end up looking at some low-quality clipart I threw together when I was 13. Sorry, folks.