Was Alexander McQueen's posthumous show a fitting farewell?
Jess Cartner-Morley witnessed an exclusive unveiling of 16 looks completed by Alexander McQueen's team after his death:
"For fifteen minutes today, in a grand Paris drawing room with soaring white ceilings gloriously flounced with gilt, Alexander McQueen came back to life.
When the first model walked into the room, there was an audible intake of breath. Four weeks after the designer's death, the collection he had been working on was finally unveiled. And his spirit was right there - in the skullcap of bandages dissected by a mohican of lacquered feathers, in the fierce black boots with gold angels sculpted into the heels, in the muscular power of the tight crimson bodice and the way the pleated and ruffled skirt appeared to have come not from the past or the future but from some other dimension where the two meet. Every piece was cut on the stand by McQueen, the audience was told beforehand; once the clothes appeared, there could have been no doubt.
Of the outfits, 16 were 80% finished - they were completed by his team and seen for the first time today. The collection was truly spectacular; the mood, in the face of the evidence of what fashion has lost, was bleak."
Read Jess's full report here and view more pictures of the collection here.
FASHION HIGHS
The soundtrack at Balmain Held in a fancy Parisian ballroom with a chandelier the size of a black cab dangling over the catwalk, the Balmain show was a two-fingered salute to the pared-back, strict aesthetic that pervaded Paris. The show was as OTT as it gets - lots of trashy gold, big shoulders (still), and brocade tailoring. Sort of disco-highwaymen-meets-glam-rockers. But the soundtrack had the most impact. Even the more uptight members of the front row were bopping along to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy". The audience left and duly downloaded.
Celine Celine Celine The fashion world has the biggest ever crush on Phoebe Philo at the moment, and don't expect us to be all difficult and contrary, because we're totally besotted too. Throughout the week the fashion press corps was in and out of the Celine boutique, ferreting around for strict camel coats, the perfect Breton tee and beautifully boring handbags. By the time of the show, held at the Tennis Club de Paris, the excitement was feverish - or as feverish as minimalist Celine-ites get. And we weren't disappointed: from the gold-heeled riding boots to the stand-up collar navy wool coats, the show was perfection. Even the pale lime carpet on the catwalk filled our hearts with joy. Merci, Phoebe!
Loewe's café catwalk We quite enjoyed the lightbox grid-come-catwalk assembled in the Hotel de Crillon for the Balenciaga show, but on balance our favourite catwalk was the runway arrangement at Loewe. Round cafe-style tables lined the room, combining our two favourite Parisian things - sipping champagne in cafes and catwalk-watching. Did we like the 40s-inspired show? Yes. Did one British glassy magazine editor threaten to steal the beautiful champagne glasses afterwards? Yes, she did.
FASHION LOWS
The Rick Owens soundtrack First up, why did almost every member of the audience look like they were related to the long-haired designer? But more to the point, why on earth did he have a soundtrack that was so unbelievably loud and aggressive that we felt ill? Now, we like the idea of a second skin leather Rick Owens jacket with a flap of a lapel as much as the next girl, but the 4am Berlin trance music was distracting to say the least. We're not too keen on the fur helmet hoods, either.
No French Vogue at Balenciaga A bit like having a croissant without the jam - somehow not quite the same. We loved the presence of Charlotte "she inspired the perfume" Gainsbourg, but we missed the presence of La Roitfeld. The reason for the blacklisting is rumoured to be a misdemeanour with a sample which somehow found its way to the Maxmara design studio - where Carine is a consultant - and was copied. But nothing has been confirmed by either side. "Ask them", was Carine's enigmatic response to trade sheet WWD.
Absent friends Two British-based designers paid tribute to Alexander McQueen in their show notes. Stella McCartney wrote: "This one is also for Lee - you're missed", and Roland Mouret simply typed "Goodbye Lee" at the corner of his.
TRENDWATCH
Hidden knees. A slightly 70s, below-the-knee hemline is the New Length according to Ms Philo, and she is the style lawmaker right now. You might want to think about wearing it with a precise polished leather top to keep things the sharp side of dowdy, mind.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Since 'tis nature's law to change, constancy alone is strange.
That's John Galliano quoting Jon Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester and a 17th-century poet. You see - he's not just the Dior designer with flowing locks, a cavalier moustache and a penchant for taking the longest, most over-dramatic bow in fashion. He's deep.
Ex-chief of the defence staff says Labour MPs' claims he is a Tory were 'desperate' and a 'cheap shot'
The former defence chief Lord Guthrie today renewed his attack on Gordon Brown's military spending record, saying he had been "unsympathetic" during his tenure as chancellor.
Guthrie, the first chief of the defence staff under New Labour, said claims from Labour MPs in the Commons yesterday that he was a Tory were "desperate" and a "cheap shot".
Brown responded to the criticisms on British forces radio today, saying that "urgent operational requests" were always met.
Guthrie told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning: "I think he was unsympathetic to defence. I think everybody who has had anything to do with defence thinks that. Particularly in the early days when he was chancellor and there was a lot of money in this country and he showered it on other departments but he didn't give much to defence.
"I think nowadays the personal kit of people in Afghanistan, for instance, is better than it ever has been, but goodness it has taken some time to get there."
The issue came up at prime minister's questions in the Commons yesterday when David Cameron took Brown to task over comments by two former chiefs of defence staff – Guthrie and Admiral Lord Boyce – who had branded his evidence to the Chilcot inquiry on Iraq "disingenuous" and "dissembling". The two former chiefs argued that, while urgent operational requirements were always funded, the Treasury failed to maintain the MoD's overall budget at a level needed to fight two wars.
During heated exchanges, several Labour MPs accused the pair of being Tories.
Guthrie told the Today programme: "I thought it was rather a desperate act and rather cheap. I don't think everybody is a Tory. I certainly am a crossbencher and quite prepared to criticise anyone."
Speaking earlier on BFBS radio, Brown said it was "incredibly unfair" of Conservatives, including Sir John Major, the former prime minister, to accuse him of using a visit to troops in Afghanistan as a party political stunt ahead of the general election.
Brown insisted when giving evidence to the inquiry on Friday that he had always provided military commanders with the equipment they requested. However, the two former chiefs argued that, while urgent operational requirements were always funded, the Treasury failed to maintain the MoD's overall budget at a level needed to fight two wars.
The prime minister said today: "I think they are wrong. To be honest, I don't think it is appropriate for people to criticise us for not providing what we did provide. The urgent operational requirements that were asked for by our forces were always met."
Brown was also forced to respond to an accusation by Major that his visit to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of his appearance before the Chilcot inquiry last Friday and weeks ahead of a general election was "unbecoming conduct for a prime minister".
Brown told BFBS: "I think that is an incredibly unfair accusation. I have gone to Afghanistan every year at this time for four years. I have visited Afghanistan eight times. People are making very politically loaded statements. I was doing my duty as prime minister, going to meet our forces. I wanted to thank our troops for what they had done.
"I find it quite unusual for people to criticise me for doing what I consider to be my duty. This is nothing to do with partisan politics. It is everything to do with wanting to assure our troops that they have the support and warm wishes of everybody in Britain and that we are absolutely confident they are doing the best job they can."
In response to allegations that the government was slow to replace the soft-skinned Snatch Land Rover patrol vehicles, which are vulnerable to roadside bombs, Brown said that it was not known for some time in either Iraq or Afghanistan that enemy forces would use guerilla tactics, including homemade bombs, rather than facing allied troops in open battle.
"This happened in Iraq in about 2005-06 and it happened in Afghanistan a bit later," he said.
"The moment people realised that this was the nature of the guerilla warfare that was going to be practised, Des Browne, the defence secretary, came to me and said, 'We need to buy new vehicles' and we approved those new vehicles immediately."
The prime minister went on: "In 2006 we took a decision that we needed to do more and put about £90m in and bought Mastiffs and Ridgebacks. Then we decided to put out to competition a design for a light patrol vehicle and that is what we have done in the last few months."
An inquest earlier this week into the deaths of four soldiers in Afghanistan in 2008 heard a string of criticisms over their equipment and training. Wiltshire and Swindon coroner David Masters pledged to raise his concerns with the Ministry of Defence.
He recorded unlawful killing verdicts for Corporal Sarah Bryant, 26, the first female casualty in Afghanistan, and special forces reservists Corporal Sean Robert Reeve, 28, Lance Corporal Richard Larkin, 39, and Private Paul Stout, 31, who died when their Snatch Land Rover hit a roadside bomb in June 2008.
The government has asked Ofcom to implement Kip Meek's proposals for spectrum reform, with a view to getting shot of the digital dividend by the end of 2010.…
Magician Mat Ricardo writes in regarding this morning's post showing a motorcycle (seemingly) pulling the tablecloth out from beneath a very long table's-worth of place settings: "Here's what I do - for 20 years-ish I've been finishing nmy cabaret act by putting the tablecloth back on the table, underneath all the stuff. Took me years to invent, and I'm the only person in the world performing this trick. Maybe I need to get out more, but what can I say - it's a living!"
You can see the gag around 2:15 in the video, but it's well worth watching the whole thing. I was gutted to learn that I missed Mat last weekend when I took the kid down to Covent Garden in London to see the performers, but I'm looking forward to catching his act next time we head down.
Staff bonus amounts to 15% of basic salary and is higher than last year
The John Lewis Partnership has handed an annual bonus of £151m to its staff after enjoying a near-10% rise in profits.
The group, which operates 224 Waitrose supermarkets as well as 29 department stores, announced profits, excluding bonuses and tax, of £306.6m this morning.
The John Lewis group is a partnership owned by its 69,000 permanent staff, and everyone – from the chairman Charlie Mayfield and the managing director Andy Street down to shelf-stackers – get the same percentage payout.
The higher-than-expected staff bonus amounts to 15% of basic salary, equal to nearly eight weeks' pay. Last year workers received 13%, while in 2008, before the recession set in, they were handed 20%.
At the half-year, the group's profits were down 20% and would have been far worse without its upmarket Waitrose chain, which defied expectations that shoppers would defect to cheaper rivals during the downturn.
Waitrose introduced an Essentials range of basic foods which was popular with shoppers, and has been the star performer among grocers over the past year. Last week, its managing director, Mark Price, said that he aimed to double sales to £10bn in a decade.
The John Lewis chain also had big expansion plans, but has ditched its goal of opening 10 new department stores because of the recession. Instead, it is launching smaller John Lewis at Home stores in retail parks. The first, opened in Poole last October, has beaten its targets and a second is planned in Croydon. Two more were approved last week, and if they also perform well, a further 50 will be rolled out.
Just occasionally the blogosphere can be about more than just hot air – as it proved today by raising over £10,000 to pay off the fine of pub landlord Nick Hogan and to bring about his release from prison.…
Federal authorities have charged a trendy Santa Monica sushi restaurant with serving whale meat -- an investigation that was spurred by the team behind the Oscar-winning documentary, "The Cove."
A hundred firefighters and 25 fire engines were at the scene of an early-morning fire over four floors of a building in East London, a London Fire Brigade spokesman said Thursday.
The International Air Transport Association said passenger traffic was increasing due to a stronger-than-expected economic recovery in emerging markets.
What happened at the Red Road tower blocks highlights the horror of being an immigrant in Britain
Few details are known, and even those few are very much open to dispute. But it seems that the three people who threw themselves from the tower block on Glasgow's Red Road this week were Russians. Serge Serykh, his wife, Tatiana, and her son, who has not yet been named, had first sought asylum in Canada, alleging that the Russian secret police were after them. They left Canada in 2007 after Serykh had become obsessed with the idea that the Canadian government was trying to kill him because he had uncovered their plot to assassinate the Queen. Coming to Britain, they alerted an MP to this alleged plot.
The family had not been granted leave to remain in Britain, but neither were they in immediate danger of being deported. Notice of eviction from their charity-leased flat appears to have been the most urgent trigger for their suicide pact. The idea is that Serykh had infected his wife and his stepson with his paranoia, and persuaded them to kill themselves. Yet the fact that the three had to chuck down a large wardrobe before they jumped, to break the anti-suicide netting that had been installed, is an indication that they were not the only people in the vicinity who were considered to be in danger of finding their lives intolerable.
Glasgow city council declared both the block and its neighbour unfit for habitation way back in 1980. For a long time, the blocks were leased to the YMCA, to house homeless people and students. Even before "national dispersal" became the official government policy for asylum seekers, under the 1999 Asylum and Immigration Act, asylum seekers were being housed there. Campaigners complained about dispersal. People were being sent to areas were there was little supportive infrastructure – few immigration lawyers, few translators, let alone little chance of living near family, friends or even fellow countrymen. There was not much public sympathy. After all, people were born and bred in Glasgow's Springburn day in, day out, and it was good enough for them, was it not?
It's tricky, politically, when debate around the treatment of asylum seekers serves to highlight the appalling conditions that already exist for the extant electorate. In part, that was surely the motivation behind policies that withdrew even the most basic rights from asylum seekers. So, no money, just vouchers for food. No freedom of movement for those who might bolt, even families with small children, but incarceration in a detention centre, to be on the safe side.
When detention centres were first established in Britain, their inmates were accorded the dubious distinction of being the only people in Britain who had no right to treatment under the NHS. No tiny detail that could add to the discomfort of a person held in a detention centre was left unattended to. When I interviewed a woman in Yarl's Wood detention centre, by telephone, the call was terminated every few minutes, and a return to the switchboard to apply for another snatch of the story was necessary. It was just one more petty little trick to promote isolation. The crackdown on asylum seekers very successfully moved a populist issue that was embarrassing for the government off the mainstream agenda. But if more people saw for themselves the privations that are heaped on refugees to make Britain less of a "soft touch", they would feel nothing but sadness for a world that turns its back on such a despised and cruelly treated diaspora.
The paradox, of course, is that the harrying of asylum seekers was carried out under the suspicion that they were really "economic migrants". Yet, the prevailing ideology was that economic migration was a good thing. The government used economic arguments to bolster its wider policies on immigration. Those things that annoyed the electorate – the huge pressure on scarce housing that inflated the bubble, or the downward pressure on wages that kept the minimum wage at a level considerably lower than subsistence – were the very things that were fuelling "growth", assisted not by asylum seekers but economic migrants. Now only Boris Johnson has the balls to continue defending economic migrants. They are the guys we cannot tax, in case they skip the country.
Yet some of the other reasons for the boom in immigration were even less attractive than intense relaxation about the filthy rich. Britain needed immigrants to staff the NHS. Certain developing nations even had to persuade the British government to stop recruiting in their countries, because the skills-drain was disrupting their own more fragile health systems so greatly. What an ugly sort of reverse colonisation that is.
Andrew Neather, who was once an advisor to Blair, Straw and Blunkett, and is now a journalist, last year alleged that while ministers publicly clung to the economic argument for immigration, they privately revelled in the idea that it would "rub the right's nose in diversity". This the pressure group MigrationWatch described as "dynamite", alleging that it proved that the Labour government had deliberately attempted to change the nature of Britain, and make it "multicultural". But it isn't dynamite. It's just a glimpse of the petty tribalism that too often engulfs the political process.
The debate around immigration has been crazy for years. The right claims to champion globalisation because it will spread wealth across the world. But the leading controlled experiment in globalisation in existence is Europe, which they hate. Likewise, Europe remains a pet project of the left, many of whose disparate members would claim the free market is a force to be distrusted and feared.
Essentially, for many years now, the government has pursued policies designed to deflect those who need sanctuary in Britain for reasons of compassion, and to attract those who will bring economic clout. I can't be the only person who wonders whether this might be a weird way of going about creating global economic equality.
Back in Glasgow, it is reported that Serykh was known to be suffering from severe mental illness, and his alleged story certainly does not refute that. Yet the fact that he and his family were tied together by a rope as they fell, is very much part of the singular horror of this event. One cannot help thinking that Serykh's wife and stepson must have been caught in the invisible bonds of the 43-year-old's illness for many years already, unable to access the help they needed to free themselves, anywhere. What can be done, though? In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the public discourse focused on outrage about the idea that Britain was a "soft touch" for asylum seekers. The government dealt with that problem very effectively, and without a great deal of opposition. Who wants to live in a country or a world that's a soft touch for damaged, desperate, sick, troubled people, when it can be this place, a place where only the "economic argument" ever gets any traction?
Heavy fighting flared in the Somali capital Thursday, a day after a battle between government forces and Al-Shabaab rebels left 29 dead and scores injured.
by Haroon Siddique, Saeed Shah at 00:40 AM, 03/11/2010
Claims by Pakistani minister that boy was found contradicted by senior police officers
There was confusion today over the fate of Sahil Saeed, the five-year-old British boy kidnapped in Pakistan, after media reports that he had been found were contradicted by police chiefs.
The controversial Punjab law minister, Rana Sanaullah, told Geo TV that Sahil, who was kidnapped from his grandmother's house in Jehlum a week ago, was rescued in Sialkot, a neighbouring city in the north-eastern Punjab province.
He said Sahil had been sent back to the UK to be reunited with his father, and a man and woman had been arrested on kidnapping charges. He alleged two female relatives of Sahil had been involved in the kidnapping.
But Sanaullah appeared to have confused two different kidnapping cases.
Police said the rescued boy was not Sahil, and the minister was mistaken.
"I wish the news were true but it's not true," said Waqar Chohan, the senior police official from Sialkot. "We recovered one child, but that was not this case. That child was abducted from Rawalpindi."
So far Sanaullah has not changed his statement, leading to continuing confusion.
A spokesman at the British high commission in Islamabad said this morning he had received "no evidence" that Sahil had been found but reporters were being urgently checked.
The Jhelum police investigations superintendent, Khalid Mehmood, said he was unaware of the reports that Sahil had been rescued.
Sahil and his father were on the last day of a two-week holiday when robbers broke into his grandmother's house.
The robbers made a ransom demand of £100,000 when they snatched Sahil and were understood to have repeated the demand in phone calls to his father. The Pakistani authorities contacted Interpol for help with the investigation after reports the kidnappers called from international numbers, including one in Spain.
Pakistani officials have accused members of Sahil's family of being involved in the abduction. They denied the claims.
Sahil's father, Raja Naqqash Saeed, returned to the UK yesterday. He left the country in defiance of Pakistani wishes that he remained there as a witness, according to reports.
The police have arrested about 200 people in Jos, where this week dozens of herdsmen slaughtered hundreds of people in a brutal act of sectarian retribution.
Labour MPs David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Elliot Morley, along with Tory peer Lord Hanningfield deny theft by false accounting
Three Labour MPs and a Conservative peer are due to appear in court today accused of theft by false accounting.
MPs Elliot Morley of Scunthorpe, David Chaytor of Bury North and Livingston's Jim Devine will appear at City of Westminster magistrates court.
They will be joined by Lord Hanningfield, who faces charges relating to his claims for House of Lords allowances.
Their prosecution, at a court a short distance from parliament, is the first to result from the Westminster expenses scandal.
All four have denied any wrongdoing, but if found guilty could face up to seven years in jail.
Morley is alleged to have dishonestly claimed £30,428 more than he was entitled to in second-home expenses on a house in Winterton, near Scunthorpe, between 2004 and 2007, including 18 months after the mortgage on the property was paid off.
Chaytor faces charges that he claimed almost £13,000 in rent in 2005 and 2006 on a London flat he owned, as well as £5,425 in 2007 and 2008 to rent a property in Lancashire owned by his mother. He is also alleged to have used false invoices to claim £1,950 for IT services in 2006.
Devine is alleged to have claimed £3,240 for cleaning services and £5,505 for stationery using false invoices in 2008 and 2009.
Hanningfield faces six charges of false accounting in relation to claims for overnight allowances from the House of Lords between 2006 and 2009, when records allegedly show he was driven to his home near Chelmsford.
The three MPs were barred from standing as Labour candidates at the forthcoming general election.
Hanningfield was suspended from the parliamentary Conservative party and stood down as leader of Essex county council.
In a joint statement last month, the MPs said: "We totally refute any charges that we have committed an offence and we will defend our position robustly."
Hanningfield said he was "extremely disappointed" to be charged and insisted all his expenses claims were made in good faith.
The charges were announced by the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, after a nine-month investigation triggered by the leak of expenses details to the Daily Telegraph.
A local bill requiring that at least half the copies of every film from outside Europe be dubbed in Catalan is the latest attempt to assert Catalan culture.
Geneticists said the new research shows it is now possible to sequence the genome of a patient at reasonable cost and with sufficient accuracy to be of practical use to researchers.
Review Bowers & Wilkins' Zeppelin is undoubtedly the world's most iconic iPod speaker. Every one of its rivals, from the high end of the market downward, looks pretty much how you'd expect an iPod speaker to look. Not so the elongated ovoid that is the Zeppelin.…
by By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS at 23:50 PM, 03/10/2010
The Mavericks recovered from a lethargic start to beat the Nets and match the N.B.A.’s longest winning streak this season with their 13th straight victory.
The co-author of a study on cyberbullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth says more than half of LGBT youth had experienced cyberbulling within the past 30 days.
A report to be released Thursday questions the Bush administration’s decision to rescue “a company that apparently posed no systemic risk to the financial system.”
• Former United player wears scarf of anti-Glazer campaign • 'I'm a United fan and I support the club. I always will'
David Beckham attempted to distance himself from the campaign to oust the Glazer family from Manchester United despite leaving the pitch wearing one of the green and gold scarves that have come to symbolise the fans' protests against the club's owners.
Beckham, afforded a stirring reception on his return to Old Trafford, picked up the scarf after it was thrown from the Stretford End on a night when Malcolm Glazer's sons, Joel and Avram, were inside the stadium to witness the scale of antipathy towards their ownership of the club.
For someone of Beckham's standing to endorse the green and gold movement would be regarded as a major victory for the protestors but, as the former United player reflected on Milan's 4-0 defeat, the heaviest inflicted on them since the Champions League's conception, he said he did not want to be regarded as a figurehead for the campaign. "I'm a Manchester United fan and when I saw the scarf I wanted to put it round my neck," Beckham explained. "It's the old colours of United but, to be honest, it's not my business. I'm a United fan and I support the club. I always will, but it's got nothing to do with me how it's run. That's all to do with other people. I just support the team. I will always support the team."
That may disappoint those supporters who regarded Beckham's final act before disappearing down the tunnel as a sign of public sympathy and solidarity. Beckham reflected on an "unbelievable" reaction from an Old Trafford crowd buoyed by a commanding performance from their team and two more goals from Wayne Rooney that left Sir Alex Ferguson wondering whether his leading scorer could emulate Cristiano Ronaldo's total of 42 last season.
"It's a challenge," Ferguson said. "I was just happy for Wayne to reach 30, but he keeps on improving and he was sensational again tonight. It was just a continuation of the last two or three months – his form is just sensational. He's improved his movement in the box but he has also been practising a lot more this season than ever before, putting in extra work after training and I think he is getting the rewards of that."
The most prolific season in Rooney's career now incorporates 21 goals in his last 21 games but Ferguson also enthused about the contribution of some of United's less celebrated players, most notably praising Park Ji-sung for the "discipline and intelligence that won us the game" as well as pinpointing Gary Neville's handling of Ronaldinho.
Neville had been brought into the side to spare Rafael da Silva a repeat of his ordeal against Ronaldinho in the first leg and the former England international not only helped quell the threat of Milan's most inventive player but also set up Rooney for the first goal. "He's a remarkable man," Ferguson said. "When you've been out of the game [with injury] for a year and half it's not easy to come back and play every week at the age of 34 and now 35. He succeeded because of his will to succeed and that's really what Gary Neville is all about."
As for Beckham, Ferguson was not surprised by the crowd's affection for the former England captain. "We expected that and he deserved that," the United manager said. "Most of our former players get that type of reception. Paul Ince unfortunately went to play for Liverpool so they weren't exactly throwing garlands at him when he came back but normally they always appreciate the players who have had great careers at this club."
The only downside on the night for United was the news that Owen Hargreaves' planned comeback for the reserves against Manchester City tonight has been postponed.
Apple, Research in Motion, and a gaggle of other deep-pocket firms have been slapped with a wide-ranging patent infringment suit by an obscure Texas firm.…
Have you got six months off? Do you fancy a long walk? If so, World Expeditions may have just the holiday for you. They have become the only trekking outfit to offer a guided trip along the first completed section of the Great Himalayan Trail (GHT).
Stretching for 1,700km along the length of Nepal, the GHT will take you a mere 157 days to complete. You'll see eight of the world's 14 peaks over 8,000m, including Everest, and cross passes reaching up to 6,000m, climbing a total of 150,000m. That's a Snowdon every day for half a year. Oh, and it will set you back £20,500.
The GHT isn't the world's longest long-distance footpath. The Continental Divide Trail in the US is 5,000km and the Trans Canada will be three times that. But this steroidal version of the Pennine Way looks like being the most coveted of all. Eventually, the trail's originators hope it will stretch from the mighty 8,000m peak Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, considered the westernmost outlier of the Himalaya, to Namche Barwa in Tibet. It will connect five Asian countries - Bhutan, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
That version will stretch for 4,500km, a with a predicted completion date of February 2011. But for now the focus is on Nepal. For as well as being an enormous challenge, the GHT could also prove to be a welcome money-spinner for a country still recovering from 10 years of civil war. Some parts of Nepal have benefited hugely from tourism, like the Everest and Annapurna regions. Those areas without such famous mountains, particularly in remote western Nepal, haven't fared nearly so well.
Last year, I trekked along a section of the GHT through the Mugu district of western Nepal, a remote region peopled by Tibetan traders and animist tribes. Thousands of people were relying on aid from the World Food Programme, flown in by helicopter with the nearest roads a week's walk away. Many young men leave to find work abroad. Tourism, for all its faults, could really make a difference here.
Several adventurous souls have travelled the arc of the Himalaya before, while Richard and Adrian Crane, cousins of television presenter Nicholas Crane, actually ran it in 1983. But the idea of a defined and designated route for trekkers is more recent. In 2006, the Dutch development agency SNV and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development based in Kathmandu committed to developing the idea, and have brought together government agencies and local people.
But it's the hard work of one man, Australian trekker Robin Boustead, that has moved the project along most. After years of research (read his account here), he completed the trek in two sections, and has drawn an excellent free map of the trail's route as well as writing a guidebook. Every water source, camping ground and elevation has been meticulously logged with GPS, but he says that the route will undoubtedly develop as more people do it and discover better alternatives.
For those without the time – or the knees – to do the whole thing in one go, Boustead has broken the GHT down into nine sections, which you can pick off at your leisure. And if you think 20 grand is a lot of chapatties to spend on an adventure holiday, it's still a lot less than the current price of a trip up Everest – and a lot more exclusive. There have been four thousand ascents of the world's highest mountain, but only one man has done the GHT.
• The full-length Great Himalaya Trail opens in February 2011. Currently, only the Nepal section (1,700km) is available to traverse, as it is the only part that has been walked and mapped thoroughly. It costs £20,500, not including interntaional flights. It takes 157 days to complete, although it can be broken down to seven smaller stages up to 34 days. For more information and bookings call World Expeditions on 0800 0744 135 or visit worldexpeditions.co.uk
Researchers at Australia's Deakin University have published a paper in the British Journal of Nutrition showing evidence that human beings can taste fat -- that is, they can distinguish between two flavourless solutions in which one has more fat than the other.
I believe that this is true -- and that fat can offset bitterness the same way that sweet can. For example, raw cacao nibs mixed with cashew nuts taste sweet and chocolatey.
"We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes -- sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock)," Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.
"Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste -- fat."
Researchers tested 30 people's ability to taste a range of fatty acids in otherwise plain solutions and found that all were able to determine the taste -- though some required higher concentrations than others.
The US Federal Trade Commission is likely to oppose Google's acquisition of mobile ad outfit AdMob after requesting sworn declarations from Google competitors and advertisers, according to a report citing people with knowledge of the matter.…
A former TSA analyst has been indicted for computer crimes after being allegedly caught tampering with various terrorist watchlists (his work duties involved keeping these databases up to date). He'd been given notice that he was being fired before the incident. The article doesn't explain what he's suspected of doing, though the possibilities are interesting: adding enemies to watchlists? Taking people off of watchlists?
Douglas James Duchak, 46, was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday with two counts of damaging protected computers. According to a federal indictment, Duchak tried to compromise computers at the TSA's Colorado Springs Operations Center (CSOC) on Oct. 22, 2009, seven days after he'd being given two weeks notice that he was being dismissed. He was also charged with tampering with a TSA server that contained data from the U.S. Marshal's Service Warrant Information Network.
He "knowingly transmitted code into the CSOC server that contained the Terrorist Screening Database, and thereby attempted intentionally to cause damage to the CSOC computer and database," prosecutors said Wednesday in a press release.
Of course lots of not-so-safe-for-work things show up on ChatRoulette. What else can you expect when you offer anonymous access to strangers' webcams? But ChatRoulette Map makes the "service" not-so-anonymous by plotting screen shots on a map based on IP addresses. (via) And I saw someone who could be my neighbor naked and humping a stuffed raccoon
Aestetix sez, "Traditionally HOPE [ed: Hackers on Planet Earth, the annual NYC conference put on by 2600 Magazine] conferences have been more about the talks than the physical projects, but with the 2008 conference that started to change, and this time organizers are pushing for an even stronger showing of projects and tech art. This call for projects goes out to hackers, makers, technologists, artists, and free thinkers around the world. Come share your passions and ideas with 3,000+ of your soon-to-be closest friends."
Fun-loving hackers and improbable tech-art: what a match made in heaven! HOPE is probably my top conference that I've never been to (I almost made it in 1999 but the flight was cancelled!). I continue to miss it every year, despite my best efforts (it usually overlaps my birthday, which is family time, for obvious reasons!), but I vow to go someday.
I mean, just have a look at that call for proposals: games to be played by thousands of hackers over three floors of a massive hotel; midnight to 9AM sessions; hardware hacking village... Talk about nerdvana.
This is a very clever way to promote your performance motorcycle: BMW chains a very, very long tablecloth with a very, very elaborate cluster of place-settings to a S 1000 RR "superbike" and has a driver roar off, taking the cloth away and leaving the dinner setup intact. Impressive acceleration!
Systems software seller CA is shelling out $350m in cash to buy Nimsoft, an outfit that makes monitoring tools for managed service providers - aka cloud providers.…
Everybody is talking up the idea of integrated stacks these days, but some customers just won't listen. They think they can just pick and choose any technology they want, like in the old days.…
by By EDWARD WYATT and SEWELL CHAN at 21:50 PM, 03/10/2010
The main purpose of the agency, sometimes referred to as the National Institute of Finance, would be to flag problems in the industry before they spread and threaten the wider economy.
by By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS at 21:50 PM, 03/10/2010
Unemployment rose in 30 states in January, the Labor Department said, which was somewhat better than December, when 43 states reported higher jobless rates.
Art of the Title Sequence celebrates the world's greatest film/TV title sequences, those oft-experimental opening moments of a movie or TV show that really set the mood of what's to come. I've always been intrigued by this art form and it's fun to watch examples from around the globe. The site also features interviews with more than a dozen masters of the media. Art of the Title was mentioned in a New York Times article today about the South by Southwest Film Awards new Title Design Competition. Winners will be announced at the festival next week. According to the NYT, "The modern approach to film titles crystallized, more or less, in 1955 with "The Man With the Golden Arm." It opened with a kind of jazz ballet in which dancing white lines, over music by Elmer Bernstein, eventually tightened into the contorted arm of a drug addict.
From the NYT:
The sequence was designed by Saul Bass, who tossed aside a more mechanical approach that had largely prevailed in Hollywood to create story-telling openings for films like "Psycho," "North by Northwest" and, later, "Goodfellas" and "The Age of Innocence."
(Among the entries at South by Southwest, "Cigarette Girl," an independent film about a world in which smoking restrictions have murderous consequences, is one that recalls the Bass oeuvre: guns, cigarettes and people flicker between the real and the abstract, over a cool-toned soundtrack.)
Before his death in 1996, Bass had been nominated for Oscars three times, winning once, for his short films. But his work on the titles fell through the cracks of a film industry awards system that has given far more recognition to directors
As part of Converse's "Music Collection," they've issued a variety of Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers themed around The Clash, Blondie, Metallica, and Kurt Cobain. To be fair, they really should have made Cobain-branded Converse One Stars as those were the shoes he was wearing at his death. Now, I do dig The Clash sneakers seen here. But I am aware that Nike selling sneakers co-branded with the name/art of an iconic punk band is... problematic. That said, somebody from The Clash's camp (and Cobain's) had to approve these. Converse Music Collection
With the opening rounds over, it’s time for the top seeds to play in the Big East tournament. The first matchup is a familiar one: Georgetown versus Syracuse.
Eddy Curry hoped to resume his career Wednesday in the Knicks’ loss at San Antonio, but tightness in his right calf forced him to postpone his planned comeback.
The ban, announced by House Democratic leaders, wipes out one of the most lucrative and controversial means of awarding no-bid contracts to private firms.
Ernie Paragallo, the thoroughbred horse breeder and owner, was convicted on 33 charges of animal cruelty Wednesday for starving and neglecting horses on his Hudson Valley farm.
by By BEN SHPIGEL and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT at 21:25 PM, 03/10/2010
Alex Rodriguez said on Wednesday that his lawyers were working on scheduling an interview with federal authorities investigating the Canadian doctor, Anthony Galea.
The gloves and stick that Sidney Crosby used to to score Canada’s game-winning goal in the gold medal game were misplaced and will now be returned to the player.
The Board of Education in Kansas City, Mo., accepted a sweeping and contentious plan to shrink its school system in the face of dwindling enrollment, budget cuts and a $50 million deficit.
Gov. Patrick J. Quinn’s proposal to raise the tax by one percent was just one measure aimed at closing a budget deficit that some now estimate at $13 billion.
by By GEORGE HAY and ANTONY CURRIE at 21:04 PM, 03/10/2010
The revelation that Barclays, the British bank, is interested in buying a United States bank suggests it wants to become a familiar face on America’s Main Street, too.
The U.K. Statistics Authority's Richard Alldritt is an expert in how governments fudge the numbers. He and his math-police squad are rooting out the truth, whether it's to reveal the real gender pay gap or the actual rate of knife crime.
A Connecticut telephone company starts the first local, public packet-switching network. It paves the way for the always-on internet access we know today.
The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the government's budget deficit in February totaled $220.9 billion, the largest monthly figure yet and 14 percent higher than the previous record from February 2009. The deficit for the first five months of this budget year is $651.6 billion, 10.5 percent...
I've been noticing a lot of notice fatigue lately. By now, you may have become a bit overwhelmed with correspondence from your bank or credit union about mandated changes to your credit card account.
Unemployment rates rose in the District, Maryland and Virginia in January, a shift that economists said could be a positive sign for the economy because it suggests that discouraged job-seekers are feeling more optimistic about their prospects and have resumed looking for work.
The Senate approved a $140 billion package of tax breaks and aid to the unemployed Wednesday, the most substantial effort by the chamber to boost the nation's economy since it passed the stimulus bill last year.
Facing an election-year backlash over runaway spending and ethics scandals, House Democrats moved Wednesday to ban earmarks for private companies, sparking a war between the parties over which would embrace the most dramatic steps to change the way business is done in Washington.
ST. CHARLES, MO. -- President Obama made an impassioned case Wednesday for his health-care proposal, delivering a folksy, partisan argument for reform as industry groups prepare a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to defeat it.
Facing an election-year backlash over runaway spending and ethics scandals, House Democrats moved Wednesday to ban earmarks for private companies, sparking a war between the parties over which would embrace the most dramatic steps to change the way business is done in Washington.
The federal government has spent the past half year seeking to roll back its emergency efforts at propping up the financial markets -- with the notable exception of its involvement in mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office was notified in October by then-Rep. Eric Massa's top aide of concerns about the New York Democrat's behavior, two congressional sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday night.
ST. CHARLES, MO. -- President Obama made an impassioned case Wednesday for his health-care proposal, delivering a folksy, partisan argument for reform as industry groups prepare a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to defeat it.
Haitian President René Préval pleaded Wednesday for U.S. help plugging a multimillion-dollar budget gap caused by the Jan. 12 earthquake but said he got a cool reception from congressional leaders wary of handing over cash.
by Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray at 21:00 PM, 03/10/2010
As they push to finish health-care legislation by the end of the month, Democratic leaders in Congress are weighing whether to add another of President Obama's priorities to the package: a popular proposal to overhaul the federal student loan program.
The Senate approved a $140 billion package of tax breaks and aid to the unemployed Wednesday, the most substantial effort by the chamber to boost the nation's economy since it passed the stimulus bill last year.
Payday lenders, pawnbrokers, car dealers and other companies that make loans but do not hold bank charters would be shielded from the scrutiny of a proposed federal consumer protection regulator under the terms of a tentative compromise between senators who are attempting to craft a bipartisan bill.
Washington's biggest lobbying firm is on the verge of getting even bigger. Patton Boggs LLP, which rang up nearly $40 million in lobbying last year, is in negotiations to purchase the Breaux-Lott Leadership Group, according to sources familiar with the talks.
The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, which may soon overtake its counterpart in Iraq as the world's biggest diplomatic mission, is overworked, underappreciated and struggling to meet the demands placed on it by President Obama's new strategy, according to the State Department's inspector general.
These were among incidents reported recently by the Alexandria Police Department. For more information, call 703-838-4636 or visit http://www.alexandriava.gov/police .
This is the mysql man page, I'll put other information on here some other time.
mysql is a simple SQL shell (with GNU readline
capabilities). It supports interactive and non-interactive
use. When used interactively, query results are presented
in an ASCII-table format. When used non-interactively (for
example, as a filter), the result is presented in
tab-separated format. The output format can be changed
using command-line options.
If you have problems due to insufficient memory for large
result sets, use the --quick option. This forces mysql to
retrieve results from the server a row at a time rather
than retrieving the entire result set and buffering it in
memory before displaying it. This is done by using
mysql_use_result() rather than mysql_store_result() to
retrieve the result set.
Using mysql is very easy. Invoke it from the prompt of
your command interpreter as follows:
shell> mysql db_name
Or:
shell> mysql --user=user_name --password=your_password db_name
Then type an SQL statement, end it with `;, g, or G and
press Enter.
You can run a script simply like this:
shell> mysql db_name < script.sql > output.tab
OPTIONS
mysql supports the following options:
o --help, -?
Display a help message and exit.
o --batch, -B
Print results using tab as the column separator, with
each row on a new line. With this option, mysql does
not use the history file.
o --character-sets-dir=path
The directory where character sets are installed. See
Section 7.1, "The Character Set Used for Data and
Sorting".
o --compress, -C
Compress all information sent between the client and
the server if both support compression.
o --database=db_name, -D db_name
The database to use. This is useful mainly in an option
file.
o --debug[=debug_options], -# [debug_options]
Write a debugging log. The debug_options string often
is 'd:t:o,file_name'. The default is
'd:t:o,/tmp/mysql.trace'.
o --debug-info, -T
Print some debugging information when the program
exits.
o --default-character-set=charset
Use charset as the default character set. See
Section 7.1, "The Character Set Used for Data and
Sorting".
o --execute=statement, -e statement
Execute the statement and quit. The default output
format is like that produced with --batch. See
Section 3.1, "Using Options on the Command Line" for
some examples.
o --force, -f
Continue even if an SQL error occurs.
o --host=host_name, -h host_name
Connect to the MySQL server on the given host.
o --html, -H
Produce HTML output.
o --ignore-space, -i
Ignore spaces after function names. The effect of this
is described in the discussion for IGNORE_SPACE in the
section called "THE SERVER SQL MODE".
o --local-infile[={0|1}]
Enable or disable LOCAL capability for LOAD DATA
INFILE. With no value, the option enables LOCAL. It may
be given as --local-infile=0 or --local-infile=1 to
explicitly disable or enable LOCAL. Enabling LOCAL has
no effect if the server does not also support it.
o --named-commands, -G
Named commands are enabled. Long format commands are
allowed as well as shortened * commands. For example,
quit and q both are recognized.
o --no-auto-rehash, -A
No automatic rehashing. This option causes mysql to
start faster, but you must issue the rehash command if
you want to use table and column name completion.
o --no-beep, -b
Do not beep when errors occur.
o --no-named-commands, -g
Named commands are disabled. Use the * form only, or
use named commands only at the beginning of a line
ending with a semicolon (`;). As of MySQL 3.23.22,
mysql starts with this option enabled by default.
However, even with this option, long-format commands
still work from the first line.
o --no-pager
Do not use a pager for displaying query output. Output
paging is discussed further in the section called
"FBMYSQLFR COMMANDS".
o --no-tee
Do not copy output to a file. Tee files are discussed
further in the section called "FBMYSQLFR COMMANDS".
o --one-database, -O
Ignore statements except those for the default database
named on the command line. This is useful for skipping
updates to other databases in the binary log.
o --pager[=command]
Use the given command for paging query output. If the
command is omitted, the default pager is the value of
your PAGER environment variable. Valid pagers are less,
more, cat [> filename], and so forth. This option works
only on Unix. It does not work in batch mode. Output
paging is discussed further in the section called
"FBMYSQLFR COMMANDS".
o --password[=password], -p[password]
The password to use when connecting to the server. If
you use the short option form (-p), you cannot have a
space between the option and the password. If you omit
the password value following the --password or -p
option on the command line, you are prompted for one.
The password should be omitted on SysV-based UNIX
systems, as the password may be displayed in the output
of ps.
o --port=port_num, -P port_num
The TCP/IP port number to use for the connection.
o --prompt=format_str
Set the prompt to the specified format. The default is
mysql>. The special sequences that the prompt can
contain are described in the section called
"FBMYSQLFR COMMANDS".
o --protocol={TCP | SOCKET | PIPE | MEMORY}
The connection protocol to use.
o --quick, -q
Do not cache each query result, print each row as it is
received. This may slow down the server if the output
is suspended. With this option, mysql does not use the
history file.
o --raw, -r
Write column values without escape conversion. Often
used with the --batch option.
o --reconnect
If the connection to the server is lost, automatically
try to reconnect. A single reconnect attempt is made
each time the connection is lost. To suppress
reconnection behavior, use --skip-reconnect.
o --safe-updates, --i-am-a-dummy, -U
Allow only those UPDATE and DELETE statements that
specify rows to affect using key values. If you have
set this option in an option file, you can override it
by using --safe-updates on the command line. See the
section called "FBMYSQLFR TIPS" for more information
about this option.
o --secure-auth
Do not send passwords to the server in old (pre-4.1.1)
format. This prevents connections except for servers
that use the newer password format.
o --show-warnings
Cause warnings to be shown after each statement if
there are any. This option applies to interactive and
batch mode. This option was added in MySQL 5.0.6.
o --sigint-ignore
Ignore SIGINT signals (typically the result of typing
Control-C).
o --silent, -s
Silent mode. Produce less output. This option can be
given multiple times to produce less and less output.
o --skip-column-names, -N
Do not write column names in results.
o --skip-line-numbers, -L
Do not write line numbers for errors. Useful when you
want to compare result files that include error
messages.
o --socket=path, -S path
The socket file to use for the connection.
o --table, -t
Display output in table format. This is the default for
interactive use, but can be used to produce table
output in batch mode.
o --tee=file_name
Append a copy of output to the given file. This option
does not work in batch mode. Tee files are discussed
further in the section called "FBMYSQLFR COMMANDS".
o --unbuffered, -n
Flush the buffer after each query.
o --user=user_name, -u user_name
The MySQL username to use when connecting to the
server.
o --verbose, -v
Verbose mode. Produce more output. This option can be
given multiple times to produce more and more output.
(For example, -v -v -v produces the table output format
even in batch mode.)
o --version, -V
Display version information and exit.
o --vertical, -E
Print the rows of query output vertically. Without this
option, you can specify vertical output for individual
statements by terminating them with G.
o --wait, -w
If the connection cannot be established, wait and retry
instead of aborting.
o --xml, -X
Produce XML output.
You can also set the following variables by using
--var_name=value options:
o connect_timeout
The number of seconds before connection timeout.
(Default value is 0.)
o max_allowed_packet
The maximum packet length to send to or receive from
the server. (Default value is 16MB.)
o max_join_size
The automatic limit for rows in a join when using
--safe-updates. (Default value is 1,000,000.)
o net_buffer_length
The buffer size for TCP/IP and socket communication.
(Default value is 16KB.)
o select_limit
The automatic limit for SELECT statements when using
--safe-updates. (Default value is 1,000.)
It is also possible to set variables by using
--set-variable=var_name=value or -O var_name=value syntax.
This syntax is deprecated.
On Unix, the mysql client writes a record of executed
statements to a history file. By default, the history file
is named and is created in your home directory. To specify
a different file, set the value of the MYSQL_HISTFILE
environment variable.
If you do not want to maintain a history file, first
remove if it exists, and then use either of the following
techniques:
o Set the MYSQL_HISTFILE variable to /dev/null. To cause
this setting to take effect each time you log in, put
the setting in one of your shell's startup files.
o Create as a symbolic link to /dev/null:
shell> ln -s /dev/null /.mysql_history
You need do this only once.
FBMYSQLFR COMMANDS
mysql sends SQL statements that you issue to the server to
be executed. There is also a set of commands that mysql
itself interprets. For a list of these commands, type help
or h at the mysql> prompt:
mysql> help
List of all MySQL commands:
Note that all text commands must be first on line and end with ';'
? (?) Synonym for `help'.
clear (i Clear command.
connect (
) Reconnect to the server. Optional arguments are db and host.
delimiter (d) Set statement delimiter. NOTE: Takes the rest of the line as new delimiter.
edit () Edit command with .
ego (G) Send command to mysql server, display result vertically.
exit (q) Exit mysql. Same as quit.
go (g) Send command to mysql server.
help (h) Display this help.
nopager (
) Disable pager, print to stdout.
notee ( ) Don't write into outfile.
pager (P) Set PAGER [to_pager]. Print the query results via PAGER.
print (p) Print current command.
prompt (R) Change your mysql prompt.
quit (q) Quit mysql.
rehash (#) Rebuild completion hash.
source (.) Execute an SQL script file. Takes a file name as an argument.
status (s) Get status information from the server.
system (!) Execute a system shell command.
tee (T) Set outfile [to_outfile]. Append everything into given outfile.
use () Use another database. Takes database name as argument.
warnings (W) Show warnings after every statement.
nowarning (w) Don't show warnings after every statement.
Each command has both a long and short form. The long form
is not case sensitive; the short form is. The long form
can be followed by an optional semicolon terminator, but
the short form should not.
In the delimiter command, you should avoid the use of the
backslash (`) character because that is the escape
character for MySQL.
The edit, nopager, pager, and system commands work only in
Unix.
The status command provides some information about the
connection and the server you are using. If you are
running in --safe-updates mode, status also prints the
values for the mysql variables that affect your queries.
To log queries and their output, use the tee command. All
the data displayed on the screen is appended into a given
file. This can be very useful for debugging purposes also.
You can enable this feature on the command line with the
--tee option, or interactively with the tee command. The
tee file can be disabled interactively with the notee
command. Executing tee again re-enables logging. Without a
parameter, the previous file is used. Note that tee
flushes query results to the file after each statement,
just before mysql prints its next prompt.
Browsing or searching query results in interactive mode by
using Unix programs such as less, more, or any other
similar program is possible with the --pager option. If
you specify no value for the option, mysql checks the
value of the PAGER environment variable and sets the pager
to that. Output paging can be enabled interactively with
the pager command and disabled with nopager. The command
takes an optional argument; if given, the paging program
is set to that. With no argument, the pager is set to the
pager that was set on the command line, or stdout if no
pager was specified.
Output paging works only in Unix because it uses the
popen() function, which does not exist on Windows. For
Windows, the tee option can be used instead to save query
output, although this is not as convenient as pager for
browsing output in some situations.
A few tips about the pager command:
o You can use it to write to a file and the results go
only to the file:
mysql> pager cat > /tmp/log.txt
You can also pass any options for the program that you
want to use as your pager:
mysql> pager less -n -i -S
o In the preceding example, note the -S option. You may
find it very useful for browsing wide query results.
Sometimes a very wide result set is difficult to read
on the screen. The -S option to less can make the
result set much more readable because you can scroll it
horizontally using the left-arrow and right-arrow keys.
You can also use -S interactively within less to switch
the horizontal-browse mode on and off. For more
information, read the less manual page:
shell> man less
o You can specify very complex pager commands for
handling query output:
mysql> pager cat | tee /dr1/tmp/res.txt
| tee /dr2/tmp/res2.txt | less -n -i -S
In this example, the command would send query results
to two files in two different directories on two
different filesystems mounted on /dr1 and /dr2, yet
still display the results onscreen via less.
You can also combine the tee and pager functions. Have a
tee file enabled and pager set to less, and you are able
to browse the results using the less program and still
have everything appended into a file the same time. The
difference between the Unix tee used with the pager
command and the mysql built-in tee command is that the
built-in tee works even if you do not have the Unix tee
available. The built-in tee also logs everything that is
printed on the screen, whereas the Unix tee used with
pager does not log quite that much. Additionally, tee file
logging can be turned on and off interactively from within
mysql. This is useful when you want to log some queries to
a file, but not others.
The default mysql> prompt can be reconfigured. The string
for defining the prompt can contain the following special
sequences:
Option Description
v The server version
d The current database
h The server host
p The current TCP/IP port or socket file
Your username
YOUR FULL USER_NAME ACCOUNT NAME
\ A LITERAL ` BACKSLASH CHARACTER
A NEWLINE CHARACTER
A TAB CHARACTER
A SPACE (A SPACE FOLLOWS THE BACKSLASH)
_ A SPACE
R THE CURRENT TIME, IN 24-HOUR MILITARY TIME (0-23)
THE CURRENT TIME, STANDARD 12-HOUR TIME (1-12)
M MINUTES OF THE CURRENT TIME
Y THE CURRENT YEAR, TWO DIGITS
Y THE CURRENT YEAR, FOUR DIGITS
D THE FULL CURRENT DATE
S SECONDS OF THE CURRENT TIME
W THE CURRENT DAY OF THE WEEK IN THREE-LETTER FORMAT (MON, TUE, ...)
P AM/PM
O THE CURRENT MONTH IN NUMERIC FORMAT
O THE CURRENT MONTH IN THREE-LETTER FORMAT (JAN, FEB, ...)
IA COUNTER THAT INCREMENTS FOR EACH STATEMENT YOU ISSUE
S SEMICOLON'SINGLE QUOTE"DOUBLE QUOTE.PP ` FOLLOWED BY
ANY OTHER LETTER JUST BECOMES THAT LETTER.
IF YOU SPECIFY THE PROMPT COMMAND WITH NO ARGUMENT, MYSQL
RESETS THE PROMPT TO THE DEFAULT OF MYSQL>.
YOU CAN SET THE PROMPT IN SEVERAL WAYS:
O USE AN ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE
YOU CAN SET THE MYSQL_PS1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE TO A
PROMPT STRING. FOR EXAMPLE:
SHELL> EXPORT MYSQL_PS1="(@H) [D]> "
O USE AN OPTION FILE
YOU CAN SET THE PROMPT OPTION IN THE [MYSQL] GROUP OF
ANY MYSQL OPTION FILE, SUCH AS /ETC/MY.CNF OR THE FILE
IN YOUR HOME DIRECTORY. FOR EXAMPLE:
[MYSQL]
PROMPT=(\U@\H) [\D]>\_
IN THIS EXAMPLE, NOTE THAT THE BACKSLASHES ARE DOUBLED.
IF YOU SET THE PROMPT USING THE PROMPT OPTION IN AN
OPTION FILE, IT IS ADVISABLE TO DOUBLE THE BACKSLASHES
WHEN USING THE SPECIAL PROMPT OPTIONS. THERE IS SOME
OVERLAP IN THE SET OF ALLOWABLE PROMPT OPTIONS AND THE
SET OF SPECIAL ESCAPE SEQUENCES THAT ARE RECOGNIZED IN
OPTION FILES. (THESE SEQUENCES ARE LISTED IN
SECTION 3.2, "USING OPTION FILES".) THE OVERLAP MAY
CAUSE YOU PROBLEMS IF YOU USE SINGLE BACKSLASHES. FOR
EXAMPLE, S IS INTERPRETED AS A SPACE RATHER THAN AS
THE CURRENT SECONDS VALUE. THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLE SHOWS
HOW TO DEFINE A PROMPT WITHIN AN OPTION FILE TO INCLUDE
THE CURRENT TIME IN HH:MM:SS> FORMAT:
[MYSQL]
PROMPT="\R:\M:\S> "
O USE A COMMAND-LINE OPTION
YOU CAN SET THE --PROMPT OPTION ON THE COMMAND LINE TO
MYSQL. FOR EXAMPLE:
SHELL> MYSQL --PROMPT="(@H) [D]> "
(USER) [DATABASE]>
O INTERACTIVELY
YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR PROMPT INTERACTIVELY BY USING THE
PROMPT (OR R) COMMAND. FOR EXAMPLE:
MYSQL> PROMPT (@H) [D]>_
PROMPT SET TO '(@H) [D]>_'
(USER) [DATABASE]>
(USER) [DATABASE]> PROMPT
RETURNING TO DEFAULT PROMPT OF MYSQL>
MYSQL>
EXECUTING SQL STATEMENTS FROM A TEXT FILE
THE MYSQL CLIENT TYPICALLY IS USED INTERACTIVELY, LIKE
THIS:
SHELL> MYSQL DB_NAME
HOWEVER, IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE TO PUT YOUR SQL STATEMENTS IN
A FILE AND THEN TELL MYSQL TO READ ITS INPUT FROM THAT
FILE. TO DO SO, CREATE A TEXT FILE TEXT_FILE THAT CONTAINS
THE STATEMENTS YOU WISH TO EXECUTE. THEN INVOKE MYSQL AS
SHOWN HERE:
SHELL> MYSQL DB_NAME < TEXT_FILE
YOU CAN ALSO START YOUR TEXT FILE WITH A USE DB_NAME
STATEMENT. IN THIS CASE, IT IS UNNECESSARY TO SPECIFY THE
DATABASE NAME ON THE COMMAND LINE:
SHELL> MYSQL < TEXT_FILE
IF YOU ARE RUNNING MYSQL, YOU CAN EXECUTE AN SQL SCRIPT
FILE USING THE SOURCE OR . COMMAND:
MYSQL> SOURCE FILENAME
MYSQL> . FILENAME
SOMETIMES YOU MAY WANT YOUR SCRIPT TO DISPLAY PROGRESS
INFORMATION TO THE USER; FOR THIS YOU CAN INSERT SOME
LINES LIKE
SELECT '' AS ' ';
WHICH OUTPUTS .
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT BATCH MODE, SEE SECTION 5,
"USING MYSQL IN BATCH MODE".
FBMYSQLFR TIPS
THIS SECTION DESCRIBES SOME TECHNIQUES THAT CAN HELP YOU
USE MYSQL MORE EFFECTIVELY.
DISPLAYING QUERY RESULTS VERTICALLY
SOME QUERY RESULTS ARE MUCH MORE READABLE WHEN DISPLAYED
VERTICALLY, INSTEAD OF IN THE USUAL HORIZONTAL TABLE
FORMAT. QUERIES CAN BE DISPLAYED VERTICALLY BY TERMINATING
THE QUERY WITH G INSTEAD OF A SEMICOLON. FOR EXAMPLE,
LONGER TEXT VALUES THAT INCLUDE NEWLINES OFTEN ARE MUCH
EASIER TO READ WITH VERTICAL OUTPUT:
MYSQL> SELECT * FROM MAILS WHERE LENGTH(TXT) < 300 LIMIT 300,1G
*************************** 1. ROW ***************************
MSG_NRO: 3068
DATE: 2000-03-01 23:29:50
TIME_ZONE: +0200
MAIL_FROM: MONTY
REPLY: MONTY.SPAM.COM
MAIL_TO: "THIMBLE SMITH"
SBJ: UTF-8
TXT: >>>>> "THIMBLE" == THIMBLE SMITH WRITES:
THIMBLE> HI. I THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA. IS ANYONE FAMILIAR
THIMBLE> WITH UTF-8 OR UNICODE? OTHERWISE, I'LL PUT THIS ON MY
THIMBLE> TODO LIST AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.
YES, PLEASE DO THAT.
REGARDS,
MONTY
FILE: INBOX-JANI-1
HASH: 190402944
1 ROW IN SET (0.09 SEC)
USING THE --SAFE-UPDATES OPTION
FOR BEGINNERS, A USEFUL STARTUP OPTION IS --SAFE-UPDATES
(OR --I-AM-A-DUMMY, WHICH HAS THE SAME EFFECT). IT IS
HELPFUL FOR CASES WHEN YOU MIGHT HAVE ISSUED A DELETE FROM
TBL_NAME STATEMENT BUT FORGOTTEN THE WHERE CLAUSE.
NORMALLY, SUCH A STATEMENT DELETES ALL ROWS FROM THE
TABLE. WITH --SAFE-UPDATES, YOU CAN DELETE ROWS ONLY BY
SPECIFYING THE KEY VALUES THAT IDENTIFY THEM. THIS HELPS
PREVENT ACCIDENTS.
WHEN YOU USE THE --SAFE-UPDATES OPTION, MYSQL ISSUES THE
FOLLOWING STATEMENT WHEN IT CONNECTS TO THE MYSQL SERVER:
SET SQL_SAFE_UPDATES=1,SQL_SELECT_LIMIT=1000, SQL_MAX_JOIN_SIZE=1000000;
SEE SECTION 5.3, "SET SYNTAX".
THE SET STATEMENT HAS THE FOLLOWING EFFECTS:
O YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO EXECUTE AN UPDATE OR DELETE
STATEMENT UNLESS YOU SPECIFY A KEY CONSTRAINT IN THE
WHERE CLAUSE OR PROVIDE A LIMIT CLAUSE (OR BOTH). FOR
EXAMPLE:
UPDATE TBL_NAME SET NOT_KEY_COLUMN=VAL WHERE KEY_COLUMN=VAL;
UPDATE TBL_NAME SET NOT_KEY_COLUMN=VAL LIMIT 1;
O ALL LARGE SELECT RESULTS ARE AUTOMATICALLY LIMITED TO
1,000 ROWS UNLESS THE STATEMENT INCLUDES A LIMIT
CLAUSE.
O MULTIPLE-TABLE SELECT STATEMENTS THAT PROBABLY NEED TO
EXAMINE MORE THAN 1,000,000 ROW COMBINATIONS ARE
ABORTED.
TO SPECIFY LIMITS OTHER THAN 1,000 AND 1,000,000, YOU CAN
OVERRIDE THE DEFAULTS BY USING --SELECT_LIMIT AND
--MAX_JOIN_SIZE OPTIONS:
SHELL> MYSQL --SAFE-UPDATES --SELECT_LIMIT=500 --MAX_JOIN_SIZE=10000
DISABLING MYSQL AUTO-RECONNECT
IF THE MYSQL CLIENT LOSES ITS CONNECTION TO THE SERVER
WHILE SENDING A QUERY, IT IMMEDIATELY AND AUTOMATICALLY
TRIES TO RECONNECT ONCE TO THE SERVER AND SEND THE QUERY
AGAIN. HOWEVER, EVEN IF MYSQL SUCCEEDS IN RECONNECTING,
YOUR FIRST CONNECTION HAS ENDED AND ALL YOUR PREVIOUS
SESSION OBJECTS AND SETTINGS ARE LOST: TEMPORARY TABLES,
THE AUTOCOMMIT MODE, AND USER AND SESSION VARIABLES. THIS
BEHAVIOR MAY BE DANGEROUS FOR YOU, AS IN THE FOLLOWING
EXAMPLE WHERE THE SERVER WAS SHUT DOWN AND RESTARTED
WITHOUT YOU KNOWING IT:
MYSQL> SET =1;
QUERY OK, 0 ROWS AFFECTED (0.05 SEC)
MYSQL> INSERT INTO T VALUES();
ERROR 2006: MYSQL SERVER HAS GONE AWAY
NO CONNECTION. TRYING TO RECONNECT...
CONNECTION ID: 1
CURRENT DATABASE: TEST
QUERY OK, 1 ROW AFFECTED (1.30 SEC)
MYSQL> SELECT * FROM T;
+------+
| A |
+------+
| NULL |
+------+
1 ROW IN SET (0.05 SEC)
THE USER VARIABLE HAS BEEN LOST WITH THE CONNECTION,
AND AFTER THE RECONNECTION IT IS UNDEFINED. IF IT IS
IMPORTANT TO HAVE MYSQL TERMINATE WITH AN ERROR IF THE
CONNECTION HAS BEEN LOST, YOU CAN START THE MYSQL CLIENT
WITH THE --SKIP-RECONNECT OPTION.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE REFER TO THE MYSQL REFERENCE
MANUAL, WHICH MAY ALREADY BE INSTALLED LOCALLY AND WHICH
IS ALSO AVAILABLE ONLINE AT HTTP://DEV.MYSQL.COM/DOC/.
AUTHOR
MYSQL AB (HTTP://WWW.MYSQL.COM/). THIS SOFTWARE COMES
WITH NO WARRANTY.
2008 scandalz.net
One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least
somebody's listening.
-- Franklin P. Jones
"We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes -- sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock)," Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.
Aestetix sez, "Traditionally HOPE [ed: Hackers on Planet Earth, the annual NYC conference put on by 2600 Magazine] conferences have been more about the talks than the physical projects, but with the 2008 conference that started to change, and this time organizers are pushing for an even stronger showing of projects and tech art. This call for projects goes out to hackers, makers, technologists, artists, and free thinkers around the world. Come share your passions and ideas with 3,000+ of your soon-to-be closest friends."
As part of Converse's "Music Collection," they've issued a variety of Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers themed around The Clash, Blondie, Metallica, and Kurt Cobain. To be fair, they really should have made Cobain-branded Converse One Stars as those were the shoes he was wearing at his 
