‘[…] the whole point of the web is full and comprehensive linking, and Google ranks pages by the numbers of other pages that link to them, it is hardly surprising that blogs are winning over established media. Nobody in his right mind would link to a mere abstract. A few Big Media outlets understand this elementary fact. The Guardian and The Observer sites are exemplary in this regard – which is why they are beginning to outrank their competitors (for example, the London Times and the New York Times) in web searches.’

‘”I’ve got a big bed and no-one to share it with me” [Anouska] says. They then started mentioning “Follow The Van“.

The rest of the girls then start saying “follow the courgette”, “I don’t get it” says Anouska …

Meanwhile in the living room the boys are discussing Star Trek.’

‘…now that we have the idea in our heads that “intelligence” appears when systems become increasingly complex, we can approach my notion of “living comics.” Think of a STORY. My contention is that a story can be made sufficiently complex that it achieves some measure of self-awareness – in fact I believe this is what’s happening when authors talk about characters “taking control” or when they say “the story just took a turn I wasn’t planning…”. When I was doing The Invisibles, I was definitely aware of the book as a living entity which was interacting with me in many of the ways a human being might but at the time I was thinking of this “aliveness” as a kind of mystical quality not as an emergent property that could reproduced without recourse to the spirit world. I’d like to see if I can deliberately “wake up” a story and let it make its own decisions.’

• Official Big Brother Site … ‘Anouska was more hurt than she was letting on. “Whatever we’ve done in the last hour,” she told Scott, “has irritated someone in some way. “The last hour I’ve been me,” she went on, “Give a s**t! Give-a-s**t! Where’s my wine, Goddamit!” she finished, marching off towards the kitchen.’
• Big Bro 4 — Unofficial site … ‘Todays top headline: the victims enter the house’
• Big Brother’s not-so-dirty dozen — BBC News Report … ‘”Have you seen her bum?”, screamed Davina McCall as Anouska tottered into the house on her heels. And with that, the tone for this year’s Big Brother was set…’
• Diamond Geezer: ‘It’s back. 64 days of meaningless addiction. Excellent.’
• Barbelith on BB4: ‘…Cameron, the happy clappy Bappy that deserves a slappy.’

‘The history of warfare is marked by periodic leaps in technology – the triumph of the longbow at Crécy, in 1346; the first decisive use of air power, in World War I; the terrifying destructiveness of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, in 1945. And now this: a dazzling array of technology that signals the arrival of digital warfare. What we saw in Gulf War II was a new age of fighting that combined precision weapons, unprecedented surveillance of the enemy, agile ground forces, and – above all – a real-time communications network that kept the far-flung operation connected minute by minute. Welcome to the so-called revolution in military affairs…’

‘I’m headed north again, this time with a 97-vehicle convoy whose mission is to deliver missile launchers and set up a Tactical Operations Center just south of the Baghdad suburbs. But there’s a problem; the convoy makes two massive U-turns in search of a side road that leads to a much-needed fuel stop. “We’re lima lima mike foxtrot in Iraq,” says Sergeant Frank Cleveland, who’s riding shotgun in the truck where I’ve hitched a ride. “What does that mean?” I ask from the backseat. “We’re lost like a motherfucker,” he says.’

‘Q: Did the Rushdie fatwa cause you trepidation when you were writing your book, in which you lampoon Islamic separatists?

Zadie: I wrote White Teeth in the late nineties. I didn’t really feel trepidatious about it. It was a different time.’