They already seems to be getting some webtime this week, but the amazing ruins unearthed at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey are worth reading about.

I'm delighted and somewhat awed at the idea that our ancestors were building temples, and had the social structures to support such building 11,500 years ago.

I watched Kim Jong-Il's Comedy Club on BBC Four last night. It was a compelling piece of television and it's hard to articulate my reaction to it.

Quoting from the BBC website's description: "A journalist with no scruples and a pair of Danish comedians travel to North Korea with a mission to use humour to uncover the truth behind one of the world's most notorious regimes."

Essentially the three men, Mads Brugger, Danish journalist, and Jakob and Simon, two Danish/Korean comedians, posed as a Danish cultural exchange group hoping to perform a well-known Danish skit as theatre for a North Korean audience. In the process they shone a light on the remarkably twisted and Orwellian life of North Korea, and in so doing they faced the reality of their own lies too.

I was both moved to laughter (painful to me as I have a very sore chest from coughing lately) and tears. The absurd contrast between the edifice of lies and fear that underpins everything in North Korea and the presentation of a sketch about a transvestite called Mrs Kristoff to a solemn audience of North Koreans had me in stitches, while the segment on the show school filled with indoctrinated children stopped the laughter with chilling speed.

I had the greatest respect and sympathy for Jakob, the younger of the two comedians. He has a condition involving a muscular palsy. This let him act as the troupe's voice of truth. No Korean could understand a word he spoke in Danish, so he was able to comment in real time about the regime. A brave and funny young man who, it must be said, was being used for propaganda purposes by both the North Koreans and Mads Brugger, yet managed to stand apart from both agendas.

Best and most troubling piece of television I've watched in a long while.

(lifted from Warren Ellis)

Had alaimacerc round on Sunday for curry and boardgames. He made the slog through the snow and slush so we broke out my new copy of Puerto Rico, a Christmas present from my wife.

It was a heavy shipping game, with surprisingly weak building from me and Alai. We ran out the VPs to end the game. Final scores were Alai 28vp+18bldg = 46, Myles 37vp+19bldg = 56, Sam 26vp+31bldg = 57! Sam was the only one to get any of the 4-pt building manned, which netted her 13 points. Pipped at the post, but a nicely close game in the end.

Best birthday wishes to curiouswombat and a turkey-free day to all.

Thanks to gillo and sammywol

Peter Watts had a bloody awful day. Also seen on Boing Boing and James Nicoll's LJ. I'm sending a donation to his legal fund at donate@rifters.com.

I thought I had a lot of tapes to worry about but then I saw the tape library for the Large Hadron Collider.

More generally here are many cool pics of the incredible technology of the LHC.

We had alaimacerc round last night and played Ticket to Ride: Europe. It was a very north-western sort of game, with very little track laid south or east of Zurich for the first half of the game. I thought I was the winner when clinching the 10-pt longest route bonus to leapfrog over Sam's score, but alaimacerc pulled a massive 60-something points in tickets and leapfrogged me in turn. Final scores were as close as I've seen - alaimacerc 116, Myles 114, Sam 112.

Finally had another Wednesday night gaming session and played Ra the Dice Game. Luck was not with us and many suns were rolled, making for a quick game. Ra smiled on alaimacerc, however, who won handily aided by a generous Nile. Final scores Alai 49 (about 33 from Nile floods!), Sam & Irishkate 40, Myles 38.