The Weekly Round-Up: 15.04.05

What do you buy the man who has everything...?

An iPod, of course. George W. Bush (who, with the exception of 'a brain', may well meet the above criterion) is now the proud owner of one of the must-have gadgets, which was bought for him by his twin daughters - presumably thinking it would be funny watching Daddy using it as a tool to crack nuts.

Either that or they thought the leader of the free world (surely the '90 cents per track world'?) would have a flunky to configure and load his iPod for him.

And so he does - and this week, seizing an opportunity to show how hip and trendy the President is, that flunky told the world what tunes are on the 'First iPod' (or 'iPod One'?).

And there are some surprises.

Rather than 'sing-a-long Sesame Street' or 'fun with Barney' or something similarly stimulating for the President's mind, Bush apparently favours a bit of Van Morrison, as well as other staples from the 1960s and '70s.

Among the other artists are Credence Clearwater Revival, which must be music to the ears of former frontman John Fogerty, who has campaigned vociferously against the US President and the war in Iraq.

Good to hear Bush spots the message in the music.

His favourite song is Van the Man's 'Brown-eyed Girl', according to flunky-to-the-chief Blake Gottesman, who has the job of loading the unit with songs. (It puts the Round-Up in mind of a recent comedy sketch... you may know it.)

"Are you sure you want Eminem, sir? You know he's really said some pretty mean things about you..."
"I want that one!"

So far a clearly very busy Gottesman has managed to load a staggering 250 tracks onto the iPod.

So just 9,750 to go then.

The Round-Up suggests Bush may enjoy some of the following:

'Killing an Arab' - The Cure
'Bombs Away' - The Grateful Dead
'Deserters Song' - Mercury Rev
'War Crimes' - Special AKA
'America is Not the World' - Morrissey
'Under the Influence' - Chemical Brothers
'Something Stupid' - Frank Sinatra
'I Started Something I Couldn't Finish' - The Smiths

Or one that could cover everything from failing to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, to the controversial weapons of mass destruction debacle...

'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' by U2.

Any other suggestions gladly received at editorial@silicon.com.

(So unfair. When the rest of us spend a few hours at our desk loading our iPod with tunes it's called skiving, but when Bush's aide does it, they call it a job.)

Speaking of matters musical - those British purveyors of middle-of-the-road geography teacher-pop Coldplay have announced their forthcoming single will come out as a mobile phone ringtone before more conventional formats are available.

US mobile operator Cingular launched the pre-release scheme this week with Coldplay track 'Speed of Sound', but will include other artists as well.

John Burbank, Cingular vice president of marketing, said the programme came out of discussions with Coldplay's manager, Phil Harvey, who was looking for an original way to promote the band's new album.

(If Harvey is interested, the Round-Up's suggestion would be a free subscription to the Guardian and leather elbow patches with every copy sold. That should strike a chord with the Coldplay faithful.)

Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, has a child named Apple... The Round-Up waits expectantly for a future brother or sister.

"...and this is little baby iPod..."

And while on the subject of iPods, a member of the silicon.com team reported back from a trip to San Francisco this week with news of an interesting sight.

In the lobby of one of the fancier hotels was a vending machine which offered, as well as the standard hotel fare of toothbrush, floss, chewing gum, crisps and chocolate, no lesser an item than the iPod mini.

Yes, you read it correctly. An iPod mini vending machine. Our 'man in San Fran' didn't have the money to buy one just to see it work, but it's interesting to see the gadgets included in with other 'things you may have arrived without, or may need in a hurry'.

"Hey honey, did you see my iPod?"
"Oh, I think you may have left it behind."
"No worries, I'll see if they sell them in reception."

We have now seen it all.

Other members of the silicon.com team - and extended family - have also been on their travels this week. As well as having somebody Stateside in San Francisco and Las Vegas, we had somebody in the South of France... which was Nice. And silicon.com columnist Peter Cochrane has been notching up the air miles as well - as he tends to do. Peter launched his new column this week in more of a blog format. Check it out.

While in San Francisco, silicon.com attended a Salesforce.com event. It was something about new releases and some bluster about the failings of its many rivals and the death of software, which was all very impressive... but the real highlight was without a doubt the beard which has been grown by CEO and chairman Marc Benioff - who was schooled in the ways of bullish leadership and outspokenness by his former boss Larry Ellison.

And now it would appear he is also modelling his facial hair on the fast-living playboy boss of Oracle - who wore a beard for many years.

One delegate suggested it was just Benioff's rightful "beard stage" - a rite of passage for any CEO.

But others - predominantly the UK attendees - noted something far more striking as a result of this growth.

It makes Benioff an absolute dead ringer for Everest-scaling, decibel threatening ac-TOR Brian Blessed.

"Gordon's alive!"

(As many of you will know that line was shouted by the mighty Blessed in Flash Gordon. The Round-Up mentions it apropos of nothing other than thinking it's a seminal moment in motion picture history.)

"What did you think of Benioff?" asked one delegate of another when leaving the event and stepping into a lift in the Four Seasons Hotel.

"I thought he was excellent in Flash Gordon," came the reply, which silicon.com thought long and hard about claiming as its own before acknowledging with a gentle chuckle.

Also proving silicon.com really wasn't at the races when it came to San Franciscan one-liners, another journalist - from a rival title of all things - came up with a particularly pithy phrase to sum up the self-promotion for which Benioff is well-known in tech circles.

"I think they'd probably fly journalists out here to see it if Benioff had done a particularly large 'pony'," said our peer.

(For those who don't speak rhyming slang that will make no sense at all. And it's probably best left that way.)

But the underlying point would appear to be that some companies still like to splash the cash getting their message out there.

It's a state of affairs which other Salesforce.com staff have certainly noted. One was overheard saying "marketing must have, like, a billion dollars".

"It would be nice to get some of that loving over here," he added on his way to doubtless drink more than his fair share of those dollars at the end-of-conference party in the Ruby Skye nightclub.

And speaking of slightly overblown gestures - but ones we'd heartily encourage - hats off to security vendor Clearswift, who will be driving select journalists to InfoSec next week in limousines.

(That said, for all the Round-Up's many dreams involving limousines it is safe to say in none of them the other person in the back was an exec from a security vendor.)

For those who have never had the pleasure, InfoSec is a large trade show held annually at Olympia. In general it's a bit of a scrum and for journalists encouraged to wear name badges it feels a lot like being a zebra made to enter lion territory wearing a flashing sign that says 'FOOD'.

Clearswift (or more likely their PR agency) hatched the cunning stunt in an attempt to get some quality one-to-one time with journalists before they throw themselves to the hunting packs of PRs and marketing types prowling the plains of Olympia for prey.

And a very civilised approach it is too. Others are trying different strategies - such as breakfasts and lunches before and during the show, offsite in a nearby location. And there will come a point where all these offsite meetings start to join up, meaning some people attending the show will never actually need to step foot in Olympia.

Which sounds like a lovely dream.

Though of course we're duty-bound to point out that a ride in a fancy car isn't enough to guarantee nice things get written.

Still on the subject of writing nice things - or not - Joe Gordon (Flash's brother?) has been back in the news this week.

Though of course it's very unlikely you'll remember Joe Gordon, unless you happen to be, well, Joe Gordon probably.

He was the hapless blogger who was sacked by employer Waterstone's for writing unflattering things about them in his blog, The Woolamaloo Gazette.

Among his many witticisms were references to 'Bastardstones'.

What he did there was remove 'Water' and replace it with 'Bastard'... you may have worked it out for yourself, but just in case you're not on the same level as Joe...

But 'lo!' and - as surely as night follows day - 'behold!' Gordon has now been offered his job back at the bookseller, after successfully appealing against his dismissal.

So Waterstone's endured all the negative press it received for sacking him, waited until the storm had blown over and then reopened the whole sorry affair once more.

Seems sensible, unless - if you'll allow the Round-Up to be cynical for a moment - they realised that no publicity is bad publicity... could 'Gordon-Gate', as the Round-Up has now decided it was called, have resulted in a sales spike? It was picked up everywhere... certainly they need not have let it run to a full appeal.

Gordon worked for Waterstone's for 11 years before he was sacked and clearly being a man of his principles he has told the book chain he'll not be accepting their kind offer because he's now got a £500,000 per year publishing deal...

Oh, OK he hasn't - he actually works in a comic shop, but good for him for sticking to his guns.

The Round-Up hopes he finds a mint-condition Spiderman #1 at a boot sale for £1.

Gordon wrote in his blog: "I was offered reinstatement but by this time I had been offered a new post with Forbidden Planet. To be fair, Waterstone's got together quite freely with Paul, my stalwart union rep, to work out an equitable and amicable deal in place of reinstatement and so, after a long haul these events have now come to a quite civilised end."

As has the Round-Up for another week. Now read some news and have great weekends.

• Men paid more than women for same IT support
• Skype spruced up with paid-for services
• Broadband fuels online gambling boom
• iPod, Mac sales push Apple earnings past expectations
• Thief swipes top UK prosecutor's laptop
• Thirty-three more UK file-sharers' heads on the block