The latest episode of the podcast I jointly produce is a blatant attempt at project dissemination. Find it at http://www.absolutely-intercultural.com This is not the appropriate media for detailed project descriptions but it can give a very broad brush idea of the concept and convey a little of the atmosphere of the project meeting and the location.

As an aside, I keep reading that elgg is ideal for podcast hosting but I don't notice many people doing this and I'm wondering why.

I was very taken by the initiative of Michelle Hvid who organised a mass dining out for so-called New Danes to meet with old Danes, earlier in the year and she will shortly be featuring in the Absolutely Intercultural podcast.

Then I noticed that I had missed almost a whole TV series on Danish TV chronicling the efforts of a journalist to find out how to achieve peace in the Middle East. Fortunately the series is available on the internet at the TV channel website and anyone can  access all eight episodes of 'Ouafa's Peace Mission'. Click on 'Se alle programmer' for access to all 8 programmes (though I can't get episode 4 to play). Even if you don't speak Danish it is worth seeing some of the episodes since there are many interviews in English in the Middlle East. I must say that I naively expected a solution or at least some pointers for individual action but what we got was nevertheless very interesting and thought provoking such as an examination of the role of the media in creating stereotypes and the potential for art to bring people together. There were also some interesting examinations of identity starting with the fact that the Danish presenter is herself of Moroccan origin. But we also met Christian Palestinians and an Israeli villager where Muslims, Jews and Christians live peacably side by side. The villager, who was Muslim, explained how he was adamant that his Jewish friends should never bring their dogs inside his house since that is very much against his cultural upbringing.

Having seen as many of the programmes as I could I then tried to find out more about the presenter. On her website it proclaimed that she was a qualified Kaos Pilot. When I investigated I discovered that this is an institution right on my doorstep which offers project management and business training with a social conscience which sounds like a great idea to me. On reading further I discovered that this was probably the place where I first used the Internet in 1994. I had wandered into this place having walked past it countless times on my way to and from Danish classes. When I needed background information for some of the European countries I was describing in a book that was the place I went to, to log onto the famous CIA website. I recall that there was quite a buzz to the place though I was never exactly sure what they did or why they were there.

I must admit that 12 years later I found it difficult to understand the philosophy behind the Kaos Pilots and I found it difficult to follow the thread of Ouafa Rian's TV series but always there is this feeling that they are a 'good thing'.

This (Real Player video) piece from the BBC is very interesting. Apparantly there is something called Foreign Accent Syndrome and a Newcastle woman suffers from it now after a stroke. It means that she has lost her Newcastle accent in favour of an accent which many people find hard to place but which has variously been identified as French-Canadian, Jamaican and East European.

What is noteworthy is the reaction of other people who don't believe her when she says she is from Newcastle and that her whole sense of identity seems to have been badly hit. In a related text article an even worse case is described of a Norwegian woman who acquired a German accent during the second World War and was ostracised by her community as a result.

I must say that the Geordie woman still sounds like a Geordie woman to me but I can hear Jamaican every so often. As a Brit I am used to the idea of regional accents helping or hindering in life but I have never considered how a change in accent can have such a drastic effect on the way people around you react.

OK so it took a little while but it has started. I had my first three spam comments today here on elgg. I don't want to restrict comments to logged in users since that kind of restricts the potential for conversation. Could we have a gate like on some blogs where an alphanumeric code in gif format has to be input before the comment is posted?

The ring tones WERE great though! :)

Added 14 August: I have been getting a huge number of spam comments here in elgg but they seem to mysteriously disappear when I go in to delete them. Is this some new feature in the latest upgrade? However it works I am very grateful. It is a great time saver since you cannot delete more than one comment at a time.

Added 23 August: Although there seems to be some benevolent angel deleting spam comments before I get there, this is still disturbing to people who have asked to follow certain posts as they also get alerted when I get spam. I therefore have had no choice but to restrict comments to logged in users.

I STILL THINK IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA FOR ELGG TO INSTITUTE A VERIFICATION CODE WHEN PEOPLE ADD COMMENTS AS I AM SURE THAT THIS DETERS MOST SPAMMERS.