A remake of a classic 1974 film opens in December, written and directed by one of The X-Files‘ regular writers. In the tradition of such remakes, and in light of some reviews, I don’t hold out hope of it being particularly good, but I did enjoy the trailer I caught at the cinema last night:

Yesterday took me to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh for a visit to their library and museum organised via ELISA. The college itself is on Nicholson Street near Edinburgh University, its pillared frontage opposite the Festival Theatre standing out amongst the banks and restaurants.

The very enthusiastic librarian kindly showed us a number of very old books including a Book of Hours and a Nuremberg Chronicle, both from the 15th century and in Latin. The latter is an early printed work, full of marvellous wood-cut illustrations and charting the history of the world up to 1493 (though omitting the discovery of the New World). The library also holds the College archives, which include letters leading up to the 1505 formation of the college (as the Craft Guild of Barber Surgeons) written in Old Scots.

We were treated to a visit to the Surgeons’ Hall Museums. The pathology museum is well worth a visit, but is not for the squeamish or for the hypochondriac: there are plenty of human remains, assorted tumours and kidney stones, plus battlefront injuries in the form of damaged bones and paintings of the victims. Like the photographs on European cigarette packets, there were plenty of images and objects to put you off an unhealthy lifestyle (or going to hospital…). There are also displays about Joseph Bell, a Fellow of the College and the main inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, Burke and Hare, and the history of the College.

For more information, see the College’s website.

On Tuesday morning, fresh (perhaps not the word) from the Caledonian Sleeper, I headed to the offices of lawyer Pinsent Masons for a very interesting breakfast seminar called “Legal risks of Web 2.0 for your business” organised by their IT arm OUT-LAW.

It was absolutely packed – their most popular seminar so far, I was told – and covered potential legal pitfalls of modern web activity, including defamation, employment law and copyright infringement in the areas of blogging, wikis, message boards, and sites like YouTube. Several recent examples from the blogging world were cited, including Inigo Wilson’s Lefty Lexicon, the doocing of Petite Anglaise and Joe Gordon, and the Mumsnet/Gina Ford case. One of the interesting facts I learned was that using a competitors’ trademark as a tag to draw attention to content (for example, if Pepsi posted an ad to YouTube tagged with “coca-cola”) can be considered trademark infringement.

If you’re interested in IT legal issues, I’d recommend these free breakfast seminars, which run across the UK (the next are in the spring). You can also read OUT-LAW magazine on the website.

Gavin reports John Kerry’s Monday faux pas. The US senator was trying to make a cheap gag at the expense of President Bush, but mangled his words and ended up sounding like he was criticisng the intellect of the troops in Iraq rather than the idiot who sent them there. The Republicans, of course, seized on this, accusing the Vietnam veteran of not respecting those serving. Kerry is having none of it. Here’s his marvellously robust response in full:

“If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

“I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

“The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

“Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.”