Wednesday, 28. October 2009, 23:59:15
sun, summer, Hayling, Indian
...
This time last year it was snowing.
This year we're basking in really nice warm weather with quite a lot of sun, in fact yesterday I was sitting outside in an open air cafe near the beach on Hayling Island. They would normally have shut for the season nearly a month ago, this time they were so busy they ran out of eggs.
Before I'd ordered my ommelette I might add.
Last time I tried to order an ommelette I was in a pub, and their gas wasn't working so they had plenty of eggs, they just couldn't cook them. I'd cook one myself but I can't seem to make a decent ommelette to save my life. Mine come out thick black on the bottom, and all runny on top. A bit like an upside down beetle really.
But I digress.
Apparently the reason for our good weather is low pressure out in the Atlantic dragging warm weather up from the south. As far south as India in fact. All these years I've been assuming that Indian Summer was something to do with the indigenous peoples of North America.
And all these years I've been wrong.
Monday, 12. October 2009, 18:51:42
Apologies to anyone who hasn't seen the original 'Fall & Rise of Reggie Perrin' for the title of today's blog, but all those who did will know where this is going...
Today hundreds of members of parliament woke up to demands that they repay overpaid expenses. They weren't surprised (Well mostly...), but they also knew that up to this moment they hadn't overclaimed their expenses. Confused? You will be.
Following the previous overclaimed expenses scandal parliament decided that it was time for a clean-up to prevent it ever happening again. They gave the job to one man, Sir Thomas Legg. Unusually, they decided to make it retrospective. As a result MPs who did nothing outside of the rules when they put in their claims, woke up today to find out that they now had breached the rules.
This worries me on so many fronts I could use them as a firewall. For a start it muddies the field. MPs who did nothing wrong will be lumped in with those who decidedly did bend the rules because all we'll know is that they've received a reclaim letter, and of course they'll all protest their innocence, innocent or not.
It also punishes those whose only crime was to use their expenses to pay people a fair rate of pay. A number have been caught out by paying good money for good gardeners. This is the kind of thing that for some reason got up the public's noses, so it's been stamped on and now you're only allowed to pay your gardeners low wages. All those who didn't (Like the Prime Minister and the Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberals) have been asked to fund their own generosity, not just in the future, but back dated.
Back dated to when though? I've not actually seen or heard a date for this. The rules were actually relaxed to allow MPs to overclaim in the late 80s by Margaret Thatcher's government, so really the backdating should apply to then, but I have a feeling that if Mrs. Thatcher was about to get a reclaim letter we'd have heard about it by now, so what arbitary date has been used, and why? I think we should be told...
But what worries me most is the precedent which this retrospective cleanup sets. I'm sure all parties will deny it's ever going to happen, but how long will it be before retrospective legislation is passed that effects all of us?
Friday, 9. October 2009, 19:19:02
water, Cruithne, orbit, nasa
...
Back in the 60s I wrote a chirpy little pop tune called Dark Side Of The Moon. You can imagine how possed iff I was when Pink Floyd pinched my title for their new album, particularly since they didn't put my song, or indeed any song of that title, on it.
Well my chagrin was as nothing compared with NASA today.
When man first landed on the moon he celebrated by dropping the lunar lander back onto it as he left.
Much to everyone's surprise the moon reverberated for half an hour afterwards.
Today they repeated the experiment on a far greater scale, and the moon again proved to be a bit contrary. It reacted by doing nothing. No dust, no reverberations, no nothing, and in particular, no water. Now me, I would have imagined that they would have covered the water thing while they were actually on the moon, and I'm not too surprised that the moon was unwilling to see itself declared as wet. Travel Agents would have started selling holidays carrying the tagline 'Swim in the Sea of Tranquility!', and no one wants that.
I suspect they've got the wrong moon. Earth has a second moon, it's rather small but it's there all the same traveling under the moniker of Cruithne, and it's really an asteroid traveling the same orbit around the sun as Earth, but it is more likely to contain water than the big one.
Actually there are currently 6 other moons sharing Earth's bit of space. If the universe is really so big you'd think they could move over a bit. What with all this and the giant ring they've just spotted around Saturn... I think I'm suffering from future shock.
See you on the dark side of the moon.
Monday, 5. October 2009, 21:36:30
large, politics, george brown, government
...
I heard quite a bit about little government during the US election, and now during the UK's annual party shindigs I'm hearing a lot more. Everyone, we're led to believe, wants small government.
No they don't.
Certainly everyone thinks they want small government. They don't want these people interfering in their lives, and small government will obviously cost less so our taxes can come down (Yeah, right). In reality 'The government should do/have done something' is one of the most frequent phrases seen on news and documentary programmes. It seems that we all want small government until it affects us, then we think it should be slightly bigger so it could have "Done something."
I have, just lately, noticed a variation in this. None labourites are now inclined to say "George Brown should have done something". This is because polls show that Brown is less popular than his party, so they are aiming all their allegations of mismanagement at the man himself. Come the revolution all spin-doctors will be put up against the wall if I have any say in it...
Meanwhile, I kid you not, there has been a tragic, and surely preventable, loss of life in Scotland where two young girls have committed suicide by jumping off a bridge into the river below. Someone from vox-pop has just said on the radio "Someone should have done something. What are the government doing?"
I rest my case.
Sunday, 4. October 2009, 22:46:40
Linux, xp, mandriva, windows
...
Any other Linux users out there having problems with Opera 10? Since upgrading I've not been able to fire up Opera, even by going to the file and clicking on the actual program. I know the XP version works, and I quite like it, trouble is the only thing I like about XP itself is that it's not Vista.
Why couldn't they have just kept on upgrading Windows 98? That's what I want to know.
It's a little strange to see how well programs that started life as Linux counterparts of expensive Windows programs are now running on Windows. I wish ports the other way worked so well. I guess the problem is the number of different versions of Linux there are. Windows programmers only have to work on maybe 3 or 4 variations, Linux has splintered into 3 figures, most of which will never really get the support they need. In fact Opera is one of the best at various distribution support.
Well, except when
it doesn't work!!! 
Wednesday, 30. September 2009, 00:18:05
news, rant, sun, election
...
So Gordon Brown has just made his make or break speech and early opinions are, well... Not very invigorating to be honest.
They basically ran the gamut from "That's what he always says" to "That's what they all say." I'm guessing you can guess the political slant of the responders by which reply they go for.
The reason for this dearth of constructive critique is that the newspapers haven't come out yet. Tomorrow nearly everyone will have an opinion, and for a frighteningly high percentage of them it will be based upon what their choice of 'paper has to say. And Britain's favourite daily is The Sun.
In other words Rupert Murdoch will be dictating how people will eventually vote in the next election.
That's not my opinion, by the way, it's the opinion of The Sun itself, and of the politicians who woo the Murdoch clan at every available opportunity. Which I find a little frightening. The thing is, all newspapers are registered as such, it gives them certain privileges. To me, any 'paper which publishes opinions as news should lose that registration, opinions should be kept to the opinion columns.
Meanwhile I can but exhort the Sun's 10 million readers to think for themselves whilst they're admiring page three with one hand. Don't let Rupert Murdoch tell you what to think.
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
If anyone noticed my several week's absence and wondered why, I just thought I'd mention. I downloaded Opera 10 for Mandriva Linux, and it doesn't work. It doesn't even load. Hence I am writing this on a pretty pink laptop running XP, and I don't like it.
XP that is, not the pretty pink computer, which I shall continue to worship for at least as long as it takes for this to get published...
Tuesday, 1. September 2009, 22:12:15
USA, healthcare, UK, hawking
...
In Paris two rival mayors, one conservative, the other socialist, have both instigated road plans to get the traffic out of their area quickly. They've both turned one road into a one way street. The problem is that it's the same road and they've made it one way in opposite directions. You'd think that would be the craziest thing on the news, but nooooooo....
In the US's ongoing healthcare debate things are getting more and more silly. 'Investors Business Daily' has posted an editorial making various strange claims, like senior citizens will have to undergo mandatory euthanasia counseling every five years. Fortunately for the aforementioned senior citizens this is probably bilge because this editorial also claims "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless” They might have a point.
Well, if it weren't for the fact that Hawking is a citizen of the UK not the US, always was and still is. He lives here and works here and, oh yes, is on record as saying "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived." It's certainly safe to say that he would never have been able to pay for the treatment which allowed him to communicate with the rest of the world and enabled him to reveal that there was a genius living inside that husk of a body.
Critics of the president's healthcare plan have said it would "Introduce a 'socialist' system like Britain's". No it wouldn't. It would introduce a sytem like those of the rest of the civilized world's. Don't these people realise that it's not just us? The USA is the only 1st world nation not to have all-enveloping healthcare.
Whilst they're banging on about "Obamaland" they seem to miss one or two rather salient points. 1/ Britons have a longer life expectancy than USians, but pay half as much per head for it. 2/ Cubans have a longer life expectancy than Britons. A child born in Cuba today has a 5 times better chance of living to adulthood than a child born of parents of Cuban heritage living in the US, and upon surviving has a better chance of outliving his US counterpart. Cuba, for those who don't know, is a socialist country with a socialist healthcare system.
It seems like the current US system isn't a right to choose, it's a right to die.
Tuesday, 25. August 2009, 15:47:35
Caster, Semenya, athletics, bolt
...
Caster Semenya, the South African 800m champion, has been told to take a gender test by the International Association of Athletics Federations. It seems she ran so well that she must be a man.
It's only a few years ago that British marathon runner Paula Radcliffe completely demolished the World Marathon record, coming in with a time that most of her male compatriots would have been proud to achieve. Strangely there were no demands for her to take a sex test.
This was because she was so obviously a girly. She was little and cute and she had a fluffy whispy voice like girls are supposed to have and this kuyoooot little laugh. So instead all her rivals studied her style, her diet, her exercise regime, and started work on something similar for themselves. Surprise! Within two years other girls were running just as fast as Radcliffe. They could have done it all along, they just needed someone to show them the way.
Then there's Usain St. Leo Bolt who is likewise smashing speed records and causing much exitement all around him. To the best of my knowledge the IAAF haven't insisted he be tested for an unusual aversion to kryptonite.
So why are they picking on Caster Semenya? It's because they're afraid she may be a bit different. She may be a girl with the XY chromosome, or have some other kind of aberation that means that she's really a girl in a man's body. Or vice versa, they're not worried as long as they get her for something.
So she's in danger of being disallowed from competing because of some aberation that she has no knowledge of or control over. We've already had a case of a disabled athlete being barred because they were afraid his artificial legs gave him an advantage, now we're in the field of disbarring super-abled athletes. Soon you'll have to pass a normalness test before you're allowed to compete at anything.
Hitler would have been really proud.
Monday, 24. August 2009, 01:45:37
Scotland, libya, pan-am, compassion
...
I've visited, that is to say - on most occasions - 'passed through' Lockerbie on my touring holidays of yore, but I don't think I've seen it since the day an airliner dropped onto it. If I did then I just didn't make the connection. The Lockerbie that was the site of the worst terrorist atrocity to hit the UK in living memory and the one I recall from my younger days are like two completely different things.
Over the last few days pictures of Lockerbie have been everywhere, and I didn't recognise the place, but that was because they were all post-terrorist pictures and for the most part taken from overhead. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
A lot of people aren't happy about Lockerbie at the moment. Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only person to be convicted of the crime has just been released to live out his last few weeks back home in Libya, an act of compassion apparently. It's proved a bit controversial.
The problem is that most of the citizens of Lockerbie think the guy was a patsy while most of the US victim's relatives are equally certain he was guilty as hell. Now me, I'm not directly involved so in theory I should be more able to judge dispassionately the pros and cons of the situation. Can I heck! I think I agree with both parties. I'm pretty certain that the authorities on both sides of the pond wanted to get the guys that committed the crime, and ol' Abdel was one of the first names in the frame, I'm well satisfied that he was guilty as charged, but I'm also pretty certain that his involvement was about as significant as that of the getaway driver in a bad gangster movie. Add to that the fact that his verdict was on the verge of being quashed with the revelation that the only person to identify him and thus connect him with the crime saw a newspaper picture identifying him as the perpetrator before making his I.D.
My doubts as to his being both the brains and the brawn behind the crime are further enhanced by the unlikelihood that Libya sponsored it all on their own. The US shot down an Iranian airliner, killing all on board, and apart from the usual protests Iran did nothing about it. No one was ever charged, or even arrested for the event, and yet Iran sat on their hands. Then Libya took it upon itself to blow up this US airliner? It just doesn't ring true.
So how do I, in the end, feel about this cancer-riddled convicted criminal being allowed to return home? Well, my left wing side feels like it was the right thing to do because it shows that we're better than them, whoever they happen to be, and my right wing side thinks its the right thing to do because he's dying anyway, and I don't see why we should pay for his medical bills until it happens.
Satisfaction all 'round then.
Not really. I won't be satisfied until the guys at the top, the guys that sent the pawns out to do their bidding, get what's coming to them.
Saturday, 15. August 2009, 21:14:24
zipper, motorists, drivers, roadrage
...
Coming into Stow on the Wold from the Gloucester direction there's a steep hill. So that faster moving vehicles aren't held up by other struggling old rattletraps the uphill lane splits into two. Jolly good idea that.
I don't go that way very often, and when I do it's always because I've been visiting somewhere for the sheer pleasure of it and mum wants to visit Adlestrop on the way home. She likes Adlestrop, she likes to look at it then to go to the top of the hill and buy an icecream from the shop. Then she likes to go the site of Adlestrop station in the hope of seeing a train pass through where it once stood. Actually she'd like to see a train stop there, but I think she knows that's not going to happen.
The station thing's a bit annoying, coming, as it does, after the visit to the village, because it means I have to backtrack a bit, but hey, I've been out to enjoy myself and I'm pretty laid back by this time.
This laidbackness explains why, when I reach the place where the uphill lane splits in two (Remember that bit?) I stay in the slow lane and let those in a bit of a hurry fly on past me. Well, until yesterday anyway.
Yesterday I was caught behind a very slow little lorry belching out diesel and I couldn't take it a moment longer, I floored the pedal and shot past it. I was now in the fast lane.
Since I was now going fast I stayed in the fast lane and soon I reached the top of the hill where I found two arrows telling me to get back into the other lane. Now to me that means it's time to perform the zipper manouver. It's easy, and just in case there's anyone in the entire world out there, other than those who drive through Stow on the Wold, who don't know how it works, it's like this. One car from the left hand lane goes through, one car from the right hand lane goes through, another car from the left lane goes through, another car from the right lane goes through, yet another car from the left lane goes through... I'm guessing that everyone on the planet (Except maybe for certain drivers passing through Stow on the Wold) is now aware of how the zipper manouver works.
The drivers in the left hand lane seemed to think it was cheating.
They bunched together, determined to keep me out at all costs. After letting 3 cars go through I decided it was time to just go for it and I latched on to the tail of the next car and started crawling. This really annoyed the next car in the queue who squeezed up alongside us and banged on the side of our car until I let him through. I'm afraid for some reason I found this reaction amusing, which might go some way to explaining the look of absolute fury on the driver's face as he squoze past. Wow. My first experience of road rage. How long is a car? About 10 feet? How can anyone get angry about that much ground? Why don't these motorists realise that the idea of having two lanes is to use them? Questions, questions.
I think we should be told.
1 2 3 4 5 ... 37 Next »
Showing posts 1 -
10 of 369.
WIDGETIZE