The Jubilee

The Queen has been on the job for 70 years. That's an unimaginably long time in one job for most of us. Unimpeded by the sort of reorganisations and reshuffles that affect many of us, she has devoted herself to her role. She has been a constant during 8 decades of change in the UK and the world. And even as she has changed and adapted, she has done so with grace, dedication, and an integrity that contrasts with many of our elected and other leaders.

The Jubilee, and celebration of the Queen's 70 year reign, remind us of just how far Her Majesty's Government has drifted from the values on which our society has been built.

Some will say that now is not the time to speak of such matters - but this Jubilee makes the contrast so start it cannot and should not be ignored. Others might say it's unpatriotic to tell uncomfortable truths about our country - especially on such an occasion. But I believe the real stain on our national life -  what is really dragging our public life through the mud - the actual negative - is not people who love their country but constructively criticise its faults, or those who lament the rising tide of evil, or call us to be our better selves. The fault lies with those who have let us all down, who have betrayed their office, and who by their venality, entitlement, incompetence, mean-spiritedness, and lack of integrity have made the country and its government an object of ridicule, and who (like rotten apples in a barrel) threaten to spread their rot through the whole of society.

The fish rots from the head, and our current head of government, the Prime Minister, has shown himself to be a morality-free zone. At every step of the partygate fiasco he has tried to lie or brazen his way out of it, or sacrifice more junior minions. In this affair, as always, he has organised a parade of ministers and ambitious but unprincipled backbenchers to lie for him - sometimes contradicting their lies the very next day. He lied about an oven-ready Brexit deal, lied as he signed it while promising to drop it later (we still don't know which promise, if any, he intends to keep). He told parliament at the time that the deal was in full compliance with the Good Friday Agreement, but now he expects us to believe that it's undermining it. He lied about how many new hospitals he was building, about how many doctors and nurses he would recruit. He lied about Brexit enabling the vaccine rollout (which began to build the country's immunity while we were bound by EU rules). He even lied to the Queen about why he was proroguing parliament. He was sacked from two previous jobs for lying, for goodness sake. And people have started to notice.

But it's not just the PM, and his own sense of entitlement to rule. It's not just one rule for them, and another rule for the rest of us.  It's not even the way he keeps changing the rules when he or his friends are accused of breaking them.

During the pandemic, his government oversaw a massively corrupt operation to channel taxpayers' money into the pockets of party donors and friends of government minsters and MPs, in exchange for pretending to deliver pretend PPE. Then they decided not to investigate the many frauds.

His Chancellor cut Universal Credit, then had the audacity to claim - when the cost of living started to bite - that he could only increase it once a year without updating his computers. He raised National Insurance on earned income, but left unearned income (like the capital gains his family lives off) and wealth (like his family has in eye-watering amounts) untouched. No conflict of interest there! He was eventually dragged, kicking and screaming, into a U-Turn on taxing the profiteering oil companies - he clearly felt it wasn't important enough to do without being forced into it.

Even while the Queen takes part in a video where a famous migrant has tea at the palace, and she shares a marmalade sandwhich with Paddington Bear, the secretary of state, Priti Patel, is about to breach our international moral and legal obligations to help genuine refugees, by sending them on a one-way trip to Rwanda (if they are found to be genuine refugees, they get to stay - in Rwanda). The civil service told her it's unworkable, illegal, and terrible value for money - but she insisted. To cap it all, she claims that there are no alternatives. After a few moments' thought, I came up with a few (and she has a whole Ministry, unless she's bullied them all into silence):

• Recruit enough people to process asylum claims in a reasonable time - so we don't need to support them on welfare while they wait for months or years to hear if they can stay.
• Don't waste the £30,000 or whatever it costs per refugee on routinely locking so many of them up in privatised prisons. Stop using prisons (whatever they pretend to call them) as a first resort in so many cases. At that cost, each of the detained refugees could have their own case handler, working full time - even with the recent Tory increase in National Insurance. The backlog would be cleared in no time.
  
• Allow refugees to work or volunteer, instead of expecting them to live in substandard hovels on £30 a week.
• If she's worried about refugees entering the country illegally, provide legal routes for them to claim asylum in the UK.
• Stop pretending we're swamped by refugees, when the UK is one of the least generous countries by number of refugees per capita.
• Stop pretending that most refugees are bogus.
• Get a grip on the system that denies asylum to so many genuine claimants - only for them to be allowed to stay on appeal. Why not get it right first time? Get the assessors to, you know, look at the evidence that has been submitted.
  

And if you don't like something the government is doing, they have restricted your right to protest. A protest can be banned if it's too "annoying" or too "loud". Better hope you like everything else they have planned for us.

And don't depend on the courts to protect your rights, since they plan to cut back on that. They don't like the prospect of accountability - for them, at least.

The media won't be clamouring to tell us what they are doing wrong. Channel 4 tried that, and now Nadine Dorries, our hapless Culture Secretary, is about to sell them off to a multi-millionaire media baron or mulitnational. Clearly the new owner will understand the struggles that ordinary people are facing, and hold the rich and powerful to account.

And as for voting them out, they thought of that. They are gerrymandering the constituencies, based on the size of the electoral roll, rather than the normal practice of using the Census. This has the cunning benefit (if you're unprincipled and right wing) of under-counting poor people. And in case that doesn't work, they plan to remove the independence of the Electoral Comission.

So the problem is not just the PM - it's the ministers and back benchers who fave facilitated his dishonesty, corruption, and attacks on the weak for so long.

Whataboutery

Just got around to watching the Northern Ireland Party Leaders Debate.

I can't remember when I last heard so much whataboutery from a single person. I'm struggling to think of a single positive thing the DUP representative said. It's depressing.

The political culture here in Northern Ireland, particularly in the DUP, really is incredibly negative and fixated on the past.  Could we get whoever is organising these debates to do something about whataboutery?  If sluggerotoole can do it, why not the BBC?

This Show is Dead

Me: Ello, BBC, I wish to register a complaint. This show is dead.

BBC: We're closin' for lunch.

Me: Never mind that, my man. I wish to complain about this show what I tried to watch not half a week ago on this very channel.

BBC: Oh yes, the, uh, the Top Gear...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?

Me: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my man. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it!

BBC: No, no, It's uh,...it's resting.

Me: Look, matey, I know a dead show when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

BBC: No no it's not dead, it's, it's restin'! Remarkable show, the Top Gear, isn'it, ay? Beautiful Cars!

Me: The cars don't enter into it. It's stone dead.

BBC: Nononono, no, no! It's resting!

Me: All right then, if it's restin', I'll wake it up! (shouting at the TV) 'Ello, Mister Clarkson! I've got a lovely fast Maserati for you if you come to the studio…

(BBC fires the presenter)

BBC: There, it's running!

Me: No, it isn't, that was the news. You fired the presenter!

BBC: I never!!

Me: Yes, you did!

BBC: I never, never did anything...

Me: (yelling and typing into Youtube repeatedly) 'ELLO Top Gear Presenter!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your Unemployment Channel interview call!

(Takes smartphone and thumps it on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)

Me: Now that's what I call a dead show.

BBC: No, no.....No, The Producer's stunned!

Me: The PRODUCER’S STUNNED?!?

BBC: Yeah! You must've stunned him, shoutin' like that, just as he was wakin' up from his bleedin' lip and two hour trek to Casualty! You don’t get much sleep when you spend a night in casualty you know. And Producers stun easily, Major.

Me: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That show is definitely deceased, and when I purchased my TV licence not six months ago, you assured me that its total lack of scheduling was due to it bein' tired and shagged out from the traumatic evacuation after the latest Top Gear Special!

BBC: Well, it's...it's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.

Me: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did it vanish from the screen just as the series got going?

BBC: The Top Gear prefers bein’ off the screen! Remarkable show, innit, squire? Lovely cars!

Me: Look, I took the liberty of examining the press coverage before I left home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been knocked off its perch in the first place was that you'd suspended the presenter.

(Pause)

BBC: Well, o'course we'd suspended 'im! If we hadn't suspended 'im, e'd 'ave beaten up all the crew, shot them in front of their families, and got a number plate mocking them. So we're hiring new presenters. VOOM! Feeweeweewee!

Me: "VOOM"?!? Mate, without Clarkson and the gang this show wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! It's bleedin' demised!

BBC: No no! It's pining!

Me: It's not pinin'! It's passed on! This show is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It's pushing up the daisies! If you hadn't kept the story in the news with comparisons with Jimmy Saville it would be out of the papers and off the telly! It's metabolic processes are now 'istory! It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, It's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-SHOW!!

(Pause)

BBC: Well, I'd better replace it, then.

Charity begins at home?

Recently I noticed the Daily Mail had a front-page article calling for the UK Foreign Aid budget to be spent on flood damage within the UK. Today I realised they have made it into a petition! I'm slightly sickened that the opportunistic rabble-rousers at the Mail think it's appropriate to attack some of the world's poorest people in such an unnecesary way.

They are wrong, and here's why.

The UK is NOT facing a choice between supporting UK flood victims on one hand, and taking tiny steps to alleviate grinding third-world poverty and assist with natural disasters abroad on the other. We CAN do both.

Even if we need to cut SOME spending to afford the extra cost of the floods in the UK, does it really make sense to target something that gets less that 0.7% of the budget? After all, that is less than 70p out of every £100 of tax we pay. Surely there are budgets with more fat to trim?

If the Mail wants to pick on someone, why not campaign for the money to come out of MP's latest payrises or pensions, or from a tax on the businesses which made profits building in the flood plains in the first place, or from pay and bonus cuts for what are effectively "civil servants" running the nationalised failing Banks which got us into this recession in the first place, or maybe even a windfall tax on those who profited the most as the rest of us lost out, through falling house prices, real-price pay cuts, and austerity?

There is something unsavoury about journalists, exploiting the suffering of flood victims in the UK, to call for cuts on those who are even poorer, even worse off. We - even those in flooded areas - are still part of the world's richest 1%. If we in the West expect our 1% to shoulder their share of the burden, can we deny our responsibility to the World's 99%?
Surely the remaining 99.5% or so of the UK's budget can somehow stand the strain of solidarity with those among us who are in need?

(picture: Flickr user kilinochchi, some rights reserved)

Who else should be shot while we're at it?

It seems that Jeremy Clarkson has said that the Public Sector strikers should be shot. Cue waves of outrage from people who don't watch Clarkson, and didn't hear what he said.

"Frankly, I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families. I mean, how dare they go on strike when they have these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living?"

The Beeb is clearly nervous: the One Show episode seems to be blocked on iPlayer, but you should be able to find it on You Tube - I did.

Of course, anyone who watches Top Gear will know better than to take what he says seriously. But really, you don't have to be a fan of Top Gear to realise that the rent-a-rant brigade have escaped the orbit of Planet Perspective.

The curly one had just been saying how great the strike was:

Presenter: Do you think the strikes have been a good idea?
Top Bloke: I think they have been fantastic. Absolutely. London today has just been empty. Everybody stayed at home, you can whizz about, restaurants are empty... Airports, people streaming through with no problems at all. And it's also like being back in the 70s. It makes me feel at home somehow.

Remember when we didn't have to cope with useless security theatre every plane journey? How much safer are we really because our shoes and belts are x-rayed instead of going through a metal detector?

And then, in a gentle reference to the BBC's tendency to indulge in a slightly spurious balance on any issue, he continued:

Clarkson: ...But we have to balance this though, because this is
the BBC.
Prestenter: Yes, exactly.
Clarkson: Frankly, I'd have them all shot...

Has our culture of political correctness gone a bit too far? Even the PM
has had to say this was a silly remark. But really, all he needed to say was
that it wasn't government policy.

I'm not sure that the semi-hysterical cries in the media for sackings and apologies are really necessary. Get over it.

Enough ranting from me. I'm sure there are people who, even more than the strikers, should be rounded up and shot. Any ideas?

#superinjunction

Indignation in the mainstream media, and gloating by the twitterati - that's pretty much how the superinjunction story has run so far. The press are indignant that they cannot publish what the twitterer on the street seems to know about #ctb and Imogen someone-or-other. And the idea that the courts can apply sweeping injunctions to silence discussion of the peccadillos of the rich strikes the press where it hurts - in their pride, and their pockets!

Injunctions are bad enough, the story goes, but superinjunctions are a step too far in a free society. Are they, though? What is actually going on? Is this really one law for the rich and famous, and another for the rest of us?

Actually, not so much. We normal people expect that the press won't print details of our personal lives - we rarely have to deal with more than gossip from those we know. The press, by and large, go along with this. They even extend this courtesy (or legal protection) to the children of the rich or famous.

And then something strange happens... The tabloids have somehow convinced us that the freedom of the press is at stake if they cannot write freely about people's private lives where that will sell more papers. People in whom people are interested, it seems, no longer have any privacy. But do they - and should they?

In France there is a different approach. The press turns a blind eye when the rich and famous have extra-marital flings. That, they consider, is their own... affair. Public figures, like the rest of us, can have a private life. But this can go too far - apparently allegations of rape, like those against M. Strauss-Kahn in the US, are often also brushed aside.

Private individuals do not have a right to privacy in such cases - but it seems to me that the same standard should apply to "public figures" (whatever that means). They should not expect impunity for criminal behaviour.

On the other hand, why does a person's right to privacy vanish just because the tabloids can make money by selling us the details?

Does speaking to the press on any issue whatsoever strip you of the right to a private life?

Can any accomplishment or achievement whatsoever really give the media carte-blanche to air all the details of your private life?

And where would that take us as a society? What sort of shallow narcissism are we demanding of our public figures, politicians, sportsmen, that they must agree to such intrusion, as the price for exercising their skills and abilities in the public sphere?

A free press is in the public interest, and the public interest demands that criminal activity be brought to light, that conflicts of interest by our leaders be exposed, that blatant hypocrisy by our moral guardians (in the press and outside) be shown up.

But the public interest is not the same as what the public might like to know. There is a difference between news and gossip, and our press has lost sight of this.

Don't you know there's an Election on?

Maithrie was blogging about the election, so I thought I'd mention an interesting site from they work for you. You put in your postcode of constituency, and they give you a quiz where you compare your views on policies - many of them local - with those of the candidates.

An excellent idea.... except that the DUP, UUP/Tories, and the SDLP can't be bothered telling us what they think. Poor show, Alasdair McDonnell, Jimmy Spratt and Paula Bradshaw. Looks like the Greens or the Alliance then?

There are also similar quizzes from http://www.votematch.org.uk/2010/ and http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/ - you can't have too much information (though you can have too little time to read it all, I've found).

Bloke colours vs Girlie Colours

We've "known" for ages that Girls can name colours that we men are quite certain are actually animals, plants, or basically almost anything but colours. But is it true?

The Doghouse Diary recently posted a cartoon to show how this works.

But XKCD have gone one further, with a survey that investigates this phenomenon.

And is it real?

For full details, you'll need to check their blog - but in a word (or two (or three)) Yes... and No....

So there we have it. Women know slightly more colours - and they can apparently spell better as well.

A new kind of spam?

I was wondering about the newfound popularity (slight though it was) of my blog from Japanese-language bloggers. By "popularity" I mean that there had been about one kind and apparently relevant comment on a number of my posts.

Then I noticed that their blogs all seemed to relate to eye clinics.

It could be a coincidence, I suppose - but somehow I'm not so sure. Spammers are getting cleverer... or at least more devious.

The thing is, if blogger uses "nofollow" links in comments, to prevent spammy links from contributing to better placements in search engines, I'm not sure what the point of the spam is. Perhaps it's more old-school than that. Maybe they are hoping actual humans will follow the links, Flattering, if they think my blog will help with that. I doubt it, though.

Electric dreams - missing technology

A fascinating show from the BBC, Electric Dreams is an experiment to see how one family adjusts to life in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Their house was stripped of modern technology, completely reorganised in period fashion, and decorated and equipped with only items available in 1970. The family dressed in 70s clothes, and they they lived a decade a day, with new gadgets (like a freezer and a colour TV) arriving as they became generally available.

Life was very different then - and at times the family complained of being bored, and having "nothing to do" (except for the mother, who was very busy indeed with housework). They spent a lot more time together, eating as a family for instance, and going out together. They had to plan ahead, and phone home - no texting to say you're going to be late, or you've changed your mind.

The programme gave a fascinating glimpse of social history (initially in glorious monochrome) from the power-cuts and strikes of the 1970s, to today's increased freedom from household chores. It also illustrated some very contemporary preoccupations, such as the parents' anachronistic level of concern with health and safety, attitudes to smacking, and the relative freedom then of children to spend time outside, without today's paranoia over "stranger danger".

But there was one major media technology available in the 1970s that was curiously absent. A form of entertainment, and source of information. One that could be used even during the power cuts the family experienced, even when confined to an unheated, game-console-free bedroom "without any supper". One that was virtually omnipresent in the 70s, and that is still widely available. A technology that remains compatible with content produced many years, decades, centuries, even millennia ago. A technology popularised by an invention in Europe in the 15th century.

They had no books!

Perhaps they did, but we didn't see any. Maybe that says more about the priorities of the media people concerned than about the 1970s?

Microsoft Alderaan Slammed in Race Row

The Register reports that outrage was sparked when the website of Microsoft's outpost in Alderaan was clumsily photoshopped, allegedly to conform to local racial demographics.

Two humans were crudely pasted into the picture to make the all-Wookie board of Microsoft Empire seem more acceptable to potential customers in the influential and wealthy Alderaan mobile, droid and deathstar O/S market.

However the subsequent furore may have hampered the chances of the up and coming Microsoft, as it tries to compete for market share with the dominant BSD2 and 3-CP/M systems deployed in most clone armies.

Jabba Gates and Steve "chair" Bal'cca of Microsoft Alderaan were unavailable for comment.

And you thought it belonged to you: Why DRM is such a bad idea

Last night I noticed a very funny thing. Amazon had "un-booked" some books they had sold. Their customers woke up to find that their copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm had been taken back, and the cost refunded. Ironic as anything, but how could it possibly happen?

They had not bought a physical copy - they had paid for a licence to read an electronic copy on Amazon's eBook machine - a "Kindle". And that electronic copy was weighed down by DRM - Digital Rights Management (or Digitally Restricted Media) - so that the people who control it are not the buyers, but the sellers. So when Amazon felt they needed to revoke people's eBooks, they could.

You buy it - but they own it!

It turns out that Amazon, surprised by their customers' outrage or embarrassed by the irony of retrospectively un-selling 1984 -- who knows -- have said they won't do it again.

But they can - and that's the problem with DRM. You don't own what you have bought. "They" can stop you lending it to people. They can prevent you from electronically quoting snippets. They can invisibly edit or change what you have bought - or add new advertising. Or they can take it away altogether. And, often, if the publisher goes bust or even decides to stop selling it, what you bought just stops working. Forever. And it's illegal to try to get it back (in America, it's a felony).

And that is why DRM matters, and why the laws that pander to it matter even more.

And the more media becomes digital and is delivered electronically, the worse this will get.

Maybe not today; maybe not tomorrow; but soon - and for the rest of your media.

Links: NY Times, NY Times Blog, Slashdot discussion.

On not being involved in a land war in asia?

It seems that the war is over in Sri Lanka, and that Sri Lankans are all one nation now - at least that is the official story. Certainly I've seen lots of flags and public celebration in the streets of Colombo. People are delighted that the brutal and ruthless LTTE (the Tamil Tigers) no longer hold territory in Sri Lanka.


Not so much public concern though for the hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan refugees being held in internment camps in their own country, without adequate shelter, food, clothes, health care, communications, or access of any kind to the outside world. Private concern, to be sure. From some at any rate. But not so much in the local press. I even saw one article that claimed the West, egged on by the Christian Church, had been training Tamil suicide bombers. But back to reality.

Now that the war is over, it might be a good time to allow international relief workers back in, reunite families that have been divided, and take care of those Tamil menbers of the one nation of Sri Lanka who are enduring such terrible conditions.

If you're interested in the crisis there, a site with more voices and more information than the mainstream media are able to provide is Ground Views: a Sri Lankan citizen journalism initiative, as it calls itself. Check it out!

Aristophanes would have been proud

2400 years ago, Aristophanes wrote his play Lysistrata, in which the women of Greece tried to force their husbands to end a war by withholding their affections. No sex, basically. On strike.

Fast forward to Kenya, 2009. The BBC reports that the Women's Development Organisation, backed by the Prime Minister's wife, called for a similar boycot, to last for a week. They want to force Kenya's political leaders to break the current deadlock and work together. There has been a troubled and ineffectual coalition government since the 2007-2008 election violence.

Will it work? I've no idea - but one Mr Kimondo is not happy. He is suing the organisers of the boycott, claiming it has "interfered with his happy marriage".

The great Greenbelt Giveaway

So how do we get our free church leader? Will they deliver, or do we have to collect them? And if they've been kept in a tent for ages, will they have gone off?

I'm sure the answers are somewhere on the greenbelt site. I hope the weather is good, this August...

A true lady never sees the middle of the road as "a convenient spot to park the car".

That's one of the set of rules for true ladies, from the police in a Siberian city, according to Russia Today. Accidents caused by women drivers have been increasing, and this pink book of rules is an attempt to address the problem.

Not everyone is impressed. "They seem to have written it for idiots, not responsible drivers," says Maria, a local female driver. At least it seems to have started some debate.

One more rule from the book: "A true lady uses rear-view mirrors to check the road, not her appearance."

Shameful hypocrisy of Royal Society

Last week at the British Association's science festival Rev Professor Michael Reiss said that creation should not be ignored if it come up in class. Prof Reiss, who is director of education at the Royal Society, said that since a substantial number of pupils have concerns about the issue they are likely to "detach from" science if their concerns are not addressed. Creation should not be taught as such, he said, but if it comes up, teachers should be encouraged to at least make sure that they see that the word "theory" does not simply mean a hypothesis about the way things might work, but a rigorously supported system of ideas that fit with the available evidence.

[Independent article: Steve Connor, Science Editor] 

[Independent article: Archie Bland]

The Times misrepresented him as saying that Creationism should be taught in science classes as a legitimate point of view.

A predictable knee-jerk storm of outrage arose from a group of anti-creationist scientists, who called for him to be sacked.

Yesterday the Royal Society said that some of his comments had been "open to misinterpretation", and that this had damaged the Society's reputation. 

"As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the society, he will step down immediately as director of education"

This is crazy! Any comment is "open to misinterpretation", especially if it is completely misrepresented in the press. That's no reason for sacking someone.

And the thing that really damages the Royal Society's reputation is their hypocrisy. After sacking him, they basically reiterated what he had said all along:

"However, if a young person raises creationism in a science class, teachers should be in a position to explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism is not, in any way, scientific."

The chief executive of the British Association for the Advancement of Science said that the Royal Society should have supported him and used this opportunity to further a reasoned debate.

"I was at the actual discussion, and what I heard him say, however it has been reported, was essentially the position advocated by the Royal Society."

The final irony in this craven capitulation to rumour and falsehood is revealed on the Royal Society's own website. The Society's motto is "Nullius in verba". In their own words:

"Take nobody's word for it", dates back to 1663, and is an expression of the determination of the Fellows to withstand the domination of authority... and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.

A bad day for the Royal Society, and a bad day for science and education.

[Prof Reiss' image - from www.ely.anglican.org]

[Coat of arms from wikipedia, licensed under GFDL]

My msn keeps stoping

That's what they keep telling me. If you use MSN at all you may have seen messages like this (usually exactly like this):

<girl's name> says:
Hey Paul .....
This is <other girl's name>. My msn keeps stoping (sic) but would like to chat.
I am always online here <completely different name>.blogspot.com

They probably want me to visit their site with a buggy version of Internet Explorer so they can sell me viagra or automatically install some hacking malware on my computer to steal my credit card numbers and passwords, or make my PC part of their network of MSN-spamming zombies.

Who replies to these things, or visits their websites?

What are MSN doing about the problem?

And when will we see draconian and effective laws (and effective policing) to stop or punish this behaviour. It's not just a technical problem - and it's time the law caught up.

Magical Mystery Tour

I was in good time, for once, on the way home from Greenbelt. In spite of the Cheltenham Supreme Soviet's hatred of railway station signs (do they think it lowers the tone or something?) we found the station much more easily than last year. I got the train, with time to spare, and even found a power socket to recharge my mobile and N800. I should have known it was too good to last.

Unfortunately the train stopped. The train in front was "affected by an incident" we were told, eventually.

I passed the time by comparing Reading Festival to Greenbelt with a fellow festival-attending passenger. We had better food, it seems, and less rampaging through the site. Reading had Metallica - so arguably Greenbelt won on that count too. Reading had better wristbands though, and the Salvation Army with cheap soup for the revellers!

The track was closed, so we went backwards instead. An extra 50 minutes would be added to the journey. Stations with strange and obscure names rolled past - sometimes more than once. Time passed. If I'd had GPS I might have known where some of the places were.

I had to ring the airline to change my flights, skilfully avoiding their premium rate £1-per-minute "some mobile networks may change more" booking line. You'd think a £25 - £30 fee for changing a booking would be quite enough - but apparently not!

Several hours and a few sandwiches later I was at home, and it was time to catch up on wedding arrangements. It's harder than you think folks! Much much harder. Maybe we should Just Do It, and tell everyone later. But that's a story for another day.

Hippyfest 2008

It's back to Greenbelt: good food, good music, good talks, interesting music, interesting talks, music, talks, and many worship alternatives. I'm afraid i missed the mesiaen recital. And the disabled buddhist basketweavers against Israeli occupation.

This morning we found out that the tent site was not as level as Peter has thought, so i'm drying out my passport and chequebook!

I've found a free charging point - not in range of the wifi this year, alas.

And I'm getting hungry.

When the improvisation band, with their bike wheels and cardboard tubes have gone, I may go hunting for pancakes and coffee...