What's going wrong with the Police?

As M3 and I were returning to the UK a few weeks ago, we saw two Metropolitan Police officers behaving in an aggressive and intimidating manner to a young Spanish visitor - fortunately, after about half an hour of throwing their weight around and abusing their authority (and snapping at any members of the public who, they felt, were standing too close, or looking to see what the fuss was about), they let her go.

Most of the police officers I've met have been civil and helpful. But there seems to be an increasing number of uniformed thugs who enjoy throwing their weight around. And it's not just jumpy airport police either.

Soon afterwards I read on the Granuiad Online about police officers harassing ordinary members of the public who were taking photographs in public. The Register has been covering this issue for a while.

And then there was the would-be airline passenger who, annoyed by the way Doncaster Airport collapses under the UK's meagre snowfall, and fearing he would not be able to fly the following week, posted the following irate nonsense to his friends and "followers" on twitter:

"Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

Twitter is a network that people use to update their friends and acquaintances on what flavour of coffee they are drinking, or whether they are cycling to work, or taking the train. You can "follow" your friends, and receive a stream of conciousness from their daily life. It's not where you'd normally expect to find secret plots to destroy western civilisation.

Paul Chambers was clearly venting. This was not the act of any sort of credible terrorist - and certainly not a public threat calculated to strike fear into the heart of anyone with the slightest amount of common sense. So what do you imagine the defenders of our free society made of it?

A week later, the South Yorkshire Police arrested the unfortunate Mr Chambers under the Terrorism Act and questioned him for nearly 7 hours. It seems he actually had to explain to the officers interrogating him what Twitter was. You'd think if the police were investigating Internet bomb threats they'd have someone who actually knew something about, you know, the Interwebs, and, like, computer stuff. But that might be perilously close to doing their job, and protecting society from actual real threats.

After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation, and he has, it seems, been banned from the Doncaster airport for life. So no sense of perspective at the Airport either (if you're curious about their thought processes or reasoning in this case, the airport's contact page is online here).

The Independent reports that the South Yorkshire Police went so far as to charge Mr Chambers with "sending by a public communications network a message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character contrary to Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003."

For goodness sake!

It's a shame that the police are wasting their time and abusing their powers by harassing innocent people - whether photographers, visitors to the UK, or twitterers - instead of serving society, and protecting our freedoms.

Checkpoints

Yesterday we had traffic cops checking our passports and my driving licence. One grumpy "get out of the car" cop, possibly peeved that he'd been waving his torch around and been ignored. One polite cop. We ignored the grumpy one even harder and showed the documents to the good cop, who wished us a good evening and sent us on our way.

Today we were stopped at a Navy checkpoint. They must not have so much to do after the collapse of the Tigers - but I'm not sure why they need to do the Army's job for them - especially as the President is increasing the size of the Army (peace dividend, it seems...)

Such is the aftermath of the Presdential election here in Colombo.

Fit for purpose?

The UK does not have a very good system for handling people who need a visa to visit the country.

The process is slow and awkward - when the Russians have a slicker process (and their process is by no means slick), you know something is wrong.

The information available on the official Websites is poorly organised, and is not written from the point of view of someone who wants to come to the UK - it reads like some bureaucrat randomly dumped stuff he knows onto a page, and somehow manages to not quite answer any question you may have.

Then there is an unfortunate gulf between the questions they ask, and the information you need to give them if you are to be successful. For instance, there is a section for "any other information". If you don’t fill that with a convincing explanation of why you will absolutely definitely leave the UK after your trip, you’ve just wasted £80 and three weeks - and that doesn't include the time taken to research and fill in the form before you submit it.

And you have to be very convincing - a visit to the UK see a critically ill parent, followed by a journey home to get married and resume employment was considered insufficiently convincing. And by the time the appeal process had dragged on (and that’s another problem with the whole morass), the parent had died. Unfortunately the nameless, faceless, soulless wretch who made that decision had no accountability.

If you have any questions - too bad. You can try to submit a question via a web form, or email. If it does not vanish into the ether, the answer you eventually get is as good as random. I asked the same question twice in a row (I’m sceptical that way) and got diametrically opposed answers each time. And if you think the unambitious targets for response times in the UK are bad, spare a thought for those with questions for the High Commissions abroad - they can propose a staggering 3 weeks to answer a question.

Or you could pay some extortionate amount to speak to the same hapless incompetents on a premium rate line. After this scam has drained your wallet for a while you may well be be sadder and wiser, but you're unlikely to be much better informed.

The system operates as yet another stealth tax, with many of the services being charged at well above the cost of providing them. To add insult to injury, if you save them money by applying in person, they almost double the charge.

And there's another thing. The administration is a farce. A friend of mine applied in person for a visitor visa. £500 or so. You'd think for the money you'd get something a bit slick, and indeed the interview went quite smoothly. It looked like she might be able to meet some friends for lunch. Then she discovered she had to wait for the passport to be processed. And wait. And wait. She could see the pile of passports being processed. One at a time, slowly, with breaks for chat, and lunch, and cups of tea. But when a passport was eventually processed, was it returned to its owner? Was it ever. Not until all the pile had been processed were any passports returned. Sheer gratuitous awkwardness.

More fundamentally, there is a deeply ingrained culture of disbelief, and a failure to understand that, as well as keeping harmful people out, their role is to, you know, let people in.

You’d think all foreign businessmen and women were stealing from us, that tourists were eroding our culture and robbing us blind, and that we all just want to be left alone, the way visa applicants are positively discouraged.

I could go on. You're probably picking that up. You're clearly very perceptive!

Maybe I’ll rant some more about this later.

Evverything feels better after a good breakfast

Last night we arrived in Manchester Airport. The flight was pleassant, and the sandwiches were very nice - and half price, because it was the last flight off the day (Ryanair probably inccrease the prices instead, for out of hours catering).

That was the good part.

There was nobody at Manchester airport to meet us with a wheelchair. Fortunately the staff found a chair wwe could push ourselves, avoiding a 20 minute wait. So Maithrie pushed the chair and I pushed both baggage trolleys!

Then we bought 2 more sandwiches and a carton of orange juice from the Spar in the terminal. The chicken one was off, and the orange was not so much resealable as opened, started, and resealed! The taxi driver wasn't friendly or helpful, but at least we arrived at the hotel safely.


And today, after a good breakfast, everything seems much better.

Taking the... Mickey?

What is Ryanair's Michael O'Leary smoking these days? His latest wheeze seems to be putting coin slots on the toilets in his planes - at least that's what the BBC says he is considering. The service, already scraping the bottom of the barrel, looks set to plumb new depths.

And how come it's OK to charge anyone booking one of his flights a credit card fee for each passenger and each leg of the journey? How can that legitimately be described as a "credit card" fee? The credit card company don't charge Ryanair extra if more people are included in a single transaction, or if more than one flight is involved in a transaction. Time the Trading Standards Office started taking an interest, perhaps?

About that wedding...

Here's a quick link, for those of you who need the information :-)

Does Ryanair offer zero transaction charges with Visa Electron because nobody uses it?

Does Ryanair offer zero transaction charges with Visa Electron because nobody carries the card, and they can then charge everyone else loads more money to fly, while pretending that their flights are nearly a fiver cheaper than they really are?

Just wondering...

Explosions in Colombo

We heard distant explosions or gunfire about an hour or so ago, followed a few minutes later by a power cut. People near the oil refinery report explosions there, and Reuters reports that a Tamil Tiger plane bombed the refinery. Lanka Business Online reports a fire in a power station.

Power has been restored. Nothing on local TV yet. We're some distance from the explosions - everyone here's fine.

Let's hear it for free internet access

Thanks to the enlightened airport planners of Doha who have allowed free internet access for transit passengers. Hopefully the machines don't have too many keyloggers installed - I just got a pop up saying a popular anti-virus package was deactivated!

At least it means I can catch up with my email - even if I have to change all my passwords when I arrive.

Off to Colombo next. Hi Maithrie, if you're reading this. See you soon :-)

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.

Get visas fast!

It may have been as quick as I've ever seen a government department move (privatised agency or not). In less than a week, Maithrie got her visa. Prayer, perhaps? It's not yet clear whether Dr Dido or Dr Aristophanes will be joining her.

Once more, without feeling

BMI did it again. I arrived in Belfast, but my luggage didn't. Fortunately it caught up with me a few hours later. And maybe it was SL Airlines' fault instead. Or Heathrow (though I don't think they can still blame terminal 5). I think I'm getting used to it by now.

At least it gave me an excuse to catch some sleep before driving off to my niece's first birthday party.

mirages of luggage

I thought that avoiding Heathrow terminal 5 and BA would be enough, but it seems my business travel is true to form.

today i'm in Cairo, and my luggage is... who knows where.

After I get to the front of the queue I'l find out where my stuff is. But then I'm off to meet some colleagues - and there is apparently a mall under their hotel.

here goes... apparently my bag is still in heathrow.

bye for now...

And now for something a little colder

Meanwhile, back in January

Did I say warmer?

Colombo is certainly warmer than Belfast. There are other differences as well. Yesterday I realised that driving lessons too are not the same - though given the traffic, that's not so surprising.

The appointed time was 1.30 so, naturally enough, when we arrived we were told that our instructor would not be there until 2pm. At least Maithrie was told (What do you think, Paul). We sat in the office, immersed in the sounds and smells of the street.
Unimpeded by door, wall or window, the sensations wafted (or blasted) from the road, across the rough ground in front, and straight into the room.

A minibus drew up across the road, and four of us stood up. "An interesting lesson this will be," I thought, as we weaved our way through the streaming traffic, towards the vehicle.

With seven of us wedged into the back, the minibus started slowly, unsteadily. For at least one of us the lesson had begun. As we weaved slowly through cars, buses and trishaws, parked, whizzing madly, or unexpectedly and randomly stopped, Maithrie and I realised we were heading right back where we had started from. Where we had caught that trishaw, rushing for our mythical deadline.

We meandered slowly onwards, yet backwards, the instructor gently nudging the wheel when the student's shaky course seemed desperately attracted to sudden death by bus or lorry, or to instant carnage for pedestrian, cow or passengers, or by a horrid fascination with the trenches that ran, hungry and inviting, along the roadside. Maithrie too had her turn in the fateful seat, reversing and threading ever closer to where we had started.

One hour later, and further than ever from our destination, we dismounted and ran for a bus. It stopped, half off the road, half in traffic, and we searched for a seat by a working wondow. It's good to breathe and watch as death and mayhem lurch slowly by!

If you were wondering why clear plastic bags make toothpaste safer...

Anyone who is puzzled by the peculiar EU rules on bringing "liquids" onto planes (you can, as long as they are in a resealable clear plastic bag, and they are in containers less than 100ml) will be pleased that sanity is dawning - in the European Parliament of all places.

They have asked the European Commission to repeal the ban, unless new facts emerge. They also, quite sensibly, ask for information about exactly what you can bring (the real rules, not the cartoons that every airport interprets differently), and the reasons why, to be given to passengers.

Of course the Commission have a record of ignoring the Parliament, so don't hold your breath waiting for the sanity to spread.

Credit to Bruce Schneier's October Crypto-Gram for spotting this.

Elephants at Pinnawela elephant orphanage

What I did on my holidays

Some pictures from Sri Lanka...









There are a few more stuck on my phone... I did say they might have to wait a bit :-/

Hello from Sri Lanka

I'm in Sri Lanka, where it's warmer than at home, and sometimes even wetter. It's not as cheap as it used to be - from a local perspective, things are getting very expensive. But I've got a local SIM for my mobile phone, and call and text charges are better than O2 roaming. Veeeeeerrry much better!

No insightful posts about the state of the country today - it's getting late. And pictures will have to wait till the right connections can get sorted out. But I'm having a good time in Kandy.

And Happy Birthday to my sister, if she's reading this. Your card is in the email, since there seems to be another postal strike back home.