1,516,874 voters ignored, and counting

"I know," said Tony Blair, "let's give people a way to tell us what they think - that'll reduce cynicism about politicians, and help people get involved." And so the "Number 10" e-Petitions site was born. Or maybe not...

Unfortunately those pesky voters keep asking for things that the Dear Leader doesn't want. Apparently 1,515,317 people have signed a petition against the spy-in-your-car satellite tracking system he plans to build. No, wait, it's gone up while I was writing... now it's 1,515,867!

Go sign the petition, if you don't want Tony's cronies to track your every move (and get rich doing it, if past IT contracts are anything to go by).

Only 4 days left - it closes on 20th February.

Of course, if you want to be tracked everywhere you drive, there is a petition in favour that you can sign. It's still a free country, though they're working on that!

Unfortunately, Tony says you are all wrong and he's going to ignore you - but it's getting harder to ignore the 1,516,366 people who are using their freedom.

Sorry, make that 1,516,874!

What else is wrong with the country?

So Britain is now, apparently, the worst country in the developed world for kids (here's the UNICEF report). Unfortunately that's not all we're bad at.

It seems we're one of the most spied upon countries as well. A Privacy International report from November late last year puts us in the bottom group of countries, those with "endemic surveillance", alongside Russia, China, Malaysia and Singapore. And that's without Tony Blair's proposed spy-in-the-sky satellite tracking of all motorists!

Even the government's information commissioner thinks so - he said we are sleep-walking into a surveillance society. This was after a report to the International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners' Conference, which he hosted in London.

It's depressing.

BBC too generous to viewers!

Ofcom wants to prevent viewers from being able to download a whole TV or radio series at once from the BBC, and is insisting that book readings and classical music should only be made available in restricted proprietary formats.

It's not clear who Ofcom (the telecoms and media regulator) is working for - but it doesn't seem to be you or me, if this story in the Register is any guide.

The BBC plans to make more of the programmes we're paying for available to us via the internet, with services like catch-up TV via the net, simultaneous broadcast over the internet and air, and unrestricted downloads of selected programmes.

Ofcom has produced a Market Impact Assessment, which objects to this on the grounds that someone else might want to charge you for similar services, and recommends that the service be made less convenient to consumers.

If you think that paying once for programmes (through the licence fee) is enough, there is some good news. The BBC Trust responded by saying that Ofcom's report is interesting and all, but they are also going to consider the potential value to the public of the new services, and that their decision will be based on "an informed judgement of all the evidence, in the best interests of licence fee payers".

At least someone has our interests at heart. Shame it's not the regulator.

Onwards and upwards

On a couple of trips into the surrounding areas we saw some spectacular views, and some very atmospheric ones -- for which read "so much mist we couldn't see a thing". World's End is supposed to have a huge drop and an amazing vista, but for us, the word ended in a wall of grey. I'm assured that's very rare! And the views later on were pretty spectacular...

...until the sun set while we were some way from the carpark!
On the way to the Rest House we were getting directions from a local. The road was pretty bumpy, so the driver asked him if it was like this all the way. "Yes," he replied, "it's a good road!" We eventually made it (after avoiding a place that looked like it had an hourly room rate), and had an excellent meal, a hot shower, and a fair room. The blankets were clean too - we'd just bought a pile of them earlier in the day.

Back to work on the scenery the next day...


Another night we stayed in an old Tea Plantation owner's bungalow, converted into a guesthouse. Apparently it has spectacular views... so the manager dug out his laptop and showed us what we would have seen if we'd come on any other day of the year.

The plantation manager was telling us that the tea plantation is still in operation, and they try to run the estate on fair and just principles, with decent salaries (by local standards) for the workers. It seems that many plantations keep their pickers in one-room houses, pay them a pittance, and give them few if any rights. He also had an interesting take on the benefits and drawbacks of the Fair Trade movement.


That's the road to the plantation. It's an excellent road!

Heading for the hills

We navigated level crossings and landslides (from last year's rains)...


...and encountered luxury (in the shape of air conditioned tea rooms, selling excellent tea), and hard conditions (workers doing manual labour under the bright sun, on the tea plantations and by the roads - I did not expect to see old ladies working on the roads!)


The countryside was magnificent...

but Sri Lanka is making me think a little more about our political difficulties in Northern Ireland, how hard it seems to be for us to agree on comparatively small issues, and about how we actually get the goods we consume in our daily lives.

Take your eye off the ball, and what happens?

I go on holiday to Sri Lanka, which has its own security problems, and what do I find back home?

Now that the main terrorists are on ceasefire, and about to come into government in NI, the UK Government only want to cut back our own civil liberties!

In the "good old days" (TM) the police needed to have some kind of actual suspicion that crime was afoot before mounting a raid to secure evidence. Now, they are introducing an order [see draft law] to allow the police to confiscate stuff where they don't even have a suspicion of a crime. All they need is to think they might get suspicious, once they finish combing through whatever they grab, and before you can say "no scope for abuse whatsoever", your records, computers, photo albums, goods, whatever have been confiscated indefinitely while PC Plod tries to see if you have done anything that he can book you for.

There is lots more not to like, buried among the mind-numbing details, but that's enough to be getting on with. Slugger O'Toole has highlighted it, twice, and now the press are covering it.

You have until January 22nd to comment [see consultation page]. They are also asking about something called "community support officers", whatever that means. Probably bad news too.

Bah humbug.

A typical conversation

Shortly after arriving in Kandy I had the following conversation - over and over again, it seemed. At least twice, anyway:

Maithrie (in Sinhalese, or it might be Greek): Blah blah blah blah.
Shopkeeper (or as it may be, taxi driver or waiter): Blah blah blah blah.
Maithrie: Blah blah blah blah. Blah!
Shopkeeper: Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah.
Maithrie: What do you think, Paul?

It's got better now, fortunately - or maybe my telepathy has improved. My Sinhalese remains shamefully nonexistent.

Heading to Kandy

We left Colombo (fairly) early to head for Kandy. Radheeka, who is a bit of an expert on getting food, told us about a favourite wee curry place of hers, on the way.

It even had toilets.

Further on, we saw an elephant by the river.


A bit closer to Kandy, another opportunity for food presented itself. Coconuts, when you slice the top off, reveal a clear, refreshing drink. You can eat some of the insides as well. Very good - and easier to get than bottled water, in the countryside.

There were also fortune tellers who, for a modest fee, would tell you whatever you wanted to hear.

We are here!

OK. Safely arrived in Kandy Cottage. News and pictures to follow, with any luck.

It's supposed to be cooler here in the highlands, but today you wouldn't have known. Meanwhile, back at home, it's winter!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, folks!

I'm off on holiday now, so I'd better do a bit of packing I suppose. Maybe I'll manage a few pictures in a while - who knows?

Till later...

Male Restroom Etiquette

Some of you may have wondered why we men don't go to the toilet in groups of three or more. All that and more is explained here, in Male Restroom Etiquette, a video at youtube.com.


Warning - this is true. Kind of. Only look if you really want to know... like that will stop you.
Rating: funny, slightly icky, educational.

Velvet sock and cloven hoof?

"We're not the Nasty Party any more", say the Tories, but today they announced a new immigration policy. They want to "significantly reduce" immigration, and bring in annual quotas. They say that public services will be swamped by the new workers who are moving here to take up many hard-to-fill posts. Except that the birthrate here is falling. The proportion of workers paying into pensions versus retired people claiming pensions is getting dangerously low. And if services are inadequate (and they are) then keeping out foreigners is solving the wrong problem! Maybe we should, you know, improve the services so they can meet our needs?

But it's not just Cameron's Tories -- Labour is even worse! Tony Blair has all of this short-sighted "be nasty to foreigners" badness, with added ID card insanity. They are still pretending that fingerprinting innocent citizens, building a new all-seeing, big brother, national database with files on everyone, and compulsory "voluntary ID cards" for all will somehow help eliminate crime, immigration, terrorism, and rain [1] on bank holidays!

[1] OK - maybe the rainy bank holidays are supposed to be fixed by global warming caused by an ineffective environmental policy.
But the rest is true.

Maybe it is the worst company in the world after all

A few days ago I had a call from O2 (formerly "the worst company I have ever dealt with, bar none"). They offered me a new handset (Nokia E50) and a 20% reduction in rental in exchange for a 1 year extension of the contract.

Nothing appeared, so I rang them this evening.

Surprisingly, they had no record of the new handset - in fact it's not even in their portfolio, they said. Less surprisingly, they did have a record of my 12-month extension to the contract. Effective one week after Dean rang, but there you go.

The department that may be able to help me had (even less surprisingly) gone home. So maybe tomorrow we'll find out how far O2 are on their way to regaining their status of the worst company I have ever dealt with, bar none.

Bad Bloggers! Naughty Bloggers!

Apparently blogging is eeeevil, according to Ambassador Youth, an online magazine at "the only website on earth that explains the truth of virtually every biblical doctrine — and in extraordinary detail".

The argument is "interesting" - with no sense of irony, the author begins by lamenting that Blogs give young people (Oh, the horror!) a "voice". Still, I thought you might be interested in this snippet from the fruitcake zone.

Reported in The Register.