So I am solvent again, but you wouldn't know it. Since depositing a very large check in my account Abbey national have been doing all they can to stop me getting it. First they placed a lock on the account, which was eventually removed. Then I had to order a new pin number. I then discovered I can't use the card anywhere, online or swiped until I receive the pin & unlock the card. So tonight I got my new pin and dutifully pelted it down to the cash machine to activate it.

Enter Pin: - ok entered
Select Service: - ok, pin services
Select from...
Change pin.
Unlock pin. - ok, unlock pin.

We have retained your card. Please call customer services. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So apparently according to CS that shouldn't have happened but they will now have to order me a new card, which will take 5-7 working days of course, then if I remember rightly I'll have to wait for a new pin number.

So remember these words - ABBEY ARE SHIT, do not use abbey national, their online banking has also refused to work adequately for weeks and when you telephone technical support they say there is a problem with the service and to try again in a couple of hours.

I shall be phoning them tomorrow to arrange to remove all of my cash from them.

When I first decided to go back to school and forget all the dreams of becoming a famous guitarist one of the first projects I had to do I chose the subject of encryption. Even back then in 1996 the governments of the western worlds were trying to find ways to stop people from encrypting digital communications.

These days the letter is virtually (sorry that's not a play on worms) dead. However if the government want to find out what you wrote to your aunt Maude they have to go through a lengthy judicial process to get the legal authority to intercept, open and read about your joy that she reached 73 and can still manage to fend off hypothermia over christmas by eating two hot meals a week and wearing her tog 10 quilt when she watches telly.

Despite every tech savvy individual who cares about our privacy warning us all for the last 15 years that e-mail has never offered the same protection nobody has really taken any notice. 15 years ago though nobody had decided to embark upon a war against 'terror'. I am sure everyone will agree with the US & UK governments that terrorism is the number one threat to our daily lives and our happiness. Let's face we all know friends or relaitves who have been physically harmed by terrorists don't we? Oh wait....

So before the complete terrorist victory over the western world (9/11) that has since justified every dream policy of the old enemies (the stasi, SS, etc...) England, USA, France, Canada and some other country I can't remember right now got together to create a thing called Echelon. This was/is a series of filtering computers attached to the internet as routers with the sole purpose of intercepting and scanning every single e-mail and digital communication that passed through it for spook sensitive keywords and phrases.

So with the breakdown of the presumed innocent until proven guilty attitude of the law we have to assume (and as a techy I promise you it is utterly guaranteed that every single e-mail you send to anyone is automatically scanned for the spook's favourite keywords)

All of my seditious sentiments are expressed here rather than to friends via e-mail because I have never been inclined to become a member of any group no matter how much we have in common. I am just anti-social by nature I suppose. some of you may remember I only started this site because someone complained about including them on the group mails I was sending about my life when I lived in the USA. I decided to move to an opt-in model of communication. As far as I know no-one reads this anymore at all apart from my lovely missus and the cat (when we are out of course - the only computing skills he demonstrates when I am home is the ability to defrag the hard drives, re-install windows, install plugins for firefox and hack all the neighbour's wifi routers)

Anyway I am not yet drunk enough to forget that my point was why should the government be forced to get a warrant to read postal mail and yet be completly free to read our e-mail?

Now at the behest of the record companies they have threatened to legislate against 'filesharers' and have also promised to rid the net of 'terrorists'. The only way to do this is to force ISPs to monitor every single pice of digital information from your PC (phone, fridge, TV and anything else which may be connected in the future)to the internet attempting to spot copyright material or naughty words like AK-47, Terrorist, assasination, globalisation (or even globalization) as well as acronyms like PNAC or queries like George close to Bush and fucking monkey or kill, assasinate,death of democracy, blah, blah, blair, blah

Some people, organisations, comedians and plenty of conserned individuals have tried to highlight the rapid decline of our rights to privacy and many IT experts have testified that the ID card database & biometrics are inherently unsafe, almost certainly unworkable, and under funded by many billions. If you also consider how many government IT projects have actually worked let alone come anywhere close to the predicted budget you really should be shitting your pants rather than posting comments on the Beeb's "have your say" which affirm that you are not a criminal and therefore have nothing to hide.

The next step beyond the rhetoric is to introduce laws which make secure communications illegal - they tried it before but theuy hadn't managed to scare the proletariat into believing the terrosrist threat was any greater danger than crossing the road or drinking alcohol. By the government's reasoning we should spend tens of billions of pounds protecting the populace from lightning which is far more frequent than acts of terrorism. Crossing or driving on the roads and pensioner fuel poverty are still the biggest killers in the country.

Of course if we ALL encrypt our e-mails in an unopenable digital envelope we can say what we like without offending the ruling political party and allow whistle blowers to blow whistles and political activists to be active. Do you really agree that a thought can be considered a crime? That is what our collective administrations are constantly moving towards

If you can't be arsed to encrypt your e-mail you could at least add a signature that contains keywords which make the machines demand human intervention to determine the threat level. If every e-mail contains some sensitive words we add a huge cost to the automated surveillance. There is nothing illegal in including "assasinate the president" in e-mail signatures. Of course you will need to create your own constantly changing keywords - don't automate, be human. Machines and spooks hate the unusual.

The Uk government have recently introduced legislation which allows a prison sentence if you refuse to give encryption passwords to law enforcers. Fuck em I say - do we want to be American gulag number two?

I think we can expect to see new attempts to make encryption illegal within the next 4-5 years. They are already preparing the groundwork. The recent noise from the mouths of our betters such as policing the internet to save us from terrorists anf filesharers are attempting to make ISPs responsible for inspecting all internet communications and fingering the evil doers. The SS (secret services not Social services) have recently expressed concern that Voice Over IP technology makes it harder for them to listen in to all our phone calls thanks to encryption an IP routing. All we are waiting for now is a high profile pedo case in which encryption is a used and a raft of new measures will suddenly appear making it illegal for us to protect our communications from the all seeing eye of the law

In this brave new world where you can be locked away indefinitely without trial for expressing an opinion and for the sake of the (fingerprinted, iris scanned and chipped) children of the future we really should all be encrypting our e-mails regardless of how trivial the content may be. We might still be able to get away with protecting your own privacy in a court of law, but if we don't do something that protection won't last very long.

I could attempt to write a tutorial of sorts on how to encrypt your e-mail etc.. but if you are interested you are better off learning it for yourself. The first steps are to use the following search queries on the net.

Phil zimmerman
pretty good privacy (or PGP)
public key encryption
encrypting e-mail

Here it comes again! So I decided to get the decorations up on the website. Hopefully things are looking up for the new year thanks to a potential contract. I am still waiting for confirmation though, so I'll say no more about it for the moment.

In fact I'll say no more about anything at the moment because I am busy fiddling with the site's decorations. More soon though.

Intro

Sorry Mr Burgess, but I think now might be an appropriate time to steal your title. Of course the unqualified wittering I am about to record may simply be a symptom of my age and I must admit I haven't done any research into whether people are inclined to predict future doom and pestilence once they reach their forties. The image of an old man walking Oxford street with his sandwich board proclaiming 'The end is nigh' springs to mind.

These days any nutter with the inclination can gain a far greater audience without having to lug a couple of pieces of plywood tied with string many miles each day. What's more, there seems to be some kind of automatic credibility associated with a website that the sandwichboard man could never have dreamed of.

So between looking for jobs and learning yet more computer languages and paradigms I have been browsing discussions on various topical subjects. Personally I tend to follow climate change 'debate', politics and civil liberties issues. There is a large intersection between these subjects of course and it is obvious that a lot of 'contributors' don't understand that one affects the other. In addition since it seems impossible to blow your own nose without some piece of software to make it easier for you, I can at least see how computers might aid or hinder our efforts in any particular field.

What is hard is pulling all of this stuff together in a coherent way to prove that we really are doomed. Yes doomed I say! So put away your jizz mags and your special brew and pay attention.

What the public have to say

You should read this BBC Have Your Say 'debate' about whether climate change has been understated, although in reality any online forum on climate change will provide the same depressing realisation that the majority won't consider any evidence until the waves are lapping at their doors. The BBC makes it worse by only allowing 500 characters and filtering out any URLs making it easy to submit dogmatic criticisms and hard to submit an evidence based rebuttal.

Why is there so much sceptisism about Anthropomorphic Climate Change (ACC)

Money makes the [fecking] world go round

Who makes money?

The people who sell you crap you don't need make money. Even the stuff we do need is sold based on what the market is willing to pay rather than its intrinsic value.

The government then taxes the income of those who make the product, those who sell the product and those who buy the product.

Shareholders who have invested in the product demand returns on their investment, and their investment is valued on the willingness of people to purchase the product.

So 'business' needs marketers to tell people what they want (need) to buy and a medium that reaches the maximum number of suckers consumers to deliver the message to.

Once it was just TV, then it was viral marketing via e-mail,now it is epidemic marketing through social networking sites.

So we have a treadmill of ever increasing 'growth' in economic terms. I have to ask what is the goal of sustained economic growth? In nature things can only grow to some genetically or environmentally imposed limit. When cells defy this rule we call them cancer. When insect populations defy this rule we call them plagues. We only have one world. That may or may not change in the future, but until it does we need to recognise that our survival is dependant upon an intricate web of interaction with all the other organisms that share our currently unique planet

This is where I got too pissed to continue ranting...

Actually it was turning out to be an extraordinarily long rant, and I never managed to finish it before the wine sent me to sleep. As is befitting of such an epic potential global catastrophe...so forget it. It's christmas now (when I finally returned to realise I had started this and not finished, you lucky people). Lets just get all those lights up and fire up the playstations.

Sorry it's been so long but I have been licking my wounds and contemplating the state of the world. Things like this just didn't happen when I were a lad. I am allowed to say things like that now I am a forty something.

As you recall the last time I scrawled some thoughts on my keyboard I was worried that it was taking my new employers so long to give me a start date. Well my paranoia was justified since they withdrew the offer on the 26th July on the basis of a preliminary diagnosis of having IBS. So that's cost me a job, 6 weeks with no income waiting for a start date, £500 for clothes to match their stupid dress code and left me £3k in debt (for the bike) and a £500 overdraft which I only took on to get through the pay trough when switching jobs. We are taking them to tribunal under the Disability Discrimination Act, but it hasn't done my career any favours, but let's not bother getting into the gritty details. I can't stand having to go over a hard luck story over and over again until at last everyone knows the story.

Anyway it's not just my massive readership that has suffered my silence. So I apologise to my friends for being incommunicado recently.

There's been no lack of things to rant about in the world recently, but to be honest I have been too overwhelmed with incredulity to manage to type a coherent, let alone slightly amusing comment lately. Which is another reason for my silence.

Thankfully I haven't spent the last few months curled in a foetal ball all the time. I was asked by a friend if I would consider doing them a website on the cheap, it's still under development but the latest draft can be seen here. Personally I think it looks good (unless you are using IE6 of course, in which case you should be shot), but then I would. Unfortunately Jennifer's marketing person doesn't seem to agree with me. Hopefully we can come to an agreement soon. The lack of positive feedback isn't helping my mood any!

I should mention big congratulations to Paul & Joh on their wedding and apologise for not being able to make it thanks to all the reasons above. Also congratulations to Lynn & Mark on their marriage too and once again my apologies for not being able to make it to Niagra Falls for the ceremony.

More apologies to Paul & Sam (or Mum & Dad as they are commonly known) and George for missing your birthdays.

In more news... I have finally been sent to a specialist regarding my digestive issues (severe anti-wheatiness causing extremely severe anti-social bottom syndrome, oh and of course the pain, oh the pain!). So I have recently enjoyed the pleasure of having a camera, scalpel and air tube strapped together and inserted in my bottom by two burly Brighton men and a mature lady. It is a treatment I can highly recommend to anyone wishing to be cured of Munchausen syndrome. My next exciting procedure is a camera and scalpel strapped together and forced down my throat into my stomach. I'm really looking forward to that, especially since I seem to have a hair trigger gag response. I think they might have to give me a general if they expect to get anything other than 3 star michelin grub down my throat.
There is however an upside to this forthcoming violation procedure. I have to eat wheaty things for four weeks before the biopsy. Just to explain briefly the procedure is to rule out Coeliac Disease which is an auto immune condition and can be identified because the vili of the small intestine are damaged by the immune system in the presence of gluten (this is off the top of my head, I am sure it is more complicated than that, but I'm not going to go quoting wikipedia). So the biopsy isn't very helpful if you have been living gluten free for many years.

From what I gather most people who find themselves in a similar situation tend to eat a slice of bread a day until their biopsy. The poor unfortunate fools! Gluten is so pervasive in the western food culture that for years I have had to forsake all sorts of things beyond bread. Let's face it, this period is going to hurt not only me but also Jo and Tass. I might as well make an effort to enjoy poisoning myself for four weeks.

So I am working on a diet rich in real ale, malt vineger (oh how I miss it!!!) Fish & chips and eating out at restaurants without having to ask what every fecking ingredient is. Unfortunately there's always the risk I will end up bent double with agonising stomach cramps or at worse unexpectedly crap myself so I hope you are understanding if I am planning to visit you before the end of October ;)

toodle pip

It's ironic that during the times when I have the least to do, I get the least amount of stuff done. I have had very little to do since the 11th of June, which is when I completed my notice for my old job. So you'd think that I might have at least updated this web page? Well you would be wrong. I was expecting to start my new job on the 2nd of July, but I am still waiting for a start date!

You might think that favours the argument that God is after all quite a nice bloke. That Janimania is in fact a lucky bastard. If so you have failed to consider the major fact that I am not being paid for this unexpected break in my career. In addition since I still don't have a start date now that all the relevant documents have been in the hands of the HR department for over a week I am starting to worry that I might have to start prostituting myself to the employment agencies again and damn sharpish too!

It might not be quite so worrying if I hadn't borrowed £3k from my beloved to buy a GSXr 1000 (oh but it is sooooooooo lovely to ride) to replace the frankenbike, Christine, the cursed and dying GPZ500 (well several of them actually, different models stapled together by Blue Peter presenters I think).

OK, never mind. At least I live by the seaside, have a fantastic bike, and a large chunk of summer off work! Oh no, wait a minute. What F*****g summer? It looks like I will have all next week doing nothing waiting for the Medical company to declare me fit for work, and guess what the forecast says? Torrential rain all week. Excellent!

So basically I have 6 weeks of free time over summer with a new and very rideable, very fast, sports bike and we consistently get the highest rainfalls and worst flooding for the time of year in a century or more. When am I next going to get 6 weeks off in the summer without winning the lottery or completely losing the crappy game of [modern] life? God, you non-existent bastard, I officially name you a total git. Take that your omnipotence.

In other news, according to the BBC Windows Vista is driving Microsoft sales to achieve 11% growth over last year. According to every other source (the register has a more cynical view here), Windows Vista sales under-performed by $20-$30m (This was from the Chief Financial Officer, Chris Liddell) causing growth to remain inline with the last three years (non revolutionary mega-hyped shit operating system release years). Shares dropped as a result of profits not meeting expectations. Such a report isn't just biased it is simply wrong!

Oooh and what a suprise! No one at all was found to be guilty of anything in the cash for honours enquiry. Surely that's not right? We need a scapegoat and we need one now! Why can't they throw that recently unemployed git with the plastic grin to the wolves? Actually maybe it would be better all around if they send him to the Middle East. I just wish they would get on with it.

Finally, Ian Formean - or a suitable representative, where are you now??? Send me a mail you bastard!

I hope you like the fancy new retro graphics that I decided to do in honour of my 40th Birthday. I was thinking of those old 50's chromed grills and trims. All very Greased Lightning!

I didn't stop there though. Rather than purchasing a bulk pack of Ibuleve and a pair of slippers, I got a new job instead. This has the effect of cutting my daily commute time by 3 hours and increasing my salary by 8k.

I can feel my second wind coming on!

Finally a brief wave to my Brother who has just moved to China, and it's his Birthday in two days time!

Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.

Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!

OK so unfortunately not quite dead, but the weasely (sorry for this association weasels), lying, sycophantic, drama queen and dictator TB has announced his resignation. It's a shame he didn't do it eight years ago. Equally unfortunately we now have to face days of seeing his sickening grin all over the papers and TV.

True to recent form though everyone's favourite aunty, the Beeb, are reporting words of praise from all and sundry. I'd like to see his "I did what I thought was right" pleading grin juxtaposed with the bloody bodies of all the children who might not have died if he had let the UN weapons ispectors do their jobs. Or if he had hadn't Condoned Israel's actions in Lebanon.

Still it's not really fair to let his most disgusting failures overshadow the rest of his miserable legacy. Or the number of his pals he allowed to keep their jobs despite bending the law to their will, presumably for the sake of the common good.

It's at times like this that I wish I did actually believe in some god or other, if only to give me the satisfaction of knowing he(or she) will be slamming the pearly gates in Tony's smug face when his time comes.

I can't believe the misguided, arrogant, pompous bastard is setting up a foundation for peace... I imagine he will be using his 'pleading, shaky lips, on the edge of tears' face on poor unsuspecting ex-customers and victims of his own policies to further the cause.

Can we now ship him out of the country as fast as possible please, preferably on an unmarked civil airliner, dressed in an orange jumpsuit with a bag on his head, to some country that presumes guilt over innocence. Oh wait, bugger! He's already in one.

Your uncle or new girlfriend's Dad would tell you how they were in a band when they were young. Now however with the wonders of new technology us oldies can force you to listen to MP3's of our youth. Just be thankful we can't record odours yet.

In the absence of any children I thought I would inflict my nostalgic musings on any hapless passer by who stumbles onto these pages. It's a dangerous place the internet.

For the love of sheep don't click on the menu item daubed with the letters 'm' 'u' 's' 'i' 'c'. I have to spell it or the cat starts to howl.

Stick it to the man, kids. er.... I don't mean stab anyone or anything though, you know? I meant it in a kind of 60's hippy voice.

As promised you can now find guests of Biff & Tracy and indeed the happy couple themselves gurning their little hearts out on the photo albums page.

Right well I have just got hold of the latest version of IL-2, IL-2 1946. A devastatingly good WWII flight combat sim. Good for stand alone or internet play.

Chocs Away!

Hello chums, it has been a while but the use of the word 'infrequent' in the title of this site isn't an accident. I have valid excuses. Apart from the 4.5 hours a day I spend commuting to work & back we have moved house, and consequently I have had to take up gardening because there is quite a lot of it (more of this sometime I am sure). We have also been to a Christening and a wedding

Check back in a little while and I will hopefully have some pictures of Biff & tracy's wedding to embarass a few people.

I'll also endeavour to get the Dear Dreary section online again so Nigel can read my anti Bush rants!

back in a bit....

Morning Campers! That was a bit of a crappy festive season, I remained ill until the the 2nd week in January. So whilst I had a strong urge to moan about things, I couldn't back it up with any action. On top of my own malaise my computer decided it wasn't well either.

I have to say the year has got off to a great start though. If you like to whinge about the madness of the world that is, but I don't think I can be bothered to launch into a review of the year so far for the gruntled. I have already spent two hours this morning trying to beat my computer into submission.

Does anyone know how long it takes to turn a couple of old wrecks and some RAF bases into prison camps? I was thinking of going on a petty crime spree since there is currently an amnesty on custodial sentences unless you actually murder someone by the looks of it. So know is the time to walk up to smiling Tony or one of his cronies and give them a good slapping.

Also in the news this week rail bosses informed us that travelling in an overcrowded train bulging at the doors with commuters is safer than a train in which everyone can get a seat. That's very reassuring. Of course your train has to actually arrive before you can enjoy the safety of being elbowed in the stomach, repeatedly slapped in the face with shoulder bags and get your feet crushed by expensive leather shoes. I feel particularly safe when all those heavy bags are precariously placed on the razor thin luggage racks above my head. So next time I am luxuriating in someone else's all pervading body odour and wondering why the gentleman in the suit behind me has such a large phone pressed against my thigh I'll at least know that I am safe. I can't help wondering where all those essential commuter accessories like laptops, umbrellas, briefcases and flasks full of hot coffee end up in the event of an accident?

In a shock revelation our landlord has decided to sell the pokey basement flat we rent from him. So now we have to find somewhere else to house the cat and ourselves. Amazingly it is on market for £170,000. Any of you who have visited can retrieve your lower jaws from the floor now.

We had a great time last weekend when we went to see my Ma. It was great to see the Singing Loins again. We bought ourselves a new camera a couple of weeks ago, so I chanced taking it to the pub for what I knew would be a dangerously drunken evening. When you consider that I broke our last camera within four hours of buying it and I wasn't even drunk you'll realise how immensly brave I was. Photo's of the night here

There were several downsides to the weekend. Obviously I had a stinking hangover the next day and these days my body isn't subtle when it complains about all the horrible things I do to it. Which means that Sunday was consigned to feeling crap all day.

The worst one was the fact that I managed to pick up the lurgy from someone. It crept up on me early Monday morning and made me feel weaker and feebler than I usually do on a Monday morning. By the time I went home I was nauseous and staggering about a bit. The train journey seemed to take hours (hours more than the two it takes anyway).

So I have spent the rest of the week off sick, which I didn't need and neither did my employers. I can't help noticing though all these adverts that suggest a bit of lemon and artificial sweetener flavoured paracetamol is going to miraculously make you feel well enough to commute for two hours and then be any good at your job.

Even cold remedies that do work, shouldn't be used so you can sit on commuter trains, in offices or waltz around super markets leaving a trail of people with frail immune systems lying gasping in your wake.

One of the reasons a deadly flu pandemic is so dangerous is because we seem to find it perfectly acceptable to squeeze ourselves into packed commuter trains when we are infectious.

Toodle pip chums

I have been waiting patiently for a news article I read elsewhere to appear on the bastion of British news media, good old Aunty Beeb. Not on the BBC's television news of course, since that has only been pretending to be informative and hasn't provided any critical analysis of the news for years. However I thought that Radio 4 or the BBC website might at least be trying to remain relevant?

Was there some lost weekend that I have no memory of where I went on a white lightning bender and when I finally woke up, counting the carrot chunks in the bowl, some multi-national conglomerate had bought our Aunty?

I used to laugh at American 'science' documentaries when I was younger, proudly touting Aunty's Horizon as the measure of all. Unfortunately someone seems to have decided that sensationalist new age drivel is what the people want. Maybe they got the same integrity challenged producers employed on that popular light entertainment magazine show called the BBC News to take over.

Maybe it's because the country's most respectable media organisation never asks critical questions and has become obsessed with sensationalism and being popular that 59 out of 90 headmasters when sent information packs from 'Truth In Science' (a group proposing 'Intelligent Design' as an alternative to Evolution) responded that they would be helpful teaching aids. Just remember these are the people in charge of the education of your children.

If you haven't read about intelligent design then you can spend several hours trying not to wet yourselves by searching for it on the web. What truly makes me laugh is the transparent weasely facade the Truth In Science organisation presents as a front for American Fundamentalists. Intelligent Design? Oh the exquisite irony!

The thing that makes me cry however is the popularity of this belief system presented as science. Surely it is only a matter of time before Horizon covers the theory with a straight face. We may be one of the most secular societies in the world but it seems the majority of us still want to believe.

Get back to the point fat lad! - ed (I always wanted to be the bloke who wrote 'blah blah blah - ed' in the Beano)

Well Ok maybe Aunty beeb isn't the only view on the world in this country but it is a f**king major one.

Here come's the broken record - ed [ooh joy! Joy!]. The story whose absence has miffed me so is that an EU funded Identity research group released a report stating that the current scheme of digital biometric passports being implemented across the western world is fundamentally flawed and make Identity theft easier.

Our government is using the Passport technology as the basis for the National ID card and Identity Register and intends to spend £6 billion implementing them (although the London School of Economics believes the actual cost will be nearer to £19 billion, and that is disregarding the all the previous late, over-budget and non functional goverment IT projects that we have paid for before).

Beyond the cost, this system will eventually affect every aspect of our society and as such not only deserves, but demands open and honest debate about the implications.

Why does Aunty think this isn't news worthy? Sadly Aunty's once pristine petticoats have been soiled by who knows what? Is it just apathy? A drive to be popular? An attempt to justify the license fee by not rocking the boat?

Here's some references, further reading...

Passports hacked

The Register article on FIDIS report

The FIDIS report itself

I think that the rant is over for now, at least on this page, I think I will need to create an ID card section all of it's own so that people can ignore it and I'll have to write about something else on these pages.

Take care reader -ed

I have finally fixed the message board now. I have also fiddled with the graphics a bit in lieu of having anything to say!

Toodle pip chums

I think I have adequately validated the 'infrequent' in this site's subtitle. Unfortunately the rigors of work and a 50 mile commute weaving through the knob-ends in their Mercedes SLK's and BMW M3/M5's takes it's toll. I have been too knackered to do anything other than mechanically spoon some gruel into my face before crawling as close as I can get to the bed.

I have though got around to re-instating most of the photo albums. However the message board is still not functioning since the server changed. I have to stay awake long enough to mail my webhosts for some information about the server path to get the script up & running again...

In the meantime keep the tin foil hats on...

This week Dubya dropped a bombshell (metaphorical, as opposed to the real ones they drop all over the world) apparently the CIA were holding potential 'terrorists' in secret prisons around the world. Oooh Gasp! Never! That implies that all the 'rumours' of extrordinary rendition, the practise of kidnapping someone and flying them off to secret prisons, were also true unless they got the 'terrorists' to meet them there.

So no suprises there then. The US government and no doubt our own have been lying to us as we all suspected. Of course it is all for our own good. We should be thankful that we don't live under a regime in which it is possible to disappear on the whim of some faceless secret service spook. To be incarcerated indefinitely without access to the law. After all that's why we fought Saddam and all those other tin pot dictators.

Anyway we are off to sunny spain in a couple of hours - hooray! Unfortunately we have to lock the cat up in a cattery for the week - boo!

Here's a picture of the little fella...

Take care everyone...

hmm it is a recurring problem, drunk alone in strange places you are filled with inspiration. It is easy to write, sometimes it is even funny. Stuck in the status quo with your drunk girlfriend giggling with her bezzy in the corner it is much harder to find something you (if no one else) can be arsed to type that's worth spending the time doing so.

I should have been in bed when I wrote that. It was not as late as it should have been but I was the right side of drunk to start a rant and god knows the cronies at the powerhouse never stop doing stupid things worth ranting about. However being coerced into inadequately pumping up a very adequate airbed while seeking divine inspiration wasn't really inspirational.

So now I am suffering from all the cloudy cider I consumed last night while the wrong woman sleeps in my bed and the right one is curled up almost on the floor probably dreaming of sinking ships or quicksand while she tries to sleep on the result of my uninspired and inadequate airbed construction attempts.

It's a shame because that strikes me as a great metaphor for the new PFI rescued hospitals we'll be getting in the near future. Unfortunately the gits who'll be lending the money will never have to lie in the beds the make, unlike me.

But my head is pounding too much and all this bed talk was really just an excuse to show off a new graphic anyway.

Toodle pip folks...

Well we did our bit for peace, although I doubt it did any good other than to appease our consciences.

Watching the news the other morning I was reminded of how pointless 24 hour news channels are, and I was only watching the regular terrestial morning news.

Flashing all over the screen were the words 'breaking news'. Seems to me it was a description of what they were doing rather than indicating something new and news worthy happening.

Yes a terrorist plot had been uncovered. Eager TV journalists were trying deperately to inject some excitement into the morning's events. Ex-intelligence officers were being wheeled in front of the cameras by the dozen. While roving reporters scoured the airports for pictures of armed police and tales of delayed holidays.

The fact is that for the hour or so I saw had one single fact hidden in a mire of endless speculation. "We have no details as yet". Is the complete abscence of any facts really news?

I don't think so.

I am wondering though why the possible threat (as it turns out) of liquid explosives being smuggled on board an airliner meant you couldn't take a book on board in your hand luggage. Maybe they were worried someone might reduce the pilot to tears with a particularly moving poetry recital or something.

As promised sometime ago I have rejigged the messageboard and archived all the previous posts. So you can now join me in condemning whoever you want.

Stop the War coallition are organising a demonstration on Saturday 5th August from Hyde Park (speakers corner) marching to Downing Street and then onto Parliament Square. We are going to be there, I hope you will join us.

If you have some tissues handy you might want to watch this video, try not to break your monitor if Condoleeza's sickening grin makes you want to punch it.

Wow, go Tony! You really showed Dubya that you're no poodle. The people of Lebanon must be so relieved that you've managed to bully Dubya into resolving this human tragedy by demanding some almost immediate discussion.

His brilliant plan is that everyone (apart from Hezbollah, Syria and Iran) gather round a table some time next week and have a chat about a long term solution to the Middle East 'problem'. The idea is to mandate an 'immediate' UN peace-keeping force to augement the Lebanese army.

This word 'immediate' seems to have lost it's meaning all of a sudden. It is unlikely that a peace-keeping force can be assembled instantaneouly, especially while Israel are busy murdering the UN observers who are already in the region.

So this rapid reaction plan then seems to tie right in to the Israeli's own time scale for a resolution - weeks of unfettered slaughter.

I would like to know how Dubya and Bliar actually define terrorism, because any definition I can find describes the actions of Israel completely. The failure of the US and UK to condemn these actions sends a message to the whole world that it is acceptable to murder civilians for political ends.

There really is only one way to fight terrorism and that is with diplomacy from a position of the moral high ground. By resorting to the same tactics as the terrorists you merely confirm their beliefs and justify their methods of resistance.

Since this is not a particularly difficult concept to grasp, and most politicans are by no means stupid, we have to conclude that their actions are calculated to provide them some other benefit.

Anyway, get your voice heard at www.stopwar.org.uk

Hold on to your hats people the Bliar has embarked on a mission to save the world! Whitehall officials have described it as the most important Bush/Blair summit ever.

Whitehouse officials have described it as... He was going to be in California anyway, it would be a bit wierd if he didn't visit the Whitehouse while he was here.

That seems to sum up our 'special' relationship rather well doesn't it? Bend over and hold on to your ankles Tony. I suspect you're in for one long hot sweaty afternoon.

We should club together and buy him a cushion to sit on afterwards.

What with all this international paralysis and bloodshed I nearly forgot to mention that I am back in full time employment (pending successful completion of my probationary period, good references and a successful medical of course).

Which is a good job because Jo Bobs requires plenty of champagne to keep her blood flowing and my weird face out of focus!

In these times I can't even come close to mentioning the company as there is a rapidly growing case file of individuals sacked because they indulged in a bit of blogging. Several of these have never mentioned the company name and used a pseudonym as well so I'm certainly not going to rock the boat on this one.

I should however point out that all opinion on this page is purely a result of my own free time speculation and amateur philosophising (is that an actual word?) and in no way represents the views of the anonymous company I now work for.

Hooray for me!!!!!!!!

I guess it's no suprise that the Bliar refuses to demand an immediate ceasefire, he hasn't even asked for permission to speak from his pimp. But I am wondering why the opposition seem to have nothing to say on the matter?

Dave, where are you? Didn't you know it is considered 'cool' not to bomb women, children, the infirm, the red cross and UN observers or are you hoping to steal back some of those right wing hardcore tories keeping Bliar in power?

Ming meanwhile is presumably tucked under a tartan shawl dozing by the fireside.

Most sickening of all is that Dr Condoleeza Rice describes the death of 400 and the displacement of 1/2 million lebanese civilians as the 'birth pangs of a new Middle East.' Great diplomacy there! All I can say is I'm fucking glad you're not my Doctor.

It's fairly obvious that bombing a civilian population into submission, and destroying a nation's infrastructure is unlikely to endear the Arab world to the West. Without a doubt there are children all over Lebanon vowing to avenge the deaths of their mothers, fathers and sisters.

A year ago Condo talked of spreading 'creative chaos' in the Middle East, presumably this is what she meant. I can't help thinking that the US and UK are actually deliberately pursuing foreign policies designed to encourage more & more terrorists. After all the more threatened we as citizens feel by potential acts of terror the less we complain about the erosion of our civil liberties.

This presumably is a secondary benefit. The main being a 'New Middle East'. With Iraq no longer a threat to anyone except it's own citizens and it's oil fields safely in the hands of US corporations it only remains to liberate Iran and Syria of their land and oil. After all we know we are approaching a resource crisis, not to mention the threat of global warming and the massive geo-political upheaval that it will bring with it.

The US is already blaming Iran and Syria for the conflict in Lebanon. I think they are hoping to antagonize them into becoming officially involved allowing a couple more regime changes in the region. Continuing to follow the policies of the US think tank Project for the New American Century founded by Dick cheney in 1997. PNAC advocates spending more to strengthen the US military for preserving and extending an international order friendly to US security, prosperity and principles.

Interestingly a large number of PNAC members also happen to be high ranking officials in the Bush regime, oops administration, including:
Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton.

The best thing we can do for the future of the world is to rebuild the credibility of the UN, preferably removing the USA from the security council until they remove Bush & Co from the whitehouse.

Before we can do that of course we need to remove our lilly-livered, lying sycophantic tosser of a prime minister (and his cronies) from power first.

Have a nice day everyone! Jan out.

You'd think the Israelis would be paralysed by regret by now wouldn't you? 'We regret civilian deaths', 'we regret firing missiles into red cross ambulances', 'we regret firing missiles at UN observation posts'. Well STOP bombing then you bastards!

For most of us regret is something we learn from. It is the feeling that you could have done things differently if you had foreknowledge of the consequences of your actions. So you'd think that after the first round of innocent civilians were killed and the apparent regret they express kicked in they might reconsider cluster bombing civilian conurbations. Or might stop firing high precision missiles at civilian vehicles fleeing North as they were asked to.

Israel and those who support it's actions are beneath contempt. Their sickening justifications for mass terror are a disgusting distortion of what we all know to be morally correct.

So what about the self-appointed guardians of our global morals? Unsurprisingly the multi murdering, death penalty signing Dubya is suggesting that the whole thing is Iran's fault and the poor bleeding children of lebanon and the rest of us should be complaing to them about the bloodshed. Apparently he does want a ceasefire but only when Israel is good and ready. He wouldn't want all those rushed orders for more weapons to be cancelled now would he? And it might give him the opportunity to conduct air-strikes on Iran and Syria if it all goes his way.

Of course our much loved, god fearing defender of the peace Mr Bliar (not a typo) is happy to continue to worship Dubya's rusty brown texan star as usual. How does that wanker sleep at night?

So the results of today's peace talks? Well the Axis of evil (USA, UK and Israel) don't want an immediate ceasefire because it might only last a few days or weeks. Well excuse me but might that not give the red cross a chance to deliver much needed aid to the dying civilians of Lebanon? Might it not give a few of the innocents enough time to flee the area without heroic Israeli helicopter pilots bravely blowing up their peugeot's with laser guided missiles?

Technically this isn't really a blog entry, it's more of what we in the business call test data.

I have been doing a bit of web site creation again recently while looking for a proper job. I am now making a conscious effort to ensure my web pages adhere to w3c standards (in the form of valid XHTML and valid CSS) and ensuring that the actual content of the page is abstracted from it's design. This is a solid SoftEng principle and at last they have given us the tools to be able to apply this good practise to web pages.

In fact the standards have been around for a long time, but have largely been ignored by the browser makers. Now even Microsoft is making some kind of attempt to at least resemble functionality defined by the W3C. However the more web pages follow the standards the greater need for browser makers to conform.

Just wanted to say congratulations to Froo (Ian) and Mrs Froo (Tanya) on their wedding and thanks for the reception.

It was great to see the old faces of my old, old friends many of whom did a bit of gurning for the camera once I remembered I had one with me!

You'll get a chance to see the photos which will be posted soon. I just want to completely re-design the site first!!

Jan out!