Black and White

There's no internet at work today. I hate when that happens. What is one supposed to do at lunchtime? We have lots of work. I could be doing that. The daily report thing appears to have resulted in a flurry of messages from upstairs saying I'm doign well. I should be pleased but I am now consumed with paranoia and fear I may not be filling my sheet in the same as everyone else.

I went home on the MRT with Joanne yesterday. I don't really know her very well but we talked quite a lot and I learnt stuff. It appears that she is leaving. Her contract expires in the summer and she doesn't intend to renew. She is takling about travelling. It also seems that Peggy, who has been threatening to leave as long as I can remember, has just signed another year. She should leave. We like Peggy, she could do much better somewhere else. All the ladies in the office are apparently jealous of May because she has big melons. I didn't know who May was until yesterday, but I confess, I had noticed her formidable melons.

I got a mail from my brother this morning. A rare occurance indeed. I'm going to publish an extract here. Original spelling and (lack of) punctuation preserved:

I'm sorry i have not made contact before but as usual I'm a lazy little sod and you know how it is there is always some thing more interesting to do. my birthday was a splendid afire that lasted from Friday alway threw to Monday I'm sure this must be some kind of record there were a few casualty's along the way but this is only to be expected.thank you both very much for th pressys the man with the flashing knob has gone down a storm with the Lady's of the forest if you can get any more IL take 100 and make us a fortune we had some excitement this weekend when minge the cat bought in a live rat and took it under the stairs we removed the cat and i was able to get a clean shot at the rat i killed with one shot from my trusty air rifle but there was claret up the wall. i removed the rat and my friend oli let go of minge who stole the now dead rat from me and took it under my bed after i separated the cat from the rat we went out for Sunday lunch. its always fun at [this house] hope to see you all soon lots of love...

You should know here that "minge" is a quaint slang term for female genitalia and the name of his cat, "knob" is slang for male genitalia, "claret" in this instance I think means blood, and if you're wondering what the man with the flashing "knob" was, it was a small plastic model of a man who's "knob" lights up when a cell phone is used nearby. I found it in one of the night markets here and knew he would appreciate it. God knows what happened with him, we can't possibly share any genes.

You know, I almost never remember my dreams, but last night, I dreamt about robots. There was a black one and a white one, they were bi-peds and they were fighting. I might have been the white one, or controlling the white one or something. I can't remember. Anyway, I felt an affinity for the white one, which is a bit stereo typical isn't it. I don't know who came out on top anyway. If the sequel comes out any time soon, I'll report back.

Peeing

It was peeing down with rain today as I left for work. Currently the preferred method of getting to work is to motorbike to MuCha station and then get on a trian. It's really easy but I hadn't considered the rain issue until this morning. The rain coat worked pretty wellt hough and I arrived dry.

Did I mention that yesterday the bloody landlasy decided that she couldn't make it to the apartment for the handing over of keys in the end. I was really hoping she'd give us our deposit back so we could go iPOD shopping. The train journey takes 30 minutes. I need something to do on the journey. Tonight the dragon finishes work around 7.30. I am scheduled to meet her at Hsin Tien sometime around then. I need to put some late nights in at work to get the new cell phone manual done. I have one less dday than I thought because there is an unespected holiday on Monday for Labour day.

Kally didn't talk to me all yesterday morning, though in her defence, I didn't attempt to make contact either. We did speak in the afternoon. I like her but she drives me mad.

The Scottish National Party is calling for Blair's impeachment I read this morning. The Lib Dem Party is also attacking the Labout Party and is pushing very hard for Blair to release documents relating to the legal side of the Iraq war. Blair continually refuses to release the documents. I can't think why he would refuse to release them unless there was something to hide. Maybe this election is not a foregone conclusion afterall.

MJ's ex-wife is possibly going to appear at the trial. I didn't think this was very big news until I read that she is currently in the middle of a legal battle over custody of two of the children. Who's the mother of the other one?

Experiments with hair

Well I expect you're all wondering how the move went. I can confrm that we are now happily settled in our new home. There are still things to pack away, but it's pretty much all over bar the shouting. We give the keys back to the old place tonight. We spent most of the weekend cleaning it.

I cleaned the windows. We have a clever magnetic device for cleaning both sides of the windows at once. We live on the third floor you see, and cleaning the outside is difficult. The thing that sticks to the outside of the window has a string attached to it so that you can retrieve it if it drops. But I managed to get it all wrong and attach the string to the inside piece. I suppose it was lucky I didn't kill anyone in the street below. Actually it landed on the sign for the sushi restaurant below and we retrived it with the help of the guy who lives on the floor below us. He managed to reach it from his window. My original plan was to try and fish for it with the magnet in the other half. I spent quite a long time trying to recover it this way before I realised that it was actually stuck to the metal sign. You live and learn.

I got to work in almost exactly one hour this morning. That's about 20 minutes longer than it used to take.

Work is somehow very oppressive this morning. Sally, quite mad but usually very amicable, is furious for reasons that I cannot fathom, and is not talking to Joanne, or John as far as I can work out. Kally isn't talking to me because I wouldn't stay late and help with a problem on Friday. I had to meet the dragon and she wasn't being very nice anyway. It must be something in the air today. I'm tired, but I have to work late tonight. Actaully I don't have to, but we meet the landlady at 9pm and there is no point in going home and coming out again, so I might as well get as much done as I can.

I finally got an e-mail on Friday that answered my question about the legal issue behind the fact that I can't vote on May 5th. It's bullshit, but I accept that I have become the victim of some stupid law. I'm still pressing for an answer on how the hell I was supposed to know when the deadline was or how it appeared on their website before they knew the election date. It's only an academic point now, but they basically told me that the information was there and that it was my own fault if I got it wrong.

I'm not on-line in the new place yet, so don't expect any website updates or anything for a few days. I can still do the journals at work of course.

Spoke to the parents on Saturday. Mothers first eye operation is scheduled for next month. That will just correct the cataract problem. They are then going to monitor the cornea and make a decision about whether to follow up with a cornial graft. I think she's a little scared about it, who wouldn't be, but it's good news and it will hopefully restore a lot of eyesight that she's lost over the last 4 or 5 years.

The above was written at work. I've had a call from the Dragon to say that we can't give the key back tonight, it will have to wait until Friday. It meant I stayed late for no particular reason, but I did get some work done. I have also arrived home to find that my father-in-law has managed to hook the PC up to the existing ADSL line at home. We now have an Apple/PC network and it all seems to work. Wel it does if you're reading this.

Here is a picture we just took. I call it "Experiments with hair". Look at my eyes.

Anarchist

Yesterday I got frustrated because the damn project manager decided she wanted to make major changes to my web cam document the day before submission. This pisses me of on two counts:

1. She speaks apalling English and has absolutely no idea what she is talking about.
2. We have this argument on just about every single project before the client sees it. It's a first draft you dizzy cow. Show the client, get the feedback, change if necessary - repeat until satisfied condition. What is the point of chaning things just in case the client doesn't like it?

Stick to managing and stop trying to design documents in a language you can't even speak! You know yesterday she tried to persuade me to change a diagram label that said "low light LEDs" to "Irfrared Rays". I should have done it.

On top of that I'm using InDesign 2. I've tried to like InDesign. In fact I would even go so far as to say it would be my weapon of choice if I was writing a 5 page comic book. It is however, the worst choice on earth for anything with any amount of text. I'd rather use PageMaker, and that's saying something.

Also yesterday we were presented with a new Excel spread sheet upon which to deliver our daily report. This is the third new Excel spread sheet for this purpose we have been given in the last three days. I want to know what the bean counters do with all the numbers and letters I send them. On Tuesday James submitted his sheet with seemingly random capital letters which, when examined more closely, spelled out the phrase, "I AM SATAN". This amused me greatly, and though childish, I think it's a good way to make light of the situation.

Something else which got to me yesterday was the lack of response from Swindon Council who are still denying me my right to vote. Ms Amanda Fordham is now refusing to communicate with me anymore since I pushed her to provide me with the information which she claims exists on the electoral regisration website, but which I'm pretty sure doesn't. She referred me to the electoral registration officer who is also refusing to answer my mails. Who do I go to now? Amnesty International perhaps.
It ocurrs to me that the entire electoral system in UK is corrupt beyond belief. You know voting is not even anonymous in Britain now. When one goes to the polling station one has to present a polling card to the people there. Your name is then found in the list (by more bean counters) and a number is written next to it. That number corresponds to a unique number printed on the ballot paper provided. Therefore, if I spoil a ballot paper, they know who did it. Or if someone simply wants to know which way I voted, they can. I'm quite sure this is a violation of the European bill of human rights, which is just about the only good thing about being part of European law if you ask me.

Why does it have to be so complicated? As long as you can prove you have a right to vote and you don't do it twice, surely that's all that matters isn't it? The whole damn system is choked with bureaucracy and I'm paying for it. I think I'm an anachist.

We move tomorrow which might well mean that I don't have internet access over the weekend. I'll probably manage, but it will be a struggle. I was also forced to remove unauhorised software from my work PC this week, so I can't even ftp to the website. I may attempt to reinstate some tools next week, especially if I have no home access.

Life under the Chairman

The protracted argument between myself and Swindon Borough Council has moved forward. Ms Fordham appears unwilling to answer my questions and has forwarded my case to the Electoral Registration Officer. As of this morning I have had no response from him/her, so I have written directly with my grievances. I can't believe how difficult it is just to get a vote in this election. It's like living under Mao.

Yesterday the dragon got a call from her old school. They begged her to come back part time because they are short of teachers again. She said yes in the end and will be working mornings from next month. I think she's pleased about it. She seems to have made some deal about overtime and weekend work, I don't think she's fixed a salary yet however.

The boss hasn't turned up for work this morning and it's 10.30 as I type this. It occurs to me that, if he left, the place would probably shut down. It's not making much money as it is. I think if the helmsman left, the ship would sink. That's a very negative way to look at things however. He's only 1 hour late. I expect he's got a burst pipe or something. James has also called in sick.

At this point in my diary entry, the started to go downhill and I got just too depressed to write any more. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Incandescent

This morning the Goblin is incandescent with rage. I wrote back to Swindon Borough Council yesterday to inform them that they had written to me in error. It turns out that the content of the mail, though addressed to someone else, was intended for me, and I am being denied a vote in my own country. Apparently my registration arrived too late. The cut off date was 11 March.

I was told:

The overseas registration form you sent to me was dated by you as 6 April 2005. I received the form a week later. In order to register for voting in the election on 5 May 2005 I needed to receive your form by 11 March 2005. These dates are set in law and I am unable to deviate from them. I note that you downloaded your application from from the Electoral Commission website. This site provided information on the deadline date for registering to vote in the General Election.

Well I can't find any statement on the website that mentions a deadline date for registering to qualify for voting in May 5th elections. And I would suggest it would be a miracle if I could, since the deadline date actually esxpired before the election date was announced. In fact the election date was announced on April 5th I believe. My registration form was dated April 6th. I also have an issue with the statement, " These dates are set in law", since the registration form states, "the deadline for
registering to vote can be up to two months before an election". There would appear to be an issue with consistancy here.

Of course I could have registered before the anouncement of the election date and therefore I can't claim that all overseas voters are being denied a vote. I cannot understand however, why they have to make it so bloody difficult. It's ridiculous that such a situation should occur in this day and age. Why do I have to send international mail to register? Why can't I just register at the representative office here in Taiwan and drop a ballot paper in the box like foreigners from every other country in the free world?

I don't hold out much hope of getting a vote, but I have wrtten to a councilor friend of mine and written back to Swindon Borough Council pointing out all the inconsistencies in their arguments. I'll keep you posted on this one.

In other news, we have a new Holy Father. Cardinal Ratzinger has become Pope Benedict XVI. I still wish they'd choosen the cool Nigerian guy, but at least they picked one without glasses.

The insidious national ID card scheme, dreamt up by power drunk nazi, an now thankfaully fired, David Blunkett, has proved to be a complete disaster at the pilot scheme stage. Apparently 50,000 idiots signed up for an ID card in the south west of England. The technology didn't work and it turned out to be too expensive. The scheme in its present form has been abandoned. Well that was 1.5 million pounds in public funding well spent wasn't it.

I have news of prize prick, Mark McGowan, the "performance artist" I ranted about earlier this week. Apparently he is now claiming that the car scratch installation was a hoax and that all the photograhs showing him scratching cars in fact feature cars that were already scratched. Reading the BBC report, I'd have to say that he sounds very scared indeed, and he has apologised.

So, do we believe him, was it all a hoax? I'm in two minds about this. I'd guess that McGowan was of fairly low intelligence and I'd be surprised if he could have thought up a complex hoax by himself. On the other hand, he does claim that two of the cars in the pictures are his sister's (which he earlier claimed was the motivation for this piece) and a barmaid from his local area. On balance I'd say naked fear has led him to try and convince everyone it was a joke. I hope it goes to court and he at least gets done for public nuisance or wasting police time or sometihng. Click for the story.

Nothing yet

Well Mark McGowan hasn't replied to my mail, chicken shit. It was pointed out to me yesterday that "artists" such as this do actually provoke a reaction, and that Idiot Boy McGowan may even claim that a reaction like mine was positive as it was what he was hoping for. It was also suggetsed by the same person, that perhaps someone should artistically beat the crap out of McGowan and exhibit the pictures. He should be pleased to be part of such an artistic project. Well we can live in hope that a suuitable artist exists to carry out that installation.

It occurs to me that McGowan could end up in a serious amount of trouble for this stunt. If he really has keyed 47 cars, that's a lot of expensive repair work. Lets say each car will cost 500 pounds to repair. That's almost 25,000 pounds he will owe. And he's already in debt apparently because he couldn't pay back his student loan.

I was going to mention yesterday that I have gone almost bald. I decided that I was bored with blue hair and it was showing very little evidence of fading naturally, so I just had it hacked back to the roots. I can't remember ever having hair this short in my life and the widow's peak I didn't even realise existed is really quite spectacular. I think I look younger and thinner.



This weekend was spent installing our gear in the new abode. We did just about everything and only mission critical equipment now remains at the apartment. It's quite sad in a way. I rather liked living there. But life goes on and new adventures no doubt lie ahead.

I see the new Airbus 380 is about to start test flights. I really want to have a ride in one. They say that it will be quieter than a 747 and use 12% less fuel. Is that 12% less per passenger? I think it must be. The public debut will be at the Paris air show in Jume, though it may not be able to make a public fly past.

The chief wizards at the Vatican are choosing their new head honcho now. There was apparently confusion and about the colour of the smoke. People even cheered because they thought it was white. But I saw the smoke on CNN this morning and it was nowhere near white. It was black. It took a little while to get going I suppose, but there was no doubt in my mind. I want the Nigerian guy to win because he looks coolest in the red robes.

I have just had an e-mail from the British government informing me that my application to vote from overseas has been received and that I will not be eligible to vote on May 5th. This worried me until I realised that the mail was actually addressed to a complete stranger. I have written back asking for confirmation that I am allowed to vote on May 5th and pointing out that this type of balls up does not fill me with confidence. If I'm not able to vote on May 5th I'm personally going to cause mayhem.

Are you reading this Mark?

I've mentioned Mark McGowan here in the past. He calls himself a "performance artist" but has always struck me as an irritating little shit with no imagination and a large amount of hugely misplaced self-confidence. His past exploits include:

Sitting in a bath of baked beans with sausages on his head and chips up his nose to promote the Great British breakfast.

That's original!

Strapping a turkey to his head and shouting at fat people to draw attention to the British obesity problem.

Certain lack of consistency here I feel.

Rolling a peanut with his nose through the streets of London in an attempt to get Tony Blair to cancel his student debt.

So you're special and deserve different funding from everybody else do you Mark? If you got off your fat arse and did some work instead of rolling a nut through the street, I'd suggest you might be able to make your debt smaller.

Eating a fox either in support of the hunting ban or to protest against it, I can't work out which.

It would seem to me that a protest loses some impact if the cause is not well defined.

And there are other equally shallow, attention seeking stunts, just too boring to mention. Up until now Mark has just been another mediocre art student looking for his 15 minutes of fame and largely failing to find it. Today however, he crossed the line between being irritating and being a real tosser. His latest project seems to have taken the form of scratching 50 random cars in two cities. This idea came to him apparently after his sister's car was keyed. He plans to exhibit pictures of himself scratching these cars in London and Glasgow.

Here's the story.

Of course, I'm a peace-loving guy and I wouldn't suggest that anyone hurt Mark in any way. But if I was Mark, I'd be slightly worried now, since his name and picture are all over the internet and he will be hosting exhibitions in London and Glasgow so people will know where to find him. A simple Google search actually turns up quite a bit of personal information. I've got an email address and I will be sending him this link, so I'll keep you updated on that.

Clearly McGowan is either mentally retarded or simply a criminal. My money is on the former, but either way he should be locked up, either in a mental or criminal institution until such time as he can behave in a socially acceptable manner. Being an idiot isn't a crime, being an idiot who vandalizes property indiscriminately is unforgivable. I hope they throw the book at you Mark. I might even come and visit you.

Mein Kampf

I think Robert Kilroy-Silk has been reading Mein Kampf. Either that or he has some devious plan to infiltrate the BNP by posing as a Nazi. What hapened to the guy? He used to be a fairly run-of-the-mill socialist. I never liked him, but he never frightened or offended me particularly. I even had some symapthy for the UK Independance Party. I voted for them once because there were Euro-sceptical. But that was before Kilroy-Silk joined and attempted to turn it into the Hitler youth. I think he's gone the same way as Howard Hughes. It's syphillus or something, I'm sure it is.

I did actually manage to produce a live webcam page on the website last night, but I got in trouble because I should have been packing things into boxes for our move. I believe I have calmed the troubled waters by promsing to come home early today and empty cupboards that have a risk of cockroaches. Sounds horrible I know, but we live in a hot country and we have cockraoches the size of family cars.

I've had a request from a reader for the story about the airport metal detector and the intimate body piercing. I wrote briefly about this a while back. I'll recount what happened in a minute, but first some background information. I have a large ring through my manhood, largely the result of a drunken bet in a pub many years ago. I always used to remove this thing before flying because I was worried about the metal detectors picking it up and having to show the old chap to a complete stranger. However I conducted a clever experiment on one trip to ascertain just how sensitive the detectors were. I removed all metal objects, except the ring which I carried in my pocket. This experiment seemed to prove that the machines weren't sensitve enough to pick up the ring and from that point on I never bothered removing it.

However, I was once traveling between Taipei and London. It's not possible to get a direct flight and this particular journey was via Singapore. I've traveled between Taipei and London many times, but this was the first time I had been through Singapore airport. As usual I had not bothered to remove the ring and the Taipei detector let me through without incident. When I changed planes in Singapore however, I tried to walk through the metal detector with a mobile phone in my pocket, probably a sign that I'd had one too many lemonades on the previous plane. This of course meant that the alarm sounded and I was taken to one side where they gave me the once over with a hand held detector.

The young lady noticed fairy quickly that my willy appeared to set the alarm off and shot me a puzzled look. I got a little nervous but ventured, "belt buckle perhaps?" At this point I was slightly concerned that she was going to ask me to remove the belt. I'm sure she didn't believe me. However, after a pause that seemed to last about an hour, she waved me on. In retrospect, it would have been better to admit everything right from the start. But that wouldn't have been much of a story would it?

Lots to do tomorrow as we are performing stage one of our move to Hsin Tien. Exciting isn't it.

Food for thought

I'm writing a web cam manual at work. It can automatically ftp an image every few seconds to a website. Well, the sample I have won't, buit it's supposed to. I've been thinking about this though. I could put an almost live web cam page on our internet page. Wouldn't that be fun. I'm investigating this anyway. I'll keep you all posted.

This morning I managed to start a long and protracted argument about whether the words for octopus andthe word for squid in Chinese are interchangeable. I think the matter is still unresolved but we have agreed that there are two seperate words with subtly different meanings. I'm not sure whether we have decided whether they are interchangeable. I only knew one word which I used for everything. It's easy to remember because it's very similar to the word for socks.

There has been an on-going argument this week also about quality and speed of work. This has resulted in a moving around of poeple and several strokey beard and pointy finger meetings. What I don't understand is how everyone's memory appears to be so short. We had precisely this same argument 1 year ago. It was decided that we were trying to produce first drafts too quickly and that the quality was suffereing. The solution; we were to get 10 days to produce every first draft. That worked for about 2 months. Then the deadlines started creeping forward agian. And here we are 1 year later with same problem.

I've looked through the news today and come to the conclusion that really not very much has happened in the last 24 hours. I notice that the Labour party didn't get as many viewers for their party election broadcast as the Conservatives, hooray! I also notice that Charles Kennedy has become a father for the first time, congratualtions to you sir. Nothing else very exciting has happened. It even seems as though the posecution team in the Michael Jackson case have run out of people who saw him molesting children, allegedly.

I did see that a new study has concluded that Britons waste about one third of their food. That is to say that one third of the food destined for human consumption in Britain lands up in the bin. This is being hailed as a terrible thing. I suppose that wasting food is not exactly desirable, but I can't see that it's a problem really. Food is bio-degradable, so throwing it away doesn't cause pollution. Fears over expired "use by" dates are being blamed for the wastage. I would have thought that eating expired food would have caused more problems than throwing it away.

If we were more efficient in our shopping habits and bought just the right amount of food, thus throwing less away, what would the benefit to society be? We would be richer I suppose, and the bin men would have lighter bins to carry. But the farners and supermarkets would be selling less produce and be poorer. And it's not as if the starving people in the poorer countries would benefit from our efficiency either as far as I can see. I suppose we could all donate some of the money we saved to good causes.

Faith in education

I know I had something that I was going to write about today, but I can't think what it was. Never mind, it was probably boring. I think it was about Michael Jackson again. There was a story yesterday about Jordy Chandler's mother telling the court that Jackson pleaded with her to let them sleep together in the dame bed. Too weird for me.

The Conservative party has come up with an extrordinary idea of providing more faith based schools. I can't say I'm against faith based schools, but I would have thought that the concept of forcing religion on children is probably outmoded and I can see all sorts of accusations of prejudice resulting. Apparently the plan is to provide state support for faith based schools where they are asked for by communities; not just Christian schools, but Islamic, Jewish etc. But the schools have to abide by the same regulations as other state schools and accept 10% of their students from other faiths. Now there's a recipe for disaster if you ask me. I swear the Conservative are trying to lose this election.

I didn't get a chance to write any more today for various reasons so this will have to do until tomorrow.

Post-Script

OK, quick post script to the last entry. I've just had another look at the homeopathy piece and I have found some more comments at the bottom which highlight the fact that there is a debate. I can't think how I can have missed them when I looked yesterday, but I suppose I could have been looking at a cached version. I still don't think that thearticle is balanced and I'm still quite sure homeopathy is bunk.

A long one

I see that Andy Cat6 has commented on Prince Charles' handshake with Mugabe at the pope's funeral. I have to say that this handshake doesn't really bother me. I don't often come out in support of the Ponce of Wales, but in this case I think I will. A handshake is not an endorsement of the Mugabe regime. A handshake is something civilised poeple do to show that they are willing to behave in a peaceful manner. What should Charles have done when Mugabe approached him, stuck out his tongue, turned his back? No, I think I would have done the same, and shaken his hand.

Regarding Abby's question about why the Wales' didn't just marry each other when they met, well there are several answers to this seemingly simple question. First and formost, she wasn't suitable, and still isn't. Charles was expected to marry a virgin and an aristocrat. Camilla was no aristocrat and she'd apparently "been around" by the time they met. On top of this, Charles was eager to present himself to the world as a potential monarch and considered that a period serving in the forces was part of this. So he went off to be a sailor. While he was away CPB married Andrew PB and that seemingly put an end to the notion that they might get it together at some point. It would also appear that Charles was rather pushed into marrying Diana by his father. Though we shall never know the full truth of that I suspect.

The marriage is destined to cause changes to the monarchy. Currently the monarch automatically becomes head of the Anglican church and "Defender of the Faith". This is more than a little embarrassing to the church since they are still fundamentaly against divorce. Charles has said that he wants to become the "Defender of Faith", rather than "Faiths". Originally this was billed as an attempt to appeal to an increasingly multi-denominational country. Now it seems more like an effort to distance himself from the Anglican church.

I don't believe in anything, so his faith/faiths problem doesn't concern me. I can't see that this problem can really be ignored by the faithful however. I think also that declaring himself "defender of faith", is something that he will regret. I can't see how one can be a defender of many faiths which contradict each other, and I think people will see it as an empty attempt to appeal to everyone. As for becomming King, a majority of the population are still in favour of maintaining the monarchy, though very few want to see Charles crowned. I suspect that he will ignore public opinion when the time comes and take the throne. What damage that will do to the monarchy can only be specualted upon.

Now something else, click here, to read a piece from BBC Health Reporter, Jane Elliot, on homeopathy. I got a bit annoyed with that article because it presents a very one sided view of homeopathy, and it's written very much as though the practice is a proven science. Homeopathy is not a proven science, and while I do understand that there are planty of nutters out there that subscribe, I'm quite convinced it's bunk, and I can back up my arguments with some facts. So I wrote to the BBC...

I’ve just read a piece by Jane Elliot on your web site entitled “Malaria row inspired homeopathy”. I find it frankly quite astounding that the BBC could allow such an unbalanced view of such a controversial practice. The theory and efficacy of homeopathy has been debunked so many times that it is becoming embarrassing. Trial after trial has shown no benefit beyond the placebo effect, and scientific theories that have sprung up claiming to explain this non-existent benefit have also been ridiculed in scientific circles.

I realise that not everyone shares my admittedly fairly extreme view. I realise also that this means that the BBC has a duty to cater for those people mad enough to subscribe to this quackery. The BBC however has a duty to give an unbiased view on matters like this, which clearly can be approached from different viewpoints. Ms Elliot’s piece did not even mention that the efficacy of homeopathy was in dispute. It was presented as fact. That is irresponsible.

I would ask that you do a little research into the subject (though a News Health Reporter should already know the facts) and publish a further piece that presents evidence on the other side of the argument. I’ll write it for you myself if you like.

If you are looking for more information on the sceptical side of the argument, I would suggest that the James Randi Educational Foundation would be a good place to start (www.jref.org). You might also try Quackwatch (http://www.quackwatch.org/), or do a web search on “Jaques Benveniste”, who’s work to try and explain homeopathy by scientific means has now been discredited.

I wasn't convinced that I would get a reply, but I did...

Thank you for your email. We have added some comments into the piece from Edzard Ernst, a professor of complementary medicine, who highlights the debate over whether homeopathic medicine is effective, or if it is simply a placebo.

I hope this answers your concerns.

Kind regards

Caroline Ryan
BBC News Online
Tel: +44 208 576 9613
Fax: +44 208 624 9098

Well I found 1 comment, but I didn't think that was really good enough, so I wrote back...

Ms Ryan

No, this most certainly doesn not address my concerns at all. Are you seriously trying to convince me that one sceptical comment hidden in this article makes it a balanced piece?

You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. How would you feel if someone made a decision to treat themself using homeopathy based on the information presented in this article, and then made their condition worse, when traditional medicine may have cured them?

Why not publish the sceptical viewpoint in a sepearate piece and put them side by side?

I really wasn't expecting any reply to that, but I got one...


I am sorry that you do not feel the measures we have taken address your concerns. However, I do not feel the piece is unbalanced, and I certainly do not feel that we should be ashamed about our coverage. Homeopathy is a significant health issue which people obviously have extremely strong opinions on. I believe it is perfectly valid to mark the anniversary of the birth of its founder. The piece highlights early on that there is debate over homeopathy's effectiveness, and the extensive quotes from Professor Ernst detail what those concerns are.

It's not our policy to put two pieces side by side as you describe. But we regularly run pieces which cover opinions on both sides of this argument, as well as including opposing views in each piece itself. We also cover research which examines the safety or otherwise of such treatments.

I've replied once more asking where the "extensive quotes" are. I haven't missed anything have I? They aren't there are they?

I'm getting Caroline's out of office reply now.

I have other stuff to discuss but I have rambled far too long already. I'll deal with other issues tomorrow.

Charlotte's Web

I think I need more sleep. Andy and Vivian showed up yesterday at exactly 7pm. That kind of attention to puntuality is worrying somehow. We had a good time anyay. We ate, drank, chatted, and played the PS2 drumming game. Somehow the dragon managed to persuade them to take home all the crockery that we were going to throw out when we moved. They seemed pleased with it actually. We can't have anyone else round to eat though since we don't have any plates now.

I finished my model of Big Ben on Satirday. I need to get out more.


The Ponce of Wales and Camilla Parker-Bowells got married on Saturday as planned. Actually she's not Camilla Parker-Bowells anymore, she's the Duchess of Cornwall. Maybe she's the Princess Consort too, I don't know. Anyway they were married in Windsor. According to CNN there were 7,000 people lining the street. According to the BBC there were 20,000. Either way, it pales into insignificance next to Charles' previous wedidng which was watched by an estimated 750,000,000 people around the world. There was a streaker. Streakers are a strangely British phenomenon I believe. The naked person was stopped by mounted police very quickly and he was removed. I don't think he was anywhere near the happy couple.

You know they've gone on honey moon to Scotland. I'm not going to knock Scotland, but he's one of the world's richest men. You think he could have done a little better than Mummy's gaff in the Highlands. I was listening to a British Radio show on the internet this weekend about the Prince. They tried to persuade us that Charles completely ended his relationship with CPB when he married Diana. Cobblers, he's obsessed with this woman, has been for 35 years. He met her ten years before he married Diana, and went staright back to her when his marriage failed. Are they honstly expecting us to believe that nothing went on until the marriage fialed?

I saw a frightening piece on the BBC website yesterday extolling the virtues of homeopathy. Honestly, homeopathy has been debunked so many times it's becomming embarrassing. I realise that there are people around mad enough to subscribe to the quackery, but the BBC should be at least mentioning that there is an opposing view. I've written to them. A weekend rant is good for the soul. I'll let you know how that goes.

Charlotte Church (ooh!) has evidently taken a picture of herself topless (Phwoar!) and sent it to her boyfriend's cellphone (duh, bimbo!). Said phone has now gone missing, and serious Church Boobage is now available for viewing by sweaty palmed adolescents globally. Now I know I'm cynical, but this sounds like it was planned to me. I've had a look at this picture, purely in the interest of uncovering the truth of course, and it's good quality. Doesn't look like the sort of crappy nude photos I've taken of me with my cellphone. Anyway, boyfriend looses the phone, someone finds it, manages to go through all the pictures, works out who the topless bird is, and attempts to sell it to the Sun.

Lot of coincidenses there if you ask me. If I'd picked up the phone I probably couldn't work out how to fly it. I can't use half the fuctions on my own. I'd almost certainly turn it off by mistake and then not be able to turn it on again due to a pin number. Even if I could work it out, I don't know that I would think to look through the pictures, and I'm sure I wouldn't go to the Sun to try and flog it. The Sun evidently didn't buy it by the way, not sure how the picture progressed after the Sun turned down the seller. Come to think of it, if I found the picture, I'm fairly sure I'd consider the fact that it was Charlotte Church, and then convince myself it wasn't. Of course, the picture I saw could be fake, probably is. See I'm doing it now.

And on to something else, another strange developement in the MJ trial. A former chef at the Jackson ranch has testified that he saw MJ with his hand in Macaulay Culkin's underwear. This contradicts what Culkin has said himself. Culkin is however not expected to appear as a witness. It's not looking good for the King of Pop is it.

In other news, it was Og's birthday on Saturday, happy birthday Og, and it was brother's birthday yesterday, happy birthday Nick.

Children

Well Dickie appears to be back in the US and working again after his marriage. I know this because he reads this blog. Apparently it even inspired him to start one of his own. I'll put a link to his site on the links page this weekend, along with Sumedha's. I will really. Dickie is a bit down because he had to leave his new wife behind in London. She's following him out there in the summer.

Andy and Vivian are coming round on Sunday and I have said we will make dinner. This may have been a bit rash but we shall see how it turns out. I'll need to break this to the Dragon gently tonight. Wish me luck.

Michael Jackson is in lots of trouble again. A witness has now told the court how he saw MJ with the penis of an 8-year-old in his mouth. That sounds pretty damning to me. The witness was apparently on MJ's staff at the time. However, the witness appears to have attempted to sue Jackson for wrongful dismissal in the past and lost, leaving him with huge debts. The defence is therefore portraying this man as a bitter ex-employee with money problems and an axe to grind. This would seem to be plausible. There seem to be a lot of people willing to testify that they saw Jackson doing something illegal, but they all seem to be money grabbing vultures.

The Prince of Wales and his new wife are apparently going to acknowledge their sins and wickedness in St George's chapel after the wedding. I'm really not quite sure how that works but it sounds like damage limitation to me. I understand that good media vantge points are being rented out at considerable sums tomorrow in Windsor. I was there last summer. The people don't need the cash. Because the wedding day had to be moved from today to tomorrow, 20 people dropped out. However, it appears that four more have been added to the list.

The pope gets buried today and Charles is attending to represent the Queen. The Queen is also being represented at Prince Rainier's funeral by the Duke of York. Why doen't she go to any of these events herself? Prince Rainier doen't get buried until next Friday it seems anyway. China is boycotting the pope's funeral because the Taiwanese president is attending. It's like children isn't it. Apparently over 200 world leaders are going to see the pope off. That must be just about everyone except a Chinese delegation.

Today's interesting fact:
Big Ben in London is 316 ft tall, that's over 96m, and when it was constructed in 1858, it was the tallest clock tower in the world. I'm making a model out of paper, click. If it goes well you may get a picture on Monday.

Fresh?

I read this morning that there are already a few people willing to sell their vote in the forthcoming British general election to the highest bidder on e-bay. I suppose this is an inevitability. My initial thought was that it is irresponsible to sell one's vote. Then it occured to me that this could in fact be seen as a sort of protest against the state of British politics in general. I will not be voting for a party that I want to see in power. I will be voting for the party most likely to damage Blair. That's almost the same thing in a way.

According to the BBC website, selling one's vote is actually illegal and an offense against the "Representation of the People Act". It strikes me that it would be very difficult to prove that one had sold a vote. I suppose that going to the polling station with someone else's polling card is something of a giveaway. But one can quite legally nominate a proxy, as I have done. You can also vote by post, though postal voting in Briatin is generally deemed to be unreliable, open to fraud, and basically a disaster all round.

It seems that the Taiwanese president is to attend the pope's funeral. Apparently the Vatican, which is a state in itself, recognises Taiwan as a nation, which upsets China. If I understand correctly, China broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1951 in protest. China is likely to be jolly angry that Taiwan will be represented at the funeral anyway. They will also be annoyed that Italy has granted a visa to the president. They had to do that so that he could get there.

So many people want to see the pope lying in state that the Vatican authorities are trying to limit numbers. How are they keeping the pope "fresh"? Is he refridgerated?

Also in today's news I note that a pair of "Sun" journalists are congratulting themselves for managing to smauggle a box marked "bomb" into Windsor Castle grounds. How many more times do we have to endure this sort of cheap, pointless journalism. Anyone can get a weapon onto a plane, or a Eurotunnel train if they try enough times. Anyone can drive a car close to a member of the royal family. Having a box marked "bomb" in the back doesn't make it any more difficult does it? This kind of journalism really pisses me off. Sack these people and hire someone that can write news.

My God I'm tired.

Robots and Euphoria

Because we had a day off yesterday, it feels like Monday today. I'm hoping this means I will be experiencing short week euphoria when Friday arrives. We actually managed to get out and watch "Robots" yesterday. It was pretty good but owes an awful lot to Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1914 I think). Look it up children. I can't decide whether I like computer animation as much as traditional animation. But I'm guessing that traditional animation is going to become more expensive in comaprison and we're going to see more of the digital stuff in future. That said, it's all driven by Pixar who have just broken up with Disney. Things could change.

Also yesterday I did a bit of Action Script practice and you can expect some new pages on the site soon. It needs work though and I don't have a lot of time right now.

Tony Blair has announced that he will be calling a May 5th election, no surpises there. Most pundits are suggesting that the corrupt bastard will get re-elected. I hope they're wrong. I personally think that the Conservatives are trying to lose the election. It occured to me this morning that I should be voting Lib-Dem since I actually agree with their stance on the Iraq war and ID cards, which I think are the two most important election issues. That said, the Labour party has scrapped the plan to introduce ID card legislation before the election (yet another broken promise) and the Conservatives have been blamed for causing it. The Conservatives are denying any influence, but I'd call it a plus if they had wrecked it. Anyway, I don't think I can bring myself to betray my anti socialist principals and vote for the Lib Dems. They can't win anyway, so my vote should really go to the party most likely to unseat Blair.

I'm currently trying to get my vote set up, but they don't make it easy. You'd think it would be simple to allow people abroad to vote by post but they only send out voting papers 1 week before the election, thus the election would be over by the time my vote was received. I therefore have to nominate a proxy that can go to the polling station for my last registered UK address. Since it's on a week day, that means you have to find someone that either doesn't have work commitments or lives very close. The other option is to arrange a proxy and get them a postal vote, but that's just too complicated. I don't even want to think about how they could screw that up. I'll keep you posted on this one.

The pope's funeral falls on Friday which must have really pissed off the Ponce of Wales. He's now moved his wedding to the Saturday to avoid a conflict. I bet Blair is heaving a big sigh of relief over that. I wonder which event he would have attended if he'd had to make a choice. If I were the PM I think Iwould have to turn down both appointments as an atheist and republican. It appears that Blair will now be attending both events, as will Charles.

There seem to be a lot of high profile deaths at the moment. The pope and Teri Shiavo died within a few days of each other and now I'm hearing news of Prince Rainier's death. Wonder who wil be next.

Glasses

I left the office around 2.30 on Saturday and went straight to our new gaff in Hsin Tien. We can't move in yet, but we spent the rest of the day puting some paint on the walls and moving the last of the junk out. We've also been packing up stuff in our current apartment. I think I need more sleep. I didn't wake up until 8.30 on Sunday morning. That's almost unheard of for me. I think the move date will be the weekend of April 23rd. St George's Day!

We were going to see Robots at the cinema yesterday but the only version showing at the Gong Guan theatre was in Chinese, so we elected to wait until a convenient English version comes up. Instead we toured the shops, got Nick a birthday present, and ate octopus noodle soup. Sounds foul I know, but it's really good actually.

The Dragon has seen a dress that she wants but she told herself that it was too expensive. This prompted a conversation about the deposit on our apartment being returned next month. The land lady owes us two month's rent, assuming that she doesn't find anything to complain about. I suggested that we spend half the cash, and save the other half. I was thinking, the Dragon could get the dress, and I could get a new MP3 player. This idea was well received.

An interesting new survey in the US has concluded that a lot of young teens are engaging in oral sex and that they don't consider it to be sex at all. See people, this is Bill Clinton's legacy. It's OK if you don't inhale. Click.

I can't let this entry go by without mentioning the death of the Pope. The news is everywhere, even in this non-Christian country. Sumedha managed to arrive this morning with no knowledge of the event however. It seems that the pope's funeral may fall on the same day as the wedding of Ponce Charles and Camilla PB. That wedding is just fated isn't it? Charles says it's going ahead anyway.

So the question is, who will be the next pope. I've been studying the form and I've come to the conclusion that it should be someone who doesn't wear glasses. I've decided this because all spiritual leaders look silly in glasses and and spiritual leader costumes. See for yourself...

When I get around to it, I'm going to put a link to Sumedha's page on .

The Michael Jackson legal team are apparently calling for a mistrial. It seems to me that the defence is attempting to wreck the trial. So far the defence has attempted to have evidence disallowed, tried to demostrate personal vendettas, discredit witnesses. If he's innocent, why are they doing all this? They also tried to get his bail reduced. Why would they do that unless he was considering absconding? Maybe it's just standard legal practice, but it makes him look guilty to me.

No work tomorrow, it's a natioanl holiday. Might even get time to play. I'm going to suggest to management that we make another attempt to see Robots.

InDesign is Evil

I've decided I hate InDesign. I've tried to like it. I told myself it can't be any worse than PageMaker. I was wrong. It is worse than PageMaker. It's useless for anything with text. It's overcomplicated and unfriendly. And the worst thing about it is the fact that I have to write a motherboard manual using it. The client gave me a template which I thought would make things easy, but the template opens with the announcement of a missing plug in, missing fonts, and about a squillion images linked badly. I'm not going to enjoy this project.

I have to work tomorrow. I really don't like weekend work. It has to be done though, and we get free lunch.

The Prince of Wales has made a fool of himself while posing for photos at Klosters. Unguarded comments caught on microphone seem to suggest that Charles has an intense dislike for Nick Whitchell, BBC royal reporter. The BBC has had a good time with the story however. They managed to make the prince look like a grumpy old buffoon.

I never got around to posting the above paragraphs yesterday (Friday) so what follows is a Saturday entry from work.

Two things occur to me about the pope's condition. First, I'm old enough to remember the death of the last two popes and I recall the same panic then as I am seeing now in the Catholic church; namely that there is no procedure in place to transfer authority to a representative while the pope himself is too sick to make any decisions. I don't understand this. Several centuries of Catholic Christianity have shown us that popes all die after a while. So why isn't there some system in place to deal with it? I also remember that last time the pope died there was confusion about picking a new one and what colour the smoke was. Is it just that the church can't bring themselves to believe that the current pope isn't immortal?

The second thing that occurs to me is more theoretical. At what point does the Cathlic church admit that the pope is in fact dead? That is to say, the Catholic church can't allow the machines keeping him alive to be turned off. What if the pope becomes effectively dead, only breathing with the aid of machines? Will they replace the Holy father, or will the pope's body contiue to lie in a vegetative state until the end of time, devoid of brain activity? That would surely be something of a crisis for the church wouldn't it? Who would take the hot seat at the vatican then?

I read today that there are apparently about 1,000 people in Britain in a persistant vegetative state.