Victim of technology

Skype is a great service you know. You can call other coutries at local telephone rates using a beautifully crafted VoIP system. At least you could, IF YOU CAN FIND A WAY TO PAY THE STUPID BASTARDS. On Sunday I used a perfectly valid credit card to buy SkypeOut credit. It failed, the transaction was cancelled, so I tried again and it worked. Just a small glitch I think. So yesterday I was perfectly happy to try and purchase a SkypeIn number. I used the same credit card and it was refused. Bugger, I think to myself, must have typed the number in wrong. So I try again, same thing, and again, and again, and again.

I gave up after 5 times and called my credit card company. They say that my security code was not verified. I'm doubtful about that, 5 times in a row. But sod it, there are other methods of payment right? So I set up a paypal account. I then go back to Skype to try and pay, only to find that they have disabled all credit card and paypal transactions on the account for "security reasons". OK, so "Money bookers" is the only payment option left open to me. I'm frustrated but I'll give it a try I think. So I go through the "money bookers" route, get to what I think must be the last page, and it asks me to put in a password. Odd, I think to myself, I've only just given them that. But I try it, and it's refused, twice.

I figure the password thing must be my fault, so I go through the whole "money bookers" thing again. I get to the same page and the password works, hoo-bloody-ray I'm thinking. Then it tells me that it's going to send me a verification code by SMS to my mobile phone. I have to type the code in the window, the king of the pixies dances, I get my skype number at last, and all is well with the world. Well, all except for one thing. I'm British, they know I'm British because Skype told them when I pressed the "money bookers" button. Therefore the mobile phone number must begin with a +44. I noticed that they asked for a mobile number as I was filling in my shoe size and blood type, but I just typed in a false number because I am in Taiwan and I have no access to a British mobile phone. This must be quite commn. People in their own country are not likely to want to buy skype numbers are they? So I'm thinking, there must be a way arond this, surely I can give them a cell phone number for Taiwan. No, they need a British cell phone number.

So at this point I am actually considering calling someone in England with a cell phone, on a standard telephone and asking them to verify my bleeding purchase. And then the irony hit me and I gave up. It must be a sign from some higher power. I'm just not destined to have a skype service. Seriously though, I never remeber having so much trouble trying to give someone money. I've offered them my first born child if they can sort it out. I'm doubtful though. I think they just don't want my money.

Another bureaucratic nightmare sending my blood pressure skywards at the moment is my attempt to change my visa from one based on a work permit, to one based on my marriage. You'd think it would be simple, I actually have all the paperwork I need now. Unfortunately, although I have a clean criminal record document, it's worthless unless stamped by the Foreign and Commonwealth office in London, and then the Taiwan Representative office, also in London. So I have to send it to the FCO first, and get them to send it on to the TRO. The FCO is actually quite simple, I just send them a document with an enclosed envelope, and they send it on. I can pay them by cheque. The TRO however don't accept cheques. In fact the only way I can think of paying them is to actually stuff pound notes in an envelope and mail it.

It's getting ridiculous. What kind of world have we created for ourselves here. It doesn't have to be this complicted does it?

Non!

The French voted non, and the smeg has hit the wall. The Nederlands will be voting on Wednesaday, and they will also vote no. There is a good piece by Nick Assinder, we like Nick, on the BBC website this morning that explains it all, click. As I mentioned recently, the French no vote will mean Blair can claim there is no point in holding a British referendum. He'll be privately very pleased about that since he couldn't possibly have engineered a yes vote. I think he should still have the referendum (as promised). Other countries like the Nederlands for instance, haven't cancelled their referenda because the French rejected the treaty.

There seems to be a lot of head scratching and beard stroking going on now. I don't think the grand wizards made any plan for this eventuality. As it stands, unless the French hold another referendum, or they retify the treaty without it, the constitution has died because it won't be legal unless all 25 states back it. Blair now finds himself in the unfortunate position of trying to sort this out as he takes over the European presidency in July. It's a good day for the Eurosceptics.

Now here's something funny. The governemnts plan for ID cards has been given a price tag of 6 billion GBP. Now that's a lot of money and, to put it in perspective, that comes out at around 93 pounds per person. Originally the figure was put a little lower (85 pounds person) but that was before the tax was factored in. Yes, we do apparently have to pay the governement tax for the privilidge of holding an id card which 79% of the population don't want. Currently it's not clear where the money will come from, but the original scheme would have meant each person would have had to actually pay 85 pounds for their id card. Now, here's the funny thing, the London School of economics has done an independent study to determine the cost of the newly proposed scheme and has concluded that the government got the maths wrong. It could cost as much as 18 billion pounds or nearly 300 pounds per person.

Of course, something like this is a vast undertaking with many unknown factors, and costing such things are indeed problematic. But a descrepency of 300% is surely more than a little worrying. The LSE has claimed that the government has conveniently not factored in such things as updating of biomentric and other data, dealing with the refusniks (like me), and some technology costs. I would suggest that the technology cost is an enormous unknown quantity since they haven't decided yet what form of biometric data they will stael from each and every one of us. It has been suggested that each card would need to be updated on avaerage, at least every five years, just to keep the biometric data intact. The governemnt plans only a 10 year renewal period.Click.

Yesterday we went and climbed a mountain, actually, no point in lying about this, it was more like a big hill, and there were steps so it wasn't like the north face of the Eiger. Then we had lunch with Andy and Vivian. Andy's been a homemaker for too long. He puts garbage in the fridge to stop the insects coming and he washes everything before throwing it away.

Better than average

You know I still feel pretty sick, and I have to come to work tomorrow. I did however finally manage to defeat the red woman from Ronin, Spirit of the Sword this morning. This makes it a better than average day.

I see today that a bunch of British doctors are calling for a ban on long kitchen knives. What next, cork screws? Honestly, are they serious? Click.

Tracey Emin has launched a new exhibition in Britain and is making headlines for the naked self portraits. I like Tracey Emin. I think she produces art for herself, and the fact that she sells it is probably just a bonus. That is to say, I don't think her art would be any different even if she wasn't popular. She's not poular with a lot of people of course. I can remember my parents expressing some surprise that I had any time for her. Think about Andy Wharhole. Now there is someone who made art to sell art. The result was a pretentious collection of crowd pleasing trash. Would Wharhole art be different if he couldn't have sold it, yup, it wouldn't exist because he'd be doing something else in the pursuit of fame and fortune.

The French are voting for (or maybe against) Europe on Saturday. Reading the reports today I have concluded that the EU constitution is doomed to fail. If the French vote No, and that looks likely, the constitution must effectively be abandoned because it must be ratified by all 25 member states to become law. Even if they vote yes, it's bound to be rejected somewhere else. It appears to me that politicians and the public are looking at Europe from very different perspectives. The politicians perceive Europe as an exciting new political system. The public judge it by how it will change their collective lifestyle.

OK, I wrote the above yesterday (Friday) and never got around to posting it. I'm now at work on Saturday morning, listening to Kally bleating on about something or other.

We're going mountain climbing tomorrow with Andy and Vivian. Quite lookng forward to it. It's an early start. This is the last recreational weekend we will have for a while because the dragon starts her course next week. I think the next weekend we spend together will be Dragon-boat festival holiday next month.

OK, due to the fact that I left the flash disk at the office on Saturday, this never got posted. It's now Monday morning. I did go climbing mountains yesterday, the French voted Non! as predicted, and I've been trialling Skype. I think it has cool potential. I'm going to post this now, realy I am.

Feeling Special

Good news for right minded people, the conservatives have opposed Tony's new ID card plans. I can't see how anyone could support them since they are so vague. And what's more, the price has gone up. Whereas we were to be charged 85 pounds for a mandatory card, it now seems the price has gone up to 93 pounds. The reason for the price rise is, honestly I'm not making this up, they didn't include the tax last time. So this is now a tax that we have to pay tax on!

Originally we were told that we desperately need an id card scheme to combat terrorism, that appears to have changed. Now we desperately need an id card scheme to combat the huge problem of identity theft which is costly. The new scheme is likel;y to cost almost 600,000,000 pounds a year. I swear I will never carry an id card in my own country. I'll go to jail first.

I seem to have won myself a bonus for the number of pages completed this month at work. I also get free dinner at a local restaurant. Feel very special.

Evolution

I read yesterday about a couple that injured themselves, apparently fairly seriously, after building homemade light sabers from fluorescent tubes filled with petrol, which they then lit. I half believed the story unitl I read that the couple were adults, and I put it down to dubious journalism. Today however, the story has re-emerged and appears to be 100% true. The incident was videoed by a third person. I know this sounds heartless, but people this stupid really deserve to die. Let evolution take its course.

Did you know that June 5th is world naturist day? Well it is, and to celebrate, there is a new guide to the best nudist beaches in Britain coming out on that very day. I shall be wearing no underwear that day to show my support. Apparently there is a nude beach near my parents place in Devon.

The government is about to unveil its new plans for ID cards after it was forced to scrap its original plan. This time the Tories are saying that they will oppose it unless the need for them is proven. That's better than the original stance. The Liberal Democrats are saying that the Tories are sitting on the fence, and they have a point. Let's see what they come up with this time. It's difficult to believe that they would attempt to promote another blatently authoritarian scheme. It wouild also be somewhat surprising if they abandoned it totally.

I still feel ill.

Tripe

My throat still hurts.

I see Time magazine has released a "top 100 films of all time". What tripe, why does this keep coming up? I mean seriously, no-one is ever going to praise them for it. It's such a personal thing. You'll just piss everybody off. Incidentally, how can you have a top 100 films without Alien, Towering inferno, and The Usual Suspects? And WTF is ET doing in there? And Schindler's list. Don't get me started on that piece of pretentious garbage.

I've just blown up my SIM card. I put it in a new phone that I am writing a manual for, and now it doesn't work. The worst thing is, I can't remember the Dragon's number to call her. I think I have most of the numbers written down somewhere. A trip to Chung Hwa telecom is required.

I need to mention the Europe debate. This weekend the French, traditionally fairly pro-Europe, will be voting on whether or not to accept the European constitution and it's looking very much like they are going to vote No. I hope they vote no beacuse I am anti Europe. The mainstream politicians are all pro-Europe for the same reason Mr Blair is, they think it's a path to a more powerful government and they all want to be part of it.

The thing that makes this particular referendum really interesting though is the fact that it could save Blair from a lot of embarrassment. Blair has promised that he will allow a referendum on Europe before taking the next step. It looks very much like he can't possibly win a Yes vote however. So, if the French vote No, and as a consequence the EU constitution fails anyway, he won't have to allow a referendum and he can avoid the embarrassment.

As someone who is anti Blair and anti Europe, this puts me in an odd position. I half want the French to vote Yes so that Blair has to have his referendum and the British can be responsible for the fall of the EU. But that's just greedy isn't it. Most of me wants the French to vote No. My Father predicted some time ago that Europe would drown in its own bureacracy and one really has to ask whether a No vote this weekend would actually be the start of that. Wise man my father.

Did I mention my sore throat?

I can't remember if I mentioned SPencer Tunick yesterday, I meant to. He's the New York artist that assembles thousands of naked people in public places and photographs them. I read that he is doing a work in North England and I thought it was next year, which meant I could go along and partake, but alas, it appears to be in July and I don't thikn I will be on the right continent. It's a shame, I really want to do it. I think I'll send him a few pictures of the Tai Chi thing at Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall here in Taipeia and see it it doesn't nudge him into Asia.

in a bottle

I took Friday afternoon off as part of the next stage in my attempt to get myself a visa based on my marriage. We spent about 2 hours in the family registration place filling out forms and generally jumping through pointless hoops, just so that my name can appear on the household register. This now means that I am officially married both in UK and Taiwan now. Is that enough to get me a visa? No, of course not...

I have to provide a document proving that I have no criminal record, which is currently in the mail to me from UK. But I can't just provide the authorities with the document, it has to be stamped by the Taiwan cultural office in London. And they won't stamp it unitl it's been stamped by the foreign and commonwealth office, also in London. This of course means that I have to return the document currently in the mail to me, first to the FCO in London, and then the TCO. It's like trying to pull your foreskin over your head!

Even when I have managed to get my clean criminal record document stamped in fourplicate, I have to undergo a medical check. This is something I also had to deal with on Friday. They took blood, x-rayed me, measurecd and weighed me, listen to my chest and heart, took my blood pressure, and interviewed me about my medical history. They even took a sample of my pooh. I kid you not ladies and gentlemen, I shat in a bottle to get a visa. What the hell do they want that for?

And that Dickie is why there was no update for you this weekend. I tend to write entries at my desk at work over lunch time. I had no lunch time on Friday because I left early. Heckled by my readership, I should be flattered.

Incidentally, I just discovered that "shat" really is the past tense of "shit". look!

And on to other things. My fitness regime resumed this weekend and I actually ran over 2 km without a break for the first time in probably 5 years. And what's more, the temperature was well up in the mid thirties and humid. I know it doesn't sound like much, but I felt like I had achieved something. My current goal is set at 10 km. Let's see how that goes.

The Dragon says the tax office owes me money. I can't see how that's possible, but if they give me money I will be very happy. I thought I owed them. I saw a beautiful saxophone for sale at the weekend for only NT$10,000.

My throat hurts.

Bit of a libertarian

"I'm beginning to believe that you are a bit of a libertarian" - AbbyGirlForever 18/5/05

Now, it's funny that Abby should be mentioning the Libertarian thing. I almost married an American woman once, long ago when I was young and stupid (as opposed to old and stupid like now). She always described herself as a Libertarian and it rather put me off because she and her foul, disfunctional family, were some of the most unpleasant people I ever met. Why did I nearly marry her I hear you ask? Well therein lies a story, the contemplation of which has caused me many sleepless nights and corresponding days of anxiety. Needless to say, I wasn't thinking with my brain at the time.

In terms of liberty, yes I fully embrace the Libertarian concept, as a concept. And I firmly believe that everyone would be much better off with smaller government and less control. As a political theory it works about as well as Marxism and it fails for the same reason; people are selfish. The family of the foul woman I nearly married (for the sake of brevity, let's call her "T" from now on) claimed they lived Libertarian lifestyles. They didn't file tax returns. T actually made up a false social security number when she was forced to pay tax in the US because she didn't want any tax paid in her name. But they had power of attorney over T's Grandmother, and still collected her state pension. Even when she died (in most mysterious circumstances) they continued to collect her state pension and cable it to England where it was cabled back to a different account for the purposes of laundering. They claimed that they were battling an unjust sytem and it was therefore justifyable. I say they were fair-weather Libertarians.

This was more than a decade ago. T's parent's went to enormous lengths to keep their lives secret. There were bank accounts in false names, all the mail went through mail box addresses, even the car had a false registration I believe. And they were nervous about me, because I was an outsider, couldn't be trusted. The thing that bothered me most about them was the fact that they had no forsight. T's parent's were in their 50s when I knew them. They had no money, no assets to speak of. They lived in rented accomodation. How did they expect to retire? They were already borrowing huge amounts of money from T and siblings just to stay afloat.

So, in short Abby, no, I am not a Libertarian, I'm just anti-government control. I don't know where I stand politically. I'm not a conservative (in the British sense). I think capitalism works better than socialism because you can't tax your way to prosperity, and I'd rather live in a prosperous state than a non-prosperous one. I have some left wing views. I hate the concept of a monarchy, why is it different to a dictatorship? I think the House of Lords has become a dinosaur and should be replaced with an elected upper house.

And on to something else. Here's an interesting story. A policeman from England was caught driving at 159 mph on a public road and the case went to caught. He was let off because he was trained to drive at those speeds and was merely "honing his skills". Does anyone else detect an odour of nepatism here? Click.

Twice and it's only May

Abby agreed with me again. I think that's twice this year now and it's only May.

Almost payday - WOOT! And this month will be especially sweet since I don't have to give half o the landlord or pay for the security guard. Unfortunately I've also just filled in my tax form which no doubt means the authorities will find a way of extracting huge amounts of cash from me anyway.

I'm taking part of Friday off to go and register myself with the Taipei authorities. This is the first part of my quest for a visa based on my marriage. I was thinking I might just claim political asylum and see if geting a resident visa is any easier that way. I could say that I was being opressed by the dictatorial regime in my homeland and feared for my liberty. I think it's a fair claim.

The dragon has oficially signed up with a umiversity to do a teaching course. I'l see less of her during the week, but the weekends will not be affected. I think that's better than her doing the weekend option. It will take her 6 months though.

Don's off with the lurgy today. He's a sickly child. Pink Sally is also away today which means no-one has stolen my iPOD.

Let's talk about sex

Got a couple of notes yesterday about the Oregon school that handed out a detention to a 14 year old girl who hugged her boyfriend in a school corridor. Even Abby, the rock hard Christian conservative, condemned it. So who is it that supports this kind of thing? As was pointed out by another noter, the Christian right has power in the US now. Is that what is driving this? It was even suggested by the same noter that sex education in US at the moment can't be taught in government schools unless it conforms to certain standards which are homophobic. This all strikes me as insidious and manipulative.

I say scrap sex education from schools everywhere. It's impossible to agree on what to teach, and the result is so bland as to be almost useless. Teach the biological side of things in the biology classes. Leave the sexual politics element to parents. It might even teach them some responsibility (the parents I mean).

Coincidentally, today I am reading in the news that the US government is to face a law suit, initiated by the American Civil Liberties Union, over the "silver ring thing" programme. The ACLU claims that the programme, which promotes abstinence, and which is a spin off from a Christian ministry, violates the principle that public state money can't be used to promote Christianity. I'd say that was not a very strong case since they are promoting abstinence and not Christianity, but that's just my view. When I read about the Silly Ring Thing, I can't help but think of the 80's anti drug programme in UK, "Just Say No!". We British look back at that campaign now and laugh nervously because it was so awful. Kids knew that drug taking was a complex issue with pros and cons, and they just laughed when they saw people dancing and singing "Just say no".

We should have learnt by now that telling people not to do something because it's "wrong" isn't enough. You have to give them a reason, and the funny thing is, there really aren't many good reasons for not having sex, over and above the very obvious ones like disease and unwanted pregnacy. It's not even any good telling young people not to do it because they'll catch diseases and become pregnant if they have sex, because they're smart enough to work out that married people (who don't get preached to and have sex freely) are not all dropping dead from AIDS and having unwanted children. But here's the real problem for the absstinence nazis; sex is good. Even the poeple who've never done it realise this, and that my friends is why teaching abstinence won't work.

Navel gazing and bad manners

Well I finally got around to doing some tablet weaving at the weekend. It's very easy once you get everything strung up. There was plenty of swearing during the stringing process however. Turning the fan off helped qquite a bit. I've done mypractice bit and I'll maybe post pictures later inthe week. I know it's not exciting, but I got a kick out of it.

We didn't do a whole lot el;se this weekend, mostly due to typhoon strength rain. It has let up today but word ont he street is that it's coming back. We didn't go jogging, so I can't report on my progress this week.

James hasn't shown up for work today. He sounded very down last time I spoke to him and that's quite understandable. Jamie also sems pretty down since Uber Boss John left. James, if your're reasding this, and I know you do, navel gazing isn't the answer. Get back on the horse boy. Incidentally, you should have come on Friday. I know it was expensive but it was a buffet and we ate more than is good for anyone. We also drank a lot of beer. And the Dragon showed up, admittedly it was late, but she was there. And Kally became the wicked witch of the far east because she promised Abba she would take her to 101 and then couldn't because it was closed.

As I type this Jim has actually shown up. So ignore the last paragraph.

I've been thinking about basketball hoops. Why do they need a net underneath? It has a hole in it. The ball just goes straight through. The net is superfluous isn't it? Don (American) says that is all started with fruit baskets. I'm not sure this explains the superfluous net though.

The BBC is reporting today that nearly half of British empolyers are intending to make workers redundant within the next year. Isn't Tony Blair's Britain great?

A man has been found wandering around Kent in the SE England, dressed in a formal suit, very wet and confused. He was taken to a hospital where he has been unable to speak. He did however draw a picture of a piano and the hospital staff took him tot he chapel where he apparently played the piano for serveal hours. The hospital staff still know know nothing about this guy other than the fact that he is an accomplished pianist. This sounds like too good a story to be genuine. The media are already drawing parallels with films. Click.

A school in Bend (Bend!?) Oregon, has handed out a detention to a 14 year old girl for hugging her boyfriend in a corridor and started a row in the process. Now I think this is interesting. I can remember geting caught in the biology lab with a young lady by Mrs Loveday when I was about 15. What's the problem? It wasn't like I had her bent over the desk or anything, we were just acting like all 15 year olds do. The school in question (the one in Bend, not mine), Sky View Middle School, claims, "all we're trying to do is create an environment that's focused on learning, and learning proper manners is part of that". Manners? It's bad manners to hug someone? This must be some cultural thing I'm not aware of. Sounds to me more like 40-something middle school teachers in Oregon aren't getting any, and the sight of teenage affection is frustrating/embarrassing. Mrs Loveday didn't look like she was getting any either. I mean seriously, what's the problem with it? Click.

nobody-somebody?

Well it's raining, just for a change. I actually ventured out at lunchtime and came back 15 minutes later like a drowned rat. And I forgot to buy teabags. James didn't show up for work today and has since called in sick. Confidentially, he didn't really want to go to John's leaving dinner tonight after he found out how much it was. It is quite expensive and he would have had to miss class.

No-one has made any comment about yesterday's mpeg. I thought it was pretty bloody awesome, but I guess I was wrong. I did get one very strange comment yesterday asking if I had seen, "nobobdy[sic] that thinks there[sic] a somebody". This note was unauthenticated, but was apparently from "shriveled up mouth darren". Is this a thinly veiled insult? I have no idea what it means so, if darren, or anyone else, would like to shed some light on it, that would be good.

Mother's eye operation has gone ahead as planend and she is back from the hospital already. She can see out of that eye already and can even read without glasses it seems. She hasn't been able to do that in a few years. I'm going to try and call them at the weekend and get an update.

I stopped off at the Nova place at Taipei Main Station yesterday and bought myself a USB 2.0 card. It was very cheap and it gives me 5 more ports so I'm going to try and bung that in this weekend. I was sort of looking for a power adapter for my iPOD, but got sidetracked. I got in trouble because I was supposed to meet the dragon in Hsin Tien and I misjudged it completely. I felt guilty because she ended up waiting for me int he rain and her phone got wet and stopped working. Had to spend hours drying it with the hair drier. It works now.

I've been meaning to mention for days that naked rambler and frequent subject of this blog, Steve Gough, has confirmed that he wants to walk the length of Britain naked again. Steve did this in 2003 and didn't actually finish until Jan 2004 due to the number of times he was arrested. He's looking for people to walk with him. I swear I'd be up for it if I was 1, in the country, and 2, didn't have to work for a living. I hope he does it anyway. I'm a fan. There aren't many things about Briatin that are really great right now, but the Great British eccentic remains healthy I'm pleased to say. Click.

Mosquito Swoter

I just spen the last 30 minutes trying to explain what an electronic mosquito swotter is in pigeon Chinese. This is becuase the lady at the post office wanted to know what was in the package I was sending to England. I had to draw a picture in the end. It's Pete's fault. Why does he want mosquito swotters anyway. You don't even have mosquitos there really. In case you were wondering, the electronic mosquito swotter, which I have only ever seen in Taiwan, is a device that looks like a squash raquet. There is a buton on the handle which applies a high voltage to the metal grid bit. The idea is to bat mosquitos with it and knock their radar wonky in mid air. It's fun, but I haven;t seen them anywhere else.

Here's something you should have a look at.

Click now!

This is something that im came up with yesterday. Sorry if you don't have broadband. It's an MPEG, about 2 MB. I won't tell you what it is. It's not rude, it's not really funny, and it's not a trick either. I tried it last night. Watch it, try it.

Macaulay Culkin has taken the witness stand at the Michael Jackson trial and said that he was never abused by Jackson. he did however admit sharing a bed with him while very young.

James says that I should stop messing around with this diary and start writing the unwritten novel I keep boring everyone with. He has a point. This was in response to me announcing that I was having a potential mid-life crisis and that all the really big achievers had already achieved and usually died by my age. My mid-life crisis, we later concluded, was probably down to tiredness. Anyway, the point I'm tryingt o make here is, yes, this diary is, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant, but worryingly, it has become important to me. Maybe I can write a novel in diary form.

I've just read that an American team has produced a drug which they say can boost memory. That sounds liek it may turn out to be contraversial if you ask me.

I think I am going to go to Taipei main station and see if I can't get myself a USB 2 card.

Secrets

I can't think of anything fasinating to write about today. The rain has stopped, except for a little drizzle. John, the Uber Boss at work has announced he is leaving. This turned out to be the worst kept secret in the world. I was told by Michael about a week ago, but didn't believe it. James already knew from Rolf, who works with Michael. Jamie has known for a while because John told him. So evryone pretty much knew. James is also looking like he may have to leave due to visa problems. One has to question the future of this department. Anyway we're all having a farewell dinner at some Japanese place on Friday.

The skull of Tutankhamun has been given to various scientists in an attempt to reconstruct a face for the boy king. The BBC reports that the models produced bear a "striking resemblance" to portraits of the king. I admit that the French attempt does indeed look very much like the portraits, but they knew who's face they were building. The American attempt looks nothing like the portraits. It's miles away. Are you blind? I haven't seen the Egyptian model, but they knew what they were doing too. Here, see for yourself.

Talking of blind, I was thinking; do blind people dream? I mean people who have always been blind, how can they dream anything?

The Conservative leader has said that he wil stand down and let someone else take his place before Christmas. SO why is everyone shouting about him being a lame duck leader?

That's it, I'm out of ideas for today, more tomorrow.

Sticky feet

Yesterday I decided to change the turtle's water on the balcony and I noticed this little frog sitting on the draining board. He had sticky feet and watched me from the wall for a while.



Talking of the turtles, I just got a call from the dragon to say that Thomas has escaped. She couldn't find him for ages but he showed up as she was talking to me on the phone. I think maybe we need to get them a bigger tank.

I thought I had taken more pictures of the tong oil trees in Hsinchu when we visted at the weekend, but I can't find any that don't feature the dragon fairly prominantly. She doesn't like having her picture on the internet, so I won't post those. I will however post a picture of a close up of the flowers. You just have to imagine many trees, all covered with these little fowers. The Hakkanese people use them to make oil for cooking.



The dragon's not well at the moment. She went to see a doctor yesterday with flu symptoms. This is the big drawback of beiing a teacher. All the little darlings give you their germs. She has some medicine anyway, so we hope she will recover quickly.

It's been positively peeing down with rain all night and the river looked especially fat this morning as I crossed the bridge. I don't like constant rain. It's still raining now.

Did I mention I broke my glasses? Well I did. A screw popped out and the lens came out on Saturday. I got them fixed but it just happened again so I'm back to an old pair now. I need a new pair of sunglasses anyway since I lost my last pair, so I think I may see if I can cut a deal on two pairs.

Mouse that is born of woman has but a short time to live

6th May 2005 - "I've listened and learned" - Tony Blair.
Later that same day - Tony Blair returns his personal friend David Blunket to Cabinet, 5 months after he was forced to resign after allegations of deception and abuse of power.

Yup, certainly sounds like he's learnt his lesson.

Reading the news is still too depressing for words. I think I'll leave it a few days until election fever dies down.I did notice that Blair is now facing a rebellion from his own back benchers who want him replaced. There are rumours of a new deal with Gordon Brown for the hot seat. I personally hope he stays on and wrecks the party. I'm also glad Howard has decided to stand down. The man simply wasn't powerful enough.

I expect you're all wondering what I got up to at the weekend. Well actually it wasn't all that interesting. We did go and see the Hakkanese flowering trees on Saturday. I found out the the English name is Tong oil flower. I only knew the name in Chinese. Well it's the same in English it turns out. OK I'm rambling now. I'll post some pics when i get around to it.

I was sort of hoping that we could eat sushi this weekend but we never managed it. We might be able to tonight if I leave early enough and meet the dragon after her teaching.

On Sunday I went jogging again, this time I ran 2.4 km, almost without stopping. It was hot and humid again too. Though not so much as last week. I thought it was a much better showing than the previous week. I should do this every week.

Went to Gung Guan yesterday and bought nothing remarkable. I'm tempted to buy a USB2.0 card for my PC. I must have got the last PC on earth to be built with USB 1.1.

There was a dead mouse here in the office this morning, and when I arrived at around 8.45 I was imediately asked to help dispose of the body. It was quite nicely decayed, stuck to a sticky mouse trap that had been placed in the cupboard under the air conditioner. It must have been there all weekend I think. Smelled nasty.If I had got in first, I wouldn't have known where the smell was coming from.

James wants to buy a manly, Honda, chopper type motorbike. This prompted a discussion about the age of the Triumph company. It turns out that Triumph is in fact over 100 years old. How cool is that?

The dragon has a cold. This probably means I will too in a couple of days.

British stupidity

Well as I write this it looks very much like the most corrupt government in British history is about to get returned to power. I can't believe the British people are so stupid, The bloody BBC are writing about it as if he's alreay won. A sad say indeed.

On the plus side, I've had a letter from New Scotland Yard confirming that they have no information about me on their police computers. The British police force is so inept I'm not sure it really means anything, but the good news is, I can now probably get a Taiwanese visa based on my marriage rather than my job. The upshot is, I don't have to return to Blair's Britain if I don't want to. That said, I stil have to have the document notarised and pass a medical. Oh the bureacracy.

I was thinking this morning on the bus that a nuclear explosion would be a wonderful cleansing event in the history of the planet. Ironic isn't it that nuclear energy is considered so environmentally unfriendly. The reality is, it's just not population friendly. It would do the planet the world of good.

And as I write this I see that the labour party has won. I'm just to depressed to carry on. More tomorrow, maybe, if I haven't topped myself.

Bertie Botts

So election day is upon us and I notice that the BBC has amended its 10 point Labour lead to a three point Labour lead. Where did that 10 point lead come from? It would seem that the little graph bears no mention of it anymore. Seems suspicious to me. I hope to God that Blair loses, but I fear he will win. You have no idea how much I hate that man.

The prosecution has wound up its case in the Michael Jackson trial. I can't decide whether I think he did it or not. Nearly all witnesses for the prosecution already appear to be in various legal battles wih MJ over money or unfair dismissal. He must be a pain in the arse to work for, but whether or not he's done anyting illegal remains to be seen. Why do they keep bringing up his financial situation? What's that got to do with anything?

I've been reading a few reviews of the new Hitchhikers Guide movie and it's really not easy to find anything nice written about it. I'm seriously considering not seeing this film in case it ruins memory of the books, radio, and tv series. From what I understand, so much of the original story is missing or changed that it's going to upset anyone who grew up with it. I must say, the pictures I saw of Marvin left me dissapointed. He looks like a toy. Here's a review I read yesterday in case you're interested.

I can accept that things sometimes have to be left out of films to get everything in, but making changes to something with a cult following like HHGG is unforgiveable. This is what happened to Thunderbirds. I was looking forward to it, but then decided not to see it when I discovered that Lady Penelope was driving a Ford and Scott Tracey's age had changed. You can't do that to something classic. It's like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa with a bingo marker.

I'm so much in two minds about this now. I need to sleep on it. Meanwhile, have a look at the HHGG website. That's something that I discovered yesterday and I can confirm that at least the site is cool. Click.

And on to something else. The dragon came home with a present for me last night:

Bertie Botts every flavour beans. I didn't even know these existed beyond the confines of the Harry Potter novels, but apparently they do, and there really are some quite exotic flavours in there. In addition to apple, cherry, and a few other conventional flavours, there are booger (that really should be boogey since it's British), dirt, earthworm, soap, vomit, earwax, and spaghetti. And what's more, these things really do taste authentic. Actually, I've never eaten an earthworm, but the soap and dirt in particular are very soap and dirt like. A word about the vomit flavour, it's frighteningly like the real thing, don't try it, it made me feel ill, really. I was disappointed withthe earwax, nasty , but not really accurate.

And finally today, here's a picture of the gate to our new apartment building. I like it, funky isn't it?

Almost didn't get it

This week is going quickly. That's probably because theere was no Monday. I have my mobile phone manual finished. It came out at 122 pages, that's 28 pages less than the client suggested. I don't know if that's good or bad. We shall find out when the feedback is returned. I'm now converting a framemaker manual to robohelp. Never done that before. Exciting stuff.

Election day tomorrow. The BBC is showing a frightening rise in popularity for Labour. I can't believe anyone could possibly vote for that corrupt bastard. I can't believe I don't get a vote.

As I was coming to work on the metro this morning I noticed a woman opposite me that had a stack of square cards with holes punched into each corner. She was colouring each corner of each card a different colour. I was thinking I'd seen cards like this before somewhere but I couldn't think where. Then it came to me. About 30 years agao I remember my father making a similar set of cards. It was a card loom. I just looked it up on the internet. I think I might have a go at it myself. Here's one of the links I found.

Talking of links. I mentioend that friend Dave had written a book and it's now available on the internet, but the link I had was broken. So here it is. He wrote to me begging me to buy it again. It wasn't very becomming, but Dave, if you're reading this, I do intend to buy iy, and I'll write a review, so stop the hard sell thing, it makes you look desperate.

This entry was written yesterday and you nearly didn't get it. I thought I left my flash disk at work yesterday, so it didn't get posted. In fact I found the flash disk in my bag on my way to work this morning. Then when I looked on the flash disk the entry wasn't there anyway. I had to search for it on the hard drive. Anyway, here it is. I have more to write later. It's election day now.

Korean

You see this woman? She works in my office. Beautiful isn't she? But here's a warning, do not let this woman near your iPOD. She has a sense of humour, and zero foresight. This makes her a liability. Let me explain. She thought it would be achingly funny to turn the display language for my iPOD to Korean. Do you know how long it took us, and I mean everyone in the office had a turn, before we managed to return it to a langauge that someone could read? And this is a translation house! There will be retailliation to follow. I just haven't decided what yet.

I thought I might try some gentle jogging this weekend. I don't know what came over me. There's a 200m running track just down the road from our apartment and people go there to run, so I thought I'd give it a go. There was a time when I could have done 10 laps of that track without even breaking a serious sweat. It has to be said however, that I had to take a rest after the first three. I did continue and finish eight, but that's still nothing to be proud of is it. I have it in my mond to go back and try again. In my defence, it was up in the thirties and humid. Who am I trying to kid, I'm an unfit, overweight slob. I need to drag my enormous arse outside more often.

Jim is not in the best of moods. He managed to leave his new cell phone in a taxi at the weekend. He claims it was a booze related insident. He reckons that someone found it and is keeping it. I hope it finds it's way back anyway. I maintain he's too young to be this cynical.

Friend Sean is opening a restaurant in Ban Chiao this month or next month. I haven't seen him for ages but I was working with him at FIC. He seems to have dumped his job and bought a restaurant. So good luck to him. His first love is actually photography. I don't kow what he was doing in an office anyway.

Just can't think of anything else to write today. Something awesome tomorrow.

Saturday update

Worked so hard yesterday there was no time for writing anything here.

The good news is that we finally handed over the keys for the apartment last night and got back our deposit with no trouble. Actually we cleaned the place for nothing since the landlady didn't even do an inspection in the end. She said she didn't feel well and wanted to go home. So I am typing this the following morning with NT$40,000 in my pocket. Actually we already bought a new dress so it's not quite that much. We're going to look at iPODs today - Woot!

We came home last night on the brown MRT line and motorbiked home from Mucha station. About half way home the dragon got a funny idea in her head that I should drive the motorbike. Not quite sure why this was since I have no licence and I'm a terrible driver at the best of times. But it was only very quiet backroads from then on, so I thought I'd give it a go. I had almost binned it at the eleventh hour trying to hand her the remote control for the garage door, but saved us at the last moment. Apart from that, no serious incidents. Oh, except my shoe fell off at one point.

It was good to see Tony Blair squirming yesterday after the leaking of legal advice from the attorney general. I hope it's cost him the election. It's going to be very close I think.

*break here to go out*

Ooh it was hot out there today. I caved in and bought a mini iPOD. Going o play with it now. More tomorrow.

Forgot to post Thursday

Congratulations are due today to old UNi buddy Fletch. I got a typically to-the-point e-mail from him this morning and apparently he's pregnant. More accurately of course his wife is. Apparently the new arrival is due around October. So good luck with that.

Also in the mail bag yesterday was a note from another university buddy Dave. Dave lost his job a few months ago. He wasn't too upset about it, they gave him a big wad of dough. Since then he's been tryign to sell his first novel. I confess I haven't bought it yet, but I have read it. Here's the link. I'm going to be honest about it; it's not the best written book you will ever read, but it's a really great story. I'll be buying a copy. Dave's one of life's thinkers. There's a clue as to how this book pans out.

Lying, currupt bastard, Tony Blair has egg on his face this morning as it appears that he has lied (again) about the Attorney General's comments regarding the legality of the Iraq war. Blair has consistantly refused to release the Attorney General's legal advice but claimed that he was assured by him that the war was legal. It now appears that a leaked memo not only indicates that the Attorney General did have doubts, but it also appears that Blair kept this information even from the cabinet. The memo is dated 7 th March and outlines several legal concerns over the war. 10 days later those concerns had vanished. The question is, why? The suggestion is that Blair put pressure on the Attorney General to state that the war was legal. And the Attorney General does back him up on that. Well he would wouldn't he, they're mates.

MJ's ex-wife is on the witness stand. She is apparently limited as to what she can say though. I'm sure the defence aren't pleased about it anyway.