Flies

I managed to make it all the way to work and sit down at my desk before I realised that my fly was unzipped this morning. It's always a bad day when that happens. An omen if ever I saw one.

Went to Computex yesterday. It wasn't as crowded as I remeber in previous years. Maybe the biggest computer trade show in Asia is becoming less important as time goes on. It wasn't much fun anyway. We walked miles around the maze of stands, pushed our business cards at potential customers and generally touted our services as technical writers. Someone else's turn to go today.

I forgot to mention our trip to the Westin Hotel Taipei on Tuesday. We dined at the East-West buffet. It was most excellent and despite the fact that I don't eat crab due to a shell fish allergy, there was lots of good food to choose from. It tasted slightly better because it was free, paid for by the boss for my outstanding performance last month.

Contact was made to England last night using Skype. They don't deserve any customers because their payment system and support service suck, but it the product works well. My parents can now call us in Taipei with a London number. How cool is that?

I've just been listening to a political debate on UK radio about the Europe issue. A panel of politicians is put in front of an audiance of the general public. The programme is called "Any Questions". Predictably, the first question from the audience was something like, "now that the French voted No, what does it mean for the future of Europe, Tony Blair, do we need a referendum?"

All the invited panel of politicians said that it was unfortunate that the French voted not to adopt the treaty. Some claimed that the problem was the treaty itself and not Europe as an entity. One even claimed that we should all be in favour of European union because he was over 60 years old and Europe had been peaceful for all that time. Perhaps he has forgoten about that small issue with the former Yugoslavia a few years ago. Or the fact that Europe has really only been in its present form for the last decade of that 60 years. There were also the usual arguments about needing to be a stronger force in the world to compete with the US and the emerging powers like China.

But they all missed the point completely. There is no benefit to giving Europe as a whole, any political power. In nearly every European country, handing power to a central government would represent a huge step backwards in terms of democracy. People can see a central European government, whom they did not elect, telling them how many hours they are allowed to work each week. Why is that better than their own governments, whom they did elect, telling them? I can see the benefit of dropping European trade barriers. I can even see that a common currency would be beneficial in some ways. Only thr politicians benefit from centralised government.