No ranting today

I'm going to try and make this a slightly lighter entry than recent ranting has produced. Did I mention that I finally got my clean criminal record certificate back, all stamped and endorsed as required? Well I have. We were going to go to the police place and start the application for a visa this afternoon, but my boss begged me not to take the afternoon off, so it has to wait until next week. I'm slightly worried that they are going to tell me that the criminal record thing is not recent enough. Some documents are only valid for 3 months. The criminal record certificate is already two months old, and I can't find any information about how recent it must be. I got it done as fast as possible, but it had to make three trips round the world to get stamps from everyone. It should be OK.

I also got new glasses yesterday. They are a little stronger than the previous pair and, although it irks me somewhat that my eyesight is not as good as it was, I can now see better. Got some groovy shades as well. I might put some pictures up if I feel like it.

I want to mention something about some news I read on the Welsh BBC site. For those who don't know, the driver licencing authority for Britain is based in Wales. Anyone who applies for a new driving licence or requires an update to their current licence, has to deal with the Driver Vehicle Licencing Authority (DVLA), Swansea. It's a huge, goverment run dinosaur of an organisation, housed in a 20 story building. It's widely regarded as inefficeient and is frequently the brunt of jokes, but to be honest, I have no real quarrel with them.

This week it appears that a DVLA employee, a woman in her twenties, sent one of her friends a video of herself having sex. We are led to believe that the video was sent by cell phone, though I am slightly dubious about that. The long and the short is, this video, fairly predictably, spread all over the building in about the next ten minutes. Now I'm guessing that not all that many DVLA employees have video-enabled cell phones, so my hunch is that standard e-mail was involved and I expect it was company e-mail, but that's beside the point. According to the BBC report, 300 people had been sent the clip by the time managers stepped in. The woman from whom the clip allegedly first came, has been suspended pending an investigation.

Over and above the obvious amusement value of this story, I find myself wondering what happens next. It would seem that this woman is likely to lose her job, and I wouldn't mind betting that several others get canned with her. But should it happen? This woman has sent this clip, apparently privately, to a friend. It perhaps wasn't the brightest move, but it wasn't malicious and it didn't involve her employer. This friend then forwarded it on. If DVLA e-mail servers were involved (and I bet they were) then I understand that there will likely be a company policy regarding what they can be used for and the staff that breached the policy probably deserve what's coming to them. But the original sender wasn't one of them.

It seems that there are 6000 people working in the DVLA. I bet she's not the only one to have videoed herself having sex. I bet she's not the only one to have shown video footage of herself having sex to someone else. I bet that DVLA e-mail servers have been used to pass porn round in the past. I bet if you searched all the bags and briefcases belonging to staff today you'd find a few porn mags and handcuffs. I bet not everyone is wearing underwear today, and I bet there are hundreds of staff secretly sleeping with each other. Hell I bet it's happened on the premises a few times. And the point I'm making is this; is anyone going to stop using the DVLA because there are immoral staff working there? No, they can't, it's the only licencing authority in Britain. Does anyone care that a junior member of staff videoed herself having sex and showed someone else? I don't, couldn't care less, really. I'm not making any judgement here, I'm just wondering what the fuss is about. Is this just management doing what they think management should do? Click for the story.

And to finish today, I bring you news of the lavatory theme restaurant right here in Taiwan. Food is served in lavatory shaped dishes and customers sit on lavatories to eat. I was not aware of this restaurant, but I was all ready to give it a go and give you a write up about the experience here. Unfortunately it's in Kaoshung, which is about as far away from here as it's possible to get without a boat. So maybe when they open a branch in Taipei. Click.