Oh loads of stuff

I actually wrote an entry yesterday and then decided that it was not something I wanted to share with the world. Suffice to say, there are certain fundamentalist budhist members of the dragon's family attempting to emotionally blackmail her into taking part in a budhist ritual. The dragon was brought up a budhist, but now has atheist feelings and is not interested in budhism at all. This is what upasets me most about religion, it causes rifts, if you're not with them, you're against them. Anyway, I'm not going to dwell on that.

I just heard the latest podcast from the SETI institute about Intelligent Design. I've been vaguely interested in the Intelligent Design debate for a while. I am of the opinion that ID is just creationism in a dress. That is to say, the only argument for ID is that, if you look around, nothing this complex and perfect could have formed through a set of chance happenings. I don't have a probem with the statement, though I think it's wrong, but what bothers me is the fact that the ID nuts are pushing it as science. Indeed some are arguing that ID should be taught with evolution in schools. I actually don't have a problem with ID being taught in schools (or religion come to that) but I do have a problem with it being taught in science classes.

Science is about reaching conclusions based on facts and evidence. There are no facts or evidence to support ID. The ID argument is presented as self evident and literature I've read supoprting ID doesn't so much present any evidence as attempt to destroy evidence for evolution. I'm going to read up about ID properly and present my findings here.

There is apparently another typhoon on it's way and we are supposed to be picking Mei up from the airport tomorrow. I hope it isn't delayed and we end up waiting there for days. She's been to Hong Kong. Let's hope she brings back something nice.

OK, no time for any more. There may be another entry on Sunday if we get typhooned in.

Pah!

I'm tired and I've just discovered that I have to work on Saturday October 8th. In itself that's not so bad, I have to work about 1 Saturday in 5. But that weekend is followed by a public holiday on October 10th. Which means I don't get a long weekend, pah!

I've been sent the new Harry Potter film trailer. It looks so good. I know I'm a child, but I'm really looking forward to it. Click.

It seems that Apple has admitted that the new Nano iPOD has a problem with the screen. I think it's too small. I can't really see the fascination with making things smaller all the time. If my iPOD was much smaller I'd lose it.

New writer started work with us today. First impresions, I like him. He's a bit tall, but we won't hold that against him.

After I commented yesterday about the fact that the former Metrolpolitan Chief of Police was clearly lying about his shoot-to-kill policy and it emerged that he gave his own staff the right to kill people in the street without any public debate, something occured to me. In his interview with Andrew Marr, Tony Blair claimed that it didn't matter that he wasn't asked for consent because he agreed with the policy anyway. Isn't it slightly worrying that the PM is happy for the police force to be entirely autonomous?

Lord John Stevens is a Liar

Monday September 19, 2005. John Humphreys interviews former Metropolitan police chief, Lord John Stevens, about the Metropolitan Police shoot-to-kill policy:

John Humphreys - Who did know [about the shoot-to-kill policy] in this case then? You knew, it was your suggestion. Who did know?
Lord Stevens - There was a working party on this that...
John Humphreys (interrupting) - Home Secretary?
Lord Stevens - Pardon?
John Humphreys - The Home Secretary?
Lord Stevens - Oh, um, certainly, senior politicians, of course they knew, yes.
John Humphreys - So the Home Secretary knew without any question. Tony Blair would have known then therefore, without any question?
Lord Stevens - Oh, um, politicians, of course they know and these things are discussed because we have to find the right ways of dealing with them.
John Humphreys - But those specifically, the Prime Minister and Home Secretary would have known?
Lord Stevens - In terms of what operational decisions, yes indeed.

Sunday September 25, 2005. Andrew Marr interviews PM Tony Blair:

Andrew Marr - We know that the Home Office was informed of the shoot-to-kill policy by Metropolitan Police, did you know about it?
Tony Blair - I don't think anyone ever came along and formally asked for consent to the policy of the Met, but I want you to know two things...
Andrew Marr (interrupting) - So you didn't?
Tony Blair - No

So Lord Stevens claims the PM definitely knew about his shoot-to-kill policy, but the PM claims he did not. What can we conclude from this? Firstly it would appear that Lord Stevens is a liar of course, and that Tony Blair doesn't listen to Radio 4 interviews. But, more importantly, I can only conclude that the police force made the decision to adopt a shoot-to-kill policy for suspected terrorists, which resulted in the death of an innoscent man, without involving any democratically elected politicians (unless they sat on this anonymous "working party"). In other words, they independently decided that they were allowed to kill people. Is anyone else scared?

Revolver

The Frying Scotsman visit never happened because Andy has an eye infection apparently. In answer to the Abby comment, the title is a play on words, but has nothing to do with the Flying Dutchman. The "Flying Scotman" is a steam train that still exists and works as far as I know. I don't know who owns it now, or what it does, but it is something all British people know about. So there's a mystery solved for you.

The new Guy Richie Film seems to be a total disaster if the reviews are anything to go by. I really liked Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels, I also liked Snatch. His next piece "Swept Away" was so universally derided that I avoided it and put it down to his recent marriage to Madonna, she would drive me mad if I was married to her. I'm going to watch Revolver, to see if the critics are wrong, but I don't have high hopes. I heard his interview and it was so pretentious, I can't see that the film really can be anything but equally awful. This is a shame, because I had high hopes for the guy.

He's gone down in my estimation for other reasons now also. He likes to portray himself as a cockney geezer, but I learnt last week he is infact landed gentry through his mother's second husband, and had a very priviliged upbringing. I don't hold that against him, I just don't like the pretence. It also seems that he has an incredibly poor academic record despite an expensive education, though I find that hard to believe since he is credited with writing his first two films.

I've upgraded my iPod software and it now handles podcasts completely differently. I can't say that it's worse, it's probably better. I wasn't ready for it though. I don't think Apple is very customer friendly. The manual for the iPOD is awful. I think there are some good tutorial available on-line, but you'd have thought they might have taken the time to produce a halfway decent paper manual.

Brown Sugar

Let me tell you about the Brown Sugar Jazz club. We finally made it there yesterday evening, after about two years saying that we will. It could be that two years of anticipation gave me time to develop an unreasonable expectation, but despite the excellent food, and great live music, I was disappointed. Why, I hear you ask - I'll tell you...

I suppose the most important element of a jazz club has to be the jazz, right? Well they didn't fail there, the band showed up around 9.30 and proceded to play some excellent Latin Jazz, people danced, some very well, and entusiastically, and the food was good; yet somehow there was no atmosphere. Jazz clubs are nothing without atmosphere. Good jazz clubs have a special feeling; they should be relaxed, come-as-you-are places where bank managers and stock brokers sit down with taxi drivers and street cleaners, all equal under the jazz umbrella. And that ladies and gentlemen just aint happening at Brown Sugar, Taipei. It's not bad exactly, it's just not "right".

It's expensive, which makes it elitist and rather formal. It's a restaurant, which is fine, but there's no walk-in bar, which means people can't just spill in from the street. The waiters are stilted and swoop like birds of prey the moment they see an empty plate on your table. I hate that, waiters should only come near me when I raise my eyebrow to them. It also appears to be a pick up joint for desperate men attempting to unwrap naive Taiwanese women. I sat behind a French guy that I heard explaining to his date how he loves his wife and is passionate about his girlfriend, though neither appear to understand him. An American guy was prowling tables in a way I found rather disturbing. This may simply be a cultural problem I have.

My advice is this; if you happen to be in Taipei and you want to hear some good jazz and twirl someone round a dance floor, go there if you're feeling rich. If you want atmosphere, you're better off going home with a CD and a bottle.

Anonymous

I'm fed up with anonymous ads that seem to be turning up on this diary as comments. I would hate to have to ban anonymous comments so, just in case the prick who is responsible actually reads the diary, here's a message for you; I get e-mailed the moment you leave a comment and it is always deleted in under 5 minutes. If you must advertise your crappy "Ukranian Girls" site somewhere, pay for your own bloody bandwidth you scum sucking bottom feeder.

On a completely different note, Reporters without borders has released a booklet about blogs, how to do it, and most importantly, how to overcome problems with censorship and free speech issues. It is to hit bookshops from today in a variety of languages, but it can be downloaded free from the Reporters Without Borders site. I've downloaded my copy already, but I haven't read it yet.

The above was written yesterday, Friday, but I never got around to posting it. It's now Saturday. I thought I would get a chance to finish and post it today but I got stuck at my sister in law's apartment baking cakes with the wife's cousin's children. I don't remember ever being so bored. I read the paper twice, finished the sodoku (rated hard), read the reporters without borders handbook mentioned above, and still nearly lost my mind. The ordeal is now however over thankfully.

On a more positive point, my sister in law leant me a DVD of a Japanese film called Swallowtial, which might be quite good.

Almost vegetarian

It's peeing down with rain again and the wind is picking up. We're being teased by another typhoon, though it is to the south of the island and here in the north only very minor effects are really being felt. It has however laid a depressing layer of grey over us. It seems Hurricane Rita is heading for Texas and the authorities are unwilling to be caught out like they were with Katrina. Evacuations have already begun. The people who evacuated to Texas to excape Katrina must feel like they're being followed.

Mei made dinner for us last night and it was "almost vegetarian curry". It was "almost" vegetarian because no-one remembered to buy any dead animals to throw in and only a few prawns made it to the pan. It was still very good. We also sampled some bagels, also produced by Mei using her new oven and the results were good. I made bagels once, they're difficult. You have to boil them first and then bake them. Mei' s were better then mine.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to experience traditional fish and chips dinner with old friend Andy. The place is apparently called the "Frying Scotsman" and is an authentic British style fish and chip place right here int he center of Taipei. Quite looking forward to it. Might even get a beer or two in.

A new 100 minute bible has been launched in UK to try and get people better informed. I'm not sure why it's a "100 minute" bible since it seems to be somethign that takes either 120 or 140 minutes to read, depending on which report you read. I wonder whether this effort to spread the word will have a positive or negative effect. In my experience a lot of atheists and agnoistics are rather more knowledgable on matters theological than the so-called believers. Not always the case of course. Click.

Thump

I can't get Open Diary to work again. That's two days in a row. I wonder how long it will be before it re-starts and the web monster blames the huge data loss on hackers again. Actually that is a little unfair. I can actually access the site with the old www.freeopendiary.com url and it does appear to be a DNS problem.

At 5 o clock this morning there was a loud thump and the dragon sat bolt upright in bed. Her grandfather had fallen out of bed int he next room. It could have been serious as he is very old, but he was more embarrassed than anythign I think. I stood him up again after making sure there was no obvious damage and he seemed OK. It was difficult to return to sleep however. I wasn't really asleep when it happened.

I also got a strange e-mail message this mornign from an old friend saying, "where are you? I'm worried". I can't work out why that person would be worried about me or wonder where I am, but I'm intrigued. I'll keep you posted on that one.

Priorities

This weekend was the Chinese Middle Moon festival. It marks the first day of Autumn int he Luna year. I imagine that means it's also exactly half way through the luna year. The moon was full and everyone was bar-b-que-ing. It's apparently a tradition to bbq at middle moon, though the Dragon claims it's really only a recent thing.

It's strange to see people in the city squatting outside their homes and shops, by the side of the road, around a small gril. But everyone does it. The air is thick witht hte smell of charcoal and various meats. The plethora of typhoons this year has pushed up the price of vetetables and meat was the thing to throw on grill. We went to the roof of our building to look at the moon. It was full of course, and very bright. And we could look down intot he street and see all the people bar-b-que-ing.

Apart from the fact that it was middle moon weekend, not very much noteworthy happened since my last entry.

I read something in one of the papers here this weekend that I think was reprinted from the New York Times. It was an editorial titled somethign like, "What do you call an American displaced by Katrina?". It was a long and serious piece about whether victims of Katrina should be termed "refugee", "displaced persons", "homeless", or something else. It went into great detail about how "refugee' was technically correct but had negative commotations, that "homeless" inferred permanently without home, and that "displaced" was also incorrect for reasons I can't even remember. My thoughts on this; YOU DOUGH HEADS! DOES IT REALLY MATTER? Talk about getting your priorites wrong. I wish I could find the article to link it, but I'm afraid I can't.

Ronnie Biggs is threatening to go on hunger strike because the Home Secretary won't make a decision about releasing him on compassionate grounds. Well I agree that he should make a decision and stop prevaricating. That decision should be that he stays in prison. He was sentenced to 30 years and he spent most of that time living it up in various tropical destinations.

Oven

We bought an oven for Mei. I know that sounds like a weird birthday present, but we did. Ovens are not common here. Most people wok things. Can "wok" be used as a verb? Well, it can in this diary. The dragon thought she might like it to make cakes, because she's into cooking and cakes are pretty much impossible without an oven. Tonight I think we'll give it to her. I think her birthday is Sunday though.

The big news today is that President Bush had to ask Condoleezza Rice if he could go for a wee wee at the UN summit. He managed to get himself photographed writing a note to her.The note seems to say, "I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible?" But I can see another word being written and I want to knoww what it is. See for yourself.

I didn't see any elves

OK, first things first. Abby, sorry about that E, don't know how that crept in there. Second, completely ignore my therory about Mundungus Fletcher from the last entry. He appears in Order of the Phoenix with Crookshanks and I therefore conclude that my idea about them being one and the same is in fact garbage. It was based on the premise that they both have ginger hair and bandy legs.

There was no upddate yesterday because I didn't really get a lunchtime. Today I suspect you will only get a short update because I am scheduled to visit a cake factory at lunchtime, and get a birthday present for my sister in law this evening. If you're reading this Mae, just forget that you saw that last line.

If anyone out there listens to the skepticality podcast you might already know that Derek, who co-presents the show, has been hospitalised after suffering something like a stroke last week. I really hope that he recovers fully and that the show gets back on track. Anyone who hasn't listened to the show should click that link above and download some of the archived material, it's really worth a listen.

Brittany Spears may or may not have had a baby. I just read that her husband, who appears to be just 27 years old, already has two children by a former girlfriend, the youngest of which popped out after he started seeing Ms Spears. He doesn't sound like a very serious person to me.

A lunatic in Britain has walked into the Harvey Nichols store in Knightsbridge, London and shot dead an employee working on one of the cosmetics counters there. It would seem that he had been stalking her. He was to appear in court to answer charges of harassment next week. That's now impossible since he also killed himself. From what I can gather, this guy was actually dating the dead woman for a short time and she dumped him, probably because he was a nutter.

I can't understand it. I've been dumped before and it never made me feel like shooting anyone. Well that's not quite true, but I don't think fleeting moments of depression induced rage count. I can't think that I'd actually have shot anyone even if I'd had a gun in my hand with the offending person in front of me during my fleeting periods of aforementioned rage. What drives someone to that? Is it a massive sense of dented male ego? Mad jealousy over the thought of someone else having her? Funny world we live in innit? Click.

You may be interested to know that the cake factory was more like a coffee shop. I was expecting a Willy Wonker experience with elves making cakes, but it wasn't so. The cakes were good though, and so was the coffee.

La la la we won the ashes

I just got back from the hospital. We didn't have a scan this time but we did hear its little heart beating again. I guess we're out of the danger period now. It must be 12 weeks. We have another scan at 5 months apparently. There is one appointment between then and now, but that is just for a blood test, so my presence may not be required. I approach these visits with an equal measure of fear and excitment. I am sacred that the doctor will discover something is wrong. I'm excited when I hear a heartbeat or see our baby. The first three months seems to have gone by very quickly. Almost one third of the way there now.

We won the ashes with the final test ending in a draw yesterday. I didn't do a very good job of explaining the rules of cricket to the dragon yesterday.

We gave away our turtles and fish to a good home this morning. We shouldn't really have turtles when the dragon is pregnant and we can't take the fish with us to England, so we gave them to a kinder garten with a large pond in the garden. It was a bit sad seeing them go, but the kids looked really excied and I think they will like it there.

I've been enquiring about getting the dragon a visa and it seems fairly straightforward actually. I spoke to someone this morning from the British cultural office and apparently she needs to go for an interview. As long as everything is in order they can issue a visa the next day as far as I understand it. She only gets a two year visa to start with, but that can be renewed as long as we don't divorce, die, end up in jail, or something similar.

eBay appears to have bought Skype. I have no head for big business and I don't know what this means. I just hope that it means that Skype's apalling customer service improves.

I've just had a revelation. I'm re-reading the 5th Harry Potter book, Order of the Phoenix, and I think Crookshanks and Mundungous Fletcher are one and the same. That's not a spoiler Abbey, you already read this yourself. Remember, you heard it hear first.

Putting out fires

The typhoon pretty much missed us this weekend. I was expecting Sunday to be ruined, but it wasn't. There must have been some wind and rain on Saturday night as the balcony was swimming in water Sunday morning. But I had no difficulty sleeping. On a related note, the dragon, now three months pregnant, appears to be developing an insomnia thing. I hope this doesn't last. We have our next anti-natal appopintment tomorrow. I don't know if there will be another scan, but I hope so. How old do they have to be before you can see the sex?

Isn't the cricket exciting. As we head into the second innings of the final test against Australia, I see that it's about as square as it could be with Australia all out for 367. England has already lost a wicket but is currently standing at 34 for 1 in the second innings. I'm not really a sports nut, but this is exciting, and I do understand cricket, unlike most other sports. In fact I think the only other sport I think I can really grasp fully is probably Quiditch. I was thinking I might invent an anti gravity device as it's the only thing that really prevents us from playing quiditch.

Friend Dickie has been to a nudist place. I think I want to do that, but the dragon's not keen. He's not posting pictures though, which I think is selfish.

I loath and dispise ex home secretary and reptile, David Blunkett. I don't loath and dispise him quite as much as Tony Blair but there's not much difference. In reality, I wouldn't put out Tony Blair if he was on fire. If David Blunkett was on fire, I'd wrestle with my concience long enough to ensure that he'd burn to death. It's a close run thing. I also loath ex Met Police chief Lord John Stevens. I have slightly less loathing for John Stevens however because he is clearly of astoundingly low intelligence and probably shouldn't be held entirely responsible for his actions. He might survive a fire if I stumbled across it and I was in a good mood. But I digress. It emerged in the news today that Stevens and Blunkett hate each other. It's all in Steven's memoirs (which someone must have helped him write) which are being serialised in the News of the World. The News of the World is coincidentally one of the most unpleasant newspapers on the face of the earth, thanks to Rebecca Wade. I hate her as well come to think of it. This can't be healthy. Do I need therapy?

It looks very much like there are going to be fuel price protests in Britain this week. t would appear that the protest is due to start on Wednesday and carry on to Friday. The plan is to block the refineries. Last time this happened was in 2000 and it broough the country to a complete satndstill. Actually it was lovely. No cars on the road, everyone working from home. I thought it was wonderful. At the time tax on petrol was something like 75%. It's around 67% now I beieve, but we still have just about the most expensive fuel in Europe, at 1 GB pound a litre. That must be around $7 a gallon I think. Frightening isn't it.

Pig head

You'll all be pleased to know that Peggy and I apologised to each other yesterday after our fight and we are now friends agian. This despite the fact that she called me a "Pig Head" in Chinese, and I understood it, which was pretty good I thought. I mean understanding it in Chinese, not being a pig head.

After yesterday's annuoncement that Saddam Hussein had confessed to war crimes, his legal team today are saying he hasn't confessed to anything. Can't help thinking this trial is going to turn into a farce.

We have yet another typhoon coming and it's going to hit us just in time for the weekend, great.

Big Butterfly

Work is horrible. I shouted at Peggy this morning. I'm not the type to shout usually, and not at Peggy, whom I like very much. It's funny isn't it that we let work affect us like this. I work not because I want to, but , like most people, because I have to. It therefore surprises me that I care so much when things go wrong. I shouted at someone I liked because I'm going to overrun a deadline. And what's more inportant here, the deadline, or the person. No contest, but I still shouted. And I'm still going to miss the dead line and I really don't feel any better about it.

The BBC reports, "Saddam Hussein has confessed to crimes during his regime - including executions - and deserves to die, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has said". So you want to execute him because he has carried out executions. Iraq has come a long way hasn't it?

I found the most enormous butterfly this morning as I left for work. Actually, I think it was a moth. It was on the steps of our apartment building and I think it was near the end of its life. It fluttered a bit when I blew on it, but it wasn't going anywhere. I took a picture.

Quickie

We just had an earthquake. It seemed to go on for ages. It wasn't violent however. Nothing broken or bent out of shape. I'm fed up with work. Everyone is fed up with everyone else int he office. James came back today though, just for one day to help us out. Right now I can't wait to leave.

No real time left, that will have to do for today.

Slasher

We have more work than we can handle in the office at the moment. The new writer has left because he was out of his depth. I'm suposed to be writing a manual for a PDA/GPS device this week, but it has decided to malfunction and I am using it as an excuse to delay the project. I've just spent a considerable amount of time looking for a faullty image that was crashing Acroba Distiller as it was trying to genereate a PDF. I'm going to be working late tonight.

This weekend was fairly normal. We did make it to Tamshui on Saturday, which was very hot. We also went out for dinner yesterday and ate far too much. I think I just felt a small earthquake. I suppose it could have been a big earthquake from a long way off. Lets hope not.

A new study by Dr Emily Finch, Criminologist from the University of East Anglia has claimed that id cards are unlikely to solve identity fraud problems. I've been saying this for months. Good to see someone with some academic credibility backing me up on this. It's quite an interesting report. Click.

After months of legal battle, the Kazzar people have been told that they are partly responsible for copyright theft by their users in Australia. Kazarr are planning to appeal. The battle has taken so long in the courts however, and the file sharing culture is so dynamic, that no-one uses Kazzar anymore and it's a rather hollow victory. It's also worth noting that this only applies to Australia. This problem will continue until the entertainment industry allows some sort of compromise. Click.

A man woman in Austria has atatcked a Roy Lichtenstein painting in an exhibition with a knife. She claimed it was a fake. I'm not sure why that is a good reason to slash it with a knife, but there you are. The painting was insured for $6 million and I think it will be repaired. I like Lichtenstein, even though he just copied comics. A friend of mine actually owned a real Lichtenstein original but lost it in a divorce and I never saw it. Life's like that I guess.

Busy

It's lunchtime and I'm sitting next to my colleague Sumedha who is eating nutella directly from the jar using a wooden spatula. I find the whole scene deeply unsettling.

I should mention the storm damage suffered by the people of Louisiana. It looks as though New Orleans will never be the same again. I'm guessing it will be a very long time indeed before all the water recedes since much of the land is below sea level. Blues legend Fats Dominoe is misisng, along with thousands of other people. I've been caught up in few natural disasters but never anything quite that devastating.

The Taipei mayor declared a typhoon day here in Taipei yesterday and we didn't have to come to work. That's why I never got around to writing an entry yesterday. Apparently there is a second storm approaching but I don't think it is expected to be particularly powerful. Yesterday's storm had pretty much blown itself out by lunchtime. I think the worst of it came in the night. There was some flooding and some wind damage, but I've seen worse.

Ridiculusly busy at work today and for that reason I'm going to stop here. I may write something tomorrow.