Happy Clappy

Still packing, and fed up with it. Two more boxes are bound for England today. The house looks like a tip and my back aches.

I see Dickie has finally done his 5 weird things that he was tagged about. It took so long it's a bit of an anti climax. That's not fair, at least he did it. I have to say, I knew about number 4 and can confirm its authenticity. Dickie can't do anything quietly actually. I think I also heard the story about his brother too. I'm shocked by the horror movie revelation and I think everyone has trouble writing witty stuff in cards don't they?

Mei's been round here today. Her new tea shop is on the point of opening. If you find yourself in the Shi Da area of Taipei, it's a quiet bar at the moment and it's worth a visit. I think it will saty as it is in the evenings, but it will morph into a respectable tea shop during the day.

I very seldom agree with anything Greenpeace has to say. They're not environmentalist, they're anti globalists and they're not doign anyone any good. However, they managed to disrupt a Tony Blair speech today and that's good in my book. Another example of how unpopular the most corrupt PM in living memory has become. Click.

In answer to Dickies question, the Jerry Springer videos were pirated from e-donkey, sorry Jerry, but I did buy one of your videos on VHS once. And yes Jim, the Falun Gong are Happy Clappy loonies, and run by a very questionable gentlemen. But people have a right to be happy clappy loonies if you ask me.

I can't think of anything else sensible to write today.

Dangle bag

Paul McCartney has refused to play China again for political reasons. Now have a guess what those political reasons might be. Maybe it's the illegal occupation of Tibet, or the constant bullying of Taiwan. Could it be the threat of removing the democratic government from Hong Kong? Perhaps it's the apalling civil rights record, which has seen innocent people locked up or even executed for anti government comments? Maybe it's a protest of the oppression of the Falun Gong movement or the Tianamen Square disaster?

Nope...

He's mortified at the way they treat animals for the fur trade. Well he's got his priorites sorted out hasn't he? Click.

There's a new report out from UNAIDS that attempts to frighten us to death with the astonishing statistic that there are more people alive today with HIV than ever before. That's because new anti retro viral treatment is keeping people alive longer. This doesn't mean that the infection rate is going up. But they neglect to mention that. Click.

The Met police chief is to be investigated over allegations that he misled the public over the shooting of an innocent man on the London tube in July. This is excelelnt news. This should have already happened.Click.

We're packing (boxes, not heat), it's not much fun. I'm officially concerned that I have no job at the moment. I thought not working would be less stressful than working, but I think it's more stressful. We're going to have a celebration of everyone bailing out of our office on 9 Dec, at Fridays. We like Fridays.

I got my Father an unusual Christmas present today. I'm not going to tell you what it is because he does sometimes stray across this page. But I'll tell you about it later.

We just won NT$1,000 on the lottery!!! This may sound like a huge amount of money but it's actually about 20 British pounds, or a little under $40 US. Better than a kick in the dangle bag however.

I've just been watching uncensored Jerry Springer videos. Why has no one ever died on that show?

Finished!

I finished my NaNoWriMo novel. I say finished; I've reached the NaNoWriMo finish line but I haven't got a complete novel. It's an incompelte, very ropey first draft. But the words sare on the page.





I have a certificate and everything!

I'm going to take a day or two off now before continuing.

I've got my Christmas card written and I'm going to post them tomorrow. I know this sounds early, but most of my cards are inter-continental. Got loads of other stuff to do as well. SOmeday soon I might even get time for a proper entry.

Little soldier

I felt the little soldier kick me. I didn't think people could feel babies kicking until about 8 months but I am quite sure I felt him. Every time I get another piece of evidence for my son's/daughter's existance I am first relieved, and then I start wondering if there is anything wrong. I have no idea how I would cope with an abnormal child.

George Best finally died yesterday. I liked him, despite the fact that he wasn't always a good person. He was a character. I'll miss him.

It's been snowing in Britain and my parents have sent us pictures of their garden covered in snow. They live in the south west and don't often get snow, especially not in November. The dragon has never really seen proper snow and she is hoping that there will be some when we are there in a few weeks time.

My NaNoWriMo novel is about 1,200 short of the target as I write this. I guess I am going to hit 50,000 today. It's been tough, but I'm glad I did this. I have three quarters of a crappy first draft, but the plot is nearly in place. I have words on the page and I have a certain arogant pride. At least I will have when I have got my 50,000 words down.





Nothing else interesting has happened today. Oh no wait, Take That are reforming for an 11 date tour, but without Robbie Williams.

I've been tagged apparently

I've been tagged it seems. Usually I don't play these games, but it was Abby that did it, so I'm going to humour her. The idea is, as far as I can tell, is to inform the salivating public (or the sad half dozen idividuals that read this drivel in my case) of five "random weird facts" about myself. I'm going to try and make these facts that very few people would know:

1. I can recite the speech in Act 3, Scene 3 by Ariel in Shakespear's The Tempest that begins, "You three are men of sin..." without consulting the text. I learnt it when I was 17 after seeing the Derek Jarman film (don't die without seeing it).

2. I have a phobia about white food. I hate milk in particular. Some white food is OK. I like rice for instance, but generally, I don't like it. Milk is particularly bad because it's also opaque. I think things to drink should be largely transparent.

3. I can do the David Blaine levitation trick. I don't seem to command quite the same air of wow that Mr Blaine does, but people have been known to gasp, especially under fives. I also have a dissappearing coin trick which can go wrong and injure people.

4. I bought a unicycle when I was in my early twenties from a guy selling off his ex Christmas stock cheaply. I still have it, and I can ride it.

5. I was the man on the grassy knoll. Just kidding, I think women that don't wear underwear are hot.

I thnk I have to tag someone now, but I don't know who, maybe Dickie, does it have to be someone from OD or can it be anyone with a blog? I'll think about it.

Bad mix

Didn't get around to adding an entry yesterday, that's what being away from the office does for you. I did manage to keep my NaNoWriMo wordcount going. I thought it would be easier when I wasn't working to get words on the page but I appear to be more busy now than I was when I was working.

I got a response from one of the jobs I applied for in UK. I only got a response from the agency if we're being honest, but that's a start. Wish me luck people.

We started packing things yesterday for our return to UK. Apparently it's cold and snow is threatened. The dragon has never really seen snow and I don't remember any really white Christmases. I think we'll spend CHristmas with my parents in the west country and invite a couple of Taiwanese friends currently in Engand to join us. I hope it's fun.

I see that the Germans have voted in a new lady chancellor.This is the first time we have seen a lady in the top job. I don't have any strong feeings about that, but it bothers me that they voted in a member of the Christian conservative party. State and religion together is a terrible mix even if you are a christian.

George Best is doing batter but is still very sick.

It seems more people in the US are downloading music from iTunes than buying music on CDs in stores. I bet the music industry feels really great about sticking with CDs now and lettign Apple have more than half their business. What gets me is the fact that they still haven't worked out that they need to provide downloadable music to compete. These people must have their heads so far up their butts. Incidentally, Sony is being sued again over its anti-priacy software. Good news for the consumer.

Out of work

Well I am now officially out of work. It's just a bit frightening. One hopes that finding a new job won't be too difficult. I've applied for a couple of things but the fact that I am 6,000 miles away and not able to interview until just before Christmas is probably, I hope, significant. If all else fails I can try to sell the book.

Nothing very exciting happened at the weekend. I had to work on Saturday morning of course. That wasn't very interesting. I actually did some real work and produced 8 pages of Illustrator Quick Start Guide for a portable media player.

First Monday off work, today, has been feeling all wrong. The shops were quiet because normal people were working. The trains weren't crowded because it wasn't rush hour. We did a little CHristmas shopping, but we still haven't finished of course. The Dragon doesn't understand Christmas because they don't celebrate it here. She is trying to buy everyone in UK a Christmas present.

Yes Jim, I was joking about calling the baby Herbert. I stil like Humphrey though. Actually however, I'm still not sure what sex it is, and both those names would be unacceptable for a girl.

I have to mention that Lord John Stevens has been suggesting that the death penalty is returned to the UK after a police woman was shot this week in Bradford during an armed robbery. Bear in mind ladies and gentlemen that this idiot was the one that instigated the shoot to kill policy for the met police that resulted in the death of a completely innocent man shortly after the summer terrorist activity in England. It's the same guy that then lied on national TV about having informed the PM that the policy was in place. I don't necessarily disagree with the death penalty, but Lord John Stevens is in no position to make this kind of statement and should do the world a favour and shut the fuck up!

Gary Glitter has managed to get himself arrested again on child sex charges. I had some sympathy for this guy the first time he was jailed. He was never accused of touching a child and as far as I can tell, his only crime was doing weird stuff like pasting his own head on pictures of naked children. However, he is now accused of abuse with a 12 year old girl (allegedly). I have no symapathy this time. Come on, if you're accused once, stay away from children, what's the matter with you man? Click.


George Best id very sick indeed. I'm sorry, I liked George. Not always a gentleman, but always a character. I hope he pulls through. Click.

The hunting problem in England and Wales continues. As predicted right here in this journal, the ban is unworkable. Most hunts are continuing to go out. Most are operating vaguely within the law, depending on how it is interpreted. You'd think that would make everyone happy, but no, the anti hunt dorks have turned to terrorism now in an effort to destroy a centuries old tradition. The Essex and Suffolk hunt was the victim of an arson attack and all their horses and hounds were set free. And this is the work of animal lovers. Knobs! Clcik.

Goblin's Blog

Didn't get around to writing an entry yesterday, mostly because it was my last day at work(apart froma few last hours this morning) and we spent a two hour lunch in the pub, which was most enjoyable. Didn't get any of my novel done either. It's sad leaving a job that you like though, and yesterday was no exception. I thought Sally was going to cry. I got presents of Whiskey, baby toys, and a carrier thing for when Herbert pops out. I felt, well, humbled.

I've been applying for tech writing jobs in the UK already, but I don't think I can start until after Christmas so it's probably too early. That's what I am going to put the lack of replies down to anyway. If anyone out there wants a talented young tech author with loads of experience, let me know.

I'm going to write another chapter now.

Elephant

Thanks for the note yesterday Dickie. I'll make you write a postcard to my mother explaining about pearl necklaces in that contexts if she asks.

Snow White, you're right I should make my own bed, and actually of course, I do.

I seem to have a cold again. I can't understand it, that has to be the third one this year.

I never had any strong feelings about Stella Rimington, ex MI5 chief, until today. The BBC reports that Stella says, "I don't think that anybody in the intelligence services, particularly in my former service, would be pressing for ID cards." I like her already. She goes ont o say, "I don't think they are necessarily going to make us any safer." What a lady.

Butt the technology industry says that ID cards could be more appealing if they had a function. Well yes, that would help, but, hang on, wait a minute, the technology industry? They have a slightly biased view because they want to sell technology don't they? Click.

I've just read a report that claims UK's channel 4 is intendng to runa reality show in which people ar recruited to go on a space trip. There is no trip, it's all trickery. We the viewer get to watch the achingly funny antics of peopel who think they are in space, but they're not! I see a flaw in this however. It's on the BBC website. Where's the elephant of surprise? I think you blew it guys.

OK, I have to get on with stuff.

Mostly rants

Our maid is pregnant, can you believe that? Who's going to make my bed now? Selfish! I got the news this morning, she's going back to the Filipines. So I guess we're looking for a replacement. That came at the wrong moment.

The ID card bill is being debated line by line in the Lords. It's becomming more and more obvious that biometrics are a disasterous idea. Apparently iris scanning has now been flagged as problematic for people with brown eyes. Home Office Minister Tony McNulty has admitted there are technological "difficulties", and that is why 13 (yes, 13!!!!!) different biomentric indicators are proposed.

And the Euro accountants have failed to sign off the European Commissions accounts for the 11th (yes 11th!!!!) year in a row. Why are people not rioting in the streets because the European Commission is have not been able to account for hundreds of billions of pounds, year on year over a decade.

Here is a BBC report.

I think I may have mentioned before, the case of Liz Longhurst, from Reading (where I went to university coincidentally). Ms Longhurst's daughter was killed, accidentally as far as we know, in a bizarre sex game with her boyfriend. They were apparenetly into some sado masochism thing and went too far. The boyfriend, Graham Coutts, is now in prison. I have a certian sympathy for this man who is invaribly painted by the media as a porn obsessed pervert. I'm quite sure that his girlfriend, though now regrettably dead, was as much to blame for the accident as he was. And I'm also quite sure that it was just that, an accident. They were experimenting with sex, like many people, and it went wrong. Graham Coutts has however taken the brunt of the blame for this accident, largely it seems because he used internet pornography.

What also bothers me about this case is the hysteria that it whipped up. Ms Longhurst senior is fuelling a massive campaign to try and ban violent internet pornography. Now I'm not suggesting that violent porn is a good thing, but there are lots of reasons why trying to ban it is completely the wrong thing to do. To begin with, a ban won't work. You simply cannot ban anything from the internet. The best you can do is make it illegal to view this material in a particular area. But it's very difficult to prove whether someone has been viewing anything specific, especially if the internet terminal is used by more than one person. You can also make it illegal to possess such material, but again, this is a legal nightmare. If I have a copy of an illegal image on my website which is hosted in another country, do I actually posssess it? You can also make it illegal to distribute. That's easier to prove, but then only the dealers are guilty.

But over and above the fact that trying to ban pornography on the internet is futile, Ms Longhurst should take a step back and ask, "How do we know that pornography is actually a bad influence here?" It sounds like a silly question because we all automatically think of pornography as sleazy and connect it with sad old men in rain coats looking at schoolgirls. The fact is however, that even if someone does use pornography regularly and they are a pervert, one does not necessarily cause the other. More simply put, yes I agree that sex offenders are likely to use porn, but it doesn't necessarily follow that the porn made them a sex offender. That's like saying, I saw a man in a blue hat smoking a cigarette, therefore blue hats encourage you to smoke cigarettes; fallacious logic.

I'll go one step further before I end this. Here are two statements. Is one more correct than the other? And for the purposes of this argument, let's assume that all sex offenders do use pornography.

1. All sex offenders use pornography. This encourages and stimulates them and they would be less likely to offend without it.

2. All sex offenders use pornography. This helps them to release their sexual frustration and they would be more likely to offend without it.

Fingers

My last week of work is slightly scary. The fact that I have no job after this week has finally hit me. If ayone out there in cyberspace knows someone who wants to hire a talented young writer somewher in the UK starting fromt he new year, I'm all ears. I'm house trained and everything.

A prison in Scotland has been critisised because the biometric locks they were using failed and inmates were able to circumvent the system. A representative of the Scottish prison service said:

"The degree of sensitivity had been reduced below the required threshold and it wasn't as discriminate as it should have been."

So in other words it was giving false positives, like nearly all fingerprint readers do. This is because fingerprint readers aren't really very good at recognising people and they are always set allow access if there is some doubt rather than deny it.

The SPS rep also said:

"The system only allows access to certain parts of the prison, it only controls access within wings. Keys are used to access the whole prison."

So they don't have as much faith in this system as they do in traditional keys. If this doesn't demonstrate the folly of putting our faith in biometric readers, I don't know what does. Click.

Fumbling

I forgot to mention that it's nice to see January Girl and Miss Tick, who used to read this drivel when it was still on Dear Diary, are leaving notes on the new page. I notice also that even Abby, the most unshakable Christian I know, thinks Pat Robertson is an idiot. Nice new dog by the way Abby. I like the doberman.

Over the weekend, there have been further riots in France, a woman who appears to be a failed suicide bomber from the Jordan hotel bomb attacks has appeared on TV, and a giant truffle has been sold in italy for 95,000 Euros, that's 64,000 pounds, or $112,000 US.

I'm going to be flippant about the female suicide bomber, sorry. We keep hearing reports that suicide bombers believe they will be rewarded in heaven with 72 virgins if they die for the cause. I don't pretend to understand the cause, but from a purely male perspective, the 72 virgins might have an appeal. For a woman though, surely it's a bit different. How many women want 72 fumbling male teenagers pawing them?

Sony has stopped making anti piracy CDs. Are you listening All Your Base? I'm eccstatic that Sony has made this u-turn because it's a victory for the consumer.

A British man has apparently managed to cure himself of HIV infection. I don't know what to make of this story, I'm still thinking about it. The AIDS charities are already fairly dismissive of this and questions have been asked about whether there was a mix up with the original diagnosis. I've always been concerned that there never seems to have been a very strong link between the virus and the disease. There have also been claims of AIDS patients recovering before, but this looks to be a more reliable case than anything that has gone before. Read the report here.

Wrath of God

I can't believe that All Your Base has managed to miss the point so comprehensively for a second time even after an explanation in words of one syllable. I guess it's just not possible to get through to some people. I'm not going to waste any more time on this. He can go tread his "path of wisdom" and see what he finds. I'll go and walk my own.

I know I don't usually get around to writing anything here at the weekend but I wanted to mention Patrick Litchfield who died of a stroke yesterday. He was a great photographer and I'm sorry he's gone.

I also want to mention Pat Robertson. I don't know much about this guy other than he is an evangelical christian and that he called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Good Christian sentiment there. Yesterday however my boss (American) pointed me in the direction of a news report about Robertson telling the people of Dover, Pennsylvania, ""If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just voted God out of your city." Why did he tell these people this? Because they were smart enough to remove the school board that voted for Intelligent Design to be taught alongside evolution in science classes. You couldn't make this stuff up now could you.

I say we do a survey across America and see if the states that rejected ID are more or less like to be affected by natural disasters. You want to sponsor that one Pat? Hello... Pat?

All your base doesn't think before he speaks

I got a note from "All Your Base" who seems to think that I have "left the path of wisdom". Here's the phrase in context:

"Not liking something or someone is acceptable. Being gleeful that bad happened to someone just because you dislike their politics means that you have left the path of wisdom."

He (or she) is referring to one (or possibly two) sentences from my previous entry that express my happiness that Tony Blair is having a bad week, and that Sony is being sued for some immoral software that insidiously and covertly installs itself and screws up computers (allegedly).

Now, I did think about letting this go. But that would mean All Your Base would be left blissfully unaware of how wrong he is. I am so irritated by these self appointed custodians of the moral high ground.

So here's my reply:

First the Tony Blair issue. I disagree with Blair on just about every political level, but that's not why I hate him. I disagree with Ken Livingston on just about every political level also, but I think he's decent. I hate Tony Blair because he is an authoritaian that starts wars to further his own political ends. I hate George W Bush for the same reason. Do I wish Blair ill? No, I care less about Blair (or Bush) than the dirt on the bottom of my shoe, really. I am eccstatic however that Blair is having a bad week because it means that democracy is weakening him. Hopefully before too long he will be gone and the world will be a better place for it. That is why I am gleeful and I make no apology for it.

As for Sony, again I wish no ill on any individual. I merely hope that Sony get into serious legal trouble because they are illegally altering people's computers (allegedly). This in turn will I hope send a clear message to any scum that wants to do this in future and perhaps make Sony think twice about this kind of thing again.

Now, All Your Base, perhaps you would like to demonstrate exactly where I left the path of wisdom?

As a postscript here, I just found this entry on All Your Base's journal, entitled "My thoughts on and after 9/11". Here's a quote:

"Either their god it is a piece of shit, or they are pieces of shit in their gods' eyes."

Profound All Your Base, profound. Have you ever had an original thought?

Friday - Good!

I've been super tired this week, but today I woke up feeling good.

I left my flash disk at work yesterday which gave me a good excuse to take a night off from writing. I think my novel is getting boring. But maybe I can cure this in the ediitng stage. I don;t know if it will ever appear on the web site. It might, but I think I might have a go at trying to get it published first. You never know, do you?

Tony Blair is hving a very bad week - GOOD!

Sony is being sured over it's dodgy copyright protection software that installs iteself covertly and then screws up digital music playback on PCs (alegedly). - GOOD!

Patrick Litchfield has sufered a stroke - Not good, we like Lord Litchfield, despite the fact that he is related to the queen. Get well soon sir.

Fossilised remains of a crocodile have been found in Patagonia. The animal is thought to have lived 140 million years ago, That's 139, 994,000 years before God cresated the universe according to the bible. Click.

And Big Brother is about to float itself on the stock market. Oh honestly, who cares?

Told You!

Blair lost by 31 votes, despite the fact that he has a majority of over 60. People are already calling for his resignation. Gordon Brown and Jack Straw were both called back from meetings abroad to make up the numbers. It has been suggested that Gordon Brown was attempting to claim responsibility for a narrow victory. That of course backfired but it suggests there is serious in fighting going on in the party.

The really big news today however is the fact that my father has discovered how to add comments to the journal page. Well done that man. I think this is conclusive proof that the word verification system is not too much of an inconvenience.

Those wacky Japanese have invented a heated bra for the winter. It's claimed that the bra, filled with envirnmentally sound gel that can be warmed in the microwave, is eco friendly. Hmm, microwaves, doesn't sound that eco friendly to me, and, if you have a look at the picture (it's OK, it's work safe) it doesn't look very practical. Could you wear that under a shirt? A quick office poll here reveals that no woman would ever buy this item and that I have an unnatural interest in this subject.

I have work to do.

Pictures from inside the womb again

As promised, here are some pictures from yeserday's scan. There are no helpful diagrams this time from the dragon to help you identify important elements, you have to work these out for yourselves.

















I realise that not everyoen is as interested in my baby as I am. But wiat until you see the fruit of your loins wriggling in the belly of your woman and then try not to be a bore about your own baby.

I can't believe it but the British government is still attempting to get through terror legislation that will allow detention without charge for 90 days. Not only is this outrageous, it's going to fail. They're already relying on conservative rebels to make up numbers. Even if it makes it through the commons it won't make it through the Lords.

I was writng until about 1 am this morning. Click the dude with the pencil below for my stats page.

Short one

Ultraquick update today. Just got back from the hospital and we think it's a boy, but we're not sure. We have another scan, infact a 4D scan next month and I'm hoping the little so and so will show us its genitals that time. We did get a flash this time but the ultra sound operator changed her mind about 4 times before settling on boy. She said she thinks she saw a willy but no dangle bag. If it's a boy, I do hope he gets the full set.

I'll post the pics tomorrow when I've scanned them. Next scan is Dec 6 and it's going to be a 4D scan!

Proper update tomorrow. Oh, oh, yeah, I'm up to 15,000 words, Check it out.

Commenting on this journal

I forgot to mention something in the last post. I turned on the word verification feature for comments. On the plus side this will hopefully prevent the freeloading scum that want to use my bandwidth to advertise their sleazy websites. On the negative side, sorry, it means you have to type in the word you see displayed when you leave a comment.

I hope this isn't too much of a problem. If it is I can change it things so that all comments have to be moderated by me before they get displayed, but I would prefer to leave the comments unmoderated if possible. Anyone except freeloading scum are of course quite welcome to leave comments here.

Broke

The weekend was expensive but productive. We paid for air tickets, which put a serious dent in finances as one might expect, but we are now scheduled to fly back to UK on Dec 15. It's the end of an era. I also bought and fitted a new video card which has solved my PC problem, and a pair of totally fabby cordless headphones for my Grandfather in law so he can listen to the TV (he's very deaf). Also bought a new battery for the dragon's cell phone. All in all, not much change out of NT$50,000. That's a lot of money.

I also managed to bring my NaNoWriMo word count up to over 13,000. Go check out my author profile. There are another 4,000 words to go on there that I can't count because they were written before 1 Nov.

Actually the novel writing started badly on Saturday morning with two, yes two, power cuts. I didn't lose anything luckily enough. I also managed to slice open my finger with a craft knife while attempting to open a Chinese water chestnut. Long story, don't want to talk about it.

New Harry Potter film has premiered in London and is being thoroughly hyped. Still looking forward to it.

Going to hospital tomorrow for a scan of the baby. Check back tomorrow for update on gender.

That'll do for now. Got to get another 2,000 words down today.

On the ropes

Seems yetserday's entry raised a smile from Jim. Welome back. Where have you been? Haven't updated your page in ages. Last I heard you were appearing for one night only in Japan. We're going out to celebrate my release from this office next month if you're in Taipei and interested. Jamie is to take over as president of the escape committee.

Dickie, I could be a luddite, but my whole point about Bluetooth headsets is that they have no ergonomic purpose when one has both hands free. I can understand why people would use them in cars, though I myself wouldn't want to be so phone dependent that I couldn't turn it off in the car. You haven't got one of these things have you?

I see that both Tory leader hopefuls are each accusing the other of being Tony Blair. This doesn't bode well, although there is a certain entertainment value in the fact that each obviously considers it to be the ultimate insult.

Howard has accused Blair of loosing control of his party and he has a point. Anti terror legislation scraped through by a single vote last night and the contraversial parts (90 day incarseration without charge) was pulled becuase the governemnt knew it couldn't possibly win the vote. Charles Clarke was made to look like an absolute buffoon on the today show when he claimed the vote was pulled with a few minutes notice to let MPS go awway over the weekend and discuss it with their constituents.

Doing well with my NaNoWriMo novel, must be up around 7000 words by now. More news as we get it.

Thought for the day: Does anyone else think it's odd that Elton John is a knight and a queen?

Oh happy happy day

Blunkett resigns, what a great start to the day, and of course this can't look great for the Prime Minister that reinstated him just three months after the last time he was forced to resign in disgrace. I hope this means that we won't see him back. Of course he wouldn't be the first minister to make a comeback after twice being sent to the naughty corner. Peter Mandelson now enjoys his Euro Commissioner post, and it of course has the advatage of not being a democraticaly elected position so he can't be thrown out again.

I want to talk about Bluetooth headsets. These devices seem to retail at about 30 GBP, though one can of course pay more than that for the elite models. That would seem to me to be quite a lot of money considering that the extent of the labour saving features these things appear to provide seems to be to negate the need for one to hold a phone to one's ear. I don't deny that it could be useful in situations where one needs both hands, but this usefulness is, for me at any rate, offset by the fact that anyone using a bluetooth headset looks like a giant knob. I'm sure those people we see on train platforms, with a peice of lego sticking from the side of their head, talking to themselves like a mad drunkard, think they look cool. The sad truth is, the rest of the population think you look like someone that will go home that night and masturbate over old episodes of Star Trek.

I mean seriuosly, why do you need to have that thing bolted to the side of your head while you're walking down the street with both hands unoccupied? Are you expecting to catch a stray baseball or something? Do you need both hands ready in case a situation arises where you need to draw a six shooter from your holster? Are you a famous pianist worried about radiating your hands with a cell phone? Or are you simply so insecure that you need to visually demonstrate to everyone how rich and important you are?

Thought for the day:

Have you ever noticed that it's only newly post adolescent men that seem to require bluetooth headsets?

What was the money for?

David Blunkett is in a cart-load of trouble and he's not making it any easier on himself by refusing to answer questions. One question in particular needs answering. What was the 15,000 pounds for? He worked in a non-executive capacity for two weeks and was given 15,000 pounds worth of sharesbefore resigning nad rejoining the cabinet. He attempted to keep the shares despite the fact that he was in a position to influence bids for government contracts from the people that gave them to him. Can you blame us fro being suspicious?

In answer to notes yesterday. I don't know how the building became infested with insects and reptiles. The building isn't particularly disgusting. I've seen far worse in Taiwan. But you have to remember that the climate is warm and ridiculously humid. These things get everywhere. And Abby, Asia is pretty nice in general. It's not all bugs and creepy crawlies. You should come see for yourself sometime. And the traps appear to have only insects int his morning.

Good news on the baby front. We think we felt movement yesterday. She's not sure but she is excited about it. It's about 19 weeks now, so it's about the right time to start feeling the little soldier. Actually we were a bit concerned that we hadn't had any movement yet. It annos me that I won't be able to feel it move for quite some time. Next week we get a high resolution scan and we should be able to see its wedding tackle, if it has any.

Novel writing is going better than expected. I have around 7,000 words now. I don't think I can count the first 4,000 however since they were adapted from the previous aborted attempt. I will submit my wordcount without that chunk, just to keep it all fair.

My video card on the home PC appears to be on it's last legs, so I am going to see if I can get a cheapish replacement tomorrow. It would happen now! I don't think I am going to take the PC back to England. I'll just rape it of disks and bung them in a new shell at the other end.

OK that'll do for now, nust carry on with novel.

Decent, honourable man with integrity - Right!

Regarding the current problems of David Blunkett, work and pensions secretary, the BBC reports:

Cabinet Office Minister John Hutton said: "Knowing David as I do, he is a decent, honourable man with integrity and I don't think there is any argument to suggest the contrary."

Is this the same David Blunkett that was forced to leave his Home office post after he had an affair with someone else's wife, abused his position to speed up her nanny's visa application, fiddled his expenses to provide first class train tickets for her, landed himself in the middle of a legal case concerning the paternity of her unborn child, and left himself open to blackmail while Home Secretary?

Cockroach body count update:

Actually I think word has got round the cockroach comunity not to go under my desk as there are very few extra bodies in my trap. Sumedha however managed to catch somethign better.



That'll do for today.