Oh Brave New World

Well the big news today is, he slept through the night properly for the first time! I'm thinking of holding a party or something. We put him to bed at 11 pm, and he was still quiet at 5.30 this morning. He did make a few noises, but he was wasn't bawling. The dragon was feeding him when I left for work at 6.30. I feel good about everything. I'm looking forward to the weekend. A whole, unbroken night of sleep, and no waking up for work the next day. Oh, Brave New World!

I got a tax rebate from Taiwan this week. I knew they owed me some money, but I had decided that it probably wasn't worth the effort of claiming it. My sister-in-law offered to do it for me however and I took her up on that offer. I definitely owe her a beer now because they coughed up about NT$40,000. That really isn't as much as it sounds, but it's worth having. It would buy a very nice tv set. Or it would if it hadn't been paid directly into my wife's account in Taipei. I'm not sure how she engineered that. I have a Taiwanese account, why did they pay it into hers? There is a higher force at work here.

Is England playing football again today? There seems to be a lot of talk about it on tv. Who are we playing? I understand the last performance was less than spectacular. And how's Rooney's foot? I must be the last person in England who doesn't know this stuff. Is there something wrong with me? In all honesty, I can't wait for the bloody world cup to finish. There seems to have been so much hype this year, and just about everyone in England (except me) has little flags with the cross of St. George stuck on their cars. All the shops are selling England related tat. If they get knocked out early on there'll be a lot of unsellable stock left on the shelves.

Why do police "raid" premises? I'm prompted to ask this question after the recent police fiasco in which 2 East London homes were stormed by police. The houses were apparently trashed, one man was shot, nothing was found, and no one was charged with anything. The real problem here would seem to be bad intelligence. Obviously they went in after some kind of information was received and it transpired that the information was wrong. This is excusable. Police have to investigate if they think terrorist activity may be taking place. What I can't understand is why they didn't knock on the door.

Granted, the place may be full of agressive terrorists, but I'd suggest that storming the place is every bit as likely to cause a problem as knocking on the door. In a drug raid you have a problem with occupants disposing of evidence, so, the element of surprise is necessary, as is getting in as quickly as possible. But when you're searching for a bomb factory, that isn't an issue. Surely the worst that can happen is that the occupants are uncooperative and you have to bash the door down anyway. It is also conceivable that, without the element of surprise, you may find that knocking on the door results in you facing a house full of occupants pointing guns at you. I think that situation is more containable than a potentially chaotic and agressive situation that may result after storming that same property.

Apparently Britain is in the grip of a measles outbreak. It seems that fears surrounding the MMR link to autism may be to blame. Well there you go.