Looking like a go situation

It's 10 am and Dumpy was drinking milk when I left. I assume that since I have not heard from the dragon, that there have been no incidents. He drank quite a bit of milk yesterday and threw up only once, so I think we can assume things aren't too bad. He woke up about 100 times during the night, but I think we can put that down to a blocked nose. We noticed two new little teeth emerging yesterday which can also cause a lot of these symptoms. I think we're fit to go. I'll call the dragon in a while and get an update.

I really wanted to get a picture of Dumpy in his magic pop-up bed yesterday, but it wasn't to be. I hope we can get a picture at some point, because it's worth a look. The dragon has actually packed it already. I have a suspicion that it may get unpacked again today. She loves packing. I find that very strange, but she does.

I had something of a dilemma this morning. My train season ticket expired yesterday and it was not worth buying a new one just for today. So, what to do? I toyed with the idea of attempting to travel using the expired season ticket, knowing as I do that the newly installed barriers actually admit passengers with invalid tickets. Unfortunately, the gestapo are still on duty at the Didcot station because they don't have barriers. So, eventually I resolved to buy a ticket, because I am a coward and I'm not that poor, but attempt to travel using only the expired season ticket anyway.

Getting into the station was easy. I used an old ticket to get past the barriers and it worked as I knew it would. The three monkeys guarding the barriers ignored me. There was no inspector on the train. I used social engineering and misdirection at Didcot to get past the three monkeys at the door. In fact I showed them an old ticket and rushed past them in pursuit of an imaginary bus. So far so good. I have to get back however. Getting back is usually easier as there are no guard monkeys. I'll keep you posted.

A school in Kenya has sent home 20 boys and told them not to return until they have been circumcised. The report doesn't give too many details, but the suggestion is that circumcision is considered necessary in the fight against AIDS. I'm not going to make a comment on that. What bothers me here is, how did they discover that the boys were not circumcised? Was there some penis inspection or something?

Mayor Ma has resigned as leader of the Kuomintang party in Taiwan amid accusations of corruption. He claims he is innocent, but Taiwanese politics looks really dirty at the moment. This is not a good thing for a country trying to prove that it doesn't need China overseeing it.

Robert Kilroy-Silk is clearly losing his marbles. I've said this before within these pages, but this time he really has set off towards the Twilight Zone. He's a Euro Politician and is now launching an offensive against Marks and Spencer because he believes they use distorting mirrors in their changing rooms which make women look slimmer. This apparently encourages them to buy more M and S clothes. What happened to the guy? He used to be a run of the mill socialist. I didn't like him, always thought he was a slime ball, but there was nothing weird about him. Over the last 15 years or so he has moved from run of the mill socialist, to extreme right wing nutter, and now he's neck and neck with Idi Armin for the Most Influential Nutter award.

Here is another of my predictions: he's going to be diagnosed with a syphilitic condition that is rotting his brain. Idi Armin is said to have suffered from this affliction also. As soon as Kilroy-Silk awards himself the VC, makes himself King of Scotland, and writes a letter to the queen beginning, "Dear Liz", it's confirmed as far as I am concerned.

Just had another report from the dragon. Dumpy has had a lunch of rice and vegetables and kept it all down. Seems like things are going well. Fingers crossed everyone.

***

Update:

Dumpy managed to go a whole day without throwing up and I managed to get to work and back without using the train ticket I bought. So that was a waste of £13.

Oh the irony

Weekend was fraught. We're both nervous about taking a 10-month old child half way round the world, and after the hideous Christmas we had, we're both terrified about him becoming sick. He seemed fine until yesterday, then came the vomit, gallons of it. I took him to the doctor before work this morning and it appears he has an ear infection. Isn't that great timing? I think we will still go, but it's not a thrilling prospect. He still has a couple of days to recover. He didn't throw up after breakfast milk this morning.

I wasn't expecting to come to work this morning, but we saw the nurse so quickly at the health centre that I was able to get here only a little late. I was unprepared however. I had no lunch, and my iPod wasn't downloaded. This means I have still not heard the Penn Jillette show with James Randi. I will download and listen tonight.

We bought him a magic folding up bed on Saturday. It was quite expensive, but it is exactly what we need and he seems to like it. It's like a little tent for babies with a mattress at the bottom. It's a good job I have a science degree, you need one to fold it up. I think we have just about everything we need now. That's tempting fate isn't it. There is also the issue of trying to get it all in the suit cases.

I read the other day about an airport scanner that can see through clothes. I know it sounds pervy, but I quite want to have a go with that. Stand in it I mean, not look at other people. I wonder if I could build one.

There has been much in the news this weekend about David Cameron and his alleged cannabis experience whilst at Eton. His response has been to state that he is not commenting on anything that he did before he was a politician. I think it's a reasonable comment, and I was pleased to see that even John Reid seems to be supporting that stance. It is a sad fact however, that the media are not likely to let it drop. Norman Tebbit is almost certainly right, if politicians don't admit these things, they're likely to come out anyway, and it's better you do it yourself than let the muck raking pond slime do it.

I can't help wondering whether I would be saying the same thing if it were a politician that I despised being caught in this trap. Actually I'm not a Cameron fan. There are pictures of Cameron leaving church in this morning's papers and the cynic in me is wondering whether his is another politician using Christianity as a tool for election, like Blair does. Oh how I hate that.

Just got a report from the dragon that Dumpy has thrown up again. I don't know what to do. I think we have to go. I just hope it won't be too awful. It doesn't look as bad as last time, and we can get medical help in Taiwan if we have to. Damn this bad timing. We were originally going to go on 27 Jan, and we would be back by now. But we changed that plan because we weren't sure he had recovered from the Christmas bug. Oh the irony.

OK, more updates tomorrow.

Taiwan 2007

A lot of the snow had melted by yesterday evening, but it was snowing again as I walked to the station this morning. The train was on time and half empty for a change. This can only be a good sign. Everyone left work early yesterday because the roads were expected to freeze. Maybe they did, but I didn't notice it. I managed to get the 17:26 train instead of the 17:41. Only two trains leave Didcot Parkway in my direction between 16:59 and 18:41, and they are 15 minutes apart, great timing.

Did anyone notice that the snowman featured in yesterday's drivel had garlic for eyes? Said snowman was constructed by the dragon, a trained artist, and apparently the garlic was used deliberately to give the face an Asian appearance. In case you were wondering.

I have always been astounded that First Great Western Trains find it necessary to post three, yes three ticket inspectors at the entrance to the platform every morning. I was therefore quite pleased when I saw that they were installing automatic ticket barriers. They finally turned them on this week, and guess what, now there are three ticket inspectors, and automatic barriers to get past.

I was wondering this afternoon just how smart the automatic barriers are. So I fed it one of my old tickets. It turns out that they're actually pretty stupid. It let me out and gave me the old ticket back.

There was a fight in progress outside Debenhams department store as I walked home today. Two large men were rolling around on the floor. A third was standing over them and appeared to be acting as a referee. They seemed fairly evenly matched, they may have had a perfectly good reason for a fight, and all three were much bigger than me, so I decided I didn't care if they killed each other, and walked on. In fact many other passers by appeared to be of the same thought. Then three teenage girls showed up and decided to try and break the fight up. What were they thinking? They just made it worse. It'll probably be in the papers tomorrow.

The weekend will be busy. We have to get things ready for the Taiwan 2007 tour. We leave on Wednesday.

And ao is Ann Furedi

It's peeing down with snow everywhere today. Does snow pee down? Well it's is falling copiously anyway. I did consider turning back when I reached the station this morning. Although a semi reasonable train service was running, they kept altering platforms and my train, which was eventually 10 minutes late, was held up by a train just sitting on platform 1 doing nothing for ages. It eventually transpired that it was waiting for its train manager to arrive. Arrived without incident only slightly late at any rate. The office is half empty today. Everyone elected to work from home. Everyone apart from me apparently.







Dumpy seems to have rediscovered his appetite and drank almost 600ml of milk yesterday. This morning I am told he has already finished 230ml for breakfast. He was eating pancakes when I left. He has discovered a new trick of throwing food, which is disturbing and driving the dragon mad.

The dragon is not used to snow and has never seen enough to make a snowman until today. There is perhaps 4-5 cm lying in Swindon now. She called me as I got to the office and told me she was very worried about kids in the street throwing snowballs at cars. This is of course common practice for children in this country. People seldom die from this activity however and I told her not to worry. There is currently a snowball fight in progress outside in the carpark. I can see it from my window. Shouldn't these people be at their desks working?

Apparently there were a record number of abortions in UK in January. The number was up 13% on the same period for the previous year. The charity "Marie Stopes International", says that the rise in abortion rates after Christmas is probably down to wild parties and booze. I think that's a fair assumption. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) however said, "Closure of family planning facilities, GPs and pharmacists during the holiday period means contraceptive access is reduced". In other words, people can't get hold of condoms over Christmas. What is this woman talking about? Even if condom access was impossible, and it was not, it doesn't mean people automatically start taking stupid risks. Some people say some really idiotic things to make a point.

That quote came from Ann Furedi, chief executive of BPAS. She needs to get out more. Every pub, club, and restaurant in Britain has a condom machine, and they don't close over Christmas. It is also quite possible to get medical attention if it's needed and lots of chemists stay open too. So don't give me that you stupid woman.

Tom Symonds is a Knob

Dumpy hasn't been eating very well this week. I think his teeth hurt. This is worrying because he is going to be traveling next week. I really don't want to have a sick 10 month old with me on the other side of the world. I've had a report from the dragon that he had a good amount of formula milk for breakfast this morning, so maybe it was just a phase.

There seem to be a number of letter bomb attacks going on around Britain currently. Targets appear to be organisations connected with motorists. One target was a company connected with the London congestion charge, another was a company that provides speed cameras, and today the DVLA appears to have been hit. At first glance this looks like a pissed off motorist. I've just read however that each package bears the name "Barry Horne". Horne became famous in the 90s for terrorist attacks in the name of animal liberation. He was jailed and went on huger strike in prison where he thankfully later died. Animal liberation nutters and pro motorist groups don't appear immediately compatible to me.

It's apparently going to snow tonight. I suppose that might be quite fun, but more than about two flakes of snow throws out the railway system completely in this country. So I hope it isn't too much or for too long.

The new Airbus A380 has been doing some test flights with media passengers today in an effort to publicise itself. The report I saw was typically stupid. The reporter (Tom Symonds) asked, "is this plane greener than it's rivals?". He then went on to explain how it is claimed to use 14% less fuel than a conventional jumbo. Instead of praising the remarkable feat of engineering that made this possible, he went on to point out that this will likely encourage more air travel and therefore not be green at all. From this we can therefore conclude that the future of greener flight is to be attained by building planes that use more fuel. What a Dick Head!

I'm Sceptical

A letter in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, spotted by father and sent to me by e-mail, sums up my feelings exactly on climate change isues. I think people are just begining to turn against conventional wisdom. And it's about time. I've had just about enough of politicians and economists telling me I'm destroying the planet. When I hear it from an unbiased scientist, not on a politician's payroll, then I'll sit up and start taking notice.

Incidentally, the second letter which talks of 364 economists getting it wrong, refers to Mrs Thatcher going against accepted economic principles and getting it right in 1981. Clone her now while you still have the opportunity my friends. Incidentally, everyone should check out The Margaret Thatcher Foundation website. I only have one critisism of this site, it should have been titled, "I told you so".

I also notice in today's news that Lord Lawson has now publicly trashed the Stern report and questioned its validity. Good news for us sceptics.

A colleague of mine has just returned from Toronto. Airport security confiscated his hair gel. It could have been a bomb you see. I thought we were allowed to carry these things again. The plot to blow up a plane using liquids has been completely discredited. No one has been charged as far as I know, and I can't get past the idea that every time we allow ourselves to be inconvenienced by scum terrorists, they win.

The Conservative party has launched a campaign to advertise the fact that they oppose id cards and will scrap the plan as soon as they are elected. So far £58 million has been wasted on this vile scheme and the present government has estimated a total cost of £5.8 billion over ten years. Everybody else has estimated a cost of about four times that figure. The fact that the Tories are so vocal in opposing the scheme is good. I thought that they would probably let the legislation through.

No Space

Last week was one of those weeks where there were no spaces in which to place small tasks, like uploading garbage to my page. I actually posted two screens of unedited ramblings last night. Both entries consist of paragraphs pasted together in Frankensteinesque manner, typed at various moments during the week. I have so many things I want to do and so little time in which to fit them. I've been trying to watch a James Randi lecture at Princeston since last Friday. Despite the disjointed nature of recent posts however, I have received a couple of notes, from Abbey and two alien readers. I will get back to you guys at some point I promise. Oh and January Girl, nice to get a recent note from you too.

Old friend Dickie is back in UK from next month and has asked for an audience. As usual, I would love to see him, but we leave for Asia the day before he arrives back in England. Aint that just typical? He will be staying indefinitely this time however and that is a good sign.

I've ordered my new Harry Potter book. My local Waterstones says they may be able to do a half price deal. Anyway, I've put down my £3 and will be there at one minute past midnight on 21 july. I checked first whether they would be open at midnight and they confirmed that they would. I might go dressed as Dumbledore or something. My wife doesn't understand me. I might take Dumpy, it's about time he got into HP.

One story which caught my eye this morning was this. As far as I can tell, three men have been jailed for talking about raping two sisters aged 13 and 14. This seems absolutely incredible to me. These men had never met, never touched a child, never been convicted of any sex offence before, but were all found guilty of conspiracy to rape. The evidence was entirely text from a chat room log.

The most amazing thing here is the fact that one of the men actually walked in to the police station and handed over the evidence himself, claiming that he only became involved with the intention of flushing out paedophiles. I'm not suggesting that these men are wholesome or even innocent, but there is not enough evidence to convict these people. This was possibly nothing more than fantasy and it is impossible to prove otherwise. The one that came forward could well have been doing precisely what he claimed, flushing out real perverts.

In fact these men were swapping child porn pictures. That is illegal and, if that is what the conviction was, then I wouldn't be complaining, but Conspiracy to Rape, no that's just ridiculous.

In other news, Kylie Minogue has split with her partner, and no one here is going to eat turkey for several weeks due to bird flu.

Late late late

If Tony Blair, the most corrupt British politician in living memory, remains in his post until 27 Nov 2007, he will have been in office longer than Lady Thatcher. However, he stated on 7 Sept 2006, that he would step down within one year. I mention this because the current cash for peerages scandal is threatening to explode into a Watergate. If the scandal causes damage, and it's hard to see how it won't, then it would be much better for the party if Blair is still PM when the shit hits the fan. He can step down, as he was going to anyway, and his successor can carry on. If on the other hand, Blair has already left when the balloon goes up, someone else will have to carry the can.

Lord Levy has been arrested a second time as part of the cash for peerages investigation. This time it appears to be more interesting as he has been arrested on "suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice". In other words, the police think he's lying about something. This is of course far more serious than simply offering peerages for cash, this is offering peerages for cash, and then trying to cover it up.

***

It's Thursday, and I haven't yet managed to post anything this week yet. I'm aware that there are notes I need to respond to as well. It's been quite a rough week, but that's another story. I have written things, I just haven't posted them. If you're reading this, the previous entry propbably went up at the same time.

The most interesting news story today is the cash for peerages row again. Today sees a report confirming that Blair has been interviewed a second time. It seems that the investigation is now far more concerned with whether there has been a coverup, than with whether peerages were sold. It seems to me that the Labour party is digging itself into a hole here. Selling peerages is not a terribly erious offence. It's not unusual for donors to the party to receive peerages. It's been going on for years. There is a suggestion that loans were not declared when they should have been, but although technically illegal, it's not a show stopper. The only big transgression here would seem to be that the party is attempting to cover something up.

If the Labour party is attempting to cover something up, it would seem logical to assume that it is something much more significant than anything we already know about or suspect. However, remember the Peter Foster affair? Number 10 did their best to deny any connection between the PM and Foster even though a connection would not have been serious. As it turned out they failed and the PM got into hot water anyway, more because of the attempted cover up than the actual deal with Foster. Is this what is happening here? Are the Labour party attempting to cover up minor transgressions and creating a much bigger scandal in the process?

It seems that the last Harry Potter book will be out on 21 July. I think that's Harry's birthday isn't it?* It's also 4 days before my birthday, so I know what I'll be buying myself. I was sure it was going to be released on 07/07/07, but I guess I was two weeks out. I imagine that the plot must be just about finished now if the release date is confirmed. Must be into the editing stage. Terribly exciting.

* Edit: Nope, Harry's birthday is 31st July - Doh!