Garbage

No one seems interested in the groovy video I posted yesterday. I'll leave it just a bit longer before I comment. I still think it's pretty amazing.

I'm alarmed about new proposals being tossed about today that would mean people are charged for rubbish collection on a "pay as you throw" basis. Currently we all pay an average of something like £140 to have our household waste collected. This seems expensive to me, but I don't know the cost breakdown. It has been suggested that extra charges, per bag of rubbish collected, be levied on each household. The first thing that should strike you here is the word "extra" in that last sentence. No "extra" rubbish is to be collected, but an "extra" charge is being suggested. The mroe cynical among you will already be tub-thumping and shout "stealth tax".

It doesn't stop there of course. The current administration seems to be determined to monitor what we throw away using sensor "chips" in our bins. I find this insidious beyond belief. No one needs to know exactly what I throw away to charge me for it. It could simply be weighed. Why do we have to go for a more elabourate and expensive option? Incidentally, if anyone puts a microchip in my bin it will be disabled. Oh, and I can almost hear the pro-surveillance lobby yelling at me, "if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to worry about". To these people I say this, "please send me naked pictures of yourself for this web page", or is that something you would rather keep private?

Even if I wasn't worried about the privacy and the expense issue here, I would still have concerns. It seems to me that people with young children would be considerably disadvantaged for instance. I can see fly tipping problems as people attempt to save a few quid, and of course there would be the refusniks, namely me, disabling the chips in their bins.

It seems that there has been a landmark political event in Cambridge. A transgender mayor has been sworn in. The new mayor is currently female, but has been male in the past. She's also been married and fathered two children. All this I find bizarre. I genuinely don't mean that to be insulting. I really don't care about the gender issue. What I find more bizarre is that the partner of the new mayor is also a woman that was once a man. I'm finding it difficult to define this person. Is she a homosexual male, a lesbian female, a heterosexual male, or a heterosexual female? I think we need a new category completely.

And finally, I just read to day that they caught a serial rapist and murderer that was living in my street. I hate this town.

Bottom Feeding Scum

As far as I am concerned, psychics are all scum, but some more than others. They fall into different categories. Most psychics fall into the "slightly scummy" category. These are the people who generally limit themselves to stupid conjuring tricks and cold reading. They're not a great source of irritation, I'm just annoyed by the fact that people pay them for the bullshit they spout. I would put Uri Gellar and Derek Acorah in this category, and all those psychics who make predictions that simply don't come true. The astrologers also fall into this category.

I am more disgusted by psychics who deliberately target vulnerable people, specifically the recently bereaved. This is the "true scum" category. Rosmary Altea, Colin Fry, James Van Prague, and John Edwards all fall into this category. These people are foul, but they don't usually cause much distress, they simply obtain money by deception and tell people things they want to hear.

Occasionally one comes across psychics who deliberately target people with missing loved ones. They make wild guesses about where missing people are and what happened to them with total disregard for the feelings of the families involved. These psychics fall into the "evil bottom-feeding scum" category. Sylvia Browne is in this category. She has many times made statements about missing people that have subsequently turned out to be completely wrong, and caused a great deal of suffering and distress in the process. These people should be in jail. Their assets should be seized, and they should be publicly birched.

This list is not carved in stone. Psychics tend to move between these scum categories. Uri Gellar for instance, usually confines himself to stupid tricks, but I'm sure he has on occasion crossed the line into targeting the vulnerable. Likewise, Browne often travels down the scale and makes dozens of predictions which don't come to fruition. As far as I am concerned, she is welcome to do this. Very few people are really stupid enough to pay any attention to it.

I'm explaining this because I believe the British psychic community has hit an all time low this week. The Madeleine McCann case in Portugal has been invaded by Amanda Hart, Ben Murphy, and Alison Dubois. I'm told they intend to "help" with the Madeleine case, and I believe Hart and Murphy are actually flying out there. This is nothing more than a disgusting attempt at self promotion, taking advantage of some of the most vulnerable people on earth in the process. If I were the McCann family I would be threatening legal action.

Amazing Colour Changing Card Trick

Here is a video that is really, really worth seeing. I won't tell you anything about it other than you need sound and it's not rude or obscene in any way. You could watch it with your grandma. Oh, and it doesn't make you jump or make loud noises either. I may discuss this further tomorrow. Ort whenever I get around to posting anything again.

I'm sure I've ranted about homeopathy before now. I really don't care about people using homeopathic remedies, as long as they pay for them out of their own pockets. I do object most strongly to funding homeopathy on the NHS with my tax money. It seems however, that the NHS is finally seeing the light. More than half Primary Care Trusts have withdrawn or reduced funding for homeopathy and 40 have not released any data, so with any luck the number is much higher. This is very good news indeed. The problem only occurs because, unlike conventional medicine, homeopathic cures are not required to undergo clinical tests to prove their efficacy before being granted a licence. They only have to be proven safe, they don't have to work.

Of course, there are still some prats that think homeopathy actually does work, despite being debunked time and time again. Dr Peter Fisher, clinical director of the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, has said this move by the NHS presents a serious threat to the future of his hospital (oh dear!) and urged the NHS to resist the attempts of scientists to discourage them from funding patients for homoeopathic treatment. He said: "I think there is a lot of evidence it works when it is integrated within the NHS." OK doctor, show us the evidence! You can even win $1 million from the JREF if you can prove it works in a properly run drug trial.

Another victory today seems to have ocurred in China. Since the Chinese authorities censor, well just about everything anti-government on the internet, the population uses blogs to spread news. This of course upset the administration and plans were launched to make it compulsory for all bloggers to register before they wrote anything. There was a storm of protest, and the government has backed down. I suspect it was not the storm of protest that forced the u-turn so much as difficulty in enforcing the regulation. The net result is the same however; you can blog anonymously behind the great firewall. It's always been an ambition of mine to be censored by China. It would make me feel I've said something really worthwhile.

Here's a great story. A rapist who was overpowered by passers by shortly after attacking a woman on a footpath, was jailed for life. In this case "life" appears to mean six years. This was for two rapes and an indecent assault. However, the lousy, pervert, scumbag has managed to get his sentence reduced to four and a half years on appeal because it was not a "campaign of rape involving several victims", and he was "drunk and angry", at the time. He will be eligable to apply for parole in 3 years. I'd be interested to see what the sentence would be for a similar offence in other countries might be.

Another rapist has today had his sentence slashed from 14 years and six months to just under eight years. James Lloyd was sentenced to life (14 and a half years) for raping four women and attempting to rape a further two. Apparently he gained some noteriety for abducting women and stealing their shoes. He has apparently tried to kill himself in jail. Apparently the reduced sentence was allowed because the original starting point of 35 years (life?) was too high before a guilty plea was taken into account. So, does that mean he saved himself 21 years by pleading guilty? How does that work?

I have a question, what do PR firms actually do? I know it's always posh women that own and work at PR firms. People like Prince William's ex-girlfriend, and Gordon Brown's wife, but they can't really make a profit from telling people which side to part their hair can they? Surely no one actually pays to be told, "wear the blue tie to the garden party, and for God's sake don't say 'shit' like you did last week at that charity dinner. Try and say 'oh bother'. And don't pick your nose." Come to think of it, the posh birds that work in PR are always someone's wife or partner. I can't think of a PR bird who is self made. It's crap isn't it. They don't do anything. They just send women with short skirts to tell men waht to do and we're stupid enough to pay them.

Loonies

I wrote something yesterday about Madeleine McCann, the child abducted from a Portuguese holiday resort. I decided that I didn't want to post it however. The child's parents must be out of their minds with worry. Nothing I wrote seemed appropriate. I'm seldom moved by stories in the news, but this one is really affecting me.

Instead today, I'm going to write about lunatics:

First on the list is Professor Paul Ekins. Prof Ekins is described on the BBC website as a "leading expert on climate change", and someone who studies "the economics of climate change". The first statement led me to believe he was in some way scientifically qualified, the second made me think he's an idiot. If you can stay awake long enough to read to the end of the report, you will find out that he is in fact an economist, and therefore completely unqualified to make any comment on matters to do with anything other than economics. I'm fed up with economists preaching outside their field. Anyway, the long and the short is, he wants the government to tax plasma TV screens, because it would be good for the environment.

The figures don't make a lot of sense to me. The report suggests that plasma screens are "50% bigger than their cathode-ray tube equivalents". What the bloody hell does that mean? A 20" plasma screen is the same size as a 20" crt screen isn't it? Apparently, "a cathode-ray tube TV costs about £25 per year to run and accounts for 100kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions". Huh? What? Where did you get these figures from? It rather depends upon how much TV you watch, and how your electricity is generated. If you have electricity supplied by a nuclear power station, both tvs will produce zero emissions. Later we learn that, "a plasma TV costs about £100 per year and accounts for 400kg of CO2". The same comment applies, but I'd also like to know if this is an equivalent screen size plasma tv, or one 50% bigger, or some other random size. Oh these people get up my pipe. Go back to counting your beans and get your neatly manicured fingers out of things you don't understand. Lets move on.

Apparently poor old Cliff Richard and Paul McCartney are terribly worried about the copyright expiring on their early recordings because they're down to their last few Rolls Royces and Spanish villas, and they need to make more money. I really can't abide the hyper rich bleating to me about how they deserve more bloody money. Go out there and bloody work for it like the rest of us have to. Honestly, they've been lucky enough to become filthy rich by singing, something the rest of us do in the shower because it's fun. I don't begrudge them their wealth, but I get really p!ssed off when they forget just how lucky they have been. Paul McCartney is a dope smoking layabout who happened to meet John Lennon at school. If he hadn't been blessed with that amazing stroke of luck, he'd be living in a squalid council house like all his contemporaries. Cliff Richard is just a nutter who also happened to be in the right place at the right time and make a few lucky choices.

Stand in any crowded shopping centre and throw a bread roll, and I'd say you have about a 50% chance of hitting someone as talented as either of those two. And come to think of it, a near 100% chance of hitting someone who works about five times as hard to earn a living.

Finally, if we're doing an entry on loonies, it wouldn't be complete without some input from my old friends PETA. This week they are protesting about chef Gordon Ramsay, who cooked horse meat on his TV show, and they dumped a tonne of horse shit outside his restaurant. So that's a bunch more free publicity for him then.

OK, tomorrow I'll tell you about my new glasses.

Mixed

It would appear to be a day of strange stories. I think my favourite is the news item that explains how a young woman managed to get her car wrecked by a train after her sat nav system directed her onto a railway track. Reading the story, she either did something incredibly stupid, or the signal failed.

One of Britain's most violent and infamous prisoners, Charles Bronson, is awarded £200 after his glasses are broken in a "control and restraint incident". This guy has spent the last 33 years in jail and is not eligible for parole until 2010. During his time in jail he has staged roof top protests and taken prison staff hostage several times. In one hostage incident he demanded a helicopter, an inflatable doll, and a cup of tea it seems - barking. He's been in all three secure mental facilities in Britain, and some 28 conventional prisons. He also married a Bangladeshi woman a few years ago after meeting her a handful of times, and he's written several quite successful books, including "Living Legends", which won the literary Koestler award. The stuff you learn on this page.

A 26-year-old man has tried to sell one of his own kidneys for £24,000 and has narrowly escaped jail. I can't understand this. If this clown wants to sell his kidney, and someone is willing to pay him for it, what's the damn problem? Apparently the sale of human organs is illegal in UK and can result in a jail sentence.

A Gloucestershire MP wants First Great Western Trains to lose their contract. I never thought I'd see the day when I was siding with a Labour MP, but I have to say, I couldn't agree more. FGW are the worst train operator in the history of public transport, and they should not only lose their contract, the board of directors should be flogged publicly in the town square. I'll even perform the flogging myself if required. I disagree with David Drew, MP for Stroud, on what should replace FGW. He seems to think the government would be a good idea. I personally think that is the only answer that could possibly be any worse than the current situation. Incidentally, check out that picture. What is up with that guy's teeth? Was his mother a horse or something?

***

Well it's Monday again and I'm back in the office. The above was written Friday and never posted.

This weekend I bought a new flash disk. The old one still seems to work perfectly well, but having been through the washing machine, I feel it's likely to give up without warning. I hadn't realised how cheap they are now. My new model is a 2GB example and only cost £20. I think I paid more than that for the last one 4 years ago, and that was only 256MB. The last one was shaped like a cat, which was fun. The new one is less childish, more functional.

Also this weekend we took Dumpy swimming for the first time. He wasn't really sure he liked it. There were trillions of people and lots of noise. I think the dragon might take home to the children's session today. It will be quiet. I think he got cold. He did a bit of floating though and I think he had fun in the end.

After a really beautiful sunny April, May has so far been a big disappointment. It's been peeing down almost non stop for at least a week and it's been cold. The global warming prophets of doom were quick to point out that it was an unusually warm April. I assume they will now be equally ready to recognise the balancing effect of a cool May - fat chance.

Disjointed - Oh Happy Happy Day

Tony Blair has announced that he is standing down on 27 June. Oh Happy Happy Day! At last an end in sight. Days are numbered for the most corrupt PM in recent UK history.

***

I can remember at my first school that children used to copy each other and that I couldn't work out why. For example, all the children used to call wasps "jaspers". I didn't understand it, and no one seemed to be able to explain it. So I carried on calling them "wasps" while everybody else called them "jaspers". My mother tells me that this was fairly typical behaviour for me. I never ran with the pack just for the sake of it. I can remember flared trousers the first time round in the early 70s. I liked them as a child. Then they went out of fashion. I carried on wearing them. It could be a form of martyrdom.

All this comes to mind after yesterday's speech about grubby hooded youths. I find it genuinely very difficult to understand the hoody culture. To me it suggests inarticulate, unwashed, teenaged boys of low intelligence. The whole thing conjures up images of anti social behaviour, drunkenness, and vandalism. Why would anyone want to associate themselves with a such a culture? Why would anyone want to advertise the fact that they have so few original ideas that they have to copy everyone else?

Today I noticed that the window of the Samaritans charity shop has been smashed. It is not completely destroyed, but large, circular cracks extend like a spider's web from a large chip in the centre. I imagine some grubby hooded youth has lobbed a brick at it. I really don't understand senseless vandalism like that. I can understand theft and mugging to a certain extent. There is a reward there. But why break a charity shop window? What is the point?

***

I forgot to record that I had my eyes tested on Saturday. It was depressing. Apparently I have become more far sighted and my prescription has become stronger. I now need reading glasses and ordinary glasses. I've ordered some new specs, three pairs at a total cost of just over £230. That's an ordinary pair, a reading pair, and some sun glasses. I don't mind glasses, but I mind having to to admit that I'm wearing out. At least I will have new glasses for the new Harry Potter book in July.

I've now read all six Harry Potter books again in readiness for the final instalment. I was sort of planning to complete the sixth book as the seventh came out, but I got a bit ahead of myself. I'm now reading "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" by Philip K Dick. This book has been sitting on my shelf for months waiting for me to open it. It's a classic work of science fiction that inspired the Bladerunner film. It was written in 1968. I was 1 year old. It's an amazing piece in many ways. It goes much deeper than the Bladerunner film into politics and ethics. It twists and turns constantly. I'm about half way through and I have no idea if Deckard is an android or not. I've changed my mind about three times. Dick however writes like a child. The punctuation is strange, to put it politely, and one sentence actually begins, "I wonder, he wondered, ...".

Cess Pit

I have come to the conclusion that I live in a cess pit. Swindon was never cultured like Bath or Oxford, but it used to be relatively friendly, and safe. I've always considered an element of the indigenous population to be basically pig-ignorant, but the element of pig-ignorance felt like a sub-culture above which I could easily rise. This is no longer the case it seems. Disgusting, foul smelling groups of hooded teenaged boys now seem to prevail, smoking dope openly in the busy shopping areas, and conversing loudly in some language that seems to consist of only expletives and grunts.

I could smell someone smoking pot as I walked home from the train station yesterday. I traced the source of the odour to a grubby looking, hooded youth. He was making no effort to hide his activity. He was doing that strut that the ubiquitous hooded youth do, the joint dangling from between his lips. I looked away of course. Eye contact can start a riot in Swindon. Somewhere behind me a second hooded youth shouted at him, "zat you smokin a ****ing banger?" The language is heavily influenced by traditional Wiltshire twang, but there is more to it than that. The second youth appeared equally unbothered about broadcasting the event. I have never heard the term "****ing banger" before. Apparently it is grubby-speak for pot anyway.

I'm not sure what I expected the grubby smoking the ****ing banger to do upon making contact with the second grubby, but he grunted in an affirmative kind of way and passed him the ****ing banger. I find the fact that they are swapping saliva rather more shudder-provoking than the fact that they are smoking illegal substances in public.

Teenaged boys are predisposed to be foul I think. I expect I was too. One would think that evolution would favour those youths who strive to become urbane adults however. I strived, with varying degrees of success. Surely it would be the strivers that would be more likely to attract the prime females. Am I over simplifying here? I can't imagine any woman being attracted to a filthy, dope smoking, 18-year-old boy, unable to string more than three words together in any coherent manner. Surely these people should die out.

Thrashing

Yesterday's entry was filled with theology, so today will be more light hearted. I'm hoping that the elections results will come out today and show that Blair and his insidious, corrupt party have been soundly thrashed by the electorate.

I've discovered today that the most popular news story in living memory involves a man who was caught having sex with a goat in Sudan. It seems that the man in question was forced to marry the goat as a punishment. It bothers me that I somehow managed to miss this story myself, but I understand the original BBC piece which covered the wedding, had half a million hits in five days. Now there has been a development. The goat appears to have had a kid, and subsequently died.

Something a bit more serious: A man has been found guilty of abducting and attempting to rape a 13 year old girl delivering newspapers. The guy tied her up, forced her to undress, assaulted her, and was only prevented from continuing his attack after the victim managed to release herself and alert neighbours by shouting. The police rescued her. He got eight years. He'll be out in four if he behaves himself.

A minister in Bristol has been convicted and sentended to 5 1/2 years in prison for sexually abusing young boys in his care. He will be out of prison in less than 3 years.

These sentences seem trivial to me.

* And as the day progresses:

It would appear that the Labour party has done spectacularly badly in local elections all over the country. Some are saying that the result is not as bad as it could have been, and Hazel Blears was on the breakfast news programme this morning telling everyone that the Conservatives should be worried because they haven't done well enough. My guess Ms Blears, is that you'd much rather the Labour party was in that position than the one they currently hold however. Conservatives appear to have polled around 41% of the vote, while Labour is down at 27%. Counting is not over yet. I voted by internet, but apparently the internent voting trial went all wrong and everything had to be recounted. The BNP have thankfully also done badly just about everywhere they fielded candidates and failed to add new seats. I'm hoping this means that their popularity has peaked.

On things theological

I'm going to toss around some theological issues here today. Firstly, I've always been of the opinion that the christian bible stopped short of telling people not to have sex outside marriage. I have therefore had some problem understanding the various christian movements which seem to promote the "no sex before maariage" philosophy. However, I've accidentally discovered a verse which partially resolves my issue.

1 Thesolonians 4:3 states, "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality". This of course does not address the issue of marriage at all. However, if we look in the JK version, we get, "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication". Now I thought that fornication just meant, well sex. My father however knew better it turns out, and this weekend trust upon me a dictionary definition which actually defines fornication as sex outside marriage. So, depending on which version you like to use, bonking without the ring on your finger could be a nasty transgression. I need to learn Aramaic and look at the original. Ah, what do I care, it's too late for me anyway.

I had a discussion yesterday with a colleague of mine on the subject of baptism, which almost turned into an argument. I was slightly concerned about having the discussion at all since I wasn't sure quite which God she actually bows to. She is half Pakistani and half Welsh; it was tough to make a prediction. I was pretty sure she had some faith however, since she had previously claimed that faith was necessary for morality, a philosophy with which I cannot agree.

I'm not sure how the conversation came round to baptism, but it did, and I was prompted to do my standard speech about baptism being basically evil when performed upon a child not old enough to understand the significance of the event. I have no problem with my son being baptised, but in my view, he has to make the decision himself. However, my Welsh Pakistani friend claimed that I would have my child baptised ASAP if I really believed that he would be left for all eternity in limbo without it. I disagreed, but it's been bothering me for 24 hours. The fact is, I would baptise my child if I thought he would be denied entry to paradise otherwise because, as was pointed out to me, I want the absolute best for my son.

I'm not sure what the significance of this is. I do however want to continue this conversation. The fact that I would do the deed if I believed in it's power is not really the central issue. The point is, I don't believe baptism does anything other than push children unknowingly towards a faith about which they really should be making up their own minds.

I don't think anyone actually believes in linbo anymore do they? It's not canonical. I think only mad catholics still give it any time. Wasn't it some pope that came up with the notion? Popes are infallible of course, even when they disagree with each other. I haven't shifted position anyway. I'd never allow my son to be baptised before he was old enough to make the choice. He's going to be confused enough as it is with an ex-buddhist mother, atheist father brought up in a christian family, and both christian and buddhist grandparents. One could argue of course that he has a much bigger pool than most in which to fish for information before making an informed decision. I quite like that theory.

For the record, I was never christened, something for which I am enormously grateful to my parents for. Of course, I would say that, being an evangelical atheist, but I can always get myself christened if my position changes. I would be unhappy if I had been christened, yet I don't think I would be unhappy about not being christened, even if I were a believer. And there my position stays, for now at least.

Sleep on demand

Last night Dumpy just wouldn't go to sleep. It was 9 o'clock before we ate dinner. I find his erratic sleeping behaviour one of the most frustrating elements of bringing up a child. There are many disgusting things of course, nappies, feeding time, and unexpected vomit for instance, but few things are quite as tiresome as the sleepless nights and the disrupted evenings. I probably shouldn't complain. Some people don't get the privilege of fatherhood. But oh, I wish he would just sleep on demand.

He's also developed a liking for the remote controls. We have five remote controls in our house, but he particularly likes the ones for the tv and cable box. I've experimented and discovered that he can always pick out these two from the fie, however they are stacked. I'm not quite sure if he knows what they are for exactly, though he does look expectantly at the screen when one is picked up. He tends to carry them around for a while before hiding them somewhere.

I was hoping that we would hear some time this week about who the CPS intend to prosecute in the cash for peerages row. Alas, no decision appears to have been made yet. It does seem that Tony Blair is on the very brink of telling us when he will finally piss off however. Oh happy, happy day! The only downside of course being that we will get Gordon Brown instead, which is not a thrilling prospect. I suppose he is unlikely to get himself re-elected at the next general election though, since he clearly lacks Blairs charisma.

I just read that the guy accused of murdering five prostitutes in Ipswich has pleaded noy guilty at his hearing. That was ages ago. Why did it take so long? Murderers also plead not guilty of course because they have nothing to lose.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has not shown up for the May Day parade, which is seen as a sign that he's pretty sick.

Today's stupid environmental story comes from Prince Charles. Apparently Charles has it all worked out. We need to invent more "low carbon products" it seems. I'm not sure whether this story actually counts as a stupid environmental story. Obviously it's stupid because Prince Charles said it, but whether it's actually environmentally stupid, I'm not certain. I find it amazing that Prince Charles thinks he has credibility. Despite the best education the world has to offer, he only managed to achieve a lower second in Art History, and that was after the course was tailor made for him. One also has to factor in the possibility that the university was too scared to fail him.