I know it's Thursday because it says so on my socks

I know it's Thursday, because it says so on my socks. It's been a busy week. Dumpy wasn't well over the weekend, and then the Dragon got it. It was a flu thing. Aches and pains accompanied by sickness. I worked from home on Tuesday because we had a dentist appointment, but I didn't get much done because I was looking after Dumpy while the Dragon took bed rest. On the plus side, no one needed any teeth filling. Both Dumpy and Dragon appear to have recovered now. I thought I was coming down with it last night, but I feel better now.

Perhaps it's an excuse, but all this has meant that I haven't written here for days. I did write a few lines on Monday that were never posted, but honestly, they just weren't worth posting.

So, what's happened so far this week? I'll tell you. David Beckham's father appears to have had a heart attack. Good luck to you sir. A picture has been circulated just about everywhere of a child that might have been Madeleine McCann, but sadly turned out not to be. Elton John appears to be in possession of a photograph that may or may not constitute child pornography. The photo was leant to a public exhibition and was promptly seized by authorities. The Phil Spector trial has ended, but the jury couldn't reach a unanimous verdict. They were 10-2 in favour of convicting him, but the judge declared it a mistrial and it's going to happen all over again. That was a well spent four months then. Charlotte Church has had a baby, congratulations to her. Boris Johnson has become the Conservative candidate for the next London Mayor. No surprises there then. Protests against military rule in Burma are turning nasty.

The Conservatives are slipping back in the polls, and speculation is rife about an imminent election. The Labour Party is enjoying some bounce from their annual conference however. Gordon Brown has played his part masterfully by claiming to be the next Thatcher and then asking the original Lady Thatcher to visit Downing Street. I think it may come back to haunt him though. A brilliant man he may be, but Lady Thatcher he is not. And there is growing concern over the fact that he is against giving the country a referendum on the EU constitution. That is going to turn round and bite him in the arse. Full marks to the guy that wrote "I want a referendum" in 10 ft letters in the sand outside the Labour Party Conference building in Bournemouth. I salute you sir.



The Telegraph petition for a referendum has now reached 100,000, and the Sun has joined the fight. I don't like the Sun, but it does move voters around because it has a huge circulation of around 4 million. That's four times the cirulation of the best selling quality daily.

The best news that has emerged this week however is that Alison Forster has lost her job. This bloody woman was the First Great Western MD and has been at the helm of the worst run rail operator in Britain since 2004. And she's been up my arse singing rock-on most of that time. However, there may be land mines in the garden of ecstasy. It seems that the new MD, one Andrew Haines, is taking over in addition to his existing role, which I find worrying. What's worse is, Alison Forster, that bloody woman, has been given a newly created role as, wait for it, Rail Safety and Performance Director. Yes, the woman who lost her job over poor performance has been appointed Performance Director. You can't write comedy like this. I'm still hoping they lose their damn franchise. I've signed the petition.

Era of disasters

It's not just me is it, OD has been down for most of the last 48 hours. I hope we're not about to enter another era of disasters. I'm not sure I fully believe the last entry the diary master posted. I got in for about 10 minutes this morning.

I didn't get around to writing anything yesterday. Perhaps nothing of any interest happened. Actually something did happen. First Great Western sent me a letter saying that they would not compensate me for my train being delayed, because it was delayed for less than 1 hour. In fact it was delayed by 45 minutes. I've written back to them pointing out that their own leaflet outlining the procedure for claiming compensation actually states that a delay of 30 minutes or more for a journey of less than 1 hour qualifies for compensation. It's become a battle of wills now.

There was a story in the news yesterday about a Chinese man living in New Zealand, who travelled with his three-year-old daughter to Melbourne, Australia and then abandoned her there before leaving for the US. The child was picked up, confused and upset, but otherwise fine, at a railway station. She's adorable; I can't understand why anyone would do that to a child. He just left her wandering around on her own. The police were looking for the child's mother yesterday but have found a woman's body in the boot of a car outside their house in NZ. I think we can assume it is the body of the child's mother. No one seems to be able to find her father. What was the point of taking her to Melbourne to abandon her. He could have locked her in their home, or better still, left her with someone while he absconded.

Another story today that seems to me to be amazing, but which is getting very little coverage, concerns a possible meteor strike in Peru. There appears to be a huge crater, and people are claiming all kinds of sickness after visting the sight. I'm personally a little scepyical about all this. I can't see where all the toxic gas is coming from. But it's an amzing story none the less.

Brittany Spears apparently may lose custody of her children after allegations of substance abuse and "inappropriate nudity". I can understand the substance abuse issue, but nudity? What the hell is all that about? In yesterday's Sun newspaper, it was alleged that a former bodyguard had claimed that Spears walks round naked in front of her children. Is that illegal? I mean anywhere? Seriously, that can't be illegal can it?

It seems that PETA has persuaded Alicia Silverstone to take her clothes off in an effort to promote their cause. I really don't care much about the ethical treatment of animals, and I couldn't possibly support PETA while they persist in funding a terrorist organisation, but you have to admire that ability they seem to have for getting people to take their clothes off.

Ok that will do for today. It's bed time.

Phase II

An so begins another week. I actually wrote loads of stuff last week and never quite got around to posting it. So I may be posting this with at least two other entries. I can never tell. I write this in Notepad at work during my lunch hour.

There has been no time to read the news, or do anything much this weekend because I have been renovating the kitchen. Phase II went very well, much better than phase I anyway. I assembled and installed 2 double and one single floor cabinet, a cooker housing and oven, a new worksurface, and a gas hob. I've done everything except the towel rail thing, which sounds simple but isn't, and the door knobs, which will be phase IV. I was going to leave the kick-plates until phase IV also, but Dumpy decided he liked attempting to crawl under the cabinets, so I had to do it. If I'm being honest, I also still have to bolt down the worksurface and screw in the hob, but it was a success. I feel proud of myself. I also ache all over and I have cuts and bruises all over my hands.

Before...



Now...



Actually this was taken before cabinet doors and kick plates were installed. You'll have to imagine those.

I've been meaning to answer Mr Cat6's comment from weeks ago. He asked why I didn't just change the cupboard doors. Well, I could have of course, but I wanted to move the cooker and add an extractor, so I was going to have to carve up some of the cabs anyway. It seemed sensible to do it properly.

It was a cathartic experience to finally dump the old oven in the back garden. And last night the Dragon spent some time wok-ing chicken and vegetables. We bought a new wok to celebrate.

Next weekend we were going to go to Devon, but it's been shelved. So, rather than begin phase III, I'm going to do some tidying. I'll make a list of things that need doing and prepare for phase III.

Things I Hate

I've been building kitchen cabinets again this week. I have one more to build and then I'm ready for phase II. I'm under a certain amount of pressure in phase II because I could potentially end up with no functional kitchen if it goes wrong. I don't know what I would do in that case. I think I'd have to ship the family off to Devon and complete it alone. My biggest worry is currently the oven. I've built the housing, but I'm not exactly sure how the oven fits in it. I have to put all the feet on the cabinets also. I'm also slightly concerned about putting a hole in the working surface to accommodate the new hob.

I rather wish I had the opportunity to see the Led Zeppelin show in London in November. However. I happen to know that the capacity of the O2 arena is something like 20,000, and the demand so far has been something like 20,000,000. So that's a 1 in 1,000 chance of actually getting a ticket, and they're £125 each anyway, which is, let's face it, not cheap. It could potentially be a life changing experience however. There are things I would rather do, like pose in a Spencer Tunick piece, or see John Lee Hooker live. Of course that last one is unlikely now since he's dead. I'd also have some very serious thinking to do if I was given the choice between the Led Zep show in London, and the Penn and Teller show in Las Vegas. The Led Aep show would win, but only because it's a one off.

The thing that gets me about the Led Zep thing is that the guys clearly have earning potential of Jovian proportions, but don't seem to care. The London gig will take about £250,000 on the door alone. That's before tv rights are sold and recordings made. How rich must these guys be not to want to exploit that? I mean, it wouldn't exactly kill them to do say six shows a year. That's about 24 hours work, doing something they clearly love anyway. And they only have to split the profits three ways since the drummer dude died in a pool of his own vomit 25 years ago. Sad, but so rock and roll. I'm sure he would have wanted it that way.

There are many things I hate in this world; Tony Blair, Bluetooth headsets, BMWs, folding bicycles, George W Bush, about 60% of the indigenous population of Swindon, the Daily Mirror, pot smokers, reality tv, badgers, car horns, denim, chavs, Nationwide Building Society, anti globalisation protesters, oh I could go on, but I'll spare you. Right now, most in the world I hate noisy food. Carl in the office came in at lunchtime eating something out of a bag. I don't know what it was, but it appeared to be brown pieces of something very hard. Eating it was not possible without crunching apparently. It was like listening to an elephant stamping across a gravel drive. After about 10 minutes I actually left the room. I returned some time later and was relieved to see that the bag of brown something had gone, so I sat back down at my desk. And bugger me if the moment I sat down the elephant started walking across the gravel drive again. He'd only gone and given it to Steve. I left the room again.

Two armed men have been shot dead by police while trying to rob a bank - good, I hope it hurt. It's nice to read about the British police actually foiling a crime for once isn't it.

***

The above was written yesterday but not published because I left it at work - doh! I've now finished building all the kitchen cabinets for phase II and I'm ready to go. I've even put the feet on the cabinets. I haven't built the drawers yet, but I have put the runners in the base units. We need to empty the existing cabinets tonight and, if I have time I'll try and work out how the new oven goes in the housing. We can probably manage without an oven if we have to, but I'd rather get it installed. The work surface is going to be 3m long, and since they are sold in 3m lengths I was quite pleased that I wouldn't have to cut it. However, I measured it last night and it seems to be over 3m, so I guess I'll have to get the circular saw out anyway. I've never used a circular saw before. If I start typing strangely next week, it's likely that I sawed off some fingers.

Yesterday I discovered that we can get a Chinese language tv station at home. I had no idea, but it's quite fun, so I ordered it yesterday. It seems to come out of Hong Kong and London, but is not PRC censored and appears to carry Taiwanese programming as well as Mainland Chinese, Korean, and others.

Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting, is in very deep smeg indeed this morning. Just about every sleazy tabloid in Britain seems to be featuring the same picture of him emerging from a house of ill repute in the early hours of the morning. The pun prize goes to the Sun, who led with "Massage in a Brothel". He's going to have a job explaining that one to his wife.

Chris Langham is scheduled to find out today whether he will go to jail after being convicted of child porn charges earlier this month. My guess is that he will serve time. Probably by the time this is posted wwe ill know anyway.

And the Northern Rock Building Society has had to beg for assistance from the Bank of England. This is worrying. There have been reports this week of the housing market collapsing. And now a major mortgage lender has found itself in trouble, Hmmm.

Mixed

We spent the weekend in Devon. As usual Dumpy had a great time racing round the house and garden. It's much bigger and more exciting than our own home. I relieved father of his circular saw and clamps to aid me in phase II of the kitchen project. We also BBQed stuff on Saturday evening and indulged in roast lamb yesterday. We managed to leave Dumpy's powdered milk behind, but we are winding down his formula bottle now anyway. He only has one at breakfast. The rest of the time he has a follow on milk with a straw.

Brother Nick also showed up. Haven't seen him for a while. He seems to have a company van now. He's happy and healthy looking.

I have a friend in London. I used to work with her years ago. In my young and carefree days we used to play stupid truth and dare games which ended when I broke the photocopier in the office whilst trying to copy my arse. But that's a story for another day. We still e-mail each other, though I haven't seen her for many years, and the other day she told me about a friend of hers from Ghana. This friend of hers is an illegal immigrant. I don't know how he became illegal, but he did, and this week he decided that he'd had enough and wanted to return to his home country. He handed himself in. He told the authorities that he was there illegally, had no job, money, or place to live. The authorities told him to go away and gave him the name of a charity, who were closed.

It's astounding isn't it, that the government on one hand tells us that they are tackling the illegal immigration problem, and then we find out that they have no mechanism to deal with illegal immigrants when they turn up.

Wasn't Brittany awful at the MTV awards? Was she drunk?

How can the Portuguese police possibly think they have any case to suggest that the McCanns killed their daughter when the only evidence appears to be blood from the child in a car that was hired 25 days after they reported her missing? Where did they hide her for four weeks?

And the EU has given up trying to make the UK drop imperial weights and measures. I'm delighted that the EU have realised that it's none of their damn business. I'm slightly annoyed that the UK is not intending to drop imperial measures anyway. It does seem that now the EU have removed their oversized nose from the case, that people have suddenly realised that actually metric measures are the best option.

More tomorrow.

On Legalising Prostitution

There seems to be an argument about to erupt about over prostitution. I've got all sorts of opinions about this. First, let's fill in some background:

It's currently illegal to take money for sex in UK, though apparently it's not illegal to offer money for sex. It is illegal to "kerbcrawl". I have never seen a definition of "kerbcrawl" which bothers me enormously, but it seems that someone can be charged with kerbcrawling if it is deemed that they are attempting to hire a prostitute from their car. As far as I know, it is not illegal to walk the street with a view to finding and hiring a prostitute. Nor is it illegal to give money to someone for a 30 second massage, and then have sex with them for free for 30 minutes.

Discussions now appear to be taking place with a view to changing the law in such a way as to make customers of prostitutes more accountable. Currently, as far as I can tell, the only way a customer can commit a crime is by kerbcrawling, and I suspect that the definition of this is so loose, that it is essentially just a loophole waiting to be exploited. It seems that ministers, all of which appear to be female, are suggesting that it should be made a crime to offer money for sex.

It seems that we even have a minister in charge of tackling prostitution. I don't know who it is now, but until last year it was apparently Fiona McTaggart, whoever she is. Ms McTagggart apparently dismissed arguments that prostitution was an inevitable part of society, adding: "We have always had murder - that doesn't make it right. The price of prostitution is enormously high for women...[And] the more vulnerable the woman is, the cheaper the price is for men."

OK, here's my take on the issue:

First, I don't know how anyone can possibly think that prostitution is not an "inevitable part of society". Every society has had prostitution, since the dawn of time itself. It's in every town in every country of the world. You may not like it, but you cannot deny that it is. And no measure, however draconian, has ever managed to stamp it out. And that comment about murder; yes murder is also an inevitable part of society, and has been since the time of Cane and Abel, but it's mercifully rare, and more serious that selling sex. More importantly, potentially prostitution is victimless, whereas murder never can be.

Secondly, and this really annoys me, I don't know why it's always turned into a feminist issue. I'm not saying that life as a prostitute is not tough, but no one has to do it. I'm not talking about under age children who are forced into it, I know that is exploitative. I'm talking about adults. I'll concede that women get swept up into a life of prostitution and can't see a way out. I'll concede that women do it to feed drug habits. But I simply can't accept that women are being forced to work as prostitutes in this country. Just about every prostitute made the decision to do it. They're not being exploited, they are simply providing a service. There are plenty of other professions that drag people in in the same way.

And while we are on the subject, exactly who is being exploited here? Is it the women, or the men who can only make a decision with their genitals and pay them for sex? I'd say there was a case for suggesting that these women are exploiting weak minded men, or men that can't get sex in the 'normal' way.

Read the artical in the Guardian and they'll have you believe that this campaign is only taking place out of concern for the women involved - bullshit ladies and gentlemen, utter bullshit. The ministers involved here are concerned about prostitution because it is distasteful, and they are making a moral judgement. Making the lives of these women better is not a difficult task. It could be done overnight. You just have to stop treating them like criminals. The difficult part is doing it without being seen to promote prostitution. Politicians don't want to be seen to allow prostitution for image reasons.

Kick him in the danglies

OK, first things first, if you see this man in the street, kick him in the danglies.



This power mad, control freak, appeal court judge, and prize berk is calling for everyone in Britain to be put on a single DNA database. How can anyone think that is a good idea? I mean honestly, I'm not suggesting it wouldn't help solve some crime, but can he see no negative impact, no potential dangers, no assault on personal liberty? The man is a fool, and his name is Lord Justice Sedley. I'm not even going to list the potential pitfalls.

Incidentally, you might also find it interesting that Lord Justice Sir Stephen Sedley is an ex member of the communist party and was partly responsible for dismissing a court case a while back brought on behalf of a 12-year-old who's DNA was kept on file despite the fact that it was established that he was not guilty of any crime. As reported in the Telegraph this morning. So, cold hard fact, not my personal opinion. He is also however, a prick, and that is my personal opinion.

I got up early yesterday and drove to the parcel office. I had to pick up a package sent by friend Dickie. The package actually arrived on Monday at 9.30am apparently, but by some cruel twist of fate, the dragon must have been out back hanging out laundry or something, and missed it. The parcel office opens at 6am, but closes soon after lunch. I was going to pick it up at the weekend, but then it occurred to me that we would be in Devon on Saturday. So it was in danger of being sent back, and since friend Dickie is currently, or very shortly to be, in Zambia, I decided to get up early. It's his collection of Lost DVDs, series 1 and 2. I've almost forgiven the production team for their woeful depiction of triangulation techniques, and intend to continue watching. Not quite sure how I am to secure series 3 however.

I've finished that damn Bill Bryson book at last. I like Bill; he's good light reading, but I read two in a row and it's just too much pointless banter. I think I would recommend Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, but I got bored to death with Notes from a small Island. I suspect it would be the other way round had I read them in a different order. Also, having lived in Britain for most of my life, I'm not really surprised by much he found on my small island.

I sent most of Tuesday afternoon wondering how I could fix the flu for the new cooker extractor properly to the exit housing. I had formulated a rough plan by the time I boarded the train home and ten minutes on the roof of the conservatory yesterday resulted in an effective solution. I'm sure no one cares, but I'm pleased that the cavity wall is no longer being filled with steam.

Did you see Amy Winehouse at the Mercury awards? Wasn't she amazing! I so hope she sorts her life out. More to the point, I hope she sorts it out before I start losing sympathy for her.

Fat Pigs

The Tories seem to be neck and neck with Labour in the polls now, which means we almost certainly won't be having an election any time soon. This is good and bad news. Good because it means that Gordon and his insidious bunch of tax and spend monkeys are not doing as well as they thought, and bad because the scum bags will be in power for at least another year or so. In fact, I don't think they have to call an election until 2010.

I was going to show you a magic trick, but I don't have it recorded. Tomorrow my friends, tomorrow.

So, you want to know about the Taiwan fat pig contest I suppose?

First off I need to tell you that, although Taiawan was my home for five years, I never went to the Giant Pig contest. The Telegraph calls it the Pig of God Contest, but I have never heard it called that. In case you don't know, it's an annual event in Taiwan. Competitors attempt to produce the fattest animal, and then on the day of judging, they kill it, skin it, and stretch the skin. It's fairly macabre I imagine, but as I say, I've never been to it. In fact I almost went one year, and I really wanted to see it, but it never happened, for reasons that I simply don't recall now.

The Telegraph reports that the animal rights groups are up in arms about the practice and have labelled it cruel and barbaric. I'm not going to take a moral position, other than to state that I simply don't care about a few pigs being treated badly. My reason for mentioning this is to illustrate how uninformed the animal rights idiots are.

The first thing to note is that this is not a mainstream practice. It is a Hakkanese tradition. It happens in a few places in Taiwan, but it certainly isn't everywhere. The Hsin Chu event is the most famous. I have been to Hsin Chu many times. It is a large Hakkanese community. It's one of the most amazing places that I have visited. It's very much stuck in a time gone by. The roads are not surfaced properly, there are no real shops to speak of, and there are very few cars and modern conveniences. Being a white man in this place is a very odd experience.

The Hakkanese are a sub culture, found all over China, Taiwan, and other areas. They are very proud of their history, and they have their own language and traditions. But like all minority cultures, it diminishes a little each year as it becomes swamped by the tide of mainstream life. The Taiwanese government recognises the need to preserve the Hakkanese way of life, and quite rightly offers it protection the same way that it does for the Taiwanese aboriginal communities.

The animal rights groups have no respect or understanding for the Hakkanese culture. They're probably not wrong when they say the pigs are force fed stones and lead weights. I've heard these stories before. I'm not even going to suggest that they are wrong to call the practice cruel. I will say that the danger of meddling in a culture about which they clearly know almost nothing, is unforgivable. These communities have been doing this since before any of the activists around today were even born. I know that the report says that the practice is only 30 years old, but I suspect it, or something similar, has been around much longer than that.

They have no understanding of the ritual element of the event either. The burning of money (it's not real money by the way) has nothing to do with the pig ceremony. It's a Buddhist thing. It happens all the time in Taiwan on specific days.

I wasn't aware that the practice is illegal in Taiwan. Though it doesn't surprise me. Taiwan is a troubled island that is constantly trying to make a name for itself as a country. It has a habit of making rules that are then not enforced. The government feels that it must be seen to make politically correct moves, but at the same time, it wants to preserve the cultural status quo, and I applaud that.

Fade to Grey

Kitchen renovation, Phase I is now officially complete. I need to do a little tidying, but the extractor fan went in yesterday. There was a certain amount of swearing and brick dust, but I think that's to be expected. It nearly went all wrong at the eleventh hour when I discovered that the wooden conservatory is in fact cavity walled. I suppose I should have known. I had to redesign my extractor exit strategy. But, as I say, pending a little tidying, it's in. I feel special.



I've discovered that the most difficult part of this has been finding time for my family as well as the kitchen. I was intending to spend whole weekends doing this, but it's not fair on them. So I've been spending a day with the family and a day with the kitchen.

On Saturday we went to Bristol and spent the afternoon at the Chinese supermarket there. We go about once a month and stock up with Asian supplies. The dragon bought a sack of frozen clams and made soup. I don't really eat shellfish as I have an allergy, but recently I've become braver and I'm beginning to suspect that my only real problem is crab. I've had crab three or four times in my life, and each time I've wanted to die within two hours. I tried a few clams this weekend anyway, and I seem to have suffered no ill effects.

We also bought Dumpy a new tricycle thing from the Early Learning Centre, which he seems to like very much.



It's that time of year again when the king of Swaziland gets to choose a new wife. He has 13 already, but you can never have too many can you. As is the tradition in Swaziland, around 100,000 young topless women present the queen mother with reeds for her windbreak, and her son gets to pick another wife. The man must have an ego the size of Mars.

Here's an interesting story from my neck of the woods. Apparently a 43 year old man from Chippenham, Stephen Strange (didn't he used to be the lead singer from Visage?) has been given a suspended jail sentence after being discovered in the ceiling cavity above a tanning salon booth, spying on a 22 year old woman. It seems that the young lady was naked, there was a crash, and Strange's face appeared from a gap in the ceiling. His defence was originally, "I was drunk and don't remember", but he did eventually plead guilty. He was sentenced to three months in jail, suspended for two years. I thought that was harsh. I wasn't sure that voyeurism was an offence.

A group of clowns calling themselves the "Animal Rights Militia" claim to have contaminated tubes of Savlon antiseptic cream. It's probably not true, but Boots, Superdrug, and Tesco have taken the product off the shelves. According to the Animal Rights Militia, the company behind the product, Novartis, has links with Huntingdon Life Sciences. Huntingdon Life Sciences conducts tests on animals, and the company has long been a nutter target. I'm thinking of buying shares and I'll certainly be buying some Novaris products as a protest against the Animal Rights Militia.

As if that wasn't bad enough, A guy from Wantage, just a spit from here, was yesterday convicted of 89 sexual offences on children. The offences took place over 11 years and included 10 girls. The offences included rape, attempted rape, sexual assault, and indecent assault. He appears to have had a habit of recording his attacks. Some of his victims were as young as three. What I can't understand about this case is how the guy managed to commit so many serious offences, against so many children, over such a long period, before he was caught.

Apparently he was only caught when a five-year-old victim told her mother that she had seen his penis. How on earth do you keep 10 little girls, at least one of which was 11 years old, from talking about what happened? That's astounding isn't it?

Actually I have other stuff to write about, but this is already a huge entry. Well done if you got this far. I'll report tomorrow on the Taiwanese giant pig contest, and my new magic trick.