Dozy Cow

I got my laptop going, which is good. I can now work with multiple screens on my desk, like an air traffic controller. I got Framemaker up and running. I still have an issue with Authorware and I need an image editor. I did have Paint Shop Pro 8, which was OK, but not great. I now have Paint Shop Pro 7, which is, well crap. Apparently no one knows if we have a licence for PSP8. I simply assumed we did because it was loaded on my old machine. No one can find licence or software however, hence the downgrade. It's amazing isn't it; this company produces ground breaking risk management, risk assessment, finacial software used by major banking institutions all over the world, but they can't keep track of their desktop software.

My old machine has died. It's been on the critical list for weeks. It has actually shuffled off this mortal coil now. Lucky I had the foresight to back it up before the power down over the weekend.

My boss is German. He reminds me of the German character from The League of Gentlemen. He doesn't live in Royston Vasey though. I think he lives in Oxford. He wears glasses with a string so he can hang them round his neck. Currently he is wearing the glasses, and the string is actually resting on his head. Large loops of cord are hanging each side of his head like spaniel ears. It's hard not to laugh. He mutters to himself in a variety of languages throughout the day. He's in New York next week. He's like a 5-year-old, all excited about seeing the big city. Actually I quite like the guy, and he's good at his job. That doesn't stop him being a bit odd.

Apparently my desk is to be sanitised this weekend. I don't know what's going on in this office, but stuff like this keeps happening. This week I have been visited by the IT police and told to use a BIOS password and a disk access password. What's more, I can't even use a sensible password, I have to have a weird string generated by a randomising thinger. And like everybody else, I can't remember it of the other 15 passwords I need just to get going in the morning, so I write them down. Anyway, to get back to what I was saying earlier, I have strict instructions to clear my desk this evening.

Sharon Stone has gone down in my estimation this week. I used to quite like her. It may have had a lot to do with Basic Instinct, but I thought she was pretty savvy. Then she tells the Chinese that the recent earthquake was likely down to "bad Karma" caused by the Chinese policy on Tibet. I'm amazed that she isn't spectacularly embarrassed by the fact that she professes to be a buddhist and yet, as has been pointed out by so many media outlets, she apparently has bugger-all understanding of Karma. In her defence, I have met many people in buddhist areas of Asia who have converted to Christianity and have bugger-all knowledge of the bible. You'd be amazed how many "Christians" don't know that there are old and new testaments for instance. I'm also amazed that Ms Stone didn't check the map quickly before making her comments. If she had taken the trouble to glance at the atlas she might have noticed that half of Tibet actually falls into the quake zone. Honestly, dozy cow, I don't care if she does take her clothes off, I'm not watching her films again. Come to think of it, Basic Instinct II was dire anyway.

There was no one on the train this morning, and the bus was pretty empty too. I thought I had come to work on Saturday by mistake. I am thinking of doing a surreptitious bunk actually. The boss has sloped off early to prepare for his trip. I'm not doing very much. I swear no one would notice.

LAst episode of Lost Series 4 should be available for stealing tonight - hooray for bit torrents.

I hate caravans and hijackers

No one could accuse me of arrogance, as you know, but did you notice that the last two entries both contained accurate predictions? The Crewe and Nantwich by-election, and now the Eurovision song contest. I have to admit, I didn't pick the winner of the song contest, merely that Britain would finish in the bottom three. Actually, I couldn't have been more accurate. There were three songs tied for last place, and Britain was one of them. It was a truly awful song, though by Eurovision standards, it really wasn't that bad. I'm giving Sylvia Brown a run for her money anyway.

We made it to Devon at the weekend. The weather was pretty good on Saturday, but really foul on Sunday and Monday. The traffic was also dreadful on Saturday and it took us over three hours to get there in the end. It usually takes about two. The roads were full of caravans. We came off the M5 because it was like a car park, and used the A38. I just hope the caravans all got washed away in the rain. I think Gordon Brown could sole his car tax issue just by freezing car tax for all cars and lorries, and raising it about 200% on caravans.

There are apparently protests going on today over escalating fuel costs. The price of petrol and diesel is ridiculous at the moment. And new road tax schemes are set to make things worse for the motorist very shortly. Although, it does seem as though the government is about to back down over road tax. Gordon must be regretting taking the job by now.

Oh, and to anyone that received odd messages from me on MSN today, sorry. My account got hijacked. I'm really not a spammer. I changed my password.

If I could do this with horses

Not only did I predict the turnout at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election yesterday to within 2%, I also predicted the Conservative share to be 44% (they achieved 49%, but I was pitching low to emulate a worst case scenario), and the Labour share to be 30% (dead-on balls accurate, but I thought I was being a little generous when I said it to be honest). I said the Conservatives could expect to win with a majority of more than 6,000, and they achieved a majority of 7,800. That would be about 600 more than Gwyneth Dunnwoody got at the same constituency in the last general election by the way. I'm thinking of turning professional.

Blimey, if I could do that with horse racing, I'd be able to retire tomorrow.

Long weekend approaches people. we're off to Devon tomorrow. I'm aiming for an early start. It won't happen, but the optimist in me keeps trying. I think we're going to come back Sunday and look for wall tiles for the kitchen. We can finally draw a line under that project then and start the next.

I thought the electric shower was dying last night. It suddenly decided to adjust the water temperature without warning mid-stream. Last time it did that was about ten years ago. Eventually it stopped doing it in favour of just providing cold water. I had to replace it. In fact this time it looks like the sprinkler thing just needed cleaning. It's working again now, fingers crossed.

It's the Eurovision Song Contest tomorrow. Britain has truly the most awful song in living memory. It's sung by a bald guy. I don't know his name. I watched the show where his song won. He came first and the song by Michelle Gayle came second. I quite liked the Michelle Gayle song. I'm going to make another prediction. Britain will come in the bottom three.

Prediction

Today is the day of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. I realise that most people are bored senseless by this, but actually it's scheduled to be a good day for everyone except the Labour party. The election has been caused by the death of Gwyneth Dunwoody, a Labour MP for decades. She managed to secure a 7,000 vote majority there in the last election.

Here's the thing; her daughter is taking her place as the labour candidate, and is currently polling so far behind the Conservative candidate, she is but a dim speck in rear-view mirror. That is significant. Crewe is a Labour Party stronghold, and they are about to lose it. The results come in early tomorrow morning, but the bookies have already paid out on a conservative win.

The Conservative candidate is Edward Timpson, the shoe magnate. If he also sold horses, he'd be a horse shoe magnate, but sadly that joke won't work, because he has nothing to do with horses as far as I know.

I've been doing some hard sums. The Conservatives are playing down their chances of a huge majority in Crewe and Nantwich. They are publicly suggesting that a majority of a few hundred would be a good result for them. But turnout is expected to be high, around 60%, because this is a key election. The electorate is about 72,000, so that means probably 43,200 votes up for grabs. Labour is hoping to do better today than they did in the local elections earlier this month. They polled about 24% that day. Lets be generous and give them 30%, that's 12,960 votes. The Conservatives are hoping to do better than their 44% in the local elections, but lets assume they don't. That 44% would give them 19,008 votes. That would be a Conservative majority of 6,048.

So my prediction is a conservative win with a majority of over 6,000. If they get a majority of over 7,000, that would be greater than the previous Labour majority and that would be pretty embarrassing. I'm posting this around 10.00pm, which is four hours before results are due.

***

My project manager just gave me a bottle of Bollinger. I'd like to think it was because I was the bestest writer on the project. In fact I was the only writer on the project, and all the other people working on the project got bottles too. Still, my work was well received and I should be grateful.

Hysterical, if it wasn't so sinister

You'd think that the government, and particularly the Home Office, would be steering clear of unpopular policies at the moment. After suffering the worst election showing in 40 years, consistently polling 15 points behind the Conservatives in the opinion polls, fighting off public revolt over the 10p tax debacle, and teetering on the edge of a recession and housing price crash, conventional wisdom would surely dictate, that now is now not the optimum time to kick the electorate in the love-spuds. So what am I talking about? I'll tell you...

They're considering plans to create a database of every phone call and email send in UK. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the same government that lost the bank details of every family in the country last year, the same government that is desperately trying to rescue the id card database from the gutter because they can't make it work, is attempting to construct yet another database to bug each and every phone in the country, and record all our email conversations. It would be hysterical if it wasn't so sinister.

According to the Times, over three billion British emails are sent each day, and 57 billion text messages were sent last year. Now that's a lot of data to manage. Proposals being considered would require service providers to surrender the data to the Home Office, where it would be retained for at least 12 months. It's really not been made clear whether contents of emails, text messages, or phone calls would be recorded, or merely the details of the sender and receiver.

I'm actually not particularly worried about this because I am quite sure that it will be thrown out, and even if it gets approved, I seriously doubt that it can be made to work. The fact that their are people who think it's a good idea, I find astounding however.

***

Parliament has voted to retain the ruling that abortions can be carried out up to 24 weeks. There were moves to reduce that figure. I'm in favour of retaining the 24 week cut off because I think the decision has to be made by teh people affected, not by politicians. Oddly this puts me on the same side as Gordon Brown, and against David Cameron. I don't particularly like Cameron, but he is the only alternative to the Labour government, so he gets my vote.

MPs also voted to change the legal requirements for people seeking fertility treatment. I didn't realise it, but apparently women seeking fertility treatment were required to produce evidence of a father. That would of course make it rather difficult for lesbian couples or single potential mothers to obtain the treatment. That's now changing it seems. The father requirement is to be removed. I feel a bit sad about that. I think fathers are probably important for children.

I sort of have problems with fertility treatment in general. I can't imagine why anyone would put themselves through the indignity of IVF when they could adopt a child. I think I could love an adopted son or daughter as easily as a genetic son or daughter. And fertility treatment appears to me to be something of a timebomb. If infertile couples are helped to conceive, isn't there a good chance that (ironically) the offspring will inherit that infertility problem? Isn't there a chance that we are creating an infertile generation?

***

I finally got a builder to come round yesteday to talk about converting the attic into room. He said it's possible, but we need to get some drawings done for planning permission. We need to put a window in the ceiling you see. It's quite exciting. He's going to tile the kitchen too, and cap the chimney. If that works out, we'll get him to do the attic room and decorate downstairs. There is an issue with where to put the stairs to the attic if we have it done. I'm leaning towards getting a spiral staircase. We're intending to chose some tiles at the weekend if we can make time. How much do tiles cost? I think we need about 250.

Kites and Horses

I don't feel well again. The little guy gave me his cold and it just won't go. I'm typing this at work and I feel hot and feverish. Germs, the worst thing about having small children around the house, that and the fact that every time you pick something up it plays Brahms lullaby at you - bah humbug.

I nearly lost the little chap the other day. It was so stupid. We were in the supermarket buying fish. The dragon says to me, "I have to get some basil. Come and meet me over there when you're done". So off she goes and I think she's taken Dumpy and the trolley with her. I pick up the fish and amble off to fruit and veg, where I find my wife and no child or trolley. There was that moment of realisation where we looked at each other before swearing and running back to the fish counter. No words were necessary between us.

The little chap was quite happy, sitting there in the trolley. He was shouting, "Mummy, mummy", but not in any state of panic. The fish counter lady thought it was hysterical and said she was going to charge us a babysitting fee.

I think it may be genetic actually. When I was a child my parents actually left me in the garden and drove off to visit their parents. Apparently they loaded the car with all my baby stuff and got several miles before they realised they had forgotten me. Outrageous really, I should have called child line.

We went up to White Horse Hill this weekend to do some kite flying.



I have a really groovy helicopter kite, but it needs a typhoon to fly it. It only half worked this weekend. I sent up the turtle kite, which is much better for light winds.



It wasn't ideal kite flying weather though, very gusty. Dumpy has no idea how to fly kites. He lets go of the string because it's fun to watch Daddy charge across ancient chalk monuments after a runaway kite.



We are talking about converting the attic into a spare bedroom. Have I mentioned this already? Well I'm telling you again anyway. I called a builder guy last week and arranged for him to come round on Thursday, but he didn't show up, so I called him again, and he said he thought it was Friday he was coming, but he didn't come on Friday either. So, if you're looking for a builder in Swindon, I suggest you don't use E M Construction, because the guy is completely unreliable.

I've called someone else now. He's coming tonight, so I have to get my dimpled arse home before 6. I hate working for a living. There is a watermill for sale near my mother's home in North Devon. It's a wreck, but I want to buy it and restore it. The problem is, they want £300k for it, and it would need at least another £100K spent on it after that. Couple that with the fact that I'd have no income if I devoted my time to restoring a watermill, and you have a bill for half a million quid. Sad world we live in.

Rewind Button

Until today I didn't know anything about Housing Minister Caroline Flint, other than the fact that she is a Labour Minister, and therefore morally bankrupt. This morning however, I actually feel sympathy for the woman. I'm willing to bet she has her head in her hands somewhere right now, wishing she could press the rewind button on her life, and replay that part where she walked in to Downing Street yesterday, in front of herds of photographers, but this time, with the confidential paperwork tucked neatly in a briefcase, and not on full display to the world in general.

In case you missed the story, Ms Flint was attending a cabinet meeting yesterday, and she was delivering bad news about the housing market. Apparently house prices are going to slump, and new house building projects are stalled. I don't think this is much of a surprise to anyone. The problem is that the government has been trying to deny that it's happening. And they could have continued to deny it until Ms Flint went striding into Downing Street with her notes on display. You have to hand it to those boys. Within minutes of it being photographed, the picture was on every news site in the world, and the visible parts of her documents transcribed.

I am of course more than a little cynical by nature, and it crossed my mind that perhaps this act of carelessness was not accidental. One has to ask, what kind of clown walks past a crowd of press photographers waving a bunch of confidential papers? But I can't see why she would engineer such an elaborate leak. There can be no benefit to the government as far as I can see.

I did make a quick movie of the vending machine in our office today, but frankly, it's horse shit. I had to hold the camera with one hand and operate the machine with the other. Ingmar Bergman I am not. If I get around to it, I'll post it tomorrow, if I'm not too ashamed.

I have a horrible cold.

It's going to rain tomorrow.

Chilled Beverages

A new vending machine has landed at my office. It dispenses chilled beverages in cans; orange juice, apple juice, several varieties of cola, something called 'Sprite Zero', Perrier water, we got class in this office. Although I have been known to partake of the odd fruit juice or mineral water, I never drink anything sugary that our American friends might describe as 'soda'. I am however fascinated by the machine.

Up until yesterday morning, obtaining a chilled beverage meant opening the fridge door, removing the can of choice, and closing the fridge door again. Now it has become automated. First one must find the beverage of choice on the vending machine shelf, then enter the associated alpha-numeric code on the keypad. Then, and this is the exciting part, a robot arm thing leaps to the shelf holding the can, sucks it off the shelf and whizzes it to the dispensing chute. And the fun doesn't stop there. The arm sort of tips the can into the chute and it disappears, only to reappear a moment later in a perspex cylinder. Said cylinder then rotates slowly until a little door faces front and a hand can be inserted to remove the can.

All this is of course massively over-elaborate, and in fact not even terribly reliable. A can of apple juice has I notice, already been dropped by the arm into the gutter at the bottom of the machine. It is however enormously fun to watch. I was intending to make a little movie of the thing in action today, but alas, I forgot to bring the camera. I could do it with my phone, but the quality simply wouldn't be there.

I've taken a day off on Monday because the gas boiler is being serviced. I don't know when I will get around to making the vending machine movie. I guess it will have to be Tuesday.

As an aside here, the reason I don't drink sugary drinks from cans is entirely down to image. It seems very un-British to me. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with it. It just seems wrong for me to do it. In the same way, I would never hold my fork in my right hand as Americans do. Even on those few occasions when I have found myself in North America, I have never eaten that way. Some things just don't feel right.

In other news, the IT bod has actually come out of his dark cellar HQ and taken my laptop for a rebuild. This I think was a result of my visit this morning. I lost all dignity and actually begged the guy. It's not in my nature to beg, but these things occasionally have to be done.

Here we go again

The bloody cannabis debate is raging again. Tony Blair started this row four years ago when he decided that pot wasn't dangerous enough to be a class-B substance, so he reclassified it as a class-C substance. In fact it had bugger all to do with the dangers of pot use. It was a tactical move. Pot is very common and police were finding it difficult to enforce the law when it was a class-B drug. That messed up Tony's crime figures. Making pot a class-C substance means possession is not usually an arrestable offence. You have to be carrying about about 2kg with intent to supply or something before they think of arresting you. In most cases, being caught with pot now just means it gets confiscated. The offence isn't recorded, and the crime figures look better.

Of course there was fallout from Blair's reclassification. Pot heads quickly realised that they weren't going to be arrested for smoking or carrying the stuff, so they dragged their pallid, emaciated carcasses out of their bedrooms and into the street. The ultimate result being, as I have mentioned so many times, that I can't walk across the bloody shopping centre with my son any more, without tripping over these worthless, corpse-like, individuals, huddled in doorways because their eyes are unaccustomed to the bright sunlight, emitting clouds of acrid blue smoke,.

Make no mistake ladies and gentlemen, I care not one tinker's cuss whether pot is dangerous or not. I don't use it, and I believe your lifestyle choices are none of my business, until they conflict with my own of course. I am therefore quite happy for you to smoke the foul stuff if that's what stokes your boiler. Furthermore, if a few of you lose touch with reality and start barking at pigeons as a result, that's your problem, and indeed, your medical bill. The only thing I care about is the influence you have on my son. It's not down to how dangerous it is. It's entirely down to how antisocial it is.

So, why is the debate back in the news? I'll tell you. The PM, who swears blind he has never smoked pot, and the whore running the Home Office, who admitted she has, intend to reclassify cannabis again and return it to class-B status. The problem is, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), wants to keep it classified as a class-C substance because it's not as dangerous as other class-B substances like amphetamines and barbiturates. Well that makes sense. I'm guessing that also means heroine should be downgraded to a class-B drug because it's not as dangerous as other class-A drugs like crack cocaine.

The government is entitled to overrule the proposals of the ACMD, but the ACMD must be consulted before a decision is made. The ACMD is jolly upset however, because although they were consulted, and subsequently ignored, the PM and the Home Secretary both made their feelings very clear well before the consultation. This makes me wonder whether the comments of the PM and the Home Secretary actually influenced the ACMD proposals. Apparently eight of them have resigned.

The important point here is actually the fact that the ACMD are required to investigate only the medical consequences of drug use, not the social aspect. They concluded, rightly or wrongly, that cannabis is not particularly dangerous. The fact that it is used in public by sick looking pond-slime who can't string five coherent words together, is not something they feel is in their remit.

The really odd thing to come out of this is the fact that, probably for the first time in my life, I'm in agreement with Gordon Brown and Jaqui Smith. I shouldn't be so surprised really, since the Conservatives also seem to want reclassification to class-B. The Lib Dems as usual have declined to make a decision and claim only that the government needs to be more open with the expert advice it receives. Shit or get off the lavatory boys.

Anyway, that's quite enough from me today.

Back at the desk

I wrote all this yesterday (Tuesday), and then left it at work - Doh!

It's always tough to come back to work after a three-day weekend isn't it. I find the best way to ease oneself back into paid employment is to use the first morning back at one's desk to update one's journal. It probably doesn't work well for those people who make a living as a tyre and exhaust fitter, but for a technical writer, it looks precisely the same as writing a user manual for a washing machine.

I got loads done over the weekend. The dragon wrote a list of things we needed to accomplish and stuck it to the fridge door last week. Incidentally, I've noticed that Americans don't say "ice box" any more. Why's that? Go back a few years and all American films and tv shows had "ice boxes" in them. Now they all seem to have refrigerators. Seriously, I'm interested, why is that? But I digress.

This weekend I cut back the elephant grass in the back garden, we planted strawberries, did some weeding, went grocery shopping, went to Ikea for a book storage solution for Dumpy, went to the Chinese supermarket, spray painted Dumpy's tricycle, made a totally awesome toad-in-the-hole...



and found enough time to go to Bowood House and gardens yesterday and play...



On the down side, I didn't get around to shampooing the carpet, but I am intending to do that this evening.

I want to mention spoiling ballot papers. Someone left a note on my last entry about spoilt papers and I need to make a comment I think. To recap, I said that I can't understand why, when I go to vote, they record the unique number of the ballot paper I use, against my name and address on the electoral role listing. The problem of course being that it is possible to trace my ballot paper back to me. My noter suggested that the measure is in place to prevent Returning Officers adding ballot papers illegally.

Well, if that is the reason for this measure, then I have two comments to make. First, it won't work. Even with this system in place, a returning officer could easily put aside a few hundred ballot papers as the day progressed, and then at the end of the day, record them next to people who didn't bother voting. Typically Only about 40% of people vote in a local election, 70% in a general election. Secondly, if you need to make a list of valid ballot papers, I don't care, go ahead and do it, but tell me why you need to link them with a voter. Why can't you just make a list of valid ballot papers and put a cross next to the name of each person who came to vote? As long as the list of valid papers is the same length as the list of people who voted, there's no problem is there?

The only theoretical advantage of the current system I can see, is that in the event of an unusually high number of spoilt papers, the voter associated with each spoilt paper can be contacted and asked if they spoilt their own paper. This would in theory prevent a Returning Officer from deliberately spoiling papers. In practice that won't work either of course, because when asked the question, "did you spoil your ballot paper?" people who accidentally spoilt their paper will say, "no". In fact, there's a good chance that people who spoilt their paper deliberately will say, "no". And of course, people who genuinely didn't spoil their ballot paper will say, "no". A much better solution would be to declare any election void if the number of spoilt papers changes the result.

There should be dancing in the streets

I wrote this on Friday, but never posted it.

Oh Brave New World that has such people in it.

The government lost over 300 seats in the local elections yesterday, the worst local election performance in my lifetime for the party. Oh Happy, Happy Day! They came third, yes third, behind the Lib Dems. Our ward didn't change, which means we got a Lib Dem councillor again. I don't like the guy and I didn't vote for him. In fact he's a bit of a custard. But he's not a morally bankrupt Labour scum bag, which is clearly the main thing.

And just when I didn't think the day could not get any better, my boss said we can knock off at 3pm today because it is a bank holiday weekend.

I don't know whether it's the same for all voters in UK, but when I go to vote at my local polling station, I'm given a ballot paper with a unique number printed on the back. They give me the paper only when they have checked that I (my polling number, name, address) appear on their electoral role listing. If I don't appear on their list, I am not allowed to vote. When they find me on their list, they write the number of my ballot paper against my name and address. Can anyone see a problem with this? Like, for instance, returning officers can identify my personal ballot paper, and therefore how I voted. Why am I the only person who seems to think this is a problem? There should be rioting in the streets.

I find it hard to believe that people's voting habits are recorded. Surely that would be illegal. My friend Becca however claims that she once voted Lib Dem, and landed up on a Lib Dem mailing list as a result. If that's true, it's terrifying. Incidentally, the Lib Dem Leader, Nick Clegg (who?), commented on the election results this morning and made a proper show of himself with his appalling grasp of the English language. He claimed the Lib Dems had taken seats "off of" Labour, shocking! Who on earth would vote for him after that?

What was I talking about? Oh yes, ballot papers being traced back to voters. I also heard a story from a guy I used to work with who claimed he deliberately spoilt a ballot paper, and was later contacted and basically threatened over the phone. I'm not sure whether I believe this story, but the mechanism is there for doing it. The thing that makes the story dubious is simply the fact that it's not illegal (as far as I know) to spoil a ballot paper, but we are supposedly legally entitled to a secret vote.

Oh, and I'm reading in the press today more about the Austrian nutter that kept his daughter locked in a cellar for 24 years with three children that he fathered with her. There appears to be speculation now that the wife may have known about the prisoners in the cellar. What did I tell you? It's also been pointed out that he couldn't possibly have fitted the 300lb concrete door himself.

Election Day

I went to see our IT bod this morning to get my new laptop formatted and rebuilt. I used to do that job years ago. It's a good way to make a living, until you reach your thirties and realise you haven't actually done anything constructive for the previous 10 years, but that's not why I'm telling you. I thought I could blag my way into getting him to do the work without me having to raise it officially. Alas no, the poor lad is busy. I even offered to sleep with him, but to no avail. I had to raise a ticket like everyone else.

This Austrian sex-slave in the cellar thing gets weirder every day. The papers are still claiming that this guy kept three people locked up in the basement for years without any of the people living upstairs knowing anything about it. Call me cynical, but he built a bloody prison under the house with five rooms. It had running water, electrics, cooker, shower, drainage, and his wife never noticed? She never heard any power tools? Never wondered why he was carrying a lavatory down the cellar steps? And when it was built, in 24 years she never heard anything from the people down there? Never wondered why he was taking food down there?

The Sun today is reporting that the guy regularly went off on holidays to Thailand without his wife. In fact there are pictures of him on the beach. I suppose it's possible he could have left enough supplies to keep his prisoners alive while he was gone. But again, I'm astounded that while he was away the wife didn't have a quick butchers in the cellar and get slightly suspicious about the dirty great concrete door down there with a digital lock on it. I mean, are we to believe she never even noticed it, or that she knew it was there and didn't think it suspicious?

The above paragraphs were written yesterday, but never posted, obviously. I was going to post this at OD today, but the site appears to be down. I wonder what the excuse will be this time.

It's election day today. I was intending to go and vote for my local council on the way to the station this morning but I didn't have time. I'll vote on the way home instead. I don't care much about local council elections. Local councils all seem to work on the principal that they have a budget which they must spend before the year ends. The thought of saving it and using any surplus to reduce the tax bill for residents the following year is a concept so alien to them that it never even gets brought up.

In my home town they are currently installing a giant tv screen to show 24 hour news in the shopping centre. In the process of installing said screen they found it necessary to dig up about an acre of block paving, and replace it with block paving that seems to me to be identical. A perfect example of using the budget because have it.

Anyway, despite the fact that I don't care much about local elections I always vote, because I can't bear not to. And this time is especially important because we have a chance to show Gordon Brown what a complete custard he is. So I will not be voting for anyone. I will be voting against the Labour Party.

I think we should clone Mrs Thatch while we still can.

This weekend will be a three day weekend because Monday is a holiday. Next weekend is the international kite festival. I want to go, but I don't know if we will be in Devon.