Peskie Russians

I wrote this yesterday, saved it on my laptop, and then left the laptop at work, so it never got posted - doh!

My mother tell me that my maternal grandmother would have been 100 years old today. So, if you're watching me from somewhere Grandma, happy birthday. We have a chiming clock that belonged to Grandma in our dining room. It was presented to her in 1941 by her employers when she got married. It chimes every quarter hour, but we turn the chimes off so that it doesn't wake the boy up during the night. Sometimes however the chimes turn themselves on. I think it's Grandma making her presence felt.

I can't believe that, as the Beijing Olympics draw to a close, Britain is sill in third place in the medal table with 17 Gold medals. That's three more than those peskie Russians in fourth place. With a grand total of 39 medals, we need just another two to reach our target of 41, and I think I'm right in saying we are guaranteed a bronze at least in one of the boxing competitions. The cynical side of me, which is by far the biggest side I might add, had been anticipating a stream of hilarious excuses and red faces as the games closed. I'm almost disappointed that we did so well.

I think Gordon Brown is expecting a poll bounce as a result of Britain's Olympic performance. My guess is that it won't happen. An Ispo/Mori poll conducted over the weekend gives the Conservatives a 48% share of the vote, 24 points ahead of the government. That is a landslide. It's also worth noting that Tories tend to do better in elections than polls suggest because Tory voters tend to be more concerned with privacy issues and decline to take part in polls. That poll did take place before it was obvious how well Britain was doing at the Olympics. It will be interesting to see what the next poll reveals.

Gary Glitter managed to avoid flying to London in the end last night, but he was kicked out of Bangkok eventually and managed to board a flight to Hong Kong. He even managed to book a hotel and arrange an escort off the plane apparently. But the Hong Kong authorities banjaxed his plans before he landed and he was refused entry. Apparently 19 Asian countries have now refused him entry in fact. I'd like to know which countries they are. I guess it's just about all of them. There are two positive elements to this story; firstly of course we don't have Gary Glitter in this country, and Secondly, that vile woman in the Home Office, Jaqui Smith, has been publicly embarrassed by the whole chaotic affair because she clearly can't control her paedophiles.

Stop Press - The Gary Glitter world tour looks like it will draw to a close in Britain tomorrow. Thai authorities have said that Glitter has agreed to leave Bangkok for London.

I just had an ironic moment with my credit card issuer. I called their freephone number this morning and a robot told me to speak my credit card number into the phone. I was in a crowded office, so I decided to put the phone down and call from my mobile somewhere less public. So I did. And of course it's not a free call then. So I spoke to the robot again and the robot promised to put me through to a real person, which makes me wonder why the hell I had to recite the damn number, but there you are. Then the real person gave me a five minute lecture on ID fraud!

I've had a bit of an epiphany actually. The twerp on the phone spent ages telling me that fraudsters obtain personal information about people from from the electoral role, finding envelopes in waste bins with names and addresses on, stolen laptops etc. Then they use that information to pretend they are someone else, gain access to bank accounts and take out loans in false names. The answer is very simple, anonymous banking. There is no need for the bank to know anything about who owns the account. All they need to do is give each customer an account number and a passowrd. As long as you keep these two pieces of information secret, it's entirely secure. Personal information like names and addresses would be utterly useless to fraudsters.