The staples

All 27 of them were removed earlier today .... ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch!

Two weeks is a long time ....

Firstly apologies for the lack of posts - I have to be honest been otherwise engaged :-)

Well, I have had the hip replacement; a event far less traumatic than I could have possibly has thought ("you have nothing to fear but fear itself") - considering the operation involved (want to try it for yourself? Have a go here ) and the fact that the amputation might well have delayed my return to mobility when compared with "normal" people.

The following is from memory - the days tended to meld somewhat .........

I went into hospital on the Thursday night, after a fraught day of trying to get the appointment confirmed ("Phone back later and we will see if the bed is available") and gathering up bits and pieces for the the stay. To be honest, by early evening my nerves were pretty shot - I was attempting to think of reasons as to why I shouldn't go in - ("it doesn't hurt THAT much") - but I gathered myself up and went up to the unit at about half seven clutching a comprehensive history library.

I went into a two bed side-ward where there was a man in the other bed calmly reading a paper.
I introduced myself and asked how he was. It turned out that he had had the operation only that very morning and was already wide awake.

"Nil By Mouth" duly appeared and I attempted - partially successfully - to get some sleep.

Mercifully I was first on the list on Friday, so a thorough scrub in the shower started the day. The anaesthetist appeared, a South African lady whose hair seemed to be about as multi-coloured as that country's flag, and we discussed the options, which effectively came down to one: a spinal block. One of the fears I had had was of being awake - or at least sentient - during the procedure but I didn't want the long term after-effects of a general but I was reassured that I wouldn't know anything.

The surgeon arrived, and after marking the affected limb with a broad nibbed felt tip, he paused looking at the book ("Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era") I had upside down on the bed. I commented that I felt it was a extremely good book. The surgeon agreed saying that he had bought the same book in the States only two weeks before and that the last place he expected to see it was on the bed of one of his patients!

Not much later at around half eight the trolley arrived and I was wheeled around to the prep room where the anaesthetist and a delightful, thoroughly English anaesthetics nurse awaited (Thanks Rose). For some reason we ended up discussing Oscar Wilde ("To wreck one leg, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to wreck both looks like carelessness") which certainly passed the time.

The next thing I clearly remember is leaving the theatre having literally woken up from the sedative (That was one of the bizarre things - there was none of the gradual coming round that one gets from a general but a literal waking up and I was wondering where 2 hours of my life had gone - the clock showed 11 ) and feeling completely pain free. Admittedly the effects of the block were still there - I had no feeling below my waist - and I was slightly euphoric from the morphine but I was pain free!

Wheeled back to a new ward from a brief sojourn in the recovery room, the only memory of which was listening to some child crying, and parked in the room that was to be my home for the next few days.

I was a four bed side room and I was attached to a Hartmann's I.V. on one side and a pressure cuff on the other, which every 15 minutes inflated.

I felt FINE!

Inevitable I suppose, the block wore off, and some pain kicked but it was far less than I feared - easily controllable by pain killers.

There were four of us in the ward - two men and two ladies (mixed wards are only used post-op)and I struck up a conversation with David, who was on my left, during a fitful night's sleep (watching BBC news at 04:00 was typical) and we both were amazed how easy things had gone. David had had his operation the day before mine and was well on the way to recover.

Later on the Saturday, the physios arrived to get me out of bed. This was something I was dreading . Most OA patients have a leg that can take some (or all if the second leg is not afflicted with the disease ) weight but in my case we weren't sure how things would pan out.

I was able to swing my leg out of the bed, slip my prosthesis on and then I got stuck. Whatever happened the prosthesis slipped off and I had to use the grab above the bed to take some of my weight through my upper body before I was able to stand. The physios turned me round and I was lowered into the chair that was by the bed.

It was then that the problems started. However I tried to put weight onto the prosthesis it slipped off again and again. Weight was put on my operated leg and it bloody well hurt! Eventually we gave up with standing and I was eased back to bed followed by some oramorph.

An hours sleep ensured after which I felt better.

The two ladies left the ward, to be replaced by two men - William and Michael who were due to be operated upon the following day.

At about 3 AM I heard William having exactly the same blues I had had the day before my operation - the same doubts, the same worries about the future , the same concerns about coping afterwards. Later in the day, David and I talked to him, attempting to put his mind at rest since by then virtually all of the pain had faded - leaving only tugging from the staples and a certain amount of muscular twinges from where they were cut - and he went through with it.

The four of us bonded well for the next couple of days - providing support for those moments when we all felt rotten, which did occur (I nearly fainted in the shower for instance) and the support that I received from those wonderful gentlemen was touching and heartwarming.

The rest of the time was really just getting confidence to get out of bed, work out a method for coping with my prosthesis (which actually came far more easily than I could have imagined, the first day not withstanding - the use of my prosthesis following the operation was the one thing that really worried me - but I seem now to have sorted it out).

It is now over a week since the operation and I can now walk with just a stick - I don't want to over-stress things so crutches are still used as a backup - for short distances (I can actually walk for even shorter distances without any support!) and the awful, debilitating, crippling arthritic pain has gone. Its now just time for recovery which is coming along fine .....

There are too many people to thank: The surgeon (KOD), the staff on the ward (all of you - you were brilliant) the physios (you failed - it didn't hurt THAT much!), Michael, William and David plus everyone else who looked after me in hospital .....

Credit crunch hits ....

Got my first combined Christmas and Get Well card today ....

I have a little list .....

Seems I am first on the first for the op on Friday .... 08:30 ....

RIPA - Its time to despair

When I read about a complete misuse of a council's power such as this story from the Mail you really do wonder about the intelligence of the officials that authorised it. Apart from the fact that the outrage and ridicule that will justifiably be poured upon their heads - something that someone with half a brain would be able to foresee - it really make me wonder about the councils priorities in wasting the good people of Cambridgeshire money. Surely there is something more important to do?

However the real villain is of course the Government who allowed the expansion of RIPA into the local arena which include the mission creep that virtually everybody foretold.

RIPA urgently needs curbing and to be brought back to its original remit of counter-insurgency and serious crime.

Final run in

I am being admitted on Thursday afternoon to our local general hospital for the hip replacement which is scheduled for Friday. Pretty nervous to be honest - it is a pretty big operation - but the outcome will surely be worth it. Stopped taking the anti-inflammatories as requested (10 days before the operaton) so am increasing the codeine for the time being ....

Brownie points are due to my boss who has arranged for a laptop and remote access so some home working will be possible ...

Strange Christmas this one ...

DNA Database

I have always thought that the retention of innocent people's DNA to be a gross infringement upon civil liberties. So I am extremely pleased to see that, by a unanimous verdict, the European Court has thrown out this Government's national DNA database by stealth. Innocent people should be treated as just that -innocent and the police, who seem to be positively active in pushing their legal boundaries as far as they can, should not be allowed to keep their DNA samples but this authoritarian government cannot see that.

NuLab, The Speaker and incompetence

They are so incompetent that they can't even do a stitch-up properly....

More thoughts on Damian Green

What would the police have done if when they looked at his computers they discovered that every hard disk was encrypted using something like SafeBoot or one of the multitude of free encryption packages? How would they force the password out of an MP?

Update

Of course under the draconian RIPA III there is a mechanism in place to force someone to hand of the encryption keys but would the police be so stupid as to use RIPA against an MP? Anyway software such as TrueCrypt as the concept of "Plausible Deniablity" where the fact that encrypted data is even present is very difficult to prove.

Sally Murrer

I am glad that the judge threw out the case against Sally Murrer - a case which has raised enormous issues about press freedom and extraordinary heavy handed police work.

Who knew?

I find it almost unbelievable that someone in the Government was not informed or authorised the arrest of the Conservative front bench spokesman Damian Green on Official Secrets charges. The police would not be stupid enough to do this without informing someone very senior indeed.

This episode has very grave consequences for our freedoms.


Update

Iain Martin over at the Telegraph asks some very pertinent questions

Are the new carriers doomed?

The BBC yesterday speculated whether the credit crunch will affect the building of the two new aircraft carriers - Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales. Now I suspect that for mainly political reasons - some of the yards are in Labour heartlands (or at least were - its called Scotland!) - the ships will be built but one issue that seems to have missed everyone is the fact that the aircraft are American F-35s. We are planning to spend £6,000m on these aircraft which translated into $12,000m until recently. Unfortunately the pound has nosedived against the dollar and the same amount of dollars will cost us £8,000m.

Firstly where is the extra £2,000m coming from?

Secondly the general costs of the F-35 have doubled and other countries might well pull out especially in a downturn, which in turn will increase the costs of the remaining.

So what will happen? Options I suspect might well be navalise the Typhoon, F-18s or maybe Rafales .... or build the carriers but have nothing to fly from them ......

The NHS can be efficient ...

Had the pre-admission screenings today which took up most of the afternoon but it went so smoothly that I couldn't believe it....

Started off on the orthopaedic ward, seeing the admissions nurse (swabs, BP, weight, height etc) followed by a chat to the ward sister - can I have an epidural block instead of a general - and a long discussion on recovery, then to see the OT who dealt with post-operative care - the height of my sofa at home will be a problem, as will getting my leg on in the morning. Then off to get some blood extracted where I wound up a 3rd year medical student (poor sod!) who actually did the needle work, then for an ECG (still pumping!) and finally X-Rays ... all in 2 hours 30 mins which was quite amazing ....

Micturating against the cyclone

Wow .. a 2.5% drop in VAT. Does anyone really think that this is going to kick-start the economy?

Getting a bit twitchy

Its now only just over two weeks until the operation; got a clinic tomorrow during which they will explain all the recovery options - a tricky one given that the other leg is also wrecked and I suspect that they haven't had too many amputees around - so some of the discussions could be interesting, especially those dealing with post-op mobility .

Organising remote access for work .. a labyrinth process if there ever is one ...

The rugby

At least the Welsh went down with a great deal more fight than the English ......

The BNP

Should I support the right of a party that I find abhorrent and whose policies I detest to exist?

Prostitution

There are times when the stupidity of the government knows no bounds. The new idea that men who frequent prostitutes could be subject to criminal prosecution if the prostitutes are controlled by pimps is one of those crass ideas.

Lets get this straight: the traffic of women for the sex trade is a vile, disgusting and in some cases dangerous business but the government sees the easiest point of attack not being the pimps or the traffickers but rather the men who use the prostitutes. The point that "Pleading ignorance of the circumstances under which a prostitute is working will not count as a defence." is obviously designed to try and ensure that all forms of prostitution are driven even further underground - and probably making it even more dangerous - since obviously no prostitute is going to carry a "I don't work for a pimp" card. It is also pertinant to remember that prostitution itself isn't a criminal offence.

The answers are:

• Tighten border controls to stop the smuggling in of women
• Go for the pimps and traffickers - hit them hard. They are the merchants of human misery
• Provide legalised and regulated brothels - treat them in the same way as any other business would be. This is what happens in Australia
• Provide a comprehensive help service for those girls who probably through drugs - are the most vulnerable.

One point though: I cannot see many juries convicting men if the "ignorance defence" is attempted. It didn't work in Finland (the only other country that has this law) and I doubt it will work here.

Dying duck in a thunderstorm ...

Have had an attack by a rhinovirus on the ICAM-1 receptors on my respiritory epithelial cells which then released intracellular distress signals. Acute coryza ensured ......

Does John Major read my blog?

A few weeks ago I wrote this http://bonetired.blogspot.com/2008/10/colleague-thanks-bc-posted-this-on.html where I listed a good selection of the reasons why Labour has made a bad position far far worse.

Now I see today in The Times this by John Major - almost re-interating my points word for word!

"Who ignored the debt spiral as it built up? Who weakened regulation and allowed Northern Rock to offer 125 per cent mortgages? Who diminished Bank of England control over our banking system? Who wrecked final-salary pensions with a £5 billion-a-year tax levy? Who ignored the risks of the house price and equity boom?"

Am honoured!

A nice touch

I didn't see the Cenotaph service yesterday - stood quietly outside in the open air for a few minutes around 11 -but I caught the reports on the news and in the papers.

What I especially liked was the way the current miltary paid their respects to the only three WW1 veterans still alive in the UK. By a nice coincidence, each of the three came from differing sevices - Henry Allingham (RAF), Harry Patch (Army) and Bill Stone (RN) - and they were taken to the Cenotaph by a decorated serving member of their service.

For the RAF it was Flt Lt Michelle Goodman - the first woman to win a DFC
For the Navy it was Marine Mkhuseili Jones MC
For the Army it was Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry VC

It was an honour guard worthy of those three gentlemen.

New M&S ....

Had a bite with my wife in the excellent new M&S in town. Nice revamped cafe which had some good views out. Anyway the system is curious. If you want hot food you hand in the sandwich to be microwave; in return you are given a sort of wand with a whole load of electrical gubbins inside it. The idea is that it will buzz when your food is ready for you to collect.

We sat down next next to some younger women who also had one of these things in front of them when suddenly the wand sprang into life and started vibrating its way across the table.

Looks of astonishment followed by what only could be described as raucous giggling ....

Not just any kind of vibrator but an M&S vibrator ..........

Contrast and compare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Confederate_States_of_America.svg

and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/results/7697829.stm


Ignore the staes that didn't actually exist in 1861 .....

Its not all over

Amongst the general, and justified, celebrations surrounding the election of an Afro-American to the White House which signals a huge change over my lifetime in attitudes wth race - both here and the US - one statistic indicates that the issue is not over yet in certain parts of the US:

Alabama

McCain 60.4%
Obama 38.8%

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the split was pretty much on racial lines.

Update:

According to the US Census Bureau the racial breakdown in Alabama is actually: White 71.2% Black 26.3

Well done the Lords

There are few things that this Government has done which has annoyed me more than the permanent retention of DNA samples...esp from innocent people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7710310.stm

Heavy heart time ...

I have been procrastinating on this for some time - in fact until the last possible moment - but given the current options I - as a Conservative - would end up voting for Obama. It would be a with a very heavy heart for my political instincts would be Republican but firstly I would never want Palin as a vice-president at all and I also feel that Obama - inexperienced as he is - would provide a more unifying force for the US than McCain ever would. McCain has been hampered by the Bush legacy and I can't seem that ever going to be helpful for a GOP President.

Choose your battleground carefully

David Cameron has an interesting article in the Sun today where the BBC is described as "Bloated" and "out of touch with the viewers". He is also surely correct to echo Andrew Marr's point about the BBC having "innate liberal bias" . However, now is not the time for the Conservatives to take on the BBC - at least not as an all-out assault - since (as the Osborne/Mandleson affair demonstrated all too clearly) the BBC has the power to cause direct damage to the Conservatives whilst not attacking Labour in the same way.

Be patient and wait until you are in power is my view .. then perform the root and branch reform that the BBC needs so drastically.

Tom Watson MP gets a good kicking

Tom Watson is a classic nulab apparatchik so it is highly entertaining when he gets a good kicking over the horrible mission creep of RIPA that he attempts to defend here.

Lovely .....

Update .. Of course I meant Tom Harris .... Brain fart

Danger ... danger.. danger ...

My daughter has bought her first car .....

The Ross and Brand Affair

One aspect of the Ross/Brand affair that hasn't been mentioned is that it happened on Radio 2 which has a very different demographic make up to other BBC radio stations. I suspect that if Ross/Brand had made those stupid comments on - say - Radio 1 then the response could well have been very different (a clue was given last night by the replies given by two different age groups waiting for the recordings of BBS programmes - an older audience waiting for Alan Titchmarsh and an very much younger one queueing for "Never mind the Buzzcocks".The older generation expressed outrage whereas the younger one said "so what?") but on safe cosy Radio 2? The station of Wogan, of Bunty .....

It was a misreading of the target audience that was the one of the biggest mistakes ....

On final thought: apparently Brand's production company is called "Vanity Productions". How appropriate.

Pour encourager les autres

"Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres" (Candide - Voltaire)

I get the impression that the prosecution of the MoD official was done very much to make an example of "someone" for all of the data leaks that have been endemic in the last few months.

Tardebigge

Had a break over the weekend to celebrate my wife's birthday and so - with three friends - the complete family hired a boat on Friday and attempted what is, for most UK canal people, a rite of passage - the Tardebigge flight.

The Tardebigge flight for those who are not familiar with it, is the longest flight of locks in the country - 30 locks in a fraction over two miles - and are backbreaking work even with a well trained and disciplined lock crew. However, it was an extraordinary experience - going straight out of one lock, through a very short pound into the next .. for lock after lock after lock ....

The problem is that the flight really doesn't stop at Tardebigge bottom lock since only a few hundred yards on is the start of the Stoke flight .....

We managed to do the Tardebigge flight in just over 3 and a half hours which we thought was pretty good ! The only thing was - we had to repeat it all the very next day ....

BBC getting hammered

I commented yesterday about the very obvious bias in the reporting by the BBC over the Osborne affair. It seem that am not alone if the response to Nick Robinson's blog here is anything to go by. The astonishingly weak blog by Steve Mawhinney has damaged the BBC's integrity even more. The comments are overwhelmingly hostile and point out the complete lack of balance between the accusations over Osborne and Mandelson's behavior as an EU Commissioner.

What bugs me even more it that I get the impression that the BBC actually know that they cocked it but haven't got the guts to admit it.

Funny how the media is reporting Osborne

Osborne has been a pillock - no question there - and his judgment is rightly being seriously questioned but why is Mandleson not being hammered - esp by the BBC (Robinson and Peston have been relatively silent on this) - concerning his extremely dubious meetings with the Russian billionaire who has a very dodgy background?

Now this I must see...

"Bendy-buses with the slogan "There's probably no God" could soon be running on the streets of London. " (here)

At last the Humanists are beginning to take their arguement to the public at last ...

Completely tasteless but brilliant!

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/10/21/humping_dog_brando/

Enough is enough

I read this in the Times this morning with a sinking heart. Our civil liberties that have been accumulated over centuries - sometimes with bloodshed - have being trampled upon with every increasing gusto by the Government. I am appalled by the latest news that all purchasers of PAYG mobile phones will need some form of official identification (and what about all of the under 18 kids for who mobiles phone access is de rigour? ) and that that information will be added to the "Big Brother" database being mooted by GCHQ. Apart from the technical issues (see Dizzy passim) which are considerable, this really really take the piss out of the old Elgar song with the lines "Mother of the free" ha ha bloody ha!.

The Tories must stand up and say "No more of this" The Government must get out of peoples lives. It won't help the fight against terrorism - the bad guys will just find ways around this (car boot sales of mobiles, reprogramming the IMEI, stolen phones etc) - but it will be an abhorrant interference into peoples private lives.

We are not drifting into a surveillance society - we ARE a surveillance society and it is getting worse.

Update: It gets worse ... I wrote the above before discovered this: http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2008/10/home-secretary-jacqui-smith---discussing-remote-searches-of-computer-hard-drives.html

Blue Peter at 50

I feel extremely old at the moment watching Blue Peter at 50. I remember Val Singleton, Chistopher Trace but the presenters I really remember are John Noakes and Peter Purves who seemed to dominated my childhood in the late sixties. What I hadn't realised was how awful were the fashions then .... truely vile .....

Gorbals Mick Investigates ...

Not a title of a second-rate TV show but hard-hitting fight against corruption by our fearless and intrepid Speaker of the House of Commons. Apparently he is to lead an investigation to see whether "I'm a straight sort of guy" Blair misled Parliament in his answers to the Bernie Ecclestone affair. It seems that Blair personally intervened to exempt Formula One from the tobacco advertising ban within hours of meeting Ecclestone - who coincidentally was a major Labour Party donor - but then "lied" to Parliament.

Now you call me a cynic but what are the odds that Blair will be fully exonerated by Gorbals Mick without a stain on his character?

Bad Money

This crisis is a classic example of the old adgae about bad money driving out good. Until the underlying problem of bad debt - and frankly no one has a clue where it is since it was bundled up into various schemes that were traded between the banks which was fine as long as the house prices didn't crash - is removed then the current problem will remain. So we have the following solutions:

• Even if the banks could start to trade again so that they start to lend to each other won't help. It might make the problem worse.
• Don't even think of writing the debt off. The money supply would dry up in seconds ....
• Print more money ? Galloping inflation here we come ....

Pratchett Nails It

From "Going Postal"

"The city had been saved not by heroes but by Gold. In fact, not even gold but the promise of gold, or more accurately the fantasy that somewhere at the end of it all there was gold, and there always would be, as long as you never went looking for it of course. This is Finance".

Ignobel Prize

Wonder who and why someone will get the Nobel Prize for Economics tomorrow.
If I were them I might well keep a very very low profile at the moment!

Look on the bright side

The world is in financial meltdown, G7 heads are in crisis meetings in Washington, savings are going down the pan ... but hey - its a lovely day, the robin in the garden hopped up to me ...its not all bad ...

This week's Economist

Thought for the day ...

My brother sent me this gem:

"What worries me most about the credit crunch, is that if one of my cheques is returned stamped "insufficient funds", I won't know whether that refers to mine or the bank's!"

Why Labour has failed

A colleague (Thanks BC) posted this on an internal news group ...

"No action following IMF warnings in 2002 saying UK credit is getting out of control.

No action following BBC Panoroma programme in 2004 saying that sub-prime mortgage loans were being awarded against dishonest income statements.

Removal of the BoE's teeth to intervene in banks with poor operating controls.

Restructuring the inflation calculations to keep IRs low.

Establishing the FSA without an understanding of how it would operate in a crisis, or even what its responsibilities are.

Appointing interest rate doves into the MPC to continually vote for cheaper credit.

Not reacting to understand newly created investment vehicles and their risks.

Not reacting to understand the carry trade risks.

Dithering over Northen Rock allowing a bank run to collapse the bank.

Holding talks with Lloyds to take over HBOS then allowing this news to leak
thereby destoying HBOS in the market and making a takeover a forgone conclusion.

Causing a silent run on banks by meeting with the heads of the high street
banks with no plan and taking another 48 hours to come up with a bail out
plan whilst work markets implode.

Allowing unregulated 115% mortgages.

Destroying pensions so that people turned to housing for investment.

Removing MIRAS so that private BTL could outcompete owner occupiers for housing stock.

Giving TAX incentivies to private BTL landlords.

Bottom line is this entire crisis is caused by out of control house prices.
Gordon's economy over the past 10 years is based on over priced housing."


Nice summation I think ......

Nobel Prizes

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is time for the Nobel prizes as the stand to be retired. The days of a single scientist making key discoveries is almost gone. There are exceptions - Kary Mullis is an example - but most scientists are now members of large research teams and the awarding of Nobels to individuals is invidious.

When a country goes bankrupt

It seems that Iceland is in deep trouble - inflation of around 14% and interest rates even higher - and it seems that they are looking for a bail out.....

Peter Mandelson

The sound of a barrel being scraped ....

The Met needs restructuring

Although I applaud Boris's vote of no confidence in Ian Blair and the latters subsequent resignation it does bring up some serious issues about the split role of the Met where it deals in national and local matters. The Met is responsible for policing in London in the same way that any other regional force does but it has a national responsibility for terrorism and such.

I cannot believe that it is right for the Mayor of London to exercise a veto of such national issues so there is an urgent need for anti-terrorism to be placed on a national basis and split away from the Met and to be declared a separate police force with its own chief constable responsible to the Home Secretary.

Iain Blair

I am writing this whilst waiting for a "significant statement" to be made about his future. I really hope that it is his resignation. Blair has become far too political and too closely allied with Labour. The extremely damaging row with Tarique Ghaffur has further weakened his tattered credibility. His judgement has been questioned frequently and there always was a view that he refused to accept responsibility for the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. So if he is to go then it will be for the best for the Met and his successor will be able to rebuild a fractured relationship with Londoners.

Cameron's Speech

So far - from what I can tell over a flakey internet connection - it has been good. Short on policy but to be honest that was expected - the times are just too turbulent at the moment - but on the whole I liked it. He must be careful in not over-helping Gordon Brown - just enough to pull us out of the mire but nowhere near enough to actively prop up the mess that Labour has, partially at least, got us into.

Gurkhas win right to stay in UK

Good

Anybody who serves in today's army deserves the right to stay here.

So now where we go?

The lower house of the US Congress have rejected the $700 billion bale out. What is odd is the number of Democrats (95) voted against it. This will make it difficult for Obama to point the blame at the Republicans and so probably won't affect the election. What is worrying is that the Dow Jones dropped heavily upon the news, and banks will be even more loath to lend money between themselves.

There will be a lot of worried people around the globe tonight.

Banged to rights .....

According to a Politics Home survey the Conservatives are winning the contest in cyberspace hands down.

What I liked was this bit:

"Another panellist reckons it is down to the nerdiness of Conservatives, saying: 'They have a grassroots of geeks.'"

Think Dizzy will be chuffed as well!

Trip down memory lane

Son number 2 and I went out n the glorious autumn sunshine just to escape the city. Anyway apart from a visit to Astley Vineyards where got a few bottles of English wine, we ended up here at Harvington Hall near Kidderminster. Why memory lane? Well, I went to school about half-a-mile away from Harvington and I regulally attended the church whch stands just in front of the hall. I am certain that the church was bigger when I was a child ....

This made me laugh

This is from a Rail Accident Investigation Branch report about an accident in Leicestershire (no-one seriously hurt) when a tipper lorry knocked down part of a footbridge on to the tracks and a train was derailed:

"The causal factor was that the lorry driver forgot to fully lower the body of the lorry
because he was distracted from his normal routine by having to unlock the cab passenger
door to allow access for the controller of site safety (COSS)."

http://www.raib.gov.uk/cms_resources/20080925_R182008_BarrowuponSoar.pdf

Road Signs

Now really tell be something I didn't know: "Out of 500 drivers surveyed last year, none was able to correctly identify 12 road signs and only one sign - the speed camera - was known to them all. " (here)

Acorns Hospice

Been listening to the 5 Live BreakFast Show from Acorns Children's Hospice in Worcester.

I wasn't able to listen to all of it (will try tonight) but the bit I did hear affected me profoundly.

Having said that listening to the fortitude of some of the kids was really brilliant! (I was particually impressed by a teenager called Alex who has muscular dystrophy who had a pretty good line in banter ....)

Most uplifting.

One thing though: why does the Government fund children's hospices less than the equivilant adult ones on a proportional basis? This surely isn't right.


Update

Discovered that Alex has a blog here .... and photos here:

EDF buys British Nuclear

No one want a nuclear power station built on their doorstep - although I suspect that some of the people in the remoter parts of the country like North Wales would be glad to get the employment that such stations provide - Wyfla in Anglesea is due to close soon and I guess that that would not help in such a poor area - but I consider them to be, using Lord Lister's phrase about the spraying of Carbolic Acid [phenol] in the operating theatre, "a necessary evil incurred to attain a greater good."

The French have had over the years a safe, productive nuclear industry that provides about 80% of France's electricty. So we have a choice here:

• get the technology to build clean-burning coal stations right
• or build nuclear stations from people who know how to
• continue to import our energy

Britain is horribly exposed to - for want of a better word - blackmail since our energy is now so much imported and makes us very vulnerable.

I don't like nuclear 100% - memories of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island come to mind but I fear that we have no choice - both from a political and environmental point-of-view.

Bad Science

Just been listening to BBC's Midland's Today discussing an outbreak of the norovirus in local hospitals.

"And alcohol hand washes .... will not get rid of this bacteria ...."

Ignorance, pure ignorance....

Finland's Massacre

One of the most bizarre aspects of the horrific massacre in Finland was the gunman's piece to camera.

"You will die next"

In English.

That "Novice" Jibe (Pt 2)

From a comment on James Forsyth's Spectator blog:

'"No time for a novice" he said.
"No time for a bumbling incompetent" say I.'

That "Novice" Jibe

The problem with Brown's "novice" jibe is that Brown has been in power - either as Chancellor or as PM - for 11 years and he is still screwing it up. Although there most certainly is a global turn down, it is the fact that it probably will be worst in Britain when compared with the other western economies prevents the government from passing the buck and absolving itself from the responsibilty for its actions.

If this is what the non-novice can do then give me the novice anytime.

Eurolottery £100m prize

http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/gaming/drawgame/displayEuroPlayslip.do

That sort of money might not buy you happiness but it sure as hell can make misery very, very comfortable.

Darwin Awards

This must be a prime candidate for this year's Darwin Awards

J.K.Rowling's £1m

OK it's her money to squander on lost causes -but her justification seems a bit thin comparing the Tories views on tax breaks for married couples with Labour's record on child poverty - conveniently forgetting their infamous 10p tax break which shoved even more poor people into difficulties.

However, one other point needs to be raised: I suspect that she can afford the best accountancy and tax advice that can be bought, and that her tax burden has been shrunk (all legal - don't get me wrong) to the absolute minimum. So I do wish Labour will finally shut up about the Tories taking donations from people who have done exactly the same.

How to lie with statistics - Part 1854

Today the Independent published the result of a survey conducted by LabourHome and crowed about the grassroots turning against Brown. Now I have absolutely no objections in principal to that - the sooner he goes the better, and even better a General Election soon.

However, the survey will with luck go down as a classic example of how not to do a survey. It exhibits all the faults that Darell Huff described in his wondrous, if now dated, book "How to lie with statistics"

What was wrong with it?

The premise was simple: email all the members and tot up those who responded.

The problem with that it is not random. Now the number of respondees is reasonable - 788 but that number has what is known as a "selection bias".

For instance:

• The survey was performed on-line. In other words there was a selection here: only those people who has access to the Internet could respond. Those who didn't couldn't. People who have access to the Internet might have different views to those who don't. (If anyone thinks that this is unlikely, this actually happened in a more extreme for in the 1948 US Presidential election when a telephone poll gave Dewey a big win over Truman. The problem was that the people who owned telephones in 1948 were then wealthier than those who didn't, and hence less likely to vote for the Democrat incumbent).
• Secondly, the 788 respondees were only those people who could be arsed to email something back. Now these people almost by definition are more highly motivated that those who didn't. How this translates into a more accurate poll answer is literally impossible to say - which is exactly the point.
• A poll must be be random across the complete sample that is being measure - ie all the grassroots members and must be of a size that makes it results significant (both in the statistical and political sense)

The combination of the three completely invalidates the poll - making it one that Sir Robert Worcester of MORI fame calls a "Voodoo Poll" and it makes all the worse that a paper such as the Independent could splash it across its front pages this morning. It literally is meaningless

Why we need some greed....

Capitalism has had a bad press over the last few days - "greedy" bankers screwing up the economy, the mysteries of short selling have be explained God knows how many times to a bewildered public who haven't a clue as to what is going on except that it is bad and are looking inwards at jobs, prosperity etc

But some greed is a must since it drives forwards the economy and it provides us all with a increased standard of living. As a colleague put it nicely today: "If we were all tolerant, caring, sharing people, we'd all still be being very nice to each other living in our mud huts."

Totally unacceptable

Apparently some Aussie pub is "offering free drinks to women who remove their underwear and display it to patrons ." (here)

This is totally sexist and most certainly should be banned.

Now where did I put those QANTAS tickets ........?

Silver lining

With luck one result of the HBOS debacle is that we won't see too many more of the profoundly irritating adverts with Howard and his ilk ....

Update

Apparently the even more irritating Sheila's Wheels are also part of HBOS.....

Jeez: Tories on 52%

http://www.order-order.com/2008/09/meltdown-tories-breakthrough-to-52-ftse.html

Labour on 24%.... given this government's performance I am amazed it is 24% ....

No Longer The Conservative Party At Prayer

One of the changes in the Conservative party of the last few years if the increasing personal liberalism that has occured. No-one gives a monkies anymore (well almost no-one - there probably are a few old guard around but not many) about an adults sexuality - see Iain Dale and Alan Duncan - but there is a strange antipathy towards atheists and humanists (for example this comment on ConHome :"The Conservative Party could only become anti-religious if it were to cease to be conservative."). Now the days of the Conservatives being the political wing of the C Of E are long gone but comments like that illustrate my point.

However - and if you pardon my comparison - the Conservative party is a broad church and I was glad to see that there a new society - The Conservative Humanist Association - which is for those right-leaning atheists like myself.

They have invited Richard Dawkins to speak at a fringe meeting at the Tory party conference (something I can't get to because it is inside the security cordon) but there will be another time.

Large Hadron Collider - CERN

There is a fascinating webcam here: http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Sarah's law

I am in two minds about the idea that the addresses of known sex offenders be made generally available. Lets be honest no parent would want a violent or known sex offender living close to their family. But I fear that this issue could cause more trouble later. Given the hysterical response to such issues before I really don't trust some of the Great British Public to use violence against such offenders - or even worse get an innocent person.

Well done Australia

David Weir must have had a pretty bad few hours over in Beijing, initally winning his T54 800m race, and then being told that the race would have to be re-run over some issue with the Austraian lane order.

However the result will now stand: the Australian team coach, Kurt Fearnley , has written to the jury formally requestion that the result stand.

Intense sporting rivalry yes - but both nations can spot a major injustice.

Why the rebels will fail...

I see that the number of nomination papers submitted to initiate a challenge to Gordon Brown is now up to seven (although Guido reckons the number of sympathisers is now up to about 40) but I fear that it won't happen. Obviously there is an unseen guiding force behind all of this - it is surely no coincidence that a high number of these are women - but what then? Lets suppose for the sake of argument that the magical number of 70 rebels is found to start an election: who in their right (or left!) minds is going to be a token PM (Straw might even lose his seat if current polls are sustained) for 18 months until the next election? Surely the best policy for Labour is to accept that they are doomed (admittedly having a different leader might make them slightly less doomed - at least on an individual MPs point-of-view ie more Labour MPs can keep their snouts in the taxpayer's trough for longer) and then to regroup under a different leader in 2010 who might be able to bring them back from the precipice in 2015.

HMS Victory

According to the Portsmouth News the MOD is considering giving away HMS Victory to either a charity or a private company. Haven't these people got any sense of history?

Hope for Zimbabwe?

It seems that some form of power-sharing is now inevitable but I am wary on the details. It seems that Mugabe will keep control of the army whereas Morgan Tsvangirai will control the police.

Wait and see for details.

Fact and theory

Dizzy has sparked off a vigorous debate about - well it started off about evolution - the scientific method.

Anyway I was attacked for declaring that

"Evolution is a FACT. End of story. The evidence for it is huge, massive AND incontrovertible"

The other person replied:

"did you take this from another debate and change MMGW to evolution ?..... that line of 'debate' is so familiar."

What is sad is that so many people mistake observations and theory.

Global warming is an observable fact - the ice caps are melting.

But what is the explanation?

The current theory is that human activity is responsible for the observable fact. The point about a scientific theory is that it is the best current explanation for a series of observations. However, theories can change with greater evidence and can even be discarded if they don't fit observations.

Examples of this abound - the fact that Newton's laws didn't account for slight discrepencies in the orbit of Mercury and that modification were required to the theory is an absolute classic.

Brown's Clanger

So a low ranking aide inserted into an article that carried the Prime Minister's name (here). This I find very strange: was there no vetting of the article by more senior Downing Street people before publication? Or was there ...?

Either way a bollock has been dropped.

Spore and censorship

There is a determined campaign over at amazon.com which is marking down the new EA game Spore - and when I mean marking it down I mean one star - in a protest at the use of DRM and the fact that you are limited to 3 installs without contacting EA to explain what is happening (and frankly the challenge to the hackers to break that particular obstacle will be greater).

Ignoring the fact that a child might well install the software without understanding the finer points of DRM (& that is precisely what has happened in this house), there are serious allegations that Amazon(.co.uk not .com) has been censoring poor reviews ( here and here ).

If this is true then Amazon's stupidity is beyond belief. If the reviews are negative - and unless they are defamatory then they should stay - then the further damage that Amazon will incur by removing them will be far greater than letting them stay. IF it's true that Amazon are censoring messages then I am pretty certain that they will be bitten seriously in the arse. The Internet has traditionally by-passed censorship.

Update

My son has pointed out that Take 2 (another games manufacturer) had similar issues with DRM and the game Bioshock. Take 2 gave in ....

Rambling Thoughts

Horrible day, leaden , threatening skies still outside - portent of more flooding round this neck of the woods? Jonah Brown is listening but I doubt anything he can do will actually make a difference. Be interesting what reaction he will get at Labour's conference especially now that the unions are beginning to flex their arthritic limbs - the 1970's throwback yesterday was extraordinary. As for the barking idea of a windfall tax... that will only drive more and more companies off to Ireland for a much friendlier business environment....

I wish I had the money

to emulate this . That is a cause that I feel strongly in and I congratulate both Help For Heroes and Julie Heselden.

Must admit I'm not sure if the Hawk aircraft wouldn't need a thorough clean up after me!

Another Downfall Parody

Over at Guido....

How many of them are there out there?

Still funny though ...

Large Hadron Collider

I do hope that the swirling results of the high-energy collisions don't form the pattern of 101010 .....

Gordon Brown

Comment from work:

You've got to love this man.
The power companies refuse to co-operate with him on a voucher scheme, so he re-interprets this and
says that there would be no "short-term gimmicks or giveaways".

The EU and blogs

A considerable amount of the right and centre-right blogosphere is up in arms about reported aspirations that the EU has aspirations to control and regulate blogs. (Ian Dale and Dizzy for example following this in the Telegraph)

I am pretty pro-Europe, which given my deep interest in history is no surprise - but it is the unending ability of certain European institutions to unerringly to shoot themselves in the foot which always astonishes me. Someone , somewhere upon discovering the proposal should have realised that this would go down like the proverbial lead zeppelin, antagonising even further a hostile UK audience and potentially making enemies of people in a wider Europe. Yes, I realise that this is just a EP proposal and so with luck will wither on the EU vine but even thinking about such a think is like pouring more petrol onto an EU-sceptic fire.

Anyways, in a free(ish) society like our the internet tends to find ways round such things.

Completely and utterly crass

Romans Roaming ...

Interesting item on the BBC concering the possibility that a gene (CCR5)that makes the current inhabitants of the former Roman Empire more susceptible to HIV infections was spread around in those times (here) .

Now although I haven't read the original report (will try to), the possibility of the propagation of genes around the Empire comes as no surprise.

Evidence from Hadrian's Wall which, apart from the initial building phase, was garrisoned by Roman auxilaries and not legionaries (the former were not citizens whereas the latter were - at least until later in the Empire when all free-born males were made citizens) indicates a huge range of people stationed there: Syrians, Spaniards, Gauls, Africans, Dacians (Modern Romania) ....

Metro Hotel

One of the things that this country can be genuinely proud of are our armed forces. One the whole the forces - and especially the army - have performed their - sometimes thankless - task with humour and a professionalism that is rare today. There have been problems in the last few years - the Deepcut bullying scandal and allegations of deliberate abuse of civilians, some of the latter have ended up as court-martials - but these are very rare indeed.

So I get extremely angry when I read a story about a serving soldier being turned away by a hotel for being in the military.

The prejudices rampant more than a hundred years ago of Kipling's Tommy (I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,The publican 'e up an sez, "We serve no red-coats here.") should have been long forgotten.

Chrome

El Reg has a very interesting piece about Googles new web browser, Chrome.

In Section 11.1 there is the following:

"11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services."

and

"11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license."

In translation this means that Google can do pretty well what they want with your content accessed via Chrome.

Not clever

Also see: http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks

Update

From http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks

"Here's an official response from Rebecca Ward, Senior Product Counsel for Google Chrome:"In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products. Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don't apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome."

The Republican Spin Doctors

must be having heart attacks at the thought of Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin's lover and father of her unborn child, being the son-in-law of the VP or even the President......

I feel sorry for my daughter ...

"Women pick men who look like dad "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7593336.stm

BBC Travel

Ironically the BBC has reported that the Lib Dems have obtained details of its travel expenses. I have a number of serious issues with it:

• Although the BBC has reported that "Spend on flights is subject to rigorous scrutiny and has actually fallen significantly in the last year, reflecting our commitment to value for money. " questions must be asked about the amount of first and business class travel involved. Is it just down to the vanity of the people involved? If so tough ....


• This is before coverage the US Presidential Elections and the Olympics is taken into account. If the Guardian (as reported by Guido) is correct then the extraordinary number of 472 people are being sent to cover the US elections which is higher than all of the major US networks. How many of those people are going first and business class.....?

I am reading Lewis Page's hatchet job on the MoD (which is an entertaining polemic with some errors but still worthwhile) and wondering whether its time for the BBC to be subject to such a study? There might even be one already ....

There are still decent people out there ...

Sitting at my desk this morning, when a colleague passed a package to me. It obviously a book but I hadn't ordered one and I was most certainly not expecting one.

I opened it and inside there was this and a note from a colleague/friend: "I was in a charity shop, saw this and thought of you".

Was really touched ....

The Millies

In one of the tackier things that the Sun has done recently, the "Millies" must rank as one of the tackiest. Apart from the fact that is precisely what gallantry awards are for, I dread to wonder what the categories will be. As always the denizens of the ARmy Rumour SErvice, ARRSE to its friends, suggest a few:

• for the chaps.. the "most doses caught in a 12 month period" award proof of courses of antibiotics and having a bell end that looks like a chewed dog toy are mandatory.
• Most obstructive storeman- awarded to the man or woman who despite all the odds managed to issue absolutely nothing to anyone over a 1 year period, and offered nothing except abuse, and bitterness. also called the "i'ts all mine i tell ya" award.
• biggest sex liar award - given to the man (or woman) coming up woth the most implausible, unbelievable, but delivered with absolute sincerity whopper about their on leave shennanigans.

(thread here. You have been warned!)

I also dread to think what the acceptance speeches would be like ....

You have got to have a heart of stone not to laugh ...

http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/local/3636182.Cyclist_rides_straight_into_river/


A CYCLIST in Worcester had to be rescued by firefighters after she rode into the river while talking on her mobile phone.

The woman, believed to be in her 20s, was cycling along Kleeve Walk, near Worcester Cathedral and South Quay, at midnight on Sunday.

A spokesman for Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service said the woman had been on the phone to her friend as she was riding.

“She wobbled and swerved the bike down the embankment of the river, through all the stinging nettles, and ended up in the River Severn," he said.

“She managed to scream while still holding the mobile phone and alerted her friend. Her friend then managed to ring 999 and we came out."

Firefighters threw lines to the stricken cyclist and managed to pull the woman to safety. They also managed to drag the bike out of the river.

“She was stung from head to foot and was in shock. We got the paramedics there and she was treated for shock, cold and also the stings.

“This is a salutary lesson if every there was one,” he said.

For ever autumn ....

Lovely autumnal morning today.

However, isn't there normally a season between spring aud autumn?

But it's only a theory

Given the possibility of an acknowledged creationist becoming vice-president, the normal cry about evolution will be heard even more by those who see her appointment as strengthening their position.

"But its only a theory" goes the cry.

Lets nail that one on its head once and for all.

Ignoring that there are many theories in science that the creationists seem to ignore (Quantum Theory, Theory of Relativity amongst others) since they either don't understand them or just don't fit into their world view, it must be emphasisied that the word "theory" itself causes the problems.

In everyday use, a theory is better than a guess or a hunch but not much better but the word in science means something much much stronger.

A scientific theory is the explanatory model that best explains a natural phenonema. A scientific theory can be tested against known facts - and can be modified if found wanting. A lot of scientific laws are in fact theories.

An example of the latter is Newton's Laws of Gravity... These survived until Einstein's Theory of Relativity (note the change from Law to Theory!)

Evolution is a scientific theory ... it best explains how life changed on ths planet...

Today

Recovering ...

Sarah Palin

Extraordinary choice. She has only had two years in office as Governor of Alaska (which has an electorate smaller than a Euro seat here - say 500,000 of which about half voted), definitely on the right of the party - life membership of the NRA and anti-abortion.

I think she will be an election asset for most - but how she will go down in Redneck country ...?

Remember this: McClain is 72 - and we don't know how badly his health was damaged by his stay in the Hanoi Hilton.

BTW her husband apparently works for BP at times ...


Update

Thought has struck me that being pro-life and pro-gun is an odd combination....and I really really don't want a person who has upported creationist teachings anywhere near the White House. I would think that the US scientific community has just let out a collective groan.

Chaos Reigns Supreme

Big wedding tomorrow ...

The taste is back ...

Here I wondered about where has all the taste gone... well at long last I can tell you: into my garden. Had some lovely, gorgeous corn-on-the-cob that was picked this afternoon. Absolutely scrummy ...

1s, 2s, 2p, 3s

My son has been accepted to do A level chemistry (as well as geology and computer science) at the local six form college. Problem is that it is now so long that I did any form of chemistry that I am just so rusty. I have decided therefore to try and catch up - if only so I can follow what on earth he is doing!

I always felt that A levels were the most difficult examinations I ever did - you seem to have to learn a fairly broad but deepish understanding of a subject, whereas, of course, at university the subject narrows but deepens (yes yes first years are fairly entertaining!). I am not - yet until I see what a modern chemistry A level is like - going to get into the debate as to whether standards have slipped or just that the structure of the course has changed beyond all recognition so that comparisons cannot be made between the winner-takes-all exams at the end of two years or the modern modular course.

Anyway been reminding myself of the electron shells of the elements at the beginning of the periodic table as well as joys (at least to the organic chemist - physical chemists tend to look at this in horror!) of orbital hybridisation.

So here we go: pi and sigma bonds ... Hund's rule, sp3 hybridisation, sp2 hybrids - double bonds, shapes of methane, ammonia and water etc etc

Got a feeling that this might be a longish journey!

I might not know it but I do hope I understand it!

Cynical, Cynical Post Office

Last night on Midlands Today I watch a representative of the Post Office claim that there had been public consultation for its proposed closure of local offices. 'Fraid I have only one word for that: "Bollocks". The Post Office had plainly decided which ones would close and the whole consulation process was a complete sham.

My evidence for this claim: simple - 50 offices in the West Midlands are to close and just ONE has been reprieved.

This process is moving on inexorably now to the West Mercia area and no-one will believe the Post Offices claims about the consulation.

Yes, the Post Office badly needs reform but this is a public relations disaster on a grand scale.

Lloyds Bank

I bank with Lloyds and on the whole I am satisfied with them but I am disturbed by this story. Now the customer might have had issues with Lloyds but they are of no concern here. What is of concern is the internal security of Lloyds. Firstly, according to El Reg , the password length has a limit of only six characters which is far far too short for modern systems; and secondly it implies that the staff employed at Lloyds can actually see your password. Not very reassuring and I wonder how an security auditor would view that practice.

Data Found

I suppose that this makes a change from the unending stories about critical data being lost but it is just as bad.

Dumping old legal files on a tip reinforces my view that the public services are horribly lax about data security - whether in paper or electronic format.

Wall head hit

How the hell am I able to diagnose a tar extract issue if someone unbeknowest to me keeps recreating the effing tar archive at the same time?

Today

Hip is bad, stump is sore and I have a Monday morning feeling on a Tuesday .....

Urghh!

Political Inhumanity

I thought the idiocy concerning Myra Hindley was the height but that lasted lesss than 24 hours.

I discovered this earlier. In essence an ambulance controller refused to send out a vehicle to an injured motocross rider because the event was covered by private medics. The transcript of the call makes astonishing reading:

EXTRACTS FROM THE TRANSCRIPT..

The caller explains the rider's medical situation and after questioning explains that a private ambulance service is at the event.

Shift manager: "Are you working for a private ambulance service?"

Caller: "We are."

Shift manager: "Okay, well I can't send you an ambulance I'm afraid."

Caller one: "We don't have an ambulance on site and we cannot transport as we cannot leave the event."

Shift manager: "Well I'm sorry, I'm not sending an NHS resource, I'm sorry. When you guys put in the business case that should all be addressed, and I can't send an ambulance and deprive the local community of an NHS resource to transfer a patient."

Caller: "I'm sorry, this patient is seriously ill here. He has suspected head and neck injuries and we do not have a vehicle to transport."

The shift manager explains to a member of the committee running the club (caller two) that if they have paid for medical cover they must provide an ambulance.

Caller two: "We have a guy who is bleeding from the mouth, he's agitated, we've got oxygen on him, we need an ambulance."

Shift manager: "No."

Caller two: "You want us to leave this person lying in a field till we get an ambulance? Is that what you're saying?"

Shift manager: "Excuse me, do you want me to leave a person with chest pain who is paying the NHS to get ambulance provision?

The shift manager then asks to speak to whoever is in charge of the incident, at which point caller three, identified as the clerk of the course, takes the phone.

Caller three: "Every meeting we have run for about the last ten years, when we've asked for an ambulance to come on site, they have come on site. This is the first time I've heard of anything like this. I don't understand this at all."

Shift manager then asks to speak to the manager of the private ambulance service.Shift manager: "I'm sorry, but I'm not sending an ambulance until I clarify exactly what is going on here."

Caller four then brings over his head, identified as caller five, and following more to-ing and fro-ing, he says they will use a car they have.

Caller five: "I'm not going to argue, I'm going to put the phone down."

Apart from the obvious point that the shift manager considered that her political viewpoint was more important than the health of the injured rider, there is also the normal anonymity that is now to be found.

That shift manager could have killed the rider but who was that person? Was she fired? (like hell) What further action was taken ? (Damn all I suspect)

Crass crass totally crass

Who on earth thought that this was smart, clever idea?

It makes me wonder about the common sense of supposedly clever people. Someone somewhere should have had the nous to realise that putting an image such as that would bring a ton load of opprobrium down upon their heads. I hope to God that we learn a bit more befre 2012.

Never interview kids live .....

Priceless bit just now from the BBC programme celebrating London's official start as the Olympic host city......

Interviewer chatting to some kids about which sport they liked to watch at the Olympics:

"Taekwondo .. I liked the bit where the referee got kicked ...." came the reply!

Priceless

The London Handover piece

Wasn't quite as buttock clenchingly embarrassing as I feared it would be ....

The odious Paul Gadd

I see that there are calls for police not to protect Paul Gadd, including from Simon Heffer in today's Telegraph. Unfortuantely these calls are wrong. Gadd/Glitter is an repulsive, vile, arrogant specimen but he should be afforded the same protection that anyone else would warrant. We cannot pick and choose who gets protection and it would be our responsibility if some low-life (the sort that confuses paediatrician and paedophile) causes him harm or worse.

When will they ever learn?

There is yet another scandal concerning the loss of sensitive data from the Government; this time details of thousands of criminals.

Apart from the stupidity of copying such data onto a memory stick (for God's sake there are Government departments that advise on this) why the hell wasn't it encrypted when it was put on to that memory stick?

It doesn't matter whether it was the Government or a contractor that was to blame the buck stops with the Government since it was their procedures that should have been followed.

Additionally, I do hope that the contactors involved were SCed.

Natalie du Toit

Wasn't she an inspiration?

She finished 16th in the 10km swim ....

Abuse of powers

There is a disturbing story in the newpapers about the shameful arrest of a man who photographed a PC reversing the wrong way up a one way street. Without going into the details of that particular case (which should have involved the dismissal of the PC involved but didn't) what is deeply disturbing is that the man involved had DNA samples and fingerprints taken. I strongly suspect that these were not destroyed even though the Avon and Somerset Chief Constable has apologised and called the officer's behaviour "totally unacceptible.

Gary Glitter has "heart attack"

Does anyone actually believe him? (BBC)

Not that I would wish harm to a fellow human being but in a way I hoped it was true .....

A fair medal table

One of the minor pleasures of these Olympics is watching GB climb steadily up the medal table until they are, at the time of writing, third.

However what is a fair medal table?

Most countries (ok ok ALL countries bar one!) and the IOC have a gold centred system with the order being rankings by gold then, within gold, silver and finally bronze. This can produce serious iniquities: to take an extreme example, should a country that has won, say 1 gold be ranked higher than a country that has won, say 10 silvers?

For instance, at present, Hungary has won 4 silvers and a bronze and is ranked below Tunisia which has won a solitary gold.

The US (and ONLY the US) have a total medals system where countries are ordered by the total number of medal won. Now, of course, this also can have anomalies: it would be crazy to consider that a country winning 51 bronze medals would be ahead of a country that wins 50 golds. But that is their way and at present it keeps them at the top of the medals table (surprise! surprise!)

So what is a fair medal table?

I don't think anyone would doubt that winning gold deserves higher ranking that winning a bronze so I have given each one a value, gold=3,silver=2 and bronze=1 so we have Bonetired's Olympic medal table .....

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Points
China	39	14	14	159
USA	22	24	26	140
Australia	11	10	12	65
Russia	8	13	15	65
GB	13	7	8	61

However, I cannot see it catching on ...

Puts the Aussies above us ...

So gold=6, silver=2 and bronze=1 would do the trick......

Yvette Cooper and bullshit ...

Iain Dale has performed what he describes as a "light fisk" on a stupid article written by Yvette (Balls) Cooper in today's Guardian.

He needed have bothered since the comments to the article are what could only be desscribed as a "savage fisking"

History of the 100 meters

Lets see what the history of the event since the Seoul Olympics:

1988 Ben Jonson - THE cheat
1992 Linford Christie. Tested positive for nandralone 1999
1996 Donovan Bailey
2000 Maurice Green
2004 Justin Gatlin Currently banned
2008 Usain Bolt

Inspires confidence , doesn't it?

Russian bully boy tactics

Looking around the newpapers this morning, I am beginning to wonder whether the Russian tactics orchestrated by the ex-KGB thugs in the Kremlin are beginning to unravel. Yes, they are still holding Georgia hostage, and I will believe the withdrawal when I actually see it, but the knock-on effect is beginning to draw countries that surround Russia more westwards. The Ukraine has offered to share with the west its early warning radar data and the crass Russian statement that Poland is a target will only make existing links stronger.

Ironically, the action in Georgia could isolate Russia even more.

100 metres

How the bloody hell did he do that?!

Mobility Scooters

There is an interesting, and slightly depressing because it is becoming polarised, discussion in the internal work news groups.

A small girl (4 1/2) was being walked by her grandmother along a pavement when one of those mobility scooters being driven by a man who appeared to be in his 80s came up behind, caught the child by the legs and literally ran her over, with the child being scuffed along the ground for some distance.

It was, apparently, not the first offence for this elderly man and hardly surprisingly the parent of the child wants to take action.

The problem as I see it is that if the old man's mobility was removed, its not like banning a BMW driver but rather condemming an old man to potential solitude and lonliness.

Of course these scooters should be driven carefully so there is no excuse for what he did and that some action should be taken. However, removing his mobility could be a death sentence.

Ignoring Michael Phelps

As if one can! But seriously are the Americans doing as well in these Olympics as we expected? At the time of writing the US have won 10 golds. Now if one subtracts Phelps's total we have the US winning 5, below South Korea, Germany and only just above Italy with the Chinese being way ahead on 17.

Strange how just one person can dominate so much....

RIPA and basic liberties

The Telegraph has a report that RIPA is - as everybody feared - having mission creep and now local councils and health authorities are being encouraged to further use the power to intercept phone calls and emails. Why? The Government says that "This data is a vital tool to investigations and intelligence gathering in support of national security and crime" .

So why are health authorities getting that power? What possible need do they have for data intercepts? Councils (for eg Poole) have proven time and time again that they are not to be trusted with RIPA powers and that these powers are being misused.

Dizzy has an excellent blog on why any half-decent criminal would bye-pass RIPA anyway, something that any decent techie would be able point out to the government...

Happy 90th To The Greatest Living Briton

Tomorrow (August 13th) is the 90th birthday of the man that I consider the greatest living Briton, but it seems that most people haven't heard of him. He is, apparently since I haven't met him, extremely modest about his achievements but given that he is the only person alive to have won two Nobel Prizes and in fact the only person ever to have won two in Chemistry (1958 & 1980) it is fair to say that they are substantial. The first man to elucidate (in the 1950s) the primary structure -the order of amino acids which form its backbone - of a protein (insulin) and later on to develop one of the key methods of detemining the sequence of bases within DNA (the dideoxynucleotide method was the one - with modifications - used by the Human Genome Project [details here] to sequence human DNA).

It is fair to say that his impact upon science has been profound.

Happy 90th Birthday, Frederick Sanger OM CH CBE FRS

Attack on our freedoms

Guido and elsewhere have blogged this from the Times . It is one of the most serious attacks on both our freedoms and government openness that has occured for a long time.

Time to re-open radar sites

The behavior of Putin at the moment means that the cold-war is restarting and that we in the west will be part of it. Reconnaissance Bears are now approaching our shores again , although not in the numbers of 20+ years ago.

As part of the peace dividend we closed down and centralized our radar assets, major sites including Buchan and Saxa Vord have either been downgraded or in the latter case actually closed.

Think its time to re-open

Olympic opening ceremony ...

suffered the Blue-Screen-Of-Death ....

http://gizmodo.com/5035456/blue-screen-of-death-strikes-birds-nest-during-opening-ceremonies-torch-lighting

Will the security forces go meekly?

It seems that Mugabe will be kicked upstairs to a ceremonial post, with Morgan Tsvangirai being in effective power as Prime Minister. The problem with that is that Mugabe's Security Forces - esp the veterans of the murderous 5th Brigade - have a lot of blood on their hands and might not go quietly.

Olympic translations

Just gathering some translations of stock phrases at the Olympics:

"Gallant effort" = "Came last"

"Judged the moment perfectly" = "Did it by the skin of the teeth!"

"This is incredible!" = "Which drug are you on?"

"Narrowly missed the bronze" = "Loser"

"Might have been the possibility of a fault" = "Miles out."

More to come ....

Competitive pharmacology

I have great fears that the cynic within me will come towards the front during these Olympics. Not just athletics but in the other power sports - esp weightlifting amongst others - which will be dominated by the question that no-one will dare ask:

"Are you clean?"

Time for a goodwill visit

of some F-15s to Georgia?

Olympic cameramen

Same all over the world ....

Following the totty.

The Bear's Claws

As the world's attention is diverted towards Beijing, I see that the Russians have interceded in a separarist fight in Georgia (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7548715.stm). The antics of the ex-KGB man is beginning to get worrying. Russia seems to be regressing back about 30 years.

Support Droids

I had a meeting yesterday near my brother's house so afterwards I met up and joined him in something to eat.

Unfortunately his broadband connection had completely died overnight and I voluteered to help.

Big Big Mistake ....

The symptoms were that the ADSL connection to the ISP were dead. orange fault light on router flashing happily

Ran through the normal checks - connection from PC to router OK? yes

Router OK? yes - swapped it out with his old one and problem remained.

Checked account details on router - yup fine

Connection from router to phone point - looks OK

So phone up support.

I explained the symptoms, ran through what I had done, and gently suggested that it probably wasn't us but rather BT.

Without going through the 45 minute call which would bore everybody to death I would suggest that reinstalling winsock on the PC would probably not help .....

Bloody droid

Oh and the Broadband connection came back to life on its own later in the evening.

Blood group

Just heard that my daughter's blood group is AB-

Rocking horse dung that one!

Navel Gazing

The news that a Conservative PPC (Ian Oakley) indulged in a vitriolic and nasty campaign against his, primarily Lib Dem, opponents is deeply disturbing. Whatever the reasons behind his attacks (personally - and without any evidence at all- I would suggest that he needs medical help) serious questions must be asked as to how such a man became selected by the Conservatives.

Update

There is a certain amount of speculation that my thoughts on his mental health might not be too far off the mark ( http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/879086/thoughts-onthe-ian-oakley-case.thtml ) in which case one wonders whether or not there should be psychological and psychometric testing for candidates. It would happen in many other professions so why not for parliamentary candidates?

More Government incompetance

I would love to be in estate agent's and solicitor's offices today as the phones go red hot with people cancelling/postponing any house purchases that might be in the pipeline if this story is true http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/Ministers-Consider-Plans-To-Temporarily-Scrap-Stamp-Duty-To-Boost-Housing-Market/Article/200808115070980?lpos=Business_0&lid=ARTICLE_15070980_Ministers%2BConsider%2BPlans%2BTo%2BTemporarily%2BScrap%2BStamp%2BDuty%2BTo%2BBoost%2BHousing%2BMarket%2B

The government is panicking, having screwed up big time. Now ALL house sales will stop stone dead whilst everyone waits and sees .....

The Guardian Makes A Complete Arse of Itself (again)

There was a long article on Friday in the Guardian concerning photography in public places and included claims that photographers would need to be registered with the Boys-In-Blue and be RFID chipped. Unfortunately for the Grauniad that was a load of complete bollocks since it was based upon an April Fool in Editorial Photographer.... Ooops!

Story in El Reg: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/01/graun_wurst_blowback/

And the Grauniad article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/01/google.searchengines?gusrc=rss&feed=commentisfree

China

The Chinese just don't get it. The mechanics of repression have eaten so deeply into what remains of their soul that they cannot just let go. Promises have been made to the West but when it comes down to it they cannot move away from the old ways - even for a few weeks. A facade of tolerance is appearing but once the Games are over the regime will re-exert itself. It's the only way they know.

Bit harsh? Possibly but let's wait and see.

Sod's Law

Younger son wanted me to join him on a bike ride this evening. Conscious that I am becoming very unfit I agreed albeit after a certain amount of hesitation since the pain in my hip has been quiet severe as of late.

Anyway I strapped my prosthesis well on, dosed myself up with some codeine to dull the inevitable pain and set off into the sunset.

Got down to the river when I noticed I had a flat tyre .....

Olympic Women's Beach Volleyball

For some unknown reason my 16 year old son wants to watch this. No idea why!

Will Labour step back from the edge?

No party can survive in power for very long if civil war breaks out within its ranks. Memories of the Conservatives tearing themselves apart over Europe in the 1990's are still very fresh within political circles and the consequences of that and the perceived corruption (I don't like the word "sleaze") was that 11 years of opposition occured.

Once ranks start to be broken - and I think Miliband has initiated that process - then there is a cascade effect as people start jockeying for position and any pretence of unity starts to disappear.

Brown has lost authority and hence, I suspect, that we are going to be watching his descent into political oblivion.

Blue badge abuse

Just come back from a trip into town where I followed a car into a series of spaces reserved for blue badge holders. The only occupant, a middle aged lady, got out of the car, which had a blue badge, and walked off happily into the distance.

Why am I so cross? Well, stuck to the back of the car was a label: "Please leave plenty of space for my wheelchair"

Abuse of blue badges really pisses my off.

Three Choirs

It's our turn now and the city is heaving - the Worcester festival is being run to coincide with it - with more tourists than I have seen for a very long time - foreign voices being very conspicuous around the streets.

I struggled my hip around the cathedral today with my son, even though large parts of it were roped off for the opening concert tonight. The new organ was in place looking and sounding magnificient.

I am an atheist but I still find that I am uplifted everytime I go into the cathedral, the spirits of those long dead masons, artisans and builders who built such a wonderful building on faith, civic pride still pervade. Unlike most buildings from the medieval times, the cathedral is still alive, still living, still part of the community from which it sprang all those years ago.

A sheep is not a creature of the air .....

"Another fair question. One thing is for sure; a sheep is not a creature of the air. They have enormous difficulty in the comparatively simple act of perchin'. (crash) As you see. As for flight, its body is totally unadapted to the problems of aviation. Trouble is, sheep are very dim. Once they get an idea in their heads, there's no shifting it. "

Full story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2484365/Roof-scaling-sheep-falls-to-earth-during-rescue.html