I didn't quite catch that...

Yer man off of Slugger has put together a little flickr group for spoof photos of the little unpleasantness in Dublin the other day.

As I say, I like the AT-AT one, but the prize has to go to the Chuckmobile. Just because of the awesome.

How’s this for a smart anti-smoking measure?

Smokers at an office in West Yorkshire have kicked the habit thanks to a new colleague – Rupert the cocker spaniel.

The nine-month-old dog was brought in by managers at Relay Recruitment in Bradford in January to help staff beat the post-Christmas blues.

But the move had an unexpected bonus as four of the firm’s 12 smokers gave up cigarettes by substituting fag breaks for a 10-minute walk with the dog.

So, you get the social aspects of popping out for a smoke, without all the associated lung disease and painful death. And very little breaks the ice better than having a dog run up and try to hump your leg; there’s no way a visiting manager will be able to look dignified and scary with that clamped to their ankle…

Oh, and deadlines would become much more flexible. In keeping with time-honoured school excuses, the dog can be blamed. “Where’s that report?” “I did it, but the dog pissed all over my computer, so it’s gone.” “Why didn’t you do that?” “Because the dog chewed the wiring; Health&Safety shut down all the computers.”

See? Win-win.

Actually, my office would be brilliant for a dog. Big ol’ building, with lots of open spaces round it. We’d get no work done, of course, but I don’t see that as much of a problem.

This is what I was worried about. David Cameron is leading the official opposition towards being “modern, compassionate”. Which, if you’ve been following US politics, means paying lip service to reducing public interference in private matters, while actually vastly increasing spending and regulation.

So, on one side you have tax’n'waste Brown, and on the other you have tax’n'waste Cameron.

We are so screwed.

Well, it’ll have some very ‘fall down on the floor’ qualities, but I’m not sure that thats what he meant…

I’ve had a nice week away from the day job. And I didn’t do that much with it, few things for me ma, and the rest of the time was spent reading, watching tv, having a couple of beverages, and trying to sleep.

No really, that trying to sleep one was the main thing.

Basicially, for the last ten days or so, I haven’t been getting more than about 4 hours sleep a night, and it’s starting to get on my nerves. What could be a better time to build up a nice reserve of sleep than a week off, and it’s the one week I can’t get any bloody sleep.

I’d hoped that my body would relent, and let me have a decent rest last night, seeing as how I had to be up for work this morning. But no, that was too much to ask. I got about an hour and a half’s sleep, and a restless sleep at that. Very strange dreams, too, first of all being attacked by by a dog, then going to a nightclub on a bicycle. And taking the bike onto the dancefloor with me. Very surreal.

And the rest of the night was spent doing the normal things that I do when I can’t sleep. Try reading, then realise that I’m too tired to. Think a lot. Try to figure out if you can get a pulse on your elbow. All the big issues that keep the brain ticking over while counting down the minutes until it’s time to get out of bed and go to work.

Now, here I am. Sitting at my desk, and pretty much unable to keep my eyes open. Bloody typical. The one time in ten days that I am able to fall asleep, and it’s the one time I can’t.

Like Marc, I find myself getting a little bit more paranoid every day. I find myself looking at what is being done in parliament, being done by parliament, being done toparliament and being done without parliament, and I get all ill-tempered and frustrated.

Why? Has the behaviour of politicians changed? Not that I can see; most of them are conniving twats, and have been since politics was first considered as a system. Have their intentions changed? Probably not, for I think that most of them think that they’re doing the right thing. But their ambitions seem to have become, if not grander:”Because, let’s face it, few things were grander in scale than the NHS, and it’s been going for ages.”:http://www.n-i.nhs.uk/ , at least less restricted.

They now think nothing of granting either themselves or their agents massive powers. I mean, truely immense powers. Think that parliament doesn’t move quickly enough? Sure, they’ll just let ministers change the law by themselves. Think that a free population is too much of a threat to itself? Sure, just tag the lot of them. Think that it’s too much bother to argue with your critics? Sure, just ban them from making noise near your workplace.

As Samizdata says:

It is actually about power. Unchecked power will be abused. Not may, will.

And the current government is busy falling over themselves to remove the last few checks left in the system.

How fucking reassuring.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s almost Jack Bauer o’clock, and there is a significant chunk of red wine that needs a-drinkin’. Just don’t let Blair know about Jack Bauer, because he’ll see Jack do a hell of a lot of illegal things, and think ‘Oh wouldn’t it be smashing if all our community support officers could do those things’, and next thing you know, it’ll be law.

Now, that‘s the kind of result I could get used to. After all that nastiness last year, convincingly beating the Welsh is a good thing.

Oh, and who has been feeding O’Gara, and what have they been feeding him? My money is on O’Sullivan force feeding him raw meat, because there were times there that he looked about ready to rip some of the Welsh to shreds. Which is a little out of keeping with his past behaviour. About bloody time he started doing that.

And I think I did a bad thing. I was at me ma’s, and she was having a retirement party for someone who has worked with her for nigh on 50 years. And I may, possibly, accidentally, have left the big screen TV on in the corner. Meaning that not all attention was directed towards the speakers during the speeches. Oops. My bad, and all that.

Still, ’twas her fault. Imagine scheduling a party which conflicts with an Irish 6 Nations game. Talk about sillyness.

This has been a very strange Six Nations. Scotland, winng matches? Who’da thunk it?

But it’s OK, for they’re only beating teams who deserve to be beaten. Like France and England. As long as they don’t start getting ideas about beating us, then it’s all good.

Nelly has a little link, to a little poll type thing the The Levee Breaks. The purpose of this poll? Only to find you bestest, most favouritest, place in the whole of Norn Iron.

I knows my choice, and have voted accordingly. Go forth and do the same, text checking monkeys. And the occasional ‘normal’ who visits the site as well, I suppose.

The door job is, to be honest, a fairly cushy one. Not much happens, there are few late nights, and the word ‘stress’ isn’t mentioned that often. And I like it like that. Turn up, tell a few people off, put up with the whiney kids, walk about a bit, stand about a bit, get paid, go home. Nice and routine.

There are other benefits, of course. Like the group of very nice women from the north of England who spent much of the evening flirting outrageously with me; things like this happen, but not so often so as to be boring. And the same for the occasional beverages after work. That, and the people, and sometimes the feeling of something being done right, make it worth the effort. And the fairly generous pay packet.

Anyway, back to the point.

There I was, doing the usual ID checking to weed out the kids, when I spy one of the usual troublemakers. Well, he was a troublemaker, but for the last few months he’s been behaving himself. But he’s not 18, and the two fellas he was conversing with didn’t look 18 either. So I went over to have a word, and the two lads took off in the direction of the toilets, leaving the original lad there. And he seemed most upset, for the other two had nicked his stupidly expensive baseball cap. And drinks from other people. And the like.

What’s this? Something moderately interesting? Surely not. Intrigued, I moseyed along towards the bogs. To find both of the lads there, messing about with the aforementioned hat, which I proceeded to remove from them, and started ushering them the door. And all was good, until they decided that making a break for it would be a good idea. And it would have been, had they not mistaken the ‘pull’ door for a ‘push’ door, a mistake which announced their stupidity with sufficient volume to alert another doorman, who grabbed the lead idiot, while I got hold of his mate. At which point one of the pair threw something across the room.

Both were encouraged to leave, rapidly. Mine left without too much fuss, while the other tried a little sit down protest. A semi-popular tactic, but one which can only be effective if the sitters outnumber those trying to move them. Otherwise, the sitter gets lifted and deposited somewhere else. And again all was well. The owner was reunited with the hat, and I went back to wandering about inside. And then, across the radio, came a little titbit of information.

Here, [senior doorman], come along to the back door for a second. One of the floor staff found something you’re going to want to see.

Now, I was not the senior doorman, but I was nearby and at a loose end, so I went along out of nosiness. To discover that the found item, which was found about where the thrown object from earlier would have landed, was a very sharp, 4 inch long, knife.

Oh dear.

Several questions were asked at this point. a) Was it from the earlier pair? b) If so, which one? c) If not, from where did it appear? d) Did this mean the other was still carrying a knife? e) What would be the best thing to do if they appeared again? and f) WHO THE SMEG WOULD BRING A KNIFE TO A ***** ******?

Long story short, their description was passed round, and when they showed their faces again they were moved on post-haste. And I get the feeling that their faces will be remembered for quite some time.

Still, a little worrying, don’t you think? And question (f) is still very valid. Why the feck would bring a knife along to my wee workplace? What threat is there there, or who is there worth threatening?

Following last night’s presidential debate, this blog now endorses Arnold Vinick for president. With a simple solution for most problems (Tax Cuts), and a decent mentality on the role of government (Get the feck out of the way), there really is no option but to give him my endorsement.

Plus he had a better debating style. And the brutal honesty is always refreshing.

I’ve mentioned the current BBC Magazine focus on old public information films. I think that it has been quite interesting. And sometimes it has be hilarious. Even if it doesn’t need to be.

What got me laughing this time was this little bit:

why spend 10 years trying to persuade people they should wear seatbelts when a simple law change proved so effective at increasing rates of compliance.

The answer has a lot to do with Parliament not, on the whole, being keen to pass legislation carelessly or on a whim (elder statesmen sometimes opine that “rushed law is bad law”). It also has something to do with it being more effective to introduce a law which people see the sense of. And it must also have something to do with the authorities catching up with society.

Man, how out of date is that? Parliament not being keen to pass legislation carelessly or on a whim. Sure the current lot aren’t happy unless they’re passing careless legislation, on a whim or on the advice of the third quango they set up that week. Be it smoking bans, mobile phone bans, fox hunting bans, protesting round Westminister bans, etc, etc, etc. It seems to be their raison d’être these days.

So, the metric morons are on the march. What fun.

And look! That lovely Mr Kinnock is involved! That means it must be a brilliant idea, doesn’t it?

“Our imperial road signs are perhaps the most obvious example of the muddle of measurement units in the United Kingdom.

“They contradict the image – and the reality – of our country as a modern, multicultural, dynamic place where the past is valued and respected and the future is approached with creativity and confidence.”

Note to the metric lobby: if it ain’t broke, don’t try and replace it with something, just because the rest of the EU uses it. We all know miles, we all understand miles, and mph sounds much better than km/h. So just drop it, m’kay?

Just when you thought it was safe to use the post, this happens.

Now, I’m not an expert on labour law. Nor am I an expert on this particular dispute. But if the meeting between the union and management is supposed to be happening tomorrow, why is the union saying that management have gone back on the deal today? And sending out ballots on official strike action. Before the meeting.

Of course, it could be that the union only encourage the members to go back so that the ballots could be posted out, allowing the unofficial and illegal strike to become official. But thinking that would make me a cynic, wouldn’t it, and I don’t want to be thought of like that.

Anyway. It looks like we may have another strike on our hands before the backlog from the last one is cleared. Bugger.

Stealing an idea from Ryan, here’s what “Ed looks like”, according to Google. Clearly, I like the first one (ED looks like an excellent choice for a serious amateur), but the last one isn’t all that popular with the jury. And the one about me looking like a cutie from high school? Yeah, that one can go jump.

I tried it for other names, but they were even worse. “John looks like John still”? How boring. “John looks like an aging Queen”? Very insulting. And Hillan got a total of zero results. Boring.

My latest read has been Rules of Engagement: A Life in Conflict by Tim Collins, he of the bullshit war crimes non-event. And a very interesting read it was too; lots of background on the buildup of the Iraq war, lots of tales of the weeks he spent in Iraq, lots of titbits of his tour of duty over here before Iraq (including that piece of lovliness up at Holy Cross), a bit about duty during the fire strike. And a fair bit about being hung out to dry by the Army after the allegations were made (by a part time cop, part time soldier, full time guidance counsellor).

Not the best read ever, though. There are quite a few bits where one paragraphs style varies greatly from the next’s, which makes the flow quite uneven in places. And I get the feeling that quite a bit of egotism is at work in several of the sections. And it’s only one side of some of it, I’m sure the facts would be considered differently by others.

But he does manage to get the Irish personality down on the page fairly well. After all, he was leading a Battalion of the Royal Irish, which draws most of it’s strength from round these ‘ere parts. And he even get the accents done right, with quality quotes such as:

Ah, fuck, de, fucken fucker’s fucken fucked!

(Comedy genius, in a Dublin accent. And I didn’t even know that 20M served in the British Army.)

All told, it was a good read, a partial auto-biography with an interesting story to tell. Which makes a change, doesn’t it?

Following on from the previous post, a link there led to this:

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

I’m thinking of getting that made up, and just leaving some spaces for the dates. It’s all about the labour saving, isn’t it?

Not as good as this one, but some things will just have to settle for being second best, won’t they?

The CrapDaddy linked to a little quiz. And I thought I’d take advantage. But some of the responses were a little crap. Apparently, ‘ejh’ means ‘A person who falls into an outhouse and dies’, which doesn’t sound like fun at all. ‘Ed’ is ‘Full of bees’, and that is just disturbing. ‘John’ is ‘A beat poet working the streets’, and while that sound like it could be fun, it just doesn’t seem like it would pay that well. But then you get:

And, lets be honest, cults are where the real money and power are. So we’ll go for that, shall we?

It could have been worse… ‘Hillan’ got ‘Pretentiously academian’, and that just ain’t so. Pretentious, maybe, but academian? That’s just insulting.

Sure, Twenty M may be a little foul mouthed. Sure, he may favour gratuitous violence towards many, many people. Sure, he has probably pickled his brain several times over with all those nasty alcoholic beverages that he consumes for each post he makes.

It doesn’t mean that he’s daft, though. Far from it. The man can make a serious, coherent point when he feels the need.

Isn’t it funny that at a time when all of Europe, if not the world, is looking at the Muslims rioting over a cartoon and declaring that free speech is a fundamental right a man is sent to jail for three years for remarks he made 16 years ago about the holacaust not taking place?

Is he not entitled to an opinion no matter how unpalatable it might be? At the same time these radical Muslim preachers in the UK can call for ‘jihad’ and incite murder and suicide bombings and the only thing they get is a fatter benefit cheque.

It’s all well and good Europe looking down their noses and tut-tutting at the madmen, and I do think they are mad, setting things on fire and putting bounties on cartoonists’ heads over a couple of lousy sketches but at the same time sending a man to prison for 16 year old opinions is just as mad if you ask me. It’s oppressive. If you don’t like what someone has to say ban him from your airwaves, your newspapers and magazines. Bar him from the country. Don’t allow his works to be sold there but don’t put him in prison because you don’t like what he says.

Amen, you smelly, drunken bastid.

No good can come from talking about history illegal. Sure, the world knows the Holocaust happened, and we know that people who go about saying it didn’t and making excuses for the Nazis are pretty low on the evolutionary chain. But the correct way to deal with them is to disprove what they say, or to ignore them. It is not to go out and prosecute them, for that will only go and make them the victims. Which is totally contrary to the point.

Oh, and it also means that, while a lot of people are causing outrage by exercising free speech, you’re also curtailing it. For the sake of what? The Nazis are no longer a threat, anti-Semitism is clearly recognised as wrong, andthe world knows that the Holocaust happened. Who exactly are you trying to convince, who are you trying to protect from these lies?

The BBC Magazine is doing a little series at the minute, on public information films from the bygone era before production values were discovered round about 1985.

Their current victim is the ‘Charley Says series, a set of cartoons from 1973, seeking to educate children about the dangers of modern life, from matchboxes to motorcars. These cartoons were, apparently, in the Top 100 Cartoons of all time listing.

And a little part of the BBC article goes thusly:

The phrase “Charley Says” became such a cultural reference point that it was used in a dance record in the early 1990s.

No no no no no no. For one thing, it wasn’t just that phrase that was used, it was a chunk from one of the film. For another, it was not just a dance record. It was the track that burst the banks of underground rave music, it was hte breakthrough track for the Prodigy, and it was partly responsible for the commercial dance of the 90s and beyond.

Just another dance record? I don’t think so, sunshine.