I didn't quite catch that...

I’ve a long standing love for Ferrari, as you may have noticed. But I’ve also a general dislike of Michael Schumacher, so I’ve tended to prefer the second driver. Especially when said second driver was one Eddie Irvine, who was pretty much the polar opposite of Schumacher.

Outspoken, entertaining, in the red cars and not afraid to drink heavily during the days before a race, Irvine was pretty much the Formula 1 driver that I most wanted to be. He rocked.

Since he left Formula 1, it’s been a lot quieter, dominated not by the playboys and entertainers but by the clinical, machine-like drivers. Can you imagine any of the current crop being happy to talk to people in a bar just before a race, or getting involved in a punch-up in the pits?

As it happens, there is one other reason to want to be Eddie. Consider carefully the following graph from this article on richness.

Basicially, yer man is worth around £160m. More than the Beckams, and £100m more than Nigel Mansell.

No wonder he’s always got that daft smile on his face…

Being a good and careful sort, I should point out that I wasn’t in Dublin on Wednesday, so this is nothing to do with me.

Anyway, I’d not have bothered with the Carlsberg. Or Budweiser, to be honest…

This tale will surely be touted as being a triumph of common sense.

A council has apologised to an 88-year-old widow after a street cleaner told her she could be fined for sweeping leaves from her porch.

Betty Davies said the council worker had seen her sweeping the leaves and later knocked on her door in Splott, Cardiff.

Mrs Davies said she was “lost for words” when told she could be fined, but was being let off with a warning.

The council then quickly backtracked, and said that obviously they wouldn’t be fining anybody over sweeping leaves; that would be very silly, wouldn’t it. Thusly common sense triumphed.

Nobody, it seems, is even asking the bigger question: why the feck does a council have the power to fine people for such a heinous ‘crime’? Perhaps it’s a teeny-tiny overstepping of the line of common sense to put such a power into law? Who looked at the number of pressing things that need laws written about them, or existing laws that need enforcing (like, for example, criminal negligence in government and significant bribery in politics) and thought “No, what we really need is to punish those evil bastards who sweep leaves out of their damn gardens.”

Fuckwits, that’s who…

It’s an ago old tradition: some animals need killin’; people can be found who will pay to partake in said killin’; everyone involved wins. Provided the animals in question aren’t in danger of dying out through the practice (a la Passenger Pigeon) I can see no problem with this; the local population get an income and a reduction in the pest population and the hunters get to practice their sport.

Of course, if it’s a politician involved, things get a little more complicated. Because everything they do is taken to reflect on their politics.

And if it’s an NIrish politician, things can get even more complicated, what with the petty nature of local politics and the symbolism involved.

And if the animal being put down is an international symbol of peace, then you get people rather annoyed.

Naturally, I’m generally on the side of the politician-bashers, because there are few sports that entertain me more. But I think I’ll have to be on the side of Mr Shannon on this one; animal right do-goodery may be a step too far, even for me…

The recent trip to Rome didn’t allow for much in the way of conventional sightseeing; the Colosseum was near to where I was staying, so I got to see it, and I was to be seen in various semi-touristy bits of the Vatican on occasion, but not many opportunities for photo taking arose.

Until the flight home, when I got a pretty good view of something I always like seeing:

Those would be the Alps, covered in snow. I’ve not actually been in the Alps in over a decade, but I’d be quite keen on going back.

Part of that is a natural desire to get back on a snowboard, but fear not, dear reader, for plans in that regard are well developed. Might be a fair few weeks until they come to fruition, but we’re getting there…

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And I did get a few shots of said mountain range without the intrusion of the wing-bits of an A320 at the side of the frame. But if you haven’t noticed by now that I quite like a) flying and b) flying machines, you’ve not really been paying attention…

Since I’ve been out of the country for a day or two, and had other things on my mind last night, would anyone mind telling me if I missed anything too exciting in blog-land? It’s just that there’s some 300 posts to wade through on the RSS reader, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just skipped over without being given the attention they deserve.

So, what’d I miss?

You know, I thought I’d earned a little positive karma. I’d taken time off work and spent a few pounds doing something that I’d not have chosen to do myself in order that someone who should have been there was there. Hell, I’d even worn a suit for the occasion.

Apparently, my actions were insufficient to cancel out all the swearing and rowdy behaviour in the recent past, because I got home to find several things.

• The street outside littered with fire-fighting foam and broken glass.
• Some of my windows boarded up.
• My front door blackened and mildly warped.

Turns out that my fucknugget of a neighbour evidently pissed off the wrong people, and one of her shitheap cars was burnt. Of course, it wasn’t parked outside her house, but outside mine and that of an innocent neighbour. So I’ll be needing four new windows, two new window frames, a new door and a new door frame, because they were all damaged by the heat.

“Welcome home, Mr Hillan. Don’t let all that talk of peace breaking out scare you, there’s still plenty of cunts out damaging property these days…”

Belfast Police v London Lawyer

A London lawyer runs a stop sign and gets pulled over by a Belfast copper. He thinks that he is smarter than the cop because he is a lawyer from London and is certain that he has a better education than any Paddy cop. He decides to prove this to himself and have some fun at the Belfast cop’s expense!!

The Belfast cop says,” License and registration, please.”

The London Lawyer says, “What for?”

The Belfast cop says, “You didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign.”

The London Lawyer says, “I slowed down, and no one was coming.”

The Belfast cop says, “You still didn’t come to a complete stop. License and registration, please.”

The London Lawyer says, “What’s the difference?”

The Belfast cop says, “The difference is, you have to come to complete stop, that’s the law. License and registration, please!”

The London Lawyer says, “If you can show me the legal difference between slow down and stop, I’ll give you my license and registration; and you give me the ticket. If not, you let me go and don’t give me the ticket.”

The Belfast cop says, “Sounds fair. Exit your vehicle, sir.”

The London Lawyer exits his vehicle.

The Belfast cop takes out his baton and starts beating the living daylights out of the lawyer and says, “Do you want me to stop, or just slow down?”

Beacuse Sir Samuel is one of the cooler of the Discworld characters…

Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Commander Samuel Vimes You are Samuel Vimes! Captain of Ankh-Morpork’s city Watch! You are a knight, married to the very wealthy, noble lady Sybil Ramkin. You often walk the streets at night, and are able to tell where you are by the feel of the cobbles under your boots. You always do what is right (that is, what needs to be done) to keep the city safe, even when it seems bad. Commander Samuel Vimes 63% Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax 56% The Librarian 50% Gytha (Nanny) Ogg 50% Greebo 50% Rincewind 50% Lord Havelock Vetinari 44% Carrot Ironfounderson 44% Death 38% Cohen The Barbarian 31%

Found at Chris’ place.

Find out what pixar character are you at LiquidGeneration.com

Until then, of course, I must eat all the junk food I can find…

Following complaints from several disgruntled customers, my employer has decided to formalise and document the complaints procedure to ensure that all those who have a complaint get the full attention they deserve. We cannot allow complainants to feel they have to return to complain time and time again to make sure that they are heard.

All complaints will now be heard throughout the entire company.

We trust this new policy will ensure a swift resolution to all complaints.

I’m not a fan of leaving books unfinished; even if I’m not enjoying it, or am feeling like it’s too much like work, I’ll generally struggle through to the end.

Which is why I’ve not been on a new book in weeks: I’ve been slogging through a really, really bad one.

Legacy of Ashes, by some dude called Weiner, is, frankly, a hatchet job. A badly put together, slanted tale that seems to have no purpose other than to put down its subject matter.

Of course, its subject matter is the CIA, and we’re all fully aware of how shambolic that particular agency has been over the years. But Mr Weiner is inconsistent in his accusations; one minute the CIA cannot make anything succeed, and the next minute he’s making an accusation about the political leadership of the US ignoring its successes. He has nothing good to say about anyone involved, until they’re out of the picture and suddenly gain the insight required to slander those still inside. Every single thing that goes wrong is compared to the intelligence failures leading to the Iraq war and/or 9/11. And he’s always keen on mentioning his personal connection to the people at the heart of issues, which really annoys me in a book that claims to be a serious non-fiction text.

In short: it’s badly written, politically slanted, of dubious analytical worth and doesn’t read well.

So I’m going to have to read some really bad, easy sci-fi to get over the sheer crapness of it.

If you’re ever in need of reading material, and Legacy of Ashes is the only thing to hand, please take my advice: pole your eyes out with a stick so you don’t find yourself reading it. It really is that bad…

Due to various things, such as people getting random promotions, batons being handed on, cardiologists being rather kind, my family being rather experienced at very short notice excursions and an understand boss, I’m buggering off on another ‘holiday’. Not, this time, to a land where I can make myself understood with a minimum of shouting and consulting of phrase book, but to a land where I have no idea about the language. And where the cops shoot random football fans, who then run riot.

And, with the timing and organisation you’ve come to expect from E Hillan, esq, I’m hitting where I’m hitting during their worst month. But hey, it’s abroad and it’s got to be better than here…

On the plus side, however, another little jaunt in Aer Lingus’ old, dirty aircraft will sooth my worries over my inadequate carbon footprint, bringing the total up to three round trips to London, one return flight to the US, one return flight from London to Jersey and five different flights involving the continent. Which is nearly enough…

Of course, just because I love you all so much and I’m worried you’ll stop reading if I don’t post daily, I’ve exhausted my ready supply of pre-prepared posts, so there’ll be something new every day. Because I’m sad like that.

It’s probably a given that massive fuckups won’t result in the fall of governments and massive protests. But less certain is if this sort of thing would do the trick.

Booze industry experts have issued a chilling warning that the British pint could hit £4 a pop – a price hike provoked by crap weather which has forced up the price of hops.

According to a sobering Guardian report, the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) estimates the average jar at £2.50 for lager, and £2.20 for bitter. Pundits say prices will rise by at least 15 per cent a pint, with doomongers slapping an extra 60 per cent on the cost of essential liquid refreshment.

Before anyone goes mad with the economics, it’s already been done; we know that the phrase ‘to gouge’ could be applied. Now let’s move on, eh?

Obviously, I don’t think that you’d actually get mass protests if beer rose that much. You’d get a lot more cars returning from France heavily laden, but mass protests? That’d be silly…

Then you remember that there have been massive protests in Italy recently because pasta got a bit more expensive, and that the biggest scare given to Blair was over the price of petrol…

And then you hope. Because, let’s be honest, Orange, Velvet and Rose Revolutions are all well and good, but the Carling Revolution would be a thing worth seeing…

Of course, the Carling lot would only be one crowd. Personally, I think I’d be a follower of the Schneeweiße school. For said delicious brand of weißbier has only recently returned to the shelves, and may be partly to blame for the state of my head this morning…

Right, hands up out there if you thought that this news would be the spark that ignited a full on, flowing, sweary rant from yours truly? Who suspected that I’d use this perfectly formed stick to lay into the government as hard as I can?

Sorry, but I can’t. Not because I’m not annoyed – I’m fairly fucking incandescent with rage, to tell the truth – but because I don’t think we can lay the blame for this at the feet of the politicians. Much as I’d like to see Alistair Darling’s head on a pike, I can’t say that this should be the incident that causes that glorious day to come a little closer.

Because this wasn’t a failure of politicians, except so far as the fuckwitted attempted at hiding it goes. This is an institutional failure of the civil service, and it’s not one I think is limited in any way to the Revenue. Anyone who thinks that this hasn’t happened before, and won’t happen again, evidently hasn’t seen the cavalier ways in which data is shared between public sector bodies.

The civil service has, over the years, become the sole guardian of a truly unbelievable amount of data about each and every one of us; if you looked across the thing as a whole, then you’d surely know more facts about any given person than they knew themselves. Thankfully, departments have historically been totally separate, and thusly only an extraordinary effort could get that complete picture.

In recent times, however, there has been a major drive to unify the systems, and improve links between departments. Some of this, to be sure, has been urged from the top down, but a hell of a lot of it is being thought up by the civil service, with the primary aim of making the lives of civil servants easier. You’ll get a politician deciding that medical records should be able to move between GPs and hospitals electronically, but once that’s passed through a civil service planning process, every fucker will be involved. The GRO will be feeding in data, the Revenue will be able to take out data, the National Audit Office will get a say in it, the Department of the Environment will want a take for planning purposes, etc etc. Which introduces an insane number of people into the loop, each of whom have a tiny stake. And the smaller the stake, the less likely you are to take care of it, resulting in an office junior popping the details of every child in the country into a 2^nd class envelope. Or, as I’ve seen happen, a guy on a temporary contract being given a full, live, list of the entire population ‘to run a few tests on, sure bring it home if it makes it easier’.

What decision was taken to end up at this point? I don’t think any single generation could be found to be definitively at fault, let alone a single government or individual. It is the nature of organisations that, without outside limitations, they will grow as large and as fast as they can. The civil service is no different; individuals within it will each act in their own interests, which ends up with the whole growing and needing new tasks to sustain that growth. In business, outside limitations, like competition, lack of money, or even geography, do put the brakes on, but those aren’t even a consideration for the public sector.

The only real limiting factor that could be brought into play is a government that actively seeks to slow, or reverse, that growth. And there hasn’t been one of them in my lifetime. The recent ones have even encouraged the growth, a policy which we’ll have to live with for generations to come.

I mentioned earlier that most of this can’t be blamed on the politicians, but that’s not true. The sheer stupidity of today’s statements are the sole responsibility of the government. And, under a strict interpretation of the laws brought in by the previous government, then Messers Brown and Darling would be in very deep trouble indeed. Despite the claim that there’s no evidence that the data has fallen into the wrong hands¹, they’ve failed to prove that no damage was done; as the burden of proof now lies with the accused rather than the accuser, they’re fucked.

And, as more reasonable people than me have said, it’s the politicians who’re pushing for an ID card system to produce a fully joined up set of systems. Go see what they have to say about it, because the whole fucking thing has got me to depressed to more than mention in passing.

If you haven’t yet cut your cheque to No2ID, I urge you to do so forthwith. Because, lets be honest, any way to minimise the ways in which we can be massively screwed over by such elementary mistakes needs our support.

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¹ – My assertion, of course, being that it fell out of the wrong hands in the first place…

I’ve been a fairly lucky lad over the years when it comes to medical interventions. What with being descended from a great believer in the healing power of Calpol and having the tonsils and appendix removed in the distant days of early childhood, I’ve managed to avoid seeing doctors in their professional capacity for years; this millennium I’ve been to see my GP exactly twice. And I’m more than happy with that state of affairs.

Unfortunately, to continue with some of my silly time wasting activities, the CAA requires that I prove to them that a) I have a pulse and b) I’m not blind. Which means finding an appropriate doctor, and asking them politely to check for me.

Thusly, at 7.30 this morning, I paid good cash money to be poked, prodded, weighed, measured, hit, stabbed, wired up, and drained. And all that was the first five minutes, the other hour was basicially spent with the dude gazing into my eyes and going, “oooh, you’ve a fucked up set of eyes”. Which anyone who saw my first passport picture could have told him…

But hey, he still passed me. More fool him, really. Which means that I now have no excuse to delay the written exams any longer. Fuck. I hate exams…

Over my several years as a doorman, I’ve had to attend a few first aid courses. The theory being that we’re meant to be their to look after the customers, and that could conceivable include giving them mouth to mouth in the case of them trying to pop their clogs in our establishments.

Obviously, the likelihood of said customers being nothing more than incubators for many nasty diseases is quite high, as is the likelihood of them doing their very best to either bite us or chunder all over us. So some of the establishments I’ve worked in have been nice enough to offer little one-way plastic valves to us, allowing us to ensure that the customer gets the life-giving, yet foul smelling, benefit of our breath, while we don’t get the dubious benefit of a taste of their partially digested dinner.

Now, in my years on the door, I’ve never seen anyone need mouth to mouth, let alone be in a position to have to give it. For which I’m very thankful. But various laws, council policies and insurance company instructions require me to be current in the theory of it; the implication being that I would then be bound by various rules to give first aid, including chest compressions and mouth to mouth, should the situation arise.

There are similar rules for the day job, which is why I spent yesterday afternoon playing with Resussi-Anne and a few doctors and nurses. Where I discovered that, apparently, the giving of mouth to mouth is entirely optional, based upon the moral and ethical feeling of the giver at the time. Because of the possibility of getting a disease or the unpleasantness of the chunder, apparently.

This confused me; why was this choice never mentioned in the door courses? Why were we told we had an obligation to help in a dark room full of drunks while office workers and doctors are told to make their own decision? Is it because doormen are thought of as to daft to make that decision, or because a drunken twat who’s tongue has been swollen by narcotics is more worthy of saving than the guy who’s given himself a cardiac arrest by lugging a toner cartridge up six flights of stairs?

I can see why there should be a choice there, I really can, but why wasn’t it mentioned by the various council officers and ambulance types who trained me recently? Eh?

One of the things that gets me about the whole CSI franchise is the glaring unreality exposed within it.

Now I don’t mind all the scientific and procedural nonsense; I’m willing to file all that under reasonable suspension of disbelief. Other I know are not so forgiving, and have been thusly banned from watching it entirely.

No, my problem with it is this: CSIs, and their equivalents over here, are civil servants. And yet you never seen any of them dying for a cuppa, or taking a leave day just because, or taking their flexi, or saying they can’t work Thursdays because they need their union-mandated training day, or asking for their computer money. Or bitching and backstabbing their colleagues. Despite all of these things being perfectly normal behaviour in any civil service office I’ve ever been in.

I can overlook such minor discrepancies as fully deciphering an encrypted hard drive between ad breaks, and ‘enhancing’ a photo to show a face two miles beyond the focal point, but I cannot accept a show showing an entire office of civil servants in the way that CSI does. Far too unbelievable…

Once again, His Supreme Clarksonness makes a valid point.

We’re told that a recession is coming. Apparently, it’s got something to do with the Chinese, who have, in a complex way, affected America’s sub-prime. Inflation here will spiral out of control, millions will find themselves on the dole and thousands of immigrants will be eaten by rats.

Good. Because this will give the government something to do. And maybe it will then stop sitting around all day finding new ways to boss us around.

Already, in the period of Great Boredom, they’ve stopped us smoking, killing foxes, reversing without a banksman, playing conkers, enjoying bonfire night, and taking toothpaste on an aeroplane.

And now they are thinking of banning patio heaters, doing 30, and wearing hooded tops. Soon, it will be illegal to not be George Monbiot.

His theory being that if they’ve got something serious to do, they’ll not bother fucking about with the small things. I’m not 100% sure of that; I’d be unsurprised if, in the course of fucking about with bigger things, they managed to screw up lots of little things in the process. But I’m only going by past experience on that, so I may be wrong…

Anyway, that’s not really what I’m agreeing with. That big was further down the article.

We can all see it’s a sham. British severe weather is like British severe poverty, a fairly limp-wristed affair when placed in a global context. Northern Norway has severe weather. Oklahoma, in the tornado season, has severe weather. And a Cuban has every right to say “Wow, that was severe” after a category five hurricane has just blown his house into the middle of Houston. But in Barnsley? No.

I recall hearing something on t’radio about the severe weather this weekend, that might make driving conditions hazardous. And, to be fair, there was quite a lot of rain, and a fair bit of standing water. I only knew about it because I was out on a ‘bike, enjoying it.

See, what we call severe weather, isn’t. It’s all within a fairly narrow band of conditions, all of which are fairly comfortable. Maybe an extra layer is required on occasion, or sometimes a little more water should be drunk, but there’s never really any cause for concern. And certainly I can’t think of any conditions in my lifetime that would preclude driving; more care and attention should be paid in some conditions, but it’s nothing that can’t be handled.

But we’re obviously not the right people to make that call. No, it needs to come from the Great Dot Matrix Controller on the overhead gantries. Because we need to be told to slow down in fog, and we wouldn’t think of using dipped headlights in poor visibility. And we’d never, ever consider leaving a little extra time for our journey in snow.

See, we’re obviously all just little sheep, to be guided and herded when conditions are not the norm. And, luckily for us, we seem to have a nice government that just loves being our shepherd…

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