I didn't quite catch that...

A few folk have asked me why I’m learning to fly helicopters, rather than fixed wing planes. What with fixed wing planes being much more common, a fair bit cheaper and somewhat simpler.

I’ve always told them the same thing: I’m basically not interested. Since I was a very very small boy I’ve been fascinated by helicopters, by how they work and by their versatility. And, having flown them for a very short time, I’m not regretting my choice. Helicopters interest me in a way that no other machine ever has.

But there exist some machines that would make me second guess… Helicopters as a group excite me more than planes, and always will, but some individual planes interest me more than some individual helicopters. An A-10, for example, is much more interesting than a Twin Squirrel. An SR-71 beats the shit out of a Gazelle.

And a Spitfire beats the shit out of pretty much anything short of a Lynx.

Frankly, a video like this has the potential to make me switch sides. If only they let you take lessons in something that beautiful…

The ongoing rumble over the proposed 42 day detention without trial stupidity continue to confuse me. There’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing going on, a fair bit of horse trading, and Brown is making himself that little bit more unpopular.

And I don’t get why.

Why are ministers and the police so keen on going past the 30 day limit, when there’s no demonstrable need?

If there were a real concern about a massive, coordinated strike against the country by hundreds of highly organised terrorists, there could be a case. But then, when there were highly organised, dedicated and skilled terrorists striking the UK during the 70s, 80s and 90s there was no need for it, so why is there now when the threat is measured in the dozens?

Especially when you consider the resources being talked about. Special Branches and MI-5 are now massively larger than they were during the IRA years, and they have much more power than they did then.

So I don’t get it; why work so hard to get something that isn’t needed? Politicians are stupid, yes, but it’s rarely so difficult to understand their reasoning.

Come with me here, on a little tale of logical thinking.

If someone, or some organisation, gets money by deception, then that organisation is guilty of fraud, or even outright theft. Both of these are criminal offences.

When discovered, general practice is to attempt the return of the illegally gotten funds, and to prosecute the offender. Generally, a further financial penalty will be taken, although in some cases the offender (or a responsible person within the organisation, if it is an organisation) will go to jail or suffer some community penalty.

This is a good thing.

Which is why I’m not so impressed with this sort of behaviour.

Some councils have earned hundreds of thousands of pounds by enforcing unlawful traffic and parking restrictions, the BBC has learned.

Fines are said to have been levied despite incorrect road markings and on parking bays which are too small.

The Department of Transport said it expected councils to “seriously consider” repayment of illegal fines.

But a spokesman for London councils questioned whether returning the cash was the best use of public money.

NOTE TO THAT FUCKING SPOKESMAN: That isn’t public money; it’s money that has been fraudulently obtained by the organisations you represent from private citizens. In a just world, either the people responsible for the parking departments or the council chief executives would be facing criminal charges, not just a polite request to “seriously consider” paying back the funds that you fucking stole.

The legal opinion in the article mentions “unjust enrichment”, which I’m guessing is the term for organisations that make the rules making money by breaking the rules. Which is probably a little less strict from the legal point of view. I remain unconvinced that it’s any less wrong from a moral point of view, though…

Me, I’ve been annoyed by the following, non-exhaustive list of things:

• Computers that just won’t do what they’re told. Meaning that part of my Wednesday afternoon off got spent rebooting a server that really didn’t want to come to life again, and has resulted in me being at my desk at a very silly early hour.
• The weather, for resulting in my lesson yesterday afternoon being cancelled.
• Decaffeinated coffee. For existing.
• Gordon Brown for Just Not Getting how supply and demand works.
• Gordon Brown, for not using the powers that he has (reducing taxation on fuel, for one thing) to help the current situation, while focussing on things that he has no control over (see previous point).
• Gordon Brown, for basically just being a twat.
• The POS substitute phone that Vodafone have given me while my nearly-new W960 is in the shop having a touchscreen fixed.
• The aforementioned W960 for having a defective touchscreen.
• State shakedown tactics, for being the thin edge of the wedge.

But, you know, it’s all OK. For many hours yesterday were spent playing GTA IV. And verily, the Lord saw that it was good.

Granted, using the accelerometers in the PS3 controllers to fly a helicopter is marginally harder than flying a real one, but sure that’s all part of the game isn’t it…

At the minute, there are quite a few things that I should really be doing.

A brief, and non-comprehensive, list would look like this:

• Work.
• Rest.
• Eat.
• Pretend to TLG that I’m a functioning member of society.
• Read a little; my ‘to read’ pile recently graduated to having a shelf of its own.
• Learn about precision transitions; apparently a 5 knot steady hover isn’t the ideal way to move around an airfield. I need to learn how to move at 30 knots about the place, while not leaving ground effect.
• Source basic computers for various family members and the like.
• Investigate this strange ‘social life’ that I keep hearing rumours about.

In an ideal world, there is just about enough time in the day to cover enough of those things.

However, the occasional wild card gets thrown into the mix. Such as, picking an example out of the air here, silly little games.

Oh bother. Last time this happened, I lost whole months of my life to San Andreas. And this promises to be leaps and bounds better.

Seems I need to be scoring a few of those things off the list. I vote for sleep and eat, myself…

With a damn concept.

Sikorsky … reckon to deal with the retreating-blade stall issue by using coaxial contrarotating rotor discs – thus far seen mainly in Russian designs – so that there are blades going forward on both sides of the craft at any given moment. Then, as the advancing blade tips start to bump up against the sound barrier, the rotors will begin to spin more slowly – letting the X2 carry on accelerating.

Normally this wouldn’t be easy, as a regular copter gets its forward poke as well as its lift from the rotor disc. But the X2, having twin main rotors, needs no sideways tail prop to keep it pointing in one direction in the hover. Instead, it uses the tail for a pusher prop which can drive it forward.

Sikorsky reckon the X2 should be able to cruise easily at 250 knots, well in excess of a regular whirlybird’s 150 or so.

So, it’s faster than a normal whirly bird, as manoeuvrable as a normal whirly bird, as safe as a normal whirly bird…

Plus, it don’t look that bad…

I’ll take a bakers’ dozen, please…

A farmer named Seamus had a car accident.

In court, the lorry company’s hot-shot solicitor was questioning Seamus.

‘Didn’t you say to the Police at the scene of the accident, ‘I’m fine?’ asked the solicitor.

Seamus responded: ‘Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favourite cow, Bessie, into the…’

‘I didn’t ask for any details’, the solicitor interrupted. ‘Just Answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, ‘I’m fine!’?’

Seamus said, ‘Well, I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I was driving down the road….’

The solicitor interrupted again and said, ‘Your Honour, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the police on the scene that he was fine. Now several weeks after the accident, he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question.’

By this time, the Judge was fairly interested in Seamus’s answer and said to the solicitor: ‘I’d like to hear what he has to say about his favourite cow, Bessie’.

Seamus thanked the Judge and proceeded. ‘Well as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favourite cow, into the trailer and was driving her down the road when this huge lorry and trailer came through a stop sign and hit my trailer right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurt, very bad like, and didn’t want to move.
However, I could hear old Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans. Shortly after the accident, a policeman on a motorbike turned up. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked at her, and saw her condition, he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes.

Then the policeman came across the road, gun still in hand, looked at me, and said, ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Now what the F*ck would you say?’

… ‘cos the southern variety don’t normally mix guns and motorbikes…

Three tortoises, Mick, Alan and Les, decide to go on a picnic. So Mick packs the picnic basket with beer and sandwiches. The trouble is the picnic site is ten miles away so it takes them ten days to get there. When they get there Mick unpacks the food and beer. ‘Ok Les. Give me the bottle opener.’ ‘I didn’t bring it,’ says Les. ‘I thought you packed it.’

Mick gets worried and turns to Alan, ‘Did you bring the bottle opener?’ Naturally Alan didn’t bring it. So they’re stuck ten miles from home without a bottle opener. Mick and Alan beg Les to go back for it, but he refuses as he says they will eat all the sandwiches. After two hours, and after they have sworn on their tortoise lives that they will not eat the sandwiches, he finally agrees. So Les sets off down the road at a steady pace.

Twenty days pass and he still isn’t back and Mick and Alan are starving, but a promise is a promise. Another five days and he still isn’t back, but a promise is a promise. Finally they can’t take it any longer so they take out a Sandwich each, and just as they are about to eat it, Les pops up from behind a rock and shouts…

‘I KNEW IT!! … I’M NOT F*CKING GOING!’

I’m all for showing how politicians are face deep in the trough, and loving the huffing and puffing that they’re doing. How indignant people can get when it’s shown just how ridiculous the system that they can abuse is is something very amusing.

Plus, there’s this sort of behaviour:

Some MPs are angry that their home addresses will be published.

Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell has tabled a motion calling for a breakdown of the expenses of, and home addresses of, High Court judges.

Conservative MP Julian Lewis backed Mr Russell’s move in the Commons on Thursday, branding the release of MPs’ addresses “barking mad” and claiming it opened them up to hate mail and attacks by “extremists”.

MPs can claim up to £23,000 a year to spend on costs incurred while staying away from their main home – including televisions, rent or mortgage payments and, without providing a receipt, up to £400 a month for food.

Comparing High Court judges to MPs is, of course, a bit of a joke. Only one of those runs for office; only one of those sets the pay for millions of people, only one of those has had a part to play in handing over every detail of our lives to other people.

Plus, and I hate to be appearing a little wealth-envious here, having something along the lines of 1.5 times the average salary just as expenses, with our fucking money, is a very sneaky way to add to your salary. And it’s just the sort of thing that politicians complain about business doing. With the difference being that businessmen are accountable to their shareholders, while MPs have consistently shown themselves not to be…

Ordinarily, news like this would cheer me up.

A Canadian hairdresser who says he suffered from depression and phobias after finding a dead fly in his bottled water has lost a case for damages.

Waddah Mustapha had been awarded $341,775 in damages in 2005, but the Supreme Court of Canada has now overturned that award.

The court said the bottling company, Culligan of Canada, could not have foreseen the psychological damage.

As I say, ordinarily this would make me happy. Victory for common sense, I’d say; rolling back some of the stupidity that’s created the compensation culture.

However, despite the overturning of this one case, it doesn’t actually mean anything of the sort. Because it only got over turned at the Supreme Court, meaning that it had gotten as far as there without being slapped down.

Which means that it took something this outrageously stupid to get knocked down… Which means that common sense has nothing to do with it.

And that’s more than a little bit depressing.

This time, I shall be shamelessly stealing from Nelly

Ten things that cut into my blogging time:

1. Reading blogs.
2. Waiting for other people to make their moves in Scrabulous.
3. Working.
4. Planning visits to The Lovely Girlfriend.
5. Spending time with TLG.
6. Playing games on the deligtfully ungreen games console.
7. Reading.
8. Throwing a very small machine round a very large sky.
9. Reading rather dull textbooks enabling more throwing around of small machines in large skies.
10. Forgetting to watch all those hours of TV that are resting on the harddrive of my computer.

I’d copy the other list, that of ‘popular’ TV shows that I’ve never watched. But I fear that the list would be woefully short and I’d just look silly…

Communicating through the medium of Facebook status updates is rather messy, you know…

Ed is rather happy.
10:35pm

Ed MOTHERFUCKER
10:23pm

Ed is not a fan of penalties.
10:24pm

Ed is cursing extra time, but thankful that we’ve survived that second half.
9:37pm

Ed is preparing for the carnage.
7:24pm

In short, I’m rather happy. Had a painful couple of minutes there, but very happy now.

Bring it on.

Hands up out there if you’ve seen this story and thought “Dear God, that’ll set Ed off something shocking…”

Well, obviously I can’t see your hands. I can tell you that out of the people I’ve spoken to on the phone this evening, 100% expected something of a rant.

I don’t think that there’s too much to say that hasn’t been said already, though.

But when did that ever stop me?

Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK, it has emerged.

The plans, reported in the Times, are at an early stage and may be included in the draft Communications Bill later this year, the Home Office confirmed.

The ‘new’ powers, as I understand it, are nothing actually new. It’s just a way of making it easier for central government (and local government, and government agencies, and most-preferred-contractors, and credit reference agencies, and health trusts, and whomsoever is lucky enough to find the whole database accidentally left on a laptop, etc, etc, etc) to access the data it already can get.

Because none of the types of data they’re talking about are secret, despite how you’d think they would be. They can all be accessed by a frankly obscene number of people for any damn reason they want. It’s just that, under the new scheme, the nosey fuckers wouldn’t have to ask a telco to hand over the details, they could just check the SpyMaster-1000 database from their desktop. Which makes it easier for law enforcement, and anti-terrorist agencies, and the bin collecting contractors, to do their vital work. And, as good citizens, it is our solemn duty to make life as easy as possible for those in positions of power.

Of course, it shouldn’t be. Our solemn duty should actually include the thwarting of any and all such moves. It is not our job to make life easier for those who serve the country; it is their damn job to work within the framework we allow them.

But you try selling that particular message…

It’s approaching the time of year when people get all silly about the Eurovision. Which is, of course, the point. The whole damn concept of the show, let alone its implementation, is silly. Which is why most people only watch it to hear a caustic Irishman get drunk and mean about the contestants.

Some people, obviously with a little too much time on their hands, analyse things a little more, and have decided that there’s a lot of skulduggery going on that means the the UK can’t ever win.

I could have saved them the effort. The UK never wins because the UK always puts forth some totally shite excuse for a song. How much time, effort and money would have been saved if they’d just asked me?

Of course, the analysis mentioned in the BBC article neglected to mention that Ireland is the most successful Eurovision nation of all (a very dubious claim to fame), despite not being in one of the big blocs. So what does that do for the theories?

Find out Which Lost Character Are You at LiquidGeneration.com!

Let’s be honest, he’s not the worst, is he? Can kill a man with his bare hands, has a hottie for the missus, and he featured properly in Crusade. Yup, he’ll do…

Last week, I got in trouble.

I posted a thoughtless, stereotypical email that was sent to me. And I got a bit of grief for it; MFG didn’t like it because of the aforementioned stereotypical-ness, and my girlfriend didn’t much like it because, well, it was slightly insulting to women…

So this Sunday, I will instead posts something insightful, carefully thought out and original. Honest.

And this I shall now do, using this story for inspiration.

A car driver in Australia has been fined for strapping down his beer rather than his young child.

Police said they were “shocked and appalled” when they pulled over the car south of Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory.

They said the 30-can pack of beer was strapped down between two adults in the back, with the five-year-old child unrestrained on the floor.

And now for the original thought: what’s the problem? Sure you’re not going to hit anything in that part of the world, so strapping people in isn’t much of an issue. But keeping beer properly secured and in the shade is critically important, because you wouldn’t want a warm beer, would you?

Fret ye not; regular posting will resume at some point…

This flying malarkey is rather odd, you know. For a start, it’s a world populated almost exclusively by males – I’d say men but let’s be honest, it’s all about the boys with toys.

I’ve been getting involved with the flying for just under year, and in all that time I’ve met one woman who was piloting or learning to pilot. And the only female voice I’ve heard on 128.30 belonged to the same woman. While I’ve heard dozens of men and met a fair few of them too.

Another way that it’s odd is in it’s lack of a real point; yes the views are amazing and the sensation of flying is not something that I think I’ll ever get bored of, but it’s hard to put a dollar value on views and sensations, yet it’s painfully easy to put a value on each hour in the air. Which is why most of the males involved are somewhat elusive when asked by wives/significant others/taxmen just how much it’s costing.

And then there’s the difficulty of trying to explain why you like it; you’re clearly not going to be using it to get from A to B too regularly, and it’s not like you’re going to suddenly walk into a £125,000 a year job as a test pilot. It’s just something that is quite hard work, that you pay for, and provides an immense amount of satisfaction.

But since I’ve no way with words, allow me to steal some from James May, from last month’s TG Magazine.

Light aviation is simply a hobby, and flight is something that has fascinated me continuously, ever since I first started fooling around with bits of balsa wood sheet in the back garden. Nerdy as it may seem, I love the whole science of flight; its dependence on a few immutable and easily understood laws of physics that can be demonstrated with nothing more than pieces of paper. Flight in a winged heavier-than-air machine is as natural as buoyancy is to a ping-pong ball tossed into a bucket of water, and not the miracle that so many people imagine it to be.

But once you’re up there, it doesn’t half feel like one.

Leaving aside two small things (1. I didn’t use balsa wood, I played with paper planes and cloth parachutes instead and 2. the laws of physics involved with rotary wing aviation is a little more complicated), that’s exactly how I feel.

I just can’t say it as well.

Originally, fat people were killing themselves.

Then, they were costing the rest of us money by using more in the way of health service resources than the rest of us.

Now, they’re killing the poor and starving, and also the planet.

Obese people are contributing to the world food crisis and climate change, experts say.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculated the obese consume 18% more calories than average.

They are also responsible for using more fuel, which has an environmental impact and drives up food prices as transport and agriculture both use oil.

Now here’s a thing; that’s a little bit disingenuous, isn’t it? Because there are people out there who consume a helluva lot in the way of food, but aren’t obese.

Me, for one. Being blessed with a high metabolism, I’m constantly eating and yet am just in the ‘could do with losing a bit of weight’ category, rather than the ‘embarrassment to his forefathers and species’ one.

Or athletes, who can consume frankly scary amounts of lard while training and competing.

Or physical labourers, who have to feed the furnace before they can do a day’s work.

Yet they’re not being victimised (and/or bullied) by this study. Probably because they’re not just as easy a target.

Yet, anyway. Because consuming more than Your Fair Share of precious Gaia’s resources is a terrible, terrible offence and soon we will all be appropriately punished if we do it…

I can never decide; is it a terrible thing when a sportsman dies as a direct result of their sport, or is it the way they’d have wanted to go?

I’m not a massive fan of motorcycle racing, and I never have been. I’d watch it if it was on, and I’ve been up to the NW200 a few times, but I couldn’t tell you the names of more than a couple of drivers and/or teams.

One of the drivers’ names that I did know was Joey Dunlop; I think every person in Ireland knew of him. Quiet, unassuming and massively skilled, his death in 2000 hit the country hard. He was one of the people that we considered ‘our’ sporting greats, like Alex Higgins and George Best, but without the faults of either of them. Dying doing what he loved, in a far away place, added something to the legend.

His brother didn’t quite reach the status of Joey, in wins or in the hearts of Norn Ironers, but he was there. He was very, very good, he wasn’t bothered by the local politics and he was a bit of a role model in how he dealt with the death of his brother. He often seemed to be the slightly less lucky younger brother, but he was still streets ahead of other drivers.

Last night, following an accident on the NW200 course barely ten miles from the family homestead, he passed away

Again; is it a terrible thing that his love for road racing cost him his life? Or is dying doing the thing we love something that the rest of us would be happy with? Questions that I think we’ll never know the answers to…

RIP Robert.

It is not known if the author of this BBC article sat the 11-plus, let alone if they passed it. But something seems a little poorly written¹ about it…

Caitriona Ruane’s plans to reform academic selection cannot go ahead without DUP and executive support, Ian Paisley has said.

The first minister said her education proposals were not the basis for a way forward.

Ms Ruane brought her proposals for the future of primary school transfer to the executive amid claims they are unworkable.

The executive meeting ended without a full discussion of the plans.

She brought her proposals for the future of primary school transfer to the executive amid claims they are unworkable.

The full discussion she had hoped for did not take place.

Now, my feelings about Ms Ruane and her fucked up abomination of a lack-of-plan for breaking a working system are well known. And I often repeat them. Much like I repeat lots of things. But is it just me, or is repeating sentences 3 & 4 just a spectacularly lazy way of creating sentences 5 & 6?

Also, the next paragraphs got my goat a little, but for different reasons:

Ms Ruane said there were parties “who were anti-change in relation to education”.

“It is disappointing that colleagues who claimed that they wanted a discussion on the proposals didn’t even engage.

“What happened today was an attempt to frustrate change. I will not be frustrated and I am not demoralised.”

There are people out there who are anti-change in relation to education. In fact, there are a fuck-load of people who are anti-change in relation to education, especially when the changing to hasn’t been published. Plus, when Ms Ruane claims that other people aren’t interested in discussion of options, my irony meter goes way off the scale.

Anyway, who really gives a shit if she gets frustrated, or demoralised. As long as she gets stopped, that’s the main thing…

–
¹ – Yes, I know that I’m hardly the one to complain about anything being badly written. But then I’m not being paid to write anything, am I?