I didn't quite catch that...

I’ve often been accused of being a cynic. But I’m clearly not cynical enough.

Back when the security theatre really kicked off at airports, with the stupid plastic bags and the enforced removal of shoes for no discernible reason, I thought that it’d be back to a semblance of business as usual within a few weeks; there was no way that people would put up with the new arrangements for long and there was nowhere for the airports to put the enlarged security areas.

As it happens, I was wrong. We, as a species, are clearly more sheeplike than I’d considered. And airports are more than happy to significantly redesign themselves to take into account the theatre.

In fact, all the enhanced measures that do nothing but reduce the enjoyment of travelling have become the norm. And with all the work done at airports, there’ll be no reason for any future sensible government¹ to get rid other than it being the right thing to do. And we know how governments like reducing regulation and security just because it’s the right thing to do…

So, normalisation has occurred. It’s just that we’re the ones that have had to change our definition of normal, instead of rational thinking telling the world what should be normal. Which is shit.

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¹ – although it’s not like there’s any sensible government on the horizon, is there…

I remember something about a study from a couple of years ago that showed people were more likely to behave badly in areas that were a bit run down; in exactly the same location, people would be more likely to litter if there was graffiti and that sort of thing. Which is why I’m getting interested in a little happening that I see twice a day.

My walk to work takes me along something called a “red route“, in which cars aren’t supposed to stop at all during rush hour. Nice and sensible idea, probably, considering that it’s a bloody busy road and it’s not exactly wide enough for the traffic it carries.

Two weeks ago, there was a car parked along this road on my morning walk. On the way back, nine hours later, there was a ticket on it.

The next day, more tickets.

Day five, and another little notice arrives on the windscreen saying AUTHORISED FOR REMOVAL.

Day seven, someone scrapes this notice off, and nothing has happened to the car.

Day ten, still nothing. I notice that the tax disc has expired.

Day twelve, the rear and nearside windows are put in. Still no sign of any movement.

We’re now into day fifteen, and I’m wondering what the hell is happening to it. If we were in Belfast it would have been burnt out by now, but over here that doesn’t seem to be particular on the cards. Still, it’s blocking traffic, it’s the only really dilapidated thing on my walk, and none of the fifteen million traffic wardens in this area seem particularly bothered.

It’s interesting to see what goes on when someone just ignores the rules, isn’t it?

I am occasionally accused of being a snob. Evidence produced for this has been put forth:

• I am critical of JK Rowlings writing style, although I enjoy the books.
• I cannot help but think that boybands are a tad silly.
• I think that the X-factor is proof that Satan walks amongst us and that he wears big trousers.
• Twilight is not a good series of movies, and I say so.
• The Da Vinci Code is neither a good book or a good film, and again I say so.

However, I take those things to mean that I have some taste, rather than I’m an elitist. After all, I’m clearly a fan of poorly written sci fi, and that isn’t a snobby thing. But my main evidence is this:

I really quite liked 2012.

Yes, it was formulaic. Yes, the plot was absurd. Yes, the physics of flight as demonstrated are not the physics of flight in this world. But it was entertaining, and that’s what I want from a silly movie.

‘course, for an Emmerich film there was really too little in the way of New York being destroyed. Sort it out, Roland…

Also, it is not known if TLF felt that this was a fair swap, but I think that I’ll have to choose something much more ridiculous next time…

I’ll say this for network failures: they’re bloody annoying.

However, at least they let you know you’re missed. I got emails and or messages from several people who don’t normally let me know that they’re still reading, asking what I’d done to break t’internet; one of them hasn’t commented in eighteen months. You know who you are…

So there’s always a silver lining, I suppose. But still, having your site and your webmail access down for almost 24 hours is a tad vexing. Boo to it.

Shocking new today:

The Human Genetics Commission (HGC) wants the police given new guidance to regulate when it is appropriate to take a sample of DNA.

It also said it had evidence police had made arrests just to get people on the database, a claim police chiefs denied.

Of course police chiefs denied it; they’re too busy saying they’ll quit if politicians get control over the police, and acting exactly as politicians tell them to in changing us from citizens to suspects.

It’s pretty clear when you look at the numbers that the increasing size of the DNA database shows that many more people are being arrested than are being charged. There are millions of records on it, and hundreds of thousands of children’s DNA are in there too. Have all of them been suspected of a crime, or have a proportion of them merely been standing nearby and offered the authorities an opportunity to grab their DNA?

I’ll wager that there’ll be nothing written down, but that most forces have an understanding that increasing the number of records on the database is good for them. And we all know that what’s good for the police, what makes life easier for the police, is in our interest. Right?

The advantage of being single is that you don’t have to compromise; you do pretty much what you want, you do it when you want, you don’t do anything that you don’t want.

This is a wonderful thing; it’s only when you find someone that is worth making compromises for that it becomes second best. And when you have that someone, then compromises happen, and it’s a price worth paying.

It was in this light that I went to see New Moon at the weekend.

For the record, the film itself was pretty shit. The plot was predictable and childish, the visuals were disappointing, thon girl needs to learn that acting sexy doesn’t equate to pretending to be breathless, and the special effects were insultingly bad. The entire movie was made for young girls and people who were once young girls, and they didn’t do the usual thing of making a couple of token nods towards other demographics to make their stay in the room bearable.

But that’s not the point; that’s what I expected and that’s what I signed up for. What I didn’t expect, and what made the trip the worst 2 hours I’ve spent in a cinema, was the audience. oohing and aahing; screaming, clapping every other minute. I honest to God that I wanted to leave, drag TLF out with me, lock the doors and then fill the room with some form of venomous animals.

So the film was bad, but it was made abysmal by the people watching it with me.

Except for TLF, of course, for whom I watched it, and for whom I’d watched it many more times if needbe. But the compromises go both ways, and the poor girl will be watching of my choice soon enough…

The appointment of an EU President and Foreign Minister without bothering to ask anyone from the public happened yesterday. And with that move, another little nail went into the coffin of EU democracy.

The EU hasn’t really ever been about democracy; it’s always been more about the leaders of countries (which, to be fair, have been democratically elected) collaborating with each other to screw their populations over in order to benefit a few people. You can tell this by the way that EU leaders do their damnest to avoid asking the public anything, for fear that they’ll answer incorrectly.

And now, the 27 heads of state just put one of their own into place. And one of the UK’s most loyal never-held-an-elected-position bureaucrats as foreign minister.

My only hope is that, now the Belgians have lost their PM, they go about falling apart again. So that the rest of the world can see that governments are actually detrimental to the good running of a state…

Good news: alcohol (even lots and lots of alcohol) is good for men, according to one survey. Drinking the equivalent of a shot of vodka a day reduces your heart risk by 35%; drinking more than three shots reduces the risk by 50%.

Bad news: same article, some charities run out the usual “alcohol will kill you in other ways” mantra. Using the traditional unit measurement, which we all know as arrived at by cutting open a chicken and reading the entrails while chanting “drink is bad, m’kay”.

Good news: I’ll believe the first one, I think. Because it fits in with what I want to believe.

Bad news: France are a bunch of cheating fucktards. At mass last weekend the priest mentioned the somewhat cheating setup that FIFA went for to ensure that the big name teams would get to South Africa. I’m quite interested in what he’d say this weekend…

It’s that time of year again, where the government puts forth how much they plan to screw us this year. By making an octogenarian tell us.

EXPECTED NEW MEASURES
Fiscal Responsibility Bill – put into law promise to halve deficit
Financial Services and Business Bill – clamp down on bonuses for bankers taking too many risks
The Flood and Water Management Bill – give councils powers to prevent floods
Social Care Bill – neediest elderly to get home care
Policing, Crime and Private Security Bill – DNA of more sex offenders added to database
Energy Bill – give Ofgem more powers to keep prices down
Bribery Bill – make it offence to bribe foreign officials and for business to fail to prevent bribery
Digital Economy Bill – set up fund to bring in universal broadband by 2012
Cluster Munitions Prohibition Bill – ratify international ban on cluster bombs

Surprisingly, most of those don’t make my blood boil. Because they’re presented in nice, sterilised form. What they mean:

Fiscal Responsibility Bill – put into law promise to halve deficit
A way for G Brown to say he’s being tough on cutting the deficit. But expect it so late in the Parliament that his government hasn’t a chance to implement any of it – they’ll just pass that burden onto whichever lucky sod wins the election.

Financial Services and Business Bill – clamp down on bonuses for bankers taking too many risks
And expect may sub clauses on people who earn more than the lefties think is fair.

The Flood and Water Management Bill – give councils powers to prevent floods
So local planners – among the most despised people in the entire world, almost as bad as bankers – will get more power. Hurrah.

Social Care Bill – neediest elderly to get home care
Yes, that’s a fine sentiment. But how much extra paperwork for all involved will there be, how many more random commissions and quangos will administer it?

Policing, Crime and Private Security Bill – DNA of more sex offenders added to database
Because the world’s biggest DNA database just ain’t big enough…

Energy Bill – give Ofgem more powers to keep prices down
.. by making realities of international trade just not apply to the UK, one assumes.

Bribery Bill – make it offence to bribe foreign officials and for business to fail to prevent bribery
Note that the burden will now be on private companies to prove their innocence here, rather than the state to prove any wrongdoing. That’s nice.

Digital Economy Bill – set up fund to bring in universal broadband by 2012
Things that the government don’t seem to realise: most of the people who don’t have broadband now, just don’t want it Leave them alone.

Cluster Munitions Prohibition Bill – ratify international ban on cluster bombs
Why? Surely you could just not use them unless you really need to? I don’t understand this trend for banning perfectly sensible weapons just because some countries can’t be trusted with them. The kind of country that uses them the worst will still use them – they’re hardly that worried about international disapproval, are they?

So, there we go. Yet another Queens Speech. Yet another list of future rodgerings. I hope you’re all looking forward to it!

I quite like the way that el Reg keeps digging up awkward patents that technology companies are filing.

Apple has filed a patent application for an intrusive ad-presentation system that requires users to acknowledge adverts before getting on with their work.

The recent patent filing carries the unusually straightforward title “Advertisement in Operating System.” The described system would be buried deep in a device’s OS – so deep that, in the words of the filing, “the advertisement presentation can in effect ‘take over the system’ in relevant aspects for a limited time.”

The cult of Apple is getting that little bit more worrying, isn’t it? Not just getting overly broad patents in place for touchscreens and GUI features, now they’re planning to hijack the whole damn computing experience for everybody.

My, amn’t I glad that I had a hellava lot of Apple kit in my office and life just now…

Oh wait… No I don’t. I’ve got naught. Which is nice.

Course, in the bottom of the article they mention that Microsoft is doing the same sort of thing. But you’d expect that; Microsoft doesn’t pretend to be friendly, and if they did nobody would believe them. If we can get rid of some of the horseshit cult around Apple, maybe people will see that they’re no better, or cooler, than MS. And that would make me happy.

Lee Clegg (who?) is saying that the Queen’s speech should be cancelled, and replaced with a simple statement of intent to clean up politics.

In theory, that should be something I’d agree with.

However, in years past I’ve rather enjoyed looking at the Queen’s speech, and seeing exactly what the government were planning to do to us. It’s nice to know what the halfwits are up to. Whereas if there is a simple plan to clean up politics, the total fuckwit in charge will not do it properly; he’s apparently of doing anything properly except appearing to be inept.

So I say let him have his agenda read out; he doesn’t have the support within his party to do anything too stupid, and he certainly doesn’t have the time left before he’s out on his ear. Let the hot air blow; it’s better than getting him to concentrate on anything too serious. Because, as we all know, when Brown concentrates on anything, that thing suffers. Badly.

How are you supposed to know what’s the best thing to do when you get conflicting advices about the alternatives.

For example, there’s on course of action that is mighty convenient for 50% of the population, and slightly less convenient for the other 50%. However, it’s widely criminalised and denounced as anti-social behaviour. Councils spend a fortune trying to clamp down on the practice and supplying alternatives. Hell, I even heard of someone the other week who has installed a system that electrocutes anyone who tries to do it near his shop.

On the other hand, the Nation Trust is encouraging it on one of its properties, because it’s apparently damn good for the garden.

So, how do we know? To pee, or not to pee?

Who’da thunk that this would happen?

Taxpayers could face a £7m bill to restore a government-bought ship linked to the Titanic, a committee has found.

The SS Nomadic was bought three years ago by the Department of Social Development and brought back to Belfast as a potential tourist attraction.

Public Accounts Committee chairman Paul Maskey said significant unforeseen costs had been incurred since then.

A DSD spokesman said the £7m figure was wrong and most of the money would come from EU and heritage lottery grants.

First off, a government department miscalculated how much money they’d be spending (big shock), and they they bluster and try to distract from that (even bigger shock).

Lucky Belfast tax and rate payer. You’re all going to smart from this one, I think…

Number seven hundred and sixteen in a continuing series:

Having a tooth break open for no apparent reason.

It gets more annoying when you consider the following facts:

1. I didn’t find the quarter of the tooth that isn’t there any more. Which means I have likely swallowed it. Brilliant.
2. My registered dentist is some 400 miles away.
3. I don’t like dentists in the first place.

My day, it’s going to be fun…

If there’s only one (and, let’s face it, there may well be only one) thing to like about the North Korean state, it’s the floweriness of their propaganda language.

In the North’s version of events, a patrol boat was on a mission to confirm “an unidentified object” on the North’s side of the border, and while it was sailing back, South Korean ships chased it and opened fire in a “grave armed provocation”.

The North Korean vessel “lost no time to deal a prompt retaliatory blow at the provokers”, KCNA said. “Much flurried by this, the group of warships of the South Korean forces hastily took to flight to the waters of their side.”

I mean, they may well be the most confusing country on the planet; they may well be actual bonkers; they may well be starving their own people and building a bloody ugly hotel in the centre of Pyongyang; they may well be unknown to most of the world except as the baddies in Team America¹; but by God they know how to tell lies in a fancy way…

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¹ – Just a rittle ronery…

A couple of years ago, the author behind one of my favourite series of books died. And it was a very sad thing. One of the sad things was that he died before finishing his work – the Wheel of Time had a minimum of one book left, to tie up all the loose ends that he’d created in the previous eleven books.

And he did create a lot of ends to tie up. The cast of main characters is huge, and the different threads of the story are many. It’s the biggest single story I’ve ever tried reading, and makes The Lord of the Rings look like a Janet & Jon story for four year olds.

Last week, his estate’s chosen author released the first of the three volumes that will make up the final book. And I got to read the opening paragraph again:

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gives it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third Age by some, ag Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose around the alabaster spire known as the White Tower. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

It’s been a couple of years since I last read those words, and many years since I first read them. But they still give me a tingle that I very rarely get from a book. And the rest lived up to the promise.

It was, in short, a very good imitation of Robert Jordan’s writing style, and it seems to have answered more questions than it asked, which is a rare thing in this series. Two more books to read, apparently, before the series is finished; likely another four years.

I can’t wait to read them, and I dread having read them. For it means that there will be no more to look forward to.

My first November 5^th in London, and how do I mark it? With a timely video, t’be sure, but not as well as I should have marked it.

For I completely forgot about this excursion. Rubbish.

Also, while I’m on the subject, it must be said that the English don’t seem to do this fireworks malarkey properly. They gather in gardens and on heaths, and go ‘ooh’. Where’s the fun in that? Why aren’t they aiming them at each other? Why aren’t they being thrown into the middle of crowds? Why oh why aren’t they being set off at four AM?

I tell you what, we should let a few Belfastians loose here with some fireworks, that’d show them the proper way to play with gunpowder¹…

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¹ – On second thoughts, lets not do that. It didn’t work out too well last time…

Remember, remember, the anniversary of the last man to enter parliament with honourable intent…

Some six months ago, a most excellent petition was launched. And it ran thusly:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign.”

Details of Petition:

“There are many reasons why we might want Brown to resign, but rather than having lots of narrow petitions on this topic (most of which have been rejected), I wanted one for all of us.”

And in the six months since then, 72,234 people signed it. That’s a hell of a lot of people; more than three times more than voted for Prime Minister at the last election. So more than three times as many people as have ever voted for him.

But the petition has now closed, and the Prime Minster has deigned to respond. With the lamest thing I’ve heard in a while:

The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all.

The Prime Minister may be determined to build all that, but he had presided over the creation of a weaker, less fair, and all round worse place to be.

But he’s got a nice little delusional world going on, so he’s not going to go. Instead he’s going to keep screwing us over.

The graceless bastard that he is.

The news that a learn’d judge has decided that eco-mentalism is a religion both entertains and terrifies me.

When Rupert Dickinson, the chief executive of one of Britain’s biggest property firms, left his BlackBerry behind in London while on a business trip to Ireland, he simply ordered one of his staff to get on a plane and deliver the device to him.

For Dickinson’s then head of sustainability, Tim Nicholson, the errand was much more than an executive indulgence: it embodied the contempt with which his boss treated his deep philosophical beliefs about climate change.

In a significant decision today , a judge found Nicholson’s views on the environment were so deeply held that they were entitled to the same protection as religious convictions, and ruled that an employment tribunal should hear his claim that he was sacked because of his beliefs.

Entertains, because it shows that eco-mentalism isn’t based upon logic or science, but on a deeply held belief in something beyond logic or science. In the Holy Word of St Al Gore of Tennessee, and the Devine Moddeling of Goddard. In a consistently vague set of claims that change when the science proves them wrong, but only enough that the exact bit that was proven wrong isn’t referred to again. A house built on sand, where every grain of sand examined thus far has been proven unsuitable for building anything on, but the housebuilders refuse to draw from that the conclusion that the rest of the sand might just be the same.

And that tickles the hell out of me.

Of course, it also terrifies me. Because now people who just refuse to do their jobs can hide behind their mentalism. And it’ll likely spread:

Camilla Palmer, of Leigh Day and Co, said it opened doors for an even wider category of deeply held beliefs, such as feminism, vegetarianism or humanism. “It’s a great decision. Why should it only be religions which are protected?”

Well, there may be a debate as to whether religions should be protected. But I would suggest that the definition should be restricted to something that has a wide enough following and a significant length of history, otherwise cults and craziness would be included. And otherwise mentalists of all stripes will go into jobs, cry their religion and hope to close down places. Places like butchers and farms, if Ms Palmer is on the ball about vegetarianism.

And that would truly be terrifying.