John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

Bob Hopium: 19 October 2004: Damn. Yonks ago I was told they named an element after Bob Hope. They called it Bob Hopium. I never checked, and I was aware it could not have been true, but I wanted it to be true. Turns out, there's no element called Bob Hopium. How sad. I feel like someone just told me Santa doesn't exist.; Looking at the timeline it's not such a daft idea. Some elements are named after people. Amazing, I haven't heard of lots of them, and two were 'discovered' this year.
LaffinAli: 19 October 2004: Ali made me laff yesterday. We was using a ballpoint pen that ran out and she said it was probably a market research giveaway pen which had just enough ink in it to complete the survey, but not quite enough to tick the box at the end that said "I don't want to receive junk mail".
Crap towns: 18 October 2004: I've just finished reading another present Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places To Live. I haven't blogged much about that because I found it mildly depressing. In Amazon it's under humour, I'm not sure.; Besides the occasional place that was bad because of its toffee nosed inhabitants .. St. Andrews' property prices have gone up since the prince went there, and the tale of the woman who parked her 4x4 blocking the small local high street and when accosted by the police replied "you can fine me if you like, I can afford it" before walking off to do her shopping .. the majority of crap towns listed are new towns or concrete developments with next to no facilities.; But what was depressing was that the book comprised page after page of whingers. OK, I heard that snort at the back. I know I write page after page of whinging here, but I am also positive. I do stuff about it. If I find a crap website, I'll probably write to the company about it. I do try to impact the world, and in my work, I try to do everything I can to get us all to a better place. My whinging here contributes to a web environment that favours the good and knocks down the bad.; I didn't get that impression from Crap Towns. I do feel, had I lived in such a place, I'd have organised something. If there's nothing, there are at least the people. Something like this is possible.
Scared?: 18 October 2004: I'm scared. Ronnie and Reggie?
Funny: 18 October 2004: This is funny. I got to it from here, I've no idea what the others are like.
Tentatively blubbing: 18 October 2004: Since I tentatively mentioned my predilection for tears at tv, I may as well go the whole hog and say, I blubbed fairly consistently on Saturday night through .. architecture programs.; It started with Grand Designs where the tear jerker was that the couple were likeable, worked hard, seemed to be in a good relationship, came from near where me and my partner used to live, and achieved their dream (which was very close to what we'd enjoy). Fantastic. Love the mini desk .. for those who didn't see it, he took a mini from a scrapyard, sawed off the top, cleaned it up, and turned it into a desk.; Then came the RIBA Stirling prize. What a blubfest! Actually, I loved the Kunsthaus but what really worked for me was the school at Bexley.; When I worked for International Press Marketing, we used to work in the boss' house. He lived in a barn, and we had one of the haylofts and a bedroom underneath. We turned over about £19,000 per month.; Then we moved to a farmhouse he'd been converting. Turnover doubled, and grew from there.; That taught me the power of a building. I still don't know why it happened. Perhaps the business was always ready to grow, but the boss was spending all his time developing the farmhouse. Once it was done, he was free to sell. I prefer to think that we were increasingly crushed into the old premises, while the new gave us room to breath.; Anyway, the Bexley school achieved similar results, but by trusting the pupils and treating them like responsible people. Fantastic.; The only other stunning building that really worked was the gherkin, 30 St. Mary's Axe. Guess what? Both were from Sir Norman Foster. I think I have a new hero. Pity it won rather than the school, I can't help thinking that there was some London-centric thinking going on.
Fun kitchen cleaning: 18 October 2004: Uh. What? Oh sorry. Got distracted reading this. It's the very top link for the keyword 'kitchen' in msn. Amazing.
Catholics leaving: 18 October 2004: I had the rare displeasure of seeing the Catholics leaving the local church yesterday after their service. The most popular facial expression was one of purse-lipped disapproval. It was as if they'd been charged up with sufficient disapproval to last them the week.; I only passed one happy group, and I overheard the line "well that sounds Irish to me". Racist too. Lovely.; My g/f reckons they saw me, obviously having just got out of bed at almost mid-day, strolling back with my newspaper and thought "I want some of that, but I can't because I was born catholic".
UK troops moving to US controlled areas in Iraq: 18 October 2004: I don't like the sound of this.; I met with an editor at the Derby Evening Telegraph to find out more about the kind of story they wanted to receive, and he said there was no point in a newspaper reporting what people were talking about. Instead, a newspaper had to be the thing people talked about. The DET is an evening paper. He wanted to print stories that people talked about the next day.; Ever since, I've been wary of going "that's outrageous" to things I've read in the newspaper, since it seems to be their role to create stories that do exactly that. I try to see through the initial reaction to discern the real story.; This story seems to be calculated to outrage us. UK troops moving to take over US areas while the spared US troups shore up the Falluja offensive. The British perception, created by the same news organisations, is that the British have 'ruled' with a fair hand and therefore received more support and less violence than the Americans who have been heavy handed.; The figures suggest that's not actually true. To date the Americans have 1,101 dead from a force of 138,000 (0.79%), while we have 68 from 8,500 (0.8%). You might expect the Americans to have higher casualties since they have Baghdad to police.; Anyway, I'm aware that I might be playing into the news organisations hands by being 'outraged' at the suggestion that UK troops might move to work in US controlled areas.; Being reasonably good at what I do, within an organisational context I find what often happens is that management will see that I have capacity, while someone else hasn't, and will shift some responsibility to me. How I perceive that is that I have capacity because I'm good and I'll handle it. The other person is in chaos because of the decisions they've taken and the style they've adopted. The manager should be sorting that person out, not shifting their failures onto me. The net result is that the workload balances out across an organisation. Those who are incompetent get less work to do and therefore get rewarded for their incompetence. Those who are skilled get punished by being given more work. Overall, under such a system, it pays to be reasonably incompetent.; This is what I feel is happening with the US/UK redeployment thing, so it hits a nerve.
There is life out there: 16 October 2004: I went looking just a few hours ago to see what that signal SETI recently found turned out to be. They reckon not much. I suppose if they found extraterrestrial life, we'd know about it.; Or would we?; But then I got contacted by someone who'd found my blog, seen that I was planning another trip to Spain, and wanted to recommend Sesamo restaurant. How groovy is that? Fantastic that we connected, and wonderful that he took the time and effort to write. Hopefully he has no financial link to the restaurant, that would spoil things :-); What is it that makes me think that restaurant's web site was developed by someone who is left handed?; Sadly Barcelona isn't where I'm heading. Lanzarote is. Not quite through choice, but because I'm doing the website for a villa there, and we thought it only right to try the place out. I'll put up the link once it's cleared, which will be soon.
Indymedia: 15 October 2004: Indymedia looks interesting.
Spanish: 15 October 2004: I've started learning Spanish again. We're about to book a holiday. Yay!
Web Position Gold: 15 October 2004: I've been using Web Position Gold for a while to get good search engine positions for my clients, but I've just decided to stop using it.; It's the classic sales cycle. Things have been brewing for a while. I've never really been sure that I've had what I've paid for. I'm sure at one stage years ago I paid for updates I never received.; Then someone in a respectable newsgroup pointed out that, actually, Google expressly forbids the use of WPG in their terms of use. Well, Google's getting a bit Corporate America, but OK.; At the same time, the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) community has matured. When I first subscribed to WPG, at least a year before I went to university, there wasn't much information on the subject. I'm not even sure there was a name for it. Nowadays there's a lot of good information, and lots of alternatives.; Then there's the nagging feeling, after university, that I should be working with core concepts, not some woolly, protective software package. At university we were taught how to write web pages using just a text editor, not Dreamweaver. Consequently, using Dreamweaver feels like driving using a rubber steering wheel .. you're not really connected to what you're doing. I want that feeling of connection within my SEO work, and funnily enough, just doing a manual check of the position of one of my clients in Google has given me a new insight and new thoughts about how to get them new business. So I'm right, WPG was shielding me, somehow.; Also, working with the real data feels professional. Using WPG feels amateur, just as using Dreamweaver does.; Then recently I purchased another lump of their continuing advice, their database of search engine preferences. With that came an upgrade to their software. The installation of their software said I could move all my data files from the old version to the new.; It was only after that that it became clear the new software was a trial version with a thirty day limit, and I'd have to pay up to $349 to run it thereafter. Well maybe I'm getting spoiled by open source software where, in the main, updates come free of charge, but that seems to be a lot of money.; They've done this before. In the end they turn off support for the old version. So, if I want to continue to use WPG, I have to go with that cost.; It's not as if the upgrade gives anything groundbreaking. I think they've got themselves into a rut. It's a facelift, but then all it seems to offer is a shell around the previous functions. And it still asks me how to connect to the Internet every time (I'm on ADSL, I'm permanently connected).; I know I'm up against professional sales people here. WPG comes with an American hard sell. So I know I've been manoeuvred into a buying position. Well, sorry WPG, you've manoeuvered me into going my own way. Breathe that free air, yay!
Why am I not giving to the Poppy Project?: 15 October 2004: I'm struggling a little. I watched Sex Traffic last night as part of opening myself up to this problem. It's a very powerful drama. Afterwards I looked at the support stuff on teletext C4 405 (if I remember right, and here), and, well, I certainly had tears in my eyes over it.; For a few seconds I thought I'd make a donation, but then I stopped. This is different to making a donation for, say, Cancer Research. How? I'm not sure. Like I say, I'm struggling to understand myself.; I wasn't sure what a charity could do, I think that was the issue. It seemed like I was going to give money as an emotional reaction, to salve my conscience. I want more than that. The biggest charity seems to be the Poppy Project.; The drama highlights the issues very well, and shows the police in former East European and soviet countries colluding with the traffickers. The problem is therefore one of law enforcement and of governments. It's also one of male demand. If there was no demand, there would be no trafficking. At least I'm not contributing to the problem.; Providing support for women who want to leave their predicament is obviously tremendously important. But if I support it, it feels a) endless, and b) like I'm feeding the system. If one woman leaves, another will be trafficked in her place.; Perhaps the thing that would persuade me to give would be awareness building and lobbying. I didn't see that on the site.; I don't think there's anything I can do personally. Such women will be pretty distrustful of any man, and rightly so. I'd be no match for any structured male power. I should use what I'm good at, which, I guess, is what I'm doing right now. I thought of offering free web development, but they seem to have done perfectly well without me.; Hmm, I know what I would give to. I would give towards police programmes to stop such trafficking here in the UK.; I'm sure I'll be back to this subject as I resolve my issues.
£30bn: 14 October 2004: Do I understand this correctly? According to this the computer network (that's just the network, the infrastructure, not the applications that sit on top of it) for the NHS has already cost £6 bn in procurement costs, and could cost 'between £18.6 billion and £31 billion'.; Well, now, let's be realistic. It's not going to be £18.6 billion is it? So, the total budget for the project will be towards £37 billion. And if the Scottish parliament is anything to go by, and the dome for that matter, it could go higher.; Granted, the £37 billion is over a period. But the NHS employs 970,000 people.; I can't believe my own maths, is it right that 37,000,000,000 / 970,000 = £38,144 for each NHS employee? How in God's name can a network legitimately cost that much?; I've done a little more. I can't actually find the number of IT workers there are in the UK (can you?). The nearest I can find is at statistics.gov.uk which says in Spring 2004 there were 28,230,000 people employed in the UK, 15.5% of whom were employed in Banking, Insurance, Finance, etc (which includes IT), which translates to 4,375,650 people. Let's make a really wild guess and say half of those are in IT, well, 2 million. That means UK IT workers should benefit by around £18,500 from this program. Maybe I shouldn't begrudge (I don't, actually) paying my taxes.
Retiring early: 14 October 2004: It's a occasional brag of aspirant youth that they want to retire at 35. It betrays their immature thinking, though. Having just started with work, and finding that it stops them from playing, they find a mental way out. It's a bit like the kid who goes to school for the first time and when asked whether they enjoyed it says "it was ok, but I don't think I'll go again".; Anyone who actually does it, though, has two problems. Firstly, they are clearly a waste of space. There's a society beyond their garden wall that could well do with their contribution, particularly if they've succeeded in delivering on their own plan. Secondly, work is pretty much required for our mental well being. We need a) occupation, and b) a sense of importance, of worth. It's actually no fun not working.; On the contrary, I have no plans to retire early. I never have. I fancy carrying on, OK in a lesser capacity, until I drop. Which I'm intending to do when I'm a hundred, in 2061.
xPress: 14 October 2004: I've ordered one of these and I'm like a kid before Christmas.
Joan Rivers: 13 October 2004: Wow, Joan Rivers was telling the truth when she said she's seventy. Unbelievable. I thought it was a joke.
Blakes 7: 12 October 2004: I bought a Blakes 7 video at that vegan fayre and watched it over the weekend.; It occurred to me that maybe this was Britains answer to Star Trek and, besides the obvious differences in success and budget, there's something else that I think illustrates a difference between the British and the Americans.; As far as I remember, and I'm no trekkie, in Star Trek the crew were off exploring, bringing American values to far off planets. Doing good. Saving people.; In Blakes 7, our heroes are renegades who have stolen a ship and are twatting around the universe escaping the establishment, which is populated by evil baddies. Not only that, Avon (the technician) was always undermining Blakes position, sniping from the back and waiting for his downfall and the day he could take over.; So there you have it. The British sense of individuality, of anti-establishment, versus the American sense of being moral missionaries.; Thinking about it, there was also Space 1999 which started with a monumental cock up which forced the moon out of earth's orbit.; Now I've satiated my Blakes 7 requirements, I'd like to see an episode or two of UFO. I remember that being pretty scary. Weren't the aliens not only green, but were their suits filled with liquid? Scary.
Christopher Reeve: 12 October 2004: I heard Christopher Reeve was big in stencil research. You'd have thought he could have found something more useful to do. Using stencils to decorate your house is so eighties. And how did he get up the stepladder?
www.order247.co.uk: 11 October 2004: Warning: this is a bit of a pointless steam of consciousness, frankly, because I answer most of my complaints as I work through them, but I'll leave it here as a record in case anyone feels like using www.order247.co.uk.; I ordered a new hard disc drive from www.order247.co.uk as recommended by PC Pro.; I ordered it on Wednesday, and it's now Monday. I'm sure it said 24 hour delivery somewhere on the site, although I can't see it now. Basically, there's a information black hole into which your order seems to be drawn. There's no follow up email, no tracking number, no management of my expectations regarding delivery.; I called the helpline. They answered saying "thank you for calling demonite". Interesting. The order247 website 'about us' page says "With over 200 awards including Best PC Manufacturer and Best Sales Team Carrera SSC has established itself since 1993 as one of the most recognized and respected computer brands in the UK." Well, who are Carrera SSC? I may as well say on my site "Microsoft is the biggest software company the world's ever seen", they haven't said Carrera SSC and order247 are linked. Then we get "In October 2000 Carrera and SSC was consolidated by Digital Network PLC giving the brands even stronger purchasing power and stability." OK, so now we have Digital Network PLC involved. I understand they probably have outsourced their phone support, (but you'd have thought, if the phone support people were any good, they'd answer with the name of the company they are supporting). I've an awful feeling, backed up by the lack of a postal address and of any location-based telephone number on their 'contact us' page, that this company is hiding. I've a feeling, too, that it's illegal not to provide such details. Oh, I see, in their t&c small print they say "In these terms and conditions: 'Carrera' means Digital Network PLC, Dosthill Hall, Dosthill, Tamworth, Staffs, B77 1JB". They're still hiding though .. why would else would you make your physical address hard to find?; Anyway, I spent a total of 16 minutes on the phone, including a while listening to country and western music (I hate country and western music). But overall they were pretty good. After five minutes of waiting a real person (who could hardly speak) broke in and offered to call back when the queue was shorter, which she did after six minutes. That's good. Then the person I spoke to said they'd been out of stock, it had arrived, and they would dispatch today. Then he asked me to hang on and said, actually, they'd sent me a text on Friday to say it would arrive with me today. My phone's pretty much stopped working now, so I never got that, but hey. 12 October 2004 update: It didn't arrive, so fingers crossed for today. 12 October 2004 update: It arrived, at about 13:30.; It's just weird that all of this doesn't work online. In fairness, their site says that part is under construction, so all my complaints are pretty much answered and I'm left with a) they were late, and b) it doesn't work right now. If I said "my website skills are currently under construction, please be patient while I become fantastic" I don't think I'd make many people would feel they're dealing with a fantastic web designer. They'd think, at best, that I was pre-fantastic. Maybe it's nice to know the company you're dealing with has aspirations.; But I think there's a basic psychological problem here. There are those people who like to deal impersonally over the Internet, and those people who, when they hit a problem, reach for the phone. If you take orders by phone, then support by phone. If you take orders over the net, support over the net .. the customer has told you their preferred medium by the way they ordered. Getting a text message to confirm my order I find weird and unexpected, partly because it's cross-technology. I'm sure if I'd had the choice I'd have requested an email confirmation not a text one. And not being able to track my order online is just weird.; By contrast, when I ordered the same product previously from CCL they really did deliver next day. They don't seem to stock them any more.
Four fifths of new homes are mediocre: 11 October 2004: So the The Today programme programme this morning reports that some architectural society has branded four fifths of new homes to be mediocre.; Of course four fifths of new homes are mediocre. Four fifths of everything is mediocre, always have been and always will be. That's what mediocre means .. "of middling quality" (Oxford Reference Dictionary). It doesn't matter how much you improve things, most of everything will still be pretty average.; What is worth persuing in the housebuilding market is whether it's operating in our best interest or not. I suppose a free market always will, according to, was it Keynes? Several years ago it was noted that we need many many more homes, particularly starter homes and homes for important but relatively low income workers, particularly those supporting families.; I've not seen those homes happen, and starter homes are in huge demand. Having said that, there are a lot of 'apartment living' developments going up in our cities. Did you see that annoying woman last night moving the family to Barcelona? You know, she wants to move to Barcelona because they really liked it when they visited once. They've been around that region many times and never been to Barcelona before. They don't speak Spanish. She didn't realise it was all apartments and wants a house .. a bit like a British house. She wants the sun then complains it's hot. All this in the middle of their son's GCSEs. Anyway, all the housing there is apartments.; It all kinda backs up my current theme that, while people might be good at what they do (he was an IT contractor), they/we are just ordinary people out of context. + .0 << oh ho, that was funny. Those keystrokes were the lasting impression the cat made having failed to jump onto my desk after being deflected from her arc by me moving to grab the mouse. Back to my point .. I sat with someone I greatly respect the other day watching the lifeboat being launched. He said "so, it goes out to sea with those wheels still on it?" No, that's the way the tractor gets it into the sea. That's the trailer, it floats off that once the water's deep enough. My immediate thought was "wtf is in your head? How would a lifeboat do all the crazy fantastic things it does if it still had wheels on it?" (we once stood on Whitby pier as that lifeboat left, and it went out as if it were a car on a road .. so fast). Then, no, fair doos, the guy's never been an engineer, never been concerned with that side of life. Like I say, out of context even great people are stupid.; Shall I stop ranting and get to the point? OK. The point is, I'm wondering whether house building companies really want to build the quantity of homes Prescot wanted. If they did, they'd satisfy the market, and prices would fall. They'd get less income for more work. No company wants that. I'm wondering if the house building companies are either a) happy for there to be a shortage of homes because it provides them with a better income for less, and b) whether they are actually colluding with each other to ensure that situation continues.; Maybe that's unfair. It isn't happening in the car industry for instance, so it's not necessarily how businesses work. Maybe planning laws are more difficult, maybe no-one wants the developments near them, and people/protest power is more sophisticated.; Also, it's not all bad. If the housing companies did satisfy the market, all our house values would fall. And if I really believed they had a licence to print money, I'd buy shares in them and get a little for myself. So I guess I'm just curious, and I'm recording my thoughts in case, in ten years time it all comes out and I can link back to this and say "ha! told you so", and do a little jig.
Java: 8 October 2004: Eeh, I'm back to programming in Java and it feels like I've come home.
Thinking at work: 8 October 2004: The Today programme seemed to be at the new Scottish parliament building this morning, and the presenter was interviewing someone or other about it, sorry I can't be more specific, I was washing up and the sound of the running water drowned out the details.; He went into what I think he described as a thinking pod which was a quiet place to think and, essentially, derided them with his manner .. "so here's where SMPs sit and, what, think great thoughts?"; My abiding memory of working for a proper company was being desperate for somewhere to go where I could spend maybe just an hour, in the quiet, with no phones, no interruptions, no constant chatter. Personally, I can't think unless there's quiet.; I had legitimate reasons to need thinking space. I was working on, for instance, defining the information flow around the company. You can't do that if you're constantly interrupted.; Obviously the whole budgetary thing was bad news, but it sounds like the building's great and I would definitely use the thinking pods if I were there.
Hot ride: 8 October 2004: I'm very much enjoying Hotride at the moment, a tune on the latest Prodigy CD. I confess to entertaining thoughts that we might cover it in the band, but I'm scared it'll come out all Raw Sex. If you remember them, they were a comedy duo starring the wonderful Rowland Rivron doing lifeless working-mens-club-style renditions of classics like Purple Haze. They had a slot in French and Saunders and there's a video to prove I'm not making this up.
I was wondering ..: 8 October 2004: I was wondering what a campervan designed by Anne Summers would be like.; I was once treated to an inspirational drive through rush hour morning Glasgow (I love driving through metropoliseseseseeees) by an architect on my way to write about a building in Paisley, where he talked about the flow of people in and out of the city, but also disclosed that he lived in a house designed by architect Robert Adam in which not just the house but all the furniture and contents right down to the cutlery were designed by the architect.; I'm thinking the Anne Summers campervan could probably reach similar heights of greatness, but so far I've only got as far as imagining what shape the thermos flask would be.
I was wondering ..: 8 October 2004: I was wondering whether there's an unshaven Mr Bud Wiser anywhere in the world who is the King of Beards.
Chip and pin: 7 October 2004: I've just read advice from the Halifax saying ". .it's important that you remember your PIN at all times. The best way of doing this is to personalise your PIN to a number that's easy to remember". Really?; In computer circles we know what that means. Everyone's pin number will be either their, their partners, or their children's day/month of birth. An occasional few will use the date their team won the cup, their house number, telephone number, or the numbers in their postcode. Mathematicians will use 3142. My old bank manager used to remember a number because it was the same as the wheel layout on his favourite steam locomotive. And plenty of people will use 1234, or 0000. It rather makes a mockery of the whole idea.; I was talking to my mother in law the other day about the way Vernon's Pools has gone. Time was, and I remember this, fathers used to sit sucking their pencils working out which teams were going to draw. The Vernon's system now is that you simply pay your money each week, and your regular numbers are stored on their system. It makes it easier for the player .. who has the time nowadays to sit and work that out? And it provides better income for Vernons.; But what happens, the same as the lottery, is people pick their childrens birthdates, their house number, lucky numbers and so on.; I guess with a PIN you only get three attempts, so it's still pretty secure. But the advice rankled. In computing, we're trained to use passwords that are long enough, obscure enough, and contain enough different types of characters to be difficult to guess.; We know that the easiest way to crack a code is to start with what you know about the person, follow on with the english dictionary, and if none of that works, then you're into the hard slog of testing every other combination of letter and number.; Personally, I take it as an opportunity to use mnemonics. In biology, if you don't use it, you lose it, and since my memory's crap anyway .... err, what was I talking about? ... oh yes, since my memory's crap anyway I should exercise it more. So I generate a random number that's different to the one the company sent me, and then make up a mnemonic based on something like this that starts in the situation I'll find myself in .. paying for goods. Each time I have to pay for something, my mnemonic kicks in, and I can remember my pin. Smart arse.
Not tickety boo at all: 6 October 2004: Billy Connolly's website is an example of how bad Flash can be. So much stuff in the way of finding out what you want.
Espirit health club at the Crown Hotel, Scarborough: 5 October 2004: My partner's just been to have a look around the Espirit health club at Scarborough's Crown Hotel and she's beaming with excitement. It sounds excellent.
Bigley: 5 October 2004: Being tall, I stand out. To counter that, I try to blend in. You'll find me watching from the sidelines. At school we departed morning assembly in strict rows, so everyone used to gradually filter into the rows in front in order to get out more quickly. I tried it once .. ONCE .. and got caught.; Similarly, I know I'm tall, so I never want to sit in front of anyone in case they can't see what's going on. I can see perfectly well from the back, so I feel it's the right thing for me to do to sit there.; I think being tall has made me overly considerate of other's feelings. I know I'm visible, I know I get in the way, so I try to act in the best interests of everyone. I think it's also made me a good rule follower .. I've never had points on my driving licence for instance.; Being at the back, watching, rather than in the cut and thrust of debate, I think I've developed the ability to see all sides of an issue. I'm not terribly decisive because I can always see all sides of an argument (except in my work where I know for sure that I'm the one who knows what he's talking about). I like to proceed by considered action, and I don't like anything that favours the person who shouts loudest.; For me, winning an argument by force of personality, will, and power, is pretty much an act of violence. There are other ways of getting what you want, and you've not really won the other people over, you've just subjugated them. Win-win negotiation is what I try to apply. I use my creative skills to come up with a new way of looking at a position so that both parties win.; So when something like the Bigley case comes up, I'm unmoved. Ken Bigley isn't a charity worker, as the Italian women were. He went into Iraq for work, knew the risks, and presumably was going to be paid enough for him to retire on. There's nothing wrong with that, we're going to need lots of those kinds of people who are willing to be away from their families and work in constant danger if we're going to rebuild the parts of Iraq we blew up a year or so ago.; But it isn't a problem on the scale of human trafficking where up to 1,420 women were trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation in 1998 .. benign words hiding the deliberate and organised destruction of women and their families for money. 1,420 in one year, just in the UK.; I believe the problem's getting worse, but if we imagine the number is the same this year, during the time Bigley has dominated our headlines (I think he was taken on the 17 September), another seventy women have been captured and brought to the UK to be raped and beaten many times day after day, living in fear of what their captors might do to their families if they do anything wrong. That's added to the 20,000 women already here under similar circumstances.; If I were a politician, I would act based on numbers and hard evidence. Sure, I'd act for Ken Bigley. But I'd give him 1/20,000th of the effort I'd give the UK's imprisoned and enslaved women.; (And while I'm at it, the gorgeous Edwina was right about the eggs).
Compare and contrast: 4 October 2004: Reading the last two blogs, I think that offers an insight into why the middle of the road, the comfortable, the Marks and Spencer world seems almost sickening to me. Ok, sure, I do relax into it if I switch off bits of my head, but that's no way to live. And I can't say my life's anything other than comfortable at the moment. But as a value to aspire to, I don't like "comfortable".; I don't think we British can solve the world's problems, I'm a great believer in working within your sphere of influence, which is why I'm working out which party I want to vote for.; Voting is in my control, I can do that. And while I'm at it, having read recently about how much effort went into winning us the vote, please do vote when you get the chance. I won't be best pleased if you can't be bothered. Hartlepool's turnout was considered good at 46%.; I'm also aware of a friend (hi Madeleine) saying that lots of the leaders of the womens liberation movement are dying early, the assumption being that the way they lived their lives, perhaps always fighting, always working to beat negative attitudes, somehow contributed to their early demise. So, I have a life to enjoy and a balance to keep. But where I can, I'll act.
Voting: 4 October 2004: Voting is so complex, I've taken to working out just one or two issues that really matter to me and voting on the basis of that. I learned to vote selfishly some time ago .. it's the only way. The whole point is to vote for what you want, no-one else will.; Last time, I voted on the GM issue. My vote went for the party that had the hardest line on GM. This time, the thing that's really bothering me at the moment is the trafficking of women into prostitution.; I'll say now, I've never and don't anticipate using the services of a prostitute. The closest I've come to one is, as a young man, walking back from some gig in London one night when a voice said something subliminal from the shadows. Naively I stopped and asked "pardon?", a black woman appeared with a voice sensual enough to melt your feet to the ground like a wax candle and said "would you like a woman?". "No thanks" I spluttered, "I've already got one".; I'll also say that I have no particular moral objection to prostitution, nor do I find it particularly dirty or offensive. But also, I don't have to put up with prostitutes on my street.; Anyway, there was a time when prostitution seemed OK. It seemed to have moved out from the shadows, it seemed legitimate, it wasn't controlled by pimps anymore. That's how I felt anyway. It was around the time of the television programme Paddington Green when, and I'm pleased to see there's a website dedicated to her, we were invited into the world of a man trying to earn enough money through prostitution to get the operations to convert to a woman. She was simply a beautiful person, and it appears others thought so too. Good.; I think what made her 'beautiful' was an extreme combination of steely "whatever it costs" determination with complete vulnerability and faultiness. She was human, and she was shaping her world, which encapsulates pretty much everything we can do and be.; Now we have a major international problem with under-age women being snatched from their homes in poor countries and brought to rich countries to service clients, with no hope of anything more than being left alone at the end of the day. This isn't the first article I've read on the subject, and it seems to be getting worse.; As the articles say, there can be no consent under such circumstances, so each 'session' is rape. The numbers are staggering, with many women being raped many, many times every hour for year after year. I know that's emotive, and I don't like my emotions being toyed with for someone else's gain, but I think that's justified. What human tragedy is greater .. except perhaps Africa? It's the politicians job to push for solutions.; So I may be voting also on which party has the best strategy for tackling human trafficking.
Himalayas: 4 October 2004: I've never liked Michael Palin's travelogues, but sat through the first Himalaya last night because Ali's parents wanted to watch it and they're staying with us.; I've been struggling to work out why I don't like them. I think it has to do with MOR-ness again. That feeling that I'm sat with a nation of Marks and Spencer shoppers on a Sunday night.; There's Palin grinning through issues that deserve a deeper look. The society which shuts away its women while they are menstruating because they are dirty. The dentist who uses a drill less sophisticated than a B&Q Dremmel. I'm sure the villagers would like a plush, pain-free, modern dentist service and could do without Palin wandering around pointing things out for us to laugh at.; It all has a feeling of Britain when we had all the pink bits, an empire, ruling India and laughing at their daft ways. We ought to have more respect.; Then there's his instinct to meet with the leader or the richest person around. I can't help thinking the more interesting people would be the ordinary workers. I want to know what their lives are like. It's a bit like a cut down Whicker's World but without the skill, panache, interest, access to really interesting people, or strength of character.; I got a sense of the hugeness of the Himalaya, but not enough of a sense. Somehow, he seems to travel blind. Maybe it's simply that it's him and his camera operator. Maybe it's meant to be simple, and perhaps we're used to more researched programs.
So tell me about this ten point plan: 3 October 2004: I got sick of reading about the effect of Blair's announcement of his plans to serve a full third term, and nothing (except the occasional mention) of what the ten point plan for a third term was that he outlined in his conference speech. I didn't see what the plan was on the Channel 4 News, and I've not seen it in the Observer either.; So I thought I'd look it up. It's about half way down his speech.
Door furniture: 3 October 2004: I needed new door furniture .. handle, number, letterbox, and yale lock, and went to a specialist shop on Victoria Road. He talked me through the whole thing, told me how to keep the brass clean and polished (it's sold lacquered .. wait until the lacquer starts to fail then take it all off again and strip the lacquer using paint stripper .. thereafter you are in direct contact with the brass and can use Brasso), and sold me everything for £21.; Can you imagine buying the same from B&Q? It would have been more expensive, I'd have had to drive there, and I wouldn't have learned about the lacquer business.; Driving to B&Q is no small thing. Here are the costs the Inland Revenue allows us to claim for car use. The Inland Revenue are not disposed to giving money away, so these must be the actual cost of car ownership. If B&Q is just three miles away, and I drive in my 2.2litre car, that could have just cost me £1.89. Something to factor in when considering whether to walk to a local shop (count the benefits of the walk) versus driving to B&Q.; It's not really true, that. The cost includes the cost of ownership, and you pay that anyway whether you drive your car or not. So once you have a car, it probably pays to use it. I've no figures on that. The only thing I might say is that the less you use your car, the higher its value when you sell it later.; That's not all of it, either. If you're walking, are you breathing lots of car fumes? What's the health balance sheet of a walk along along a modern street .. does the physical benefit of the walk outweigh the damage of the pollutants you breath in?; And (shock, this guy not only starts sentences with an 'and', he starts whole paragraphs with them) the Inland Revenue costs won't include the impact of the pollution you've caused, both in your emissions at the time, and in the impact of all that's gone into drilling and transporting your fuel, mining and transporting the materials for your car and then manufacturing it, and the building and maintenance of the roads you drive on.; There's another shopping possibility. Years ago, I bought some drawer runners from a similar place just off Harrogate town centre, and when I said "hey, I've never done this before can you show me how they work", the guy called his mate from the back and it was like that Hi Fi shop sketch .. "do you want a woofer with that sir?". "Tweeters?". They, basically, took the micky.; So, full marks to the place on Victoria Road, a cheerful smile and a matey nod to living in a place that's small enough to walk around, and a big cheer and a 1930s style hat wave to not driving to out-of-town warehouses.
Superwee
: 3 October 2004: I was having a wee and quite unexpectedly the bubbles in the water formed the shape one of the Supergrass members hair. Do you think I've seen a vision? A miracle maybe? Or perhaps I've discovered a new skill.
Inventing things: 2 October 2004: My head's been inventing things again. My partner's going to see Harry Potter later today and said she was going to buy a bag of Revels but her problem was, if you get a toffee one, while you struggle to chew through it, others can continue to eat and they get an advantage. She's always been into fairness.; So my head invented the Revels Riddle. A riddle, for the benefit of non gardeners, is a coarse sieve. I remember the toffee Revel is the smallest, so my Revels Riddle will remove the toffee ones and create a completely fair confectionery treat. Soon to be available on QVC.; She was looking through the Lakeland Plastics catalogue and came up with frames into which you could drop an egg to fry so the egg came out flower shaped.; I started to wonder about geeks at lunch and thought it would be good if there were eggs in UML shapes. You know the problem, as a geek, you're with your partner at lunch and trying to explain what you've been doing all day .. well, here's the solution. You could illustrate it over dinner. Then, revelation, my head invented UML Spaghetti .. a tin of spaghetti in UML shapes. Imagine the possibilities.; This took me back to early adolescence when my head invented a completely self contained submarine (later adapted to be amphibious) which I could control from a room full of screens and controls.; I'd already drawn out the design for a model car that would sense when it hit things as it drove around the house and take appropriate action. This was all achieved with simple switches.; I wasn't sure how my submarine was powered, probably by solar energy .. but that was OK, because I'd only be able to operate it a few hours a day (there was schoolwork to be done), so it could spend the rest of the time charging up.; The main problem I had was how to control it from a distance. I knew about the problem of model aeroplanes flying beyond the point to which the controller could transmit a signal. But, assuming that was OK, I fantasised about piloting my submarine all the way down the Trent, out to sea, and off to foreign lands. It would feed back television pictures of where I was, and I could control its journey in real time.; I also decided that it needed protection from someone nicking it, so it could dispatch a surge of electricity to put off potential thieves.; Now that I've remembered all this, I'm wondering, with GPS and the Internet, whether it's all that bit more feasible.
Silent but deadly: 1 October 2004: I dreamt last night that iron supplements came with a warning that they "may result in involuntary, silent but deadly farts".