Margaret Hassan appears to have been murdered

BBC NEWS | UK | Leaders condemn 'Hassan murder'.

What a terrible, terrible loss - someone who had given their life to helping the people of Iraq is now murdered. Even al-Zaqarwi had called for her release - what did the kidnappers feel they had to gain from this? This is such a stupid own goal on their part.

Worse, this is an appalling tragedy; that someone who cared so much should be shot. Iraq will be an even poorer place for her loss - let's hope this doesn't a large-scale pull-out of humanitarian workers to that country which so badly needs it.

Boris has been sacked!!!!

Difficult to know what to make of this. On the one hand, I don't to be seen to be condoning people (especially high-profile) people lying about their conduct, or having affairs.

However, Boris was sacked, not because he'd had an affair, but because Mr Howard believed he had been "less than franK" in his discussions about the allegations. This presumably means that Howard had some information (other than tabloid allegations) that Boris (I find it impossible to address him as "Johnston") had had an affair. Or how else could he have known that Boris was being "less than frank"? The only other option is that he took at face value the allegations made in Sunday tabloids (scarcely the most reliable source of actual news) and presumed Boris was guilty until proven innocent. Which, of course, would be totally out of character from Mr Howard...

The fact remains that Howard has now sacked one of the few Conservative MPs that people a) liked or b) actually had heard of from a very high position and one of the few who could stand a chance of challenging Blair. Short-sighted? Probably. But then, that's the Conservative party these days for you.

Are you annoying?

Look! You too can find out why no-one really likes you... or something like that.

This was my result:

Points: 45

You have been classified as "moderately annoying". Although this is nothing to be concerned about, our experts believe that there's still room for improvement.

Some might disagree with that...

'Several' die in train derailment

Another train accident - it looks serious again (of course, all such accidents are serious, but this sounds like it's being treated very seriously indeed).

Obviously, it's too early to say what's happened, the casualties, injuries etc. And deepest sympathies must go to the families of those who have died - hopefully, there won't be any more, although police are saying six people are still trapped in the carriages.

Remember, remember...

'Tis fireworks night, so once again the length and breadth of the country sounds like a warzone. Although, there don't appear to have been many of those ones that sound like tactical nuclear missiles - at least not yet.

Our party was at church (as ever), and I was largely in the kitchen, helping out with coffees, teas, orange juice etc (refreshments, in other words). And the parents are really going to hate us - we got through a whole 3 litre bottle of orange squash in one evening. Those kids are going to be nice and pumped up with E-numbers, sugar etc. Good job we didn't have coke (as in the drink), or they'd be full of caffeine as well and would be really bad.

Ho-hum.

"Caffeine" is one of those words that doesn't like right however you spell it. Really, it should be caffiene ("'i' before 'e' except after 'c'"), but I just checked and it is spelt like that. Took me three goes, though.

Have been on strike, as mentioned yesterday. So went into town, where there's a huge continental fair on Fargate. It actually felt quite continental (strangely); there were crepes, all manner of sausages, cheeses, pies, olives, bratwursts (yes, I know they're sausages, but they basically were being sold as jumped-up hot dogs), paella and, er, pick and mix (but that was OK, 'cos they were being sold by a French bloke). It was really great.

It was only when you left it, or heard someone shouting in a broad Sheffield accent that you remembered where you were.

There appears to be fierce (note position of 'i' and 'e') fighting outside - well, that's what it sounds like, anyway.

Militant tendencies...

Am on strike again tomorrow, the second time in my rather short working life. Tomorrow's strike is about the massive job cuts the government has decided to impose on us as "savings".

The thing is, right, they claim (or claimed) that these massive job cuts (over 100,000) were to provide extra resources for front-line staff. However, the first round of cuts is to be in Job Centres and Social security offices. Now, you'll have to pardon my ignorance here, but surely these are front line offices, no? Or am I missing something?

Who knows, who knows? The government's involved in a competition with both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems to see who can cut the most, with no thought as to whether we do a good job, what the effects will be etc. Because, as I may have said before, civil servants are an easy target. Or are seen as such.

Bush won...

... and, for some reason the world feels a slightly worse place.

Not happy at all (they could at least have had the decency to make it unfair, or controversial, or something - can't they do anything right?)

At last!!!

Bit late, but somebody at last standing up for equality and, that supposed British concept, fair play.

Just a personal observation about the whole "competitive sport at school" and how people want there to be winers and losers and people who complain about it are "PC". I was never any good at sports (still not) - and it hurts. At school, certainly for boys, sport is the thing to be good at - if you're not, then forget it. Sports day was a day of dread for me. I hated trying to choose an event because I knew I'd be crap, and probably laughed at, in all of them. One year I took part in the javelin (why I chose this I don't know to this day). My first throw was fairly pathetic. On my second, I slipped and fell over on my backside just as "I threw" the javelin. It landed about 2cm away from the throwing line and I got thoroughly humiliated.

So, why are we so keen to discount the feelings of those who don't enjoy competitive sport, who find it hard and, no matter how much they try, will always end up last and looking fairly ridiculous? Why do we consider it "political correctness gone mad" to create an environment why they aren't laughed at and potentially hurt? Why do we brush their feelings aside, tell them they'll get over it, and look instead to promote those who are good at sports.

And, yes, I hated rugby lessons with a passion. Even netball would have been better...

comedynetuk.com - some of the corpses are amusing - sotcaa

Rant of the century...

Grrr...

BBC NEWS %7C Politics %7C Tory plan for cars in bus lanes

The Conservatives once again presumably painting themselves as "the motorist's friend", ignoring the fact that the cost of motoring has in fact fallen by 4.8% between 1997 and 2003, whilst the cost of travelling by train has risen by 3% and the cost of travelling by bus has risen by 8%!!!! Which just puts the whingeing of some motorists about the government's "war on motorists" into persepctive.

Here's my alternative plan:

• Make more bus lanes effective all day, especially on routes that don't calm down after rush hour;


• Introduce serious penalties for those driving or parking in bus lanes when they're in operation;


• Subsidise public transport so that when fuel prices go up, bus companies etc. aren't forced to raise their fares;


• RENATIONALISE THE RAILWAYS!

And no, I don't drive. Although my wife does.

'Twas Friday 13th yesterday

And I didn't even realise (although I did have to go bck to work after my 2 days off ill - does that count?)

Little else to write, really (this could be the reason no one reads this...). Sheffield Wednesday won, again, that's twice in a row, which is some kind of record for us. We're eighth now - Coca Cola Championship here we come (hmmm...).

Bought The Day Today on DVD recently - if you haven't watched it you must (no, really). Anyway, since having seen it, as well as reciting all the catchphrases/memorable lines, it's proving very difficult indeed to take the news, or anything similar to news, seriously. Like I tried to watch Channel 4 News straight afterwards (which I do try to watch as it's pretty good and a darned sight better than BBC News), but couldn't take it seriously.

Of course, lots of people have that problem with ITV News without having to watch TDT, but I didn't say that.

WOW...

WGR News: Kuju Wireless bringing Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder to mobile - corporate release

OK, a little late I know. But that's going to be fantastic. Although, I do wonder how things like aftertouch etc. will work on a mobile...

Plus, I bet it doesn't come out for my phone (a SonyEricsson T610, since you asked).

Another thunderstorm rolls by...

Meanwhile, the BBC Weather site gives the "current nearest observations" for Sheffield as sunny intervals. Bearing in mind that, a) it's half-9 and therefore dark and b) that's a cracking thunderstorm outside, I feel this is unlikely.

Been off work...

With a fairly bad asthma "do" - hoping to go back tomorrow, largely because we're having holes put in our kitchen wall (for an extractor fan, not some weird game we like to play every so often in the Smith household. Although you should see our dining room. Like a Swiss cheese...)

Anyway this enforced absence has forced me, forced me to watch CBBC, or Children's BBC as we used to call it. And, whilst not wanting to sound like an old "they-don't make-'em-like-they used-to"-type buffer, the truth is, they... erm... don't.

Have a look at it (3:25-is onwards, BBC1) and then loook at the above website. On it, you'll find a link saying "Backstage"; follow that, and it'll take you'll find one saying "past presenters". Click on that and you'll see Children's BBC at its best, with Messrs Schofield, Crane, Duck and Gopher (and a few others as well). Revel in the nostalgia.

Meanwhile, another thunderstorm rolls by...

Howard on law and order

So, Howard has spoken (courtesy BBC News). And for some truly fair-minded, reasonable, well-thought out comment, then see here.

Sorry, it just annoys me,that's all. It's easy to lay the blame at the straw men of "Political correctness" etc., but in actual fact, crime has been falling for many years now - the longest recorded fall in crime. To say that "liberal do-gooders" want judges to hand out lenient sentences, that you can get away scot-free because the legal system favours criminals is palpable nonsense (research shows that people regularly under estimate the sentences for various crimes - if I could find the link, I'd put it in).

The point is, we don't bang everybody away for life because that will worsen, not lessen crime and will waste even more, often young lives. We try to rehabilitate prisoners because doing so will surely better equip them for when they come out of jail - making life harsh for them will surely just embitter them and make them more like to re-offend. But this doesn't wash with the media, or Labour, or the Conservatives. They want us to be in fear, they want us to believe that only a tough, no-nonsense policy is in order. In actual fact, these seem to come round every year and, frankly, they get boring. No one wants to deal with the complexities of why crime exists, because that can't be summed up in a sound-bite, it's not a vote-winner.

Sorry, rant over. As you were.

You'd think, what with having broadband

...that he'd post a bit more (like at all), wouldn't you?

Well would't you?

Anyway, apologies for not having published for just over four months (ahem!)... if anybody's watching, that is. I will, eventually,try to bring you back up to speed with what's been going on, but, for those fastwith the eye, here's the highlights:

wentbacktooldjobatworkputinforpromotiongotitwentonholidaytoLakeGardainItalywithJoy&parentsgotveryhotandsunburntbuthadgreattimestillwaitingtohearwhatpostthey'llputmeinnowI'vegotpromotionspenttoomuchmoneyhadideafornewstoryreadlotsofPhillipYancey(recommended)andgenerallyplayedtoomuchonmyPCandPS2.

Make of that what you will...

FLY GUY

This could be the maddest thing ever...

Saber-Scorpion's Lair - Halo LEGO Customs

This is quite fantastic...

So fast, I haven't written for ages...

Anyway, sorry (if anybody's been watching) for the delays in postign anything at all. Will correct that...

Had the most bizarre day at work today. Got in as normal at about 8:30 and everything seemed... well, normal. Then, Dave, my line manager, summoned me to go with him to "make a drink". Basically, to cut a long and exceedingly tedious story short, I'm starting a new job on Monday. Still within Work Permits (UK), but on one of the new schemes that's being set up (don't know if I can say any more).

It was all a bit sudden. I get temporary promotion to Executive Officer level (which is nice), but it means I have to leave Business Team 11 :-(. I'll miss everybody (don't know if they'll miss me after having to do all my outstanding cases), but hopefully I'll be back. But the new project sounds interesting - I'll be involved from the beginning, helping to set up the new team. Which'll be a challenge. Don't know if I'll be on the new team once it gets up and running, but we'll see when it comes to that.

HAVE BROADBAND!!!!!!

And it's superbly fast!

OHMYGOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HARIBO ARE LETTING KIDS GO TO THEIR FACTORY - TO RUN THE PLACE!!!!

It's wasted on them - this is so unfair!

Nearly as bad as Bush...

These are the only European countries I have visited:



create your personalized map of europe
or write about it on the open travel guide

Must get out more. Italy will be included after July when I go away with Joy and her parents, but it's looking a bit woeful at present.

The Daily Mail does it again...

Hey, look (a little late I know)! We're going to impose controls (possibly) on migrants from the 10 EU accession states, or so Blair has decided. Now, I've probably forgotten all I learnt about the EU during my student days (it was 3 years ago), but I didn't think they were allowed to do that. I thought that, as EU citizens (which they will be), they had the right to travel and to move and to work within the EU just as, say, I would have the right to travel to, say, Spain and live and work there without needing a workpermit. So why do these people need permits? It couldn't be, surely not, that the right-wing press is kicking up a fuss??

No, perish the thought...

Incidentally, as you may know, I work for Work Permits (UK). So guess which department's going to have to deal with them...

Civil Servants bad...

Tories deny 'slash and burn' policy

Apparently, us civil servants are, mostly, pen-pushers and our "backroom" funds need to be pushed to the "front line". Now, I don't want to dispute the need for more money for essential "front line" staff such as teachers, nurses, doctors etc. We get enough work permit applications to know that there's a shortage of them. And I don't deny that there is quite a lot of waste, bureocracy and inefficiency in the civil service. But why, whilst the government and opposition disagree about the figures, do both sides seem to agree that civil servants are a legitimate target and that it's good to slim us down? Letwin, Brown et al ought to come and work at Work Permits (UK), where we're only just keeping our heads above water to churn out cases, and we're getting numerous phone calls nagging us about work permits. Then he'd see how hard we work and how difficult, in certain areas, it's going to be to cut down, whether you do that by recruitment freeze, or whatever.

He might also do well to read Polly Toynbee's article on the matter of civil service "waste" and the good we're doing (not all her points are accurate, but I do have a (rather biased) sympathy with the thrust of the article).

At last! The penny drops!

MSN bans pop-ups on global sites

Now, when will the others follow suit?

sorry...

OK, I'm failing quite miserably to keep this up to date like I said I would.

Mind you, since apparently only three people have looked at this since 30 Janurary, I'm not sure it will bother too may people...

Anyway, some things have happened since my last post, but not much. We've started a discipleship course at church called Masterlife, which has been very challenging, thought-provoking, but interesting. I think it's just the start of what God wants to do in my life, but I definitely think He wants to use it to... bring changes that are desperately needed. Of course, I have to let Him. And that's the difficult part...

Tomorrow, at work, we go on our team build! We're not going far this time, only to Castleton. But it'll be my first night away from Joy since we got married :-( So, I'll miss her, but it's only one night, so I hope it won't be toobad. Will report back once it's over.

That was the week that was...

Wow, what a week! The following things have all happened which have been pretty... eventful:

1. Blair won the vote on top-up fees;


2. Blair, and indeed the entire government, got an astonishing vindication in the Hutton report;


3. It snowed just a little bit in Sheffield, thus bringing the entire city centre to a standstill, despite the fact that it had been forecast for weeks now;


4. Greg Dyke, Gavyn Davis and Andrew Gilligan from the BBC all resigned as a result of the Hutton report;


5. Work Permits (UK) along woth other parts of the Home Office and various other government departments went on strike


6. The Department for Work and Pensions did not go on strike, due to them possibly getting a better pay deal


7. Joy (my wife) has been ill

I'm not even going to mention Hutton, because it'll just get me started - the conclusions seem quite incredible, considering the evidence presented before him. Stop it...

The snow was fun. It snowed a bit Tuesday night, which didn't seem to affect things too much, and then again Wednesday afternoon. Then the temperature dropped dramatically, or something. Which meant, at 5 o'clock on the High Street in Sheffield, there was literal gridlock - cars and buses were not moving anywhere. So, being an ingenious sort of chap (er...), I decided to catch a tram over to PC World to have a look round and let the traffic calm down. Which I did and got the "I wants", closely followed by the "I have no money". After that came back and, on getting off the tram, thought my plan had worked. There was no traffic. Unfortunately, there were no buses either, or none that seemed to be going to my neck of the woods. Eventually one came (I was only waiting about 15 minutes, to be fair, but other people there had been waiting a lot longer). So I eventually rolled home at about 8 o' clock...

Every time it snows, you'd think we'd never had the stuff before - it's ridiculous. They'd been forcasting it for weeks, it had been delayed for 3 days - what more warning do you want?!

Getting all technical now...

Have added stats now, courtesy of Sitemeter

1984 all over again (possibly)

Go on strike on Thursday at the wonderful Work Permits (UK) and indeed, throught the Home Office (of which we are but a small and humble part), Department for Work and Pensions and other places as well. The reason? A rather derisory 1.something% pay offer this year, which would take my pay to a little over £13k. From a little over £13k. Not very much at all (I forget the exact figures, but it's not very much).

Never been on strike before, so it's all (almost) exciting. To be honest, I can't see the union winning this one: less than 10% of those eligible to vote in the ballot for strike action actually voted in favour of this, as the Home Office was very keen to point out on Monday. Still, we shall be the eternal optimists and take up our right to withold labour and hope that the Treasury sees sense. Can't see it happening, though.

To be honest, I don't think a civil servants' strike is going to have much effect; it's not quite the same as doctors, nurses, firefighters etc. I would imagine that most people would see it as simply well-paid office pen-pushers looking to rake it in a bit more (as someone said to me at church last week "only 8% or something?"). In actual fact, the civil service doesn;t pay all that well and many of the lower-paid people are on benefits themselves. So, I don;t think the perception would meet the reality, if that is the perception.

Bloomin' chuff...

Blair wins key top-up fees vote

316 votes to 311.

Apparently, this was all about top-up fees, though seemed more like it was about Blair and his leadership. Why? Why did he make it into such a key, important test of his leadership, especially when in their 2001 election manifesto, Labour had promised not to introduce such a measure.

Don't understand...

When putting in code for comments...

Always, always, always copy the entire code into the template, or it don't work.

Just as I did...

Learn from my mistake! Or laugh at it, either is fine...

Has it worked?????

Let's try...

HELP!!!!

If anyone can help me out here, tell me why this thing is only showing the last post, minus links, archive, any other posts, I would be extremely grateful!!!!!

Where are my posts?!?!?!?!

They seem to have vanished...

HELP!!!!

Your Online Resource for Insurance

This may not be the most interesting blog ever written...

Not the upset of the century...

Hey! Guess what? Sheffield Wednesday lost on Saturday... Big surprise, huh?!

For those not in the know, Sheffield Wednesday are the football (as in proper football, as in played with the feet - "soccer" if you must) team I support through the good and the bad. Actually, the "good" bit may not be true. I'm one of those rubbish fans though who doesn't go to many games (on the not unreasonable grounds that I can't afford to trek right across Sheffield and then stump up the money for the entrance every week). So, yes, I suppose I'm an armchair fan.

Darna

Don't know how I came upon this, but's a Filipino superheroine called Darna, a heroine who seems a bit different from the DC/Marvel duopoloy. It looks interesting - about a girl called Narda who is almost a channel for a super-powered alien called Darna. She's clearly huge in the Philipines. I can't understand the comic books, but hey! It makes a change from Supergirl/Wonder Woman etc. (although she does bear more than a passing resemblance to the Amazon Princess).

New Supergirl?

Apparently, there's a new Supergirl movie being made, or so it says here. Check out Peter David's response (him being the guy who writes/wrote the latest incarnation of the comic book).

Will it be as good/bad (delete as appropriate) as the 1984 Helen Slater version? Who will play her? So many questions...

Comments: the sequel

This time from Haloscan ...

I'm probably going to be in soooo much trouble...

Work blues...

Work is hard at the moment. The managers on the team (or at least some of them) seem to be in the habit of creating more work for us. Everything little thing wrong with an application needs to be checked out, if even the slightest thing is wrong, it gets sifted as a "High-risk" application and goes up for management check. E.g. I had 6 linked applications for nurses to work in a particular NHS Trust. They were so straightforward it was almost unreal. I approved them all, 5 didn't go up for checking, 1 did. This one was sent back to me. "The salary's too low".
"Well, I've cleared five already!"
"Right, we need to get the letters back and check the salary with the Trust. THen we'll get them re-input..."
(These aren't verbatim quotes, but are my recollections of the conversation).
So, I had to e-mail the print room (where the approval letters get printed) ask them not to send the letters out, put the application that was still live in "B/F" (where files go where we're waiting for info, and from where many never return) and request the salary. Which was less than £500 less than the going rate.
They still need re-inputting...


Why? WHY?! It's so frsutrting, like they don't trust us to make our own decisions, or something. It's getting really bad, a situation not helped by the fact that our team leader insists on trying to limit full team meetings so she can have meetings with the line managers menaing we don't get to discuss this. Great, isn't it?!

(What's even greater is how I keep hitting the semi-colon, rather than apostrophe, key, when typing.)

Try this for a bit of retro(ish) gaming action.

By the way, if you're wondering what happened to the comments... I took them off, thinking (probably) wrongly that they were responsible for the lack of updates on the blog. Will get round to putting them back on, in the same way that I will get round to cancelling my old mobile contract etc...

Why won't the chuffing thing show my latest chuffing posts...?

Don't understand...

Have just added comments from the nice peeps at enetation - here's hoping they work. Feel free to try them. Or I might cry, or something...

Had bit of a strange experience at work today. Went to do some photocopying and, as I walked back to my desk, had pins and needles in my finger. No idea why, it just came on. Felt a bit flushed, but am now wondering if this was just hypocondria - I suspect so. Told someone at work about it:
"Was it in your left arm?"
"No, my right."
"That's alright, at least it's not a heart attack."
"No..."
"Might be a stroke though; that's what I would say."
Cheers...
Felt fine all afternoon.

Can anyone shed any light on this? If so let me know. You could always use my new comments system (if it works...). There seemed to be no reason whatsoever for this to happen. Then again, I wondered why no one ever used that photocopier...

In a few months' time, I will re-read the below entry and laugh at the pomposity and pretentiousness of it all...

So, "free speech" apparently means the ability to say what you want, no matter how racist, offensive, likely to incite hatred etc. it is, without impunity. As long as you're a well-paid TV daytime show host. And you're writing about Arabs. In the Sunday Express.

Yes, I'm going to have my two new pence worth about Kilroy who wants his show back despite quite probably abusing his position, never mind causing huge amounts of offence to what probably constitutes a fair proportion of his audience. How can he host the show again? What if the people he's just completelyt slagged off are due to be on the show as guests? How can they be sure he won't be biased against them?

I'm reminded of the sacking of Angus Deayton from Have I Got News For You, where the issue wasn't so much that fact that he'd slept with a prostitute, taken cocaine etc. (however you may feel about these things), but that, having done those things, it made him unable to present a show on which people in the public eye indulging in such behaviour were regularly targets for his or the scriptwriters') wit and sarcastic comments. Surely the same applies here: whatever Mr Kilroy-Silk may have intended by his comments, he has offended a large number of people (and probably not just Arabs either). How can he present a show where he may well have as guests people who will have felt included in his comments.

The whole "Free speech" argument doesn't wash. Yes, this is a free country and people are allowed to say and write what they think. And this is a good thing. We can't stop people saying things we don't want them to say, we have to be grown up and accept that people think differently from us and have the same right to express that view. And sometimes, these views will be considered offensive, racist etc. We cannot avoid these people and the best way is not to ban them but to show them up for what they are.

But Mr Kilroy-Silk is not just a man in the street expressing his ill-thought out comments in the letters page of a newspaper. He is a well-known, popular (and probably very good, although he's not my cup of tea) television presenter with a significant audience and, presumably, a significant influence. Now, I accept that most people are not sponges, they have the intelligence to think for themselves and not just accept it because some bloke off the tele said it. But if someone in the position he is in says these thinks, surely people are bound to see it as in some way legitimising their own views. There is a real danger that Mr Kilroy-Silk is inciting people to racism. He's not wholly responsible, and it doesn't excuse those who will use his comments as a pretect for their own actions.

If it wasn't what he meant to say, then he should write more clearly and read through what he's written before publishing - make sure it says what he wants it to. Surely even a column in the Sunday Express deserves that? If he stands by it, then I think he should either step down or the show should be axed.

For a more intelligent, less ranting point of view, see David Aaronovitch's column in the Guardian today.

Phew, didn't quite mean to start off that way - will be less ranting in the future...

Hello!

Well, this is my first entry on my posh new blog which I will, will keep up to date.

Honest.

I really don't have anything interesting to say, but will be back when I do (actually, that will probably be never, so I'll be back with really dull things to say before then...)