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You have a problem with your dog using your bathroom?
I have always found the American fear of saying “toilet” or “going for a pee” amusing. They use phrases like “rest room” (if I wanted a rest, that would be the last place I would go (unless I was at work)) and, of course, “bathroom” regardless of if there is a bath or shower in there.
Because Seren is still doing a little bit of wee on the carpet in the night sometimes, I have been looking at potential products that could help. I am checking out the Dog Appeasing Pheromone Diffuser. This helps with nervousness, so may not be the product for us. Anyhoo, I was reading some of the reviews from the American, Amazon page, I particularly liked this comment:
“My dog is getting older and recently started getting more and more nervous and using the bathroom inside.”
If my dogs started using the bathroom inside, I would be over the moon. I think Griff would need to get Seren to help him flush thought, he is pretty short. Mind you, I it would get annoying if I had to wait for the shower in the mornings, and imagine the hair in the plughole.Labels: *sigh*, my life, real world
another sad story
This is a very sad post from a guy who purchase the manage-eh-uh sex toy, the feshlight, the discovered that he could not use it because he was too fat and his wily was too short.
Funny thing the fleshlight. You look at it and think “Jesus, what sort of a saddo would use that” yet for a woman to purchase a rampant rabbit is liberating and very acceptableLabels: real world, teh internets
Would you mess with this whippet?
Our dog, Seren, is part whippet (I assume). Today I was looking for some whippet pics to compare her with. I came across Wendy.
She has a genetic defect that means she has double the muscle of a normal whippet.
No one would take the piss out of her for being skinny or having big ears (like we do with Seren)
more hereLabels: real world
Arguing on the Internet.
“Arguing on the internet is like running in the special Olympics. Even if you win, you are still a retard”
I know this. Yet I still do it.
It has been a new years resolution of mine to be tolerant and less of a Victor Meldrew. To this end I am going to stop writing letters in to the Reading Evening Post, I have left the American by birth Irish by blood facebook group which I was only in to tell Americans that they are not Irish. Thus far my resolution was not going too badly. Until I joined the facebook group “I bet I can find a million ppl that DON'T want smoking back in pubs”
I have been engaged in what has largely been lively and reasonably intelligent debate on the main wall of this group for a while attempting to get people to understand my points of view. The part that I am writing this post about is when a troll wandered in to the group and started calling everyone whining pussies because there are greater environmental and social problems then the one we are discussing. I will put the basic jist of our conversation below, It was interspersed with other posts, I have cut them out to keep it readable, Names have been changed to protect the innocent. :
Troll wrote
at 12:16pm yesterday
This group really is a bunch of whining and snivelling idiots.
How exactly are you accessing the internet? - becasue unless you live in a wigwam in a self-sufficent commune on a hill somewhere YOU ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR POLLUTION THAT IS DESTROYING OUR ENVIRONMENT AND KILLING OUR PLANET.
Problem is you nerds can't put it into perspective - driving round in your 4x4's, flying around the world, creating huge carbon foot-prints but oh so excited and brattish about stopping a few people having a fag. You make me sick.
YOU SAD, SAD HYPOCRITES!
Troll wrote
at 12:24pm yesterday
I think next they should ban all that ice in ice rinks - I mean, it's got to be a health hazard all that frozen water - and us non-skaters don't want to be hurt do we. Health and Safety, folks!!!
Me wrote
at 12:29pm yesterday
@Paul
what baring has global pollution got on this issue? Have you also joined the group about chavs that play music on their phones and tried to guilt trip their members too?
Troll wrote
at 1:37pm yesterday
Oh I get it - you don't like a bit of smoke in a pub because it "pollutes" the pub - but at the same time YOU are quite HAPPY to pollute EVERYONE'S environment.
You see, you don't get it [3rd party].
And considering Alcohol is the most dangerous drug on the planet why hasn't that been banned? Kids who get run over by drink drivers and students who get beaten up in the street by drunks haven't got any choice on their health being affected have they?
Don't worry it will come, because you are all too STUPID and BLIND to see you civil and human rights sailing down the swanny whilst you whinny and wine like a bunch of spoilt 5-year-olds.
Me wrote
at 1:51pm yesterday
@Troll
Where as you are en enlightened and worldly wise man who is taking on the human rights and world environmental issues by whining on at people, off topic, in a forum set up to discuss a specific issue.
Perhaps we do have wind turbines in our back gardens powering our computers. Perhaps we are active in Greenpeace. Perhaps we are lawyers who work for free on the behalf of amnesty international. You don’t know.
While I am very much against feeding trolls like you with responses, I will say this. I am pretty sure that no one in this group gives a rat’s fart about anything you have to say. Not because the points you raise are unimportant, but because you raise them like a petulant twat who is only out to start arguments because he has already had 6 wanks today and is looking for something else to do.
I am sure there are some posts with incorrectly used apostrophes somewhere you could keep yourself busy with.
Troll wrote
at 3:20pm yesterday
I'm guessing that, as you are spending all day on here defending your childish and selfish opinions on this silly little group you are NOT a human rights lawyer or environmental activist. I do love the way when a valid counter-argument is presented you go - "oh that's not the issue we are talking about"...err, try googling dialectics and comprehend things are interconnected in a holistic way.
YOU lot are complainging about air pollution - but not only do you particpate in a far greater cause of air pollution (and if you seriously expect me to believe you're existence on this planet in no way involves petrol or diesel powered combustion engines you are even more stupid that I already expected) but you also pollute the air with your MOANING and your WHINGING and your WHINING.
Hell, you've got your ban - and still you are snivelling, you pathetic wretches.
Me wrote
at 3:26pm yesterday
“Blah blah, look at me, I’m Paul Nelson. I go on and on about stuff that people could possibly be interested in if it weren’t for the fact that I put them off the subject with my insults and annoying persistence blah blah blah.”
Face it Paul. You don’t give a toss about these issues either, you are just attempting to get a rise out of some poor facebook sap for your own amusement, which, at the moment, I am providing you with.
How many other groups are you doing this in at the moment 5, 10, 15? Its really very sad.
Well, unfortunately I don’t have an ignore button I can press to stop your pointless messages popping up on my screen, so I guess I will just have to do it in my head.
Welcome to my ignore list, population – you.
And that was the last we saw of him. No real point to this post. I was just quite pleased with my putdowns.Labels: my life, real world
American by birth, Irish by blood.
Let me start this by saying that I cant stand trolling, and that was not my intention at all by joining this Facebook group. With that said….
There is a Facebook group for people of Irish decent in the USA called “American by birth, Irish by blood”. You can imagine the kind for syrupy, stereotypical, patronising, “there always after my lucky charms” type rubbish these ever-so-slightly-of-Irish-decent Americans post in it.
My reason for joining this group was to challenge the idea held by a lot of these people that they are, in fact, not Irish. One guy I spoke to was fiercely proud of his Irish heritage and the “Irish tattoos” that he has. I asked what his nears Irish relations where. Two great grandparents. That makes him what… one thirty-second Irish or something. Its laughable.
Anyway. An actual Irish guy started a discussion thread titled “All of youse… FUCK OFF”. This is what he wrote:
First post:
American by birth...hold it right there, that means you ARE fucking AMERICAN. NOT Irish. I'm Irish...the likes of you who think that drinking a few guinnesses on St Patricks day, having a few red hairs watching Gangs of new york and tatooing a 4 leaf clover on your arse makes you irish, ARE AMERICANS. What the fuck do any of you know about the Celtic Tiger economy, about the REALITY of the situation in Northern Ireland, the recent Irish elections...nothing, thats what.
I don't care where your ancestors emigrated from, don't patronise us with your fucking ideas that Ireland is a land of leprechauns who rely on your moral support to free Northern Ireland from the redcoats or whatever the fuck it is you (wrongly) think is happening back in the country you stopped having anything to do with 12 fucking generations ago.
Rant over!
Second post:
actually no, theres more!
look at all the fucking patronising shite in this group, tin whistles 'town wanker' limerick writer, leprechaun, it's all there.
if its ok for youse to stereotype, why don't you obese, ignorant, christian fundamentalist, right-wing bush-voting gun nut loud arrogant cunts just fuck right off and find someone else to patronise.
Brilliant.
I would now like to give you a rundown on some of my fave quotes from this group, in no particular order:
- my friends look at me cause i take pride in my Irish heritage cause im 50% Irish. My friends make fun of me for it cause i listen to irish music, talk with an irish accent(when im really drunk) and want to get two more irish tattoos
- all i can say is im glad imirish, and i would hate to be any other type (ie french or italian.) I think the UK region has the best and most proud people and culture in the world.
- hey i got an idea, y don't we all just put this behind us and go have a pint of the best god dam beer in the world, GUINNESS !!!!!!
- definitely. henever I bring up my heritage people just roll their eyes at me and say "your American! get over it" It kinda makes me ... pissed..
- Top of the morning to ya mates! ^_^ Today is a green ole' day! I have to get going so Cheerio :D
- nobody believes i'm Irish because I have brown hair... i mean come on!
this next one was in response to a post “Fuck Italy”. Bare in mind the guy responding to it is American:
- Why Fuck Italy they are our friend. We are all a European alliance and we shouldn't hate anybody.
I really should find myself a new hobby that doesn’t involve arguing with strangers about very unimportant stuff.Labels: real world, soap box
Welcome Seren, the #2 official brown haze dog.
This is Seren. She is a rescue dog from the Dogs Trust that we picked up on Friday of last week. She is settling in nicely with her new house mate Griff. Unfortunately she has not yet been spayed and was still in season when we picked her up, so her and Griff were getting down and dirty for the first few days. It appears to have largely warn off now.
She is between 1 and 2 years old. Not much is known about her because she was a stray picked up in Wales (just like Griff). She looks like she has some whippet in her and has the colouring of a German Sheppard.
We called her Seren becuase its a Welsh name (again like Griff). Apparenlty it means star.Labels: my life, real world
Ready To Fry Snack Pellets
I wont bore you with what I was looking for when I stumbled across this page.
You know food is going to be bad when it tells you it is food in the title such as "cheese food slice" or "ham food slice" such as you find with the tescos value lable on it. These badboys go one step worse. They dont even sugeste for a seccond that they are a propper food.
lets have a read of the description of the Ready To Fry Snack Pellet:
Detailed Product Description
Extruded Ready to Fry Snack Pellets with Cereal Flours, Potato Solids and Flavour (Onion & Garlic).
Product is available in various shapes. Product to be deep fried in oil, dusted with flaours of choice and packed in unit packs of 15, 20 or 50 g as per choice with nitrogen filling for extended shelf life.
Material is packed in Plastic Bags of 15 kg each and despatched in container loads of 1
Its a real lip-smacker enit.Labels: real world
why I *heart* Ubuntu
Yesterday I was attempting to find a solution to a problem with one of my Ubuntu box’s and found myself in a general Linux forum. A user had posted a script which may have been of use. Another user replied saying that it looked like what he was after, but it would need some changes that he didn’t know how to make. The first user replied to this with a comment along the lines of “what, you don’t know how to code, what are you doing using Linux”.
This reminded me of one of the main things that sets Ubuntu aside from the other Linux distro’s . The community. In my experience the Ubuntu community is inclusive and helpful to a fault (the polar opposite of my experience of general Linux fan-boys). If it where not for this, I don’t think I would have embraced Ubuntu in the way that I have and subsequently would have missed out on all the learning that I have achieved over the last year and a half which has benefited my professional and home life.Labels: geek, real world, soap box
Letter to the post
This is in response to Melinda Webb’s column, (Monday) where she concludes that the smoking ban is a bad idea because a) it doesn’t encourage people to give up smoking b) pubs “are not health spars” so landlords’ should be able to choose their own smoking policy and c) smoking is not illegal.
My response to this is:
a) Sure, smokers all know its bad for them and that doesn’t cause them to give up. We know the long term heath risks are not motivation for a lot of people. When I gave up smoking my mind was squarely on the short term benefits of more cash in my pocket, an increased feeling of wellbeing and the convince of not relying on smoking. It is this last point that will encourage smokers’ to give up. When doing something becomes intolerably inconvenient one may start thinking about jacking it in.
b) Agreed, pubs are inherently not good for you. But the difference here is that when at I am at the pub, it doesn’t matter how may of the other patrons are eating crisps and drinking beer, I can choose to have a glass of water and an alfalfa salad with no negative effect to me. If, on the other hand, they are smoking I have no choice about breathing their smoke short of leaving the premises.
c) Agreed, smoking is not, of itself, illegal. In that case, do you think that we should bring back smoking in the workplace? Or perhaps we should allow other non-illegal, antisocial activities in pubs? I do not believe this is a relevant argument.
One important point to bear in mind with the smoking ban is that it was not specifically designed to ban smoking in pubs, but in “the workplace”. Pubs are the workplace of bar staff. Bar staff should be able to expect to work in an environment where they will be able to breath without risking their health. If you worked in an office where the ceiling tiles or the carpet was giving of carcinogenic fumes, wouldn’t you expect something to be done about it?
With regard to the potential negative effect it will have on business (and please forgive inflammatory example I am about to use); I am sure that that banning of slavery was very bad for the slave trade, does that mean that it should still be happening today?
Personally, I don’t want the government getting in involved in my life telling me what I can and can’t do to my own body. I think it’s entirely possible that you could have pubs where being a 20 a day smoker was a required qualification to get a bar job which could potentially resolve the problem. But as an ex smoker (allegedly the worst kind of person for opinions on smoking), I think smoking is such a negative and fruitless habit that, on this occasion, I am on the side of the nanny state.Labels: letters to the editor, real world, soap box
Perhaps if your corner shop wasn’t so crap…..
I just read a feature in the Post relating to the new Tesco’s that is going to open up down the Oxford rd. There is going to be a big one where Battle Hospital used to be, and a little “Tesco’s Express” just across the road from Oxford Road School and the Jet garage.
The “exclusive” (like anyone else is going to give a turd, I cant imagine that the Observer is kicking itself that they go scooped by the Reading Evening Post) report is an interview with the Babar Butt who is one of the partners who run Butts Convenience Store on the corner of Oxford Rd and Prospect Hill (it was called Anand Stores when I was a kid,). He is saying that this is going to be a David and Goliath style battle, stating that Tesco will undercut local businesses to drive them to bankruptcy then put the prices up. I don’t know how true this is, but I don know one way in which the Tesco’s Express will have the upper hand on Butts, you will be able to purchase all the items required to make a meal.
I have been in Butts convenience store a few times. Its typical corner shop fare, far too many chest freezers so you have to walk sideways at some points. An entire gondola end dedicated to 3 litre bottles of strong white cider. Plenty of porn. Notably, no garlic bread. I know garlic bread is not a staple, but it’s the kind of thing that you want from a “convenience” store as apposed to a glorified off-licence.
Their problem is that they are about to lose their monopoly of a catchments area that just about sustains them at the moment with their focus on frozen ready meals “tramp-juice” alcohol. They (and every other badly stocked corner shop in the area) should be very worried about a business moving in from where you will be able to purchase actual, and in some cases not even frozen, food.
The choice is, Raise your game or diversify to provide something that Tesco’s doesn’t or go out of business. And if you do go out of business, for gods sake don’t do another half page spread in the Post about how unfair it was a better business model put you in the poor house, its not like you have had no choice about what sort of shop (hybrid walk-in-freezer-off-licence-sex-shop) your are running.Labels: real world, soap box
Sexism rant time
While I was cycling in to work to day I was listing to Radio 4. I do this for the Today program to catch up on news on my way in, but because I was late I heard a little bit of Midweek which starts at 09:00 and is dire, but I was cycling and couldn’t be bothered to turn the radio off.
Anyway
Midweek is a kind of rubbishy chat show where they get “ever so interesting” toffs on to talk about crap. For whatever reason they where talking about art and commenting on how, while there are a lot of successful female artists now, there where not in the last century. One of the female guests offered a potential explanation to this. I can’t remember it word for word, so I will have to paraphrase a little bit.
“There where not great female artists because all of the female artists where married to male artists and men’s ego’s (particularly men-artist’s egos) require so much massaging that they cannot stand their wife’s being good at painting or whatever”.
Figures. There where no great female artists in the last century because men where stopping them because men are like children.
Now, I don’t know what the actual cause was for this phenomena. But what this woman said sounded a lot like the stereotypical representation of men in the media that is now totally accepted. Stupid, childish, unthinking, unfeeling, I could go on.
I have another suggestion why there where no great female artists’ during this period. Its because women are all crap at art and the only reason that there are female artists now is because of feminism and we have to buy their stuff otherwise we are sexist.
Now, I dot actually believe that, but I think it’s just about as valid, and offensive, as the comment made on midweek.
And while I am on the subject.
Why is it that if there is a thing that lots of men like or do but is not that popular with women, lets say, the Internet in the late 90’s, the reason that women don’t use it is because there is some sort of conspiracy to keep women off of it. This one has particularly been shown to be rubbish with the introduction of shopping and social networking there are more women on the internet then men.
Another example. Women MP’s. Now, I do believe that women have the odds stacked against them to an extent in a male dominated organisation in the same way that I think men would in a female dominated organisation. But I think one of the reasons that there are not many women MP’s is because, and I know this is going to sound controversial, not that many women want to be MP’s. In the same way, if I where to go on a course at collage to be a nursery nurse (or whatever they are called) I would, most likely, be the only bloke on the course. This is not due to a conspiracy, I am not getting threatening letters telling me that if I start working with children I am going to be dropping in the Thames with a pair of concrete loafers on, its because I cant imagine a worse job then having to deal with other peoples little children all day. And I’m not a pedo (woops, slipped in to Daily Mail mode again)
Do I think there should be more women MP’s? Yes. Do I think that there are not that many because of a male conspiracy? Lets wait until there are equal numbers of mail and female’s standing in elections before we even try and work that one out.
To give this rant a little balance, and so I don’t come off sounding like a total Daily Mail “the-most-oppressed-people-in-the-country-today-are-white-men”-nutter, I would like to point out that I have worked with people with what I would call, a slightly old fashioned outlook in the workplace. I have heard comments made about female (as well as gay and foreign or ethnically diverse) staff that made my jaw hit the floor. I am totally against this. I am in favour of equality, not some sort of pendulum swing where one half of society has it bad for x amount of time, then it’s the other half has a go.
Well, that that rant went to all sorts of places that I wasn’t expecting.Labels: real world, sexism?, soap box
Argument in the Post
I am now officially having an argument with someone on the letters page of the Reading Post. Bellow is his response to the letter which I sent in, responding to his letter
I’m afraid I have to respond to Stuart Winter (evening post Thursday October 4) – although I had hoped I wouldn’t have to
True Gordon Brown has little or nothing to do with the Olympic committee , but he is if I’m not mistaken the prime minister so hopefully one would this he has a say within the government
Shouldn’t be any confusion with the military and the red arrows being one of the same
I also didn’t infer that the British Muslim community had anything to do with the Red Arrows being omitted from the opening of the 2012 Olympics.
What I am saying, and I assure you I am no alone on this subject, is that wheat you like it or not our armed forces are fighting a conflict on two fronts –Iraq and Afghanistan – which are predominantly Muslim countries.
So in my view that decision has been made to appease the Muslims, not just in the country but worldwide. I am not a member of UKIP or the BNP just incise you ask.
But I am British and proud of it. And the Red Arrows , the home guards, the royal marries or the Girl Guides should be able to open the Olympics or the local flower show without having to wonder if it upsets one group or another. Like I said, political correctness gone completely mad.
And while we are on the political subject, decisions like this one taken will and up driving vertian (larger then you might think) natives of this country into the arms of parties like the BNP and drive an even bigger wedge between predominantly Christian British people and the Muslim community in this country. God Forbid
Adriean Keep,
Via e-mail.
and now, for my response
This is in response to Adrian Keep’s letter (Tuesday 9th October) with regard to the Red Arrows performing at the opening of the 2012 Olympics.
Adrian,
I would like to start by addressing a few of the points in your letter.
You say “shouldn’t be any confusion with the military and the Red Arrows being one and the same”. The Wikipedia says “The Red Arrows, officially known as the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, is the aerobatics display team of the Royal Air Force”. The Red Arrows websites (http://www.raf.mod.uk/reds/ which is part of the RAF’s website) says, “Many of the Red Arrows’ pilots and support staff have recently returned from Afghanistan and Iraq and many will be temporarily detached on operations overseas during their time with the Red Arrows.”. I don’t think I have any confusion with the military and the Red Arrows, I am very clear that the Red Arrows are military fighter pilots flying planes that the military own. If I have got something wrong here, perhaps you can explain it to me.
You also say “I also didn’t infer that the British Muslim community had anything to do with the Red Arrows being omitted from the opening of the 2012 Olympics”. In that case I hope you will forgive my misunderstanding of your statement in your previous letter “we are actually only worried what the Muslims in our country think.” To clear up my obvious confusion, can you explain which country “our country” refers to?
From your next statement I think I am begging to understand your point. We are not having the Red Arrows at the Olympics because we believe it will offend the people in to two countries that in which we are presently fighting , and the wider Muslim community. Is that a fair summary of you points?
Now, to get to the real point. What you have done is taken rumour to be fact and got your kickers in a knot about nothing. I will now quote from the London 2012 website (http://www.london2012.com/news/archive/2007-10/no-truth-in-red-arrows-rumour.php) “London 2012 has responded to reports that the Red Arrows have been banned from the Opening Ceremony of the Games, describing the rumours as 'utter nonsense'. The London 2012 Organising Committee will decide what to include in all celebrations and they will be a showcase of the best the UK has to offer. But with five years to go, decisions are yet to be made on what the celebrations will look like.
The Red Arrows have in fact been used before in connection to London and the Games. They did a spectacular fly over of Trafalgar Square in London to celebrate winning the bid in July 2005, and also flew over the Mall when the Athens Torch Relay was in London in 2004.”
If I told you that the EU had told that the Queen that she was not allowed to eat sausages or drink tea on St. George’s day because it was “too British”, would you have immediately written in to the paper to express your rage? Or would you want to check that I wasn’t just winding you up?
What you have demonstrated is the kind of knee jerk reaction to perceived “political correctness gone mad” that, in this case at least, didn’t exist. It is letters such as yours that fuel some widely held misconceptions which do more to “drive a wedge” between groups of our society then the story to which you took such umbrage.
I had to leave a whole bunch of paragrahs out, I was trying to keep it as ashort as possible. but I think you will agree with me when I say "back of the net".
Lets hope her writes back.
Labels: letters to the editor, my life, real world, soap box
Yet another letter published in the Post.
I wrote a letter to the post which was a response to a letter sent in by another reader. I have copied the letter out so that my response will make some sense and hopfully you will see what inspired me to write in:
I see the idiotic Government along with the equally idiotic Olympic committee has decided to axe the world famous Red Arrows form the opening of the Olympic Games in 2021.
Most people from most countries would love to see the Red Arrows perform – that’s why there so popular in many parts of the worlds
I , along with countless others, am sick to death of political correctness gone mad. If Brown wants my vote he can get stuffed. We have brave man and women fighting and dying for this country and not many people give a damn. Our military do a fantastic job ain very difficult conditions – often with one arm tide behind their backs.
Lets not beat around the Bush (no pun intended), but we are actually only worried what the Muslims in our country think.
I doubt that you will print this as its probably not politically correct. But I bet you a years subscription to the Evening Post that it’s what most normal people will be thinking. Its time we woke up and had a sniff of the coffee
Adrian Keep
Via email.
You can almost hear him foaming at the mouth as he typed it. It would have been a much better idea to send this in to the daily mail. I am sure their readership would have loved to foam at the mouth while reading it.
Anyway, here is my response.
This is a response to Adrian Keep’s letter (Tuesday).
I would like to try and address a few of the many and varied topics you touched on in your letter. Firstly your comment that the Red Arrows will not be appearing at the Olympics due to political correctness. I agree with you that this is silly, but I can kind of see where they are coming from. It could be seen a little like opening the Olympics with a military tattoo of some sort.
From this point on your letter confuses me a bit. Fair enough, you are not going to vote for Gordon Brown, but I fail to see what this has to do with the Olympics (I don’t think he is on the Olympic committee is he?). I also agree that our military to a fantastic job and I am aware that they are currently fighting a war. I assume this is with some relation to the Red Arrows, but again, I am somewhat confused as to the references.
It’s the last part of your letter that really has be baffled “we are actually only worried with what Muslims think”. Does this have a reference to the Red Arrows and the Olympics? I fail to see the connection. From what I can gather we don’t wish to seem militaristic to other countries competing in the Olympics, the vast majority of which are not Muslim. As far as I am aware the British Muslim community do not have a particular issue with the Red Arrows (perhaps you can correct me on this). You go on to say “it’s what most normal people will be thinking”. I class myself as a pretty normal person (or as normal as you can get when you write letters in to your local paper), and I am pretty sure that “we” worry about what other people think too, I am defiantly sure that you do and I hope that you make up the “we” that you are talking about.
While I am sure you had some valid points in there, I am afraid your letter has come of somewhat like a condensed version of a Robert Kilroy Silk UKIP party conference speech. And before you say it, my response is not driven by political correctness, but by confusion and intrigue as to exactly what points you where trying to make.Labels: letters to the editor, my life, real world, soap box
Controlling windows from the command line
I had a window control problem on my metacentre PC. I have a bunch of programmable buttons on the remote control for it. When I press them I wish to switch between useful programs such as digiguide (tv guide) the TV software and the media centre software, which in this case is sesam TV. The problem was that when I pressed the button to switch to sesamTV, it would launch another instance of the program, very annoying.
I have found an answer in the form of NirCMD. It’s a command line program that lets you do a whole bunch of useful stuff from the command line. Because you can do it from the command line, you can script it.
After I downloaded the EXE and chucked it in to my windows directory (so it would run from anywhere) I wrote a little batch file that looked like this:
Nircmd win activate title sesamtv
I programmed a button on the remote to run this batch file and my problems are over.Labels: geek, my life, real world
Another letter
I sent another letter to the post:
This is a response to Ben Rice’s comment “Why won’t we tackle Mugabe?” (Tuesday 18th) . Mr Rice makes a very valid observation that the reason that we don’t “tackle” Mugabe is because there is no oil to motivate an invasion and occupation of a rich nation. My worry is that Mr Rice comments that “Using Iraq as a model, Britain will use interventionist strategy to depose a dictator who oversees a murderous, unjust and brutal regime”. This sounds, to me, very much like “if there is a regime that we do not approve of, then we should invade and occupy that country to fix whatever problems they have”. By this logic, we should also “tackle” North Korea and China who have not democracy and an atrocious human rights record. Or, perhaps we should “tackle” a country which has a leader who came to power under very suspicious circumstances and who has subsequently started wars and invaded other sovereign nations, i.e., America. I do agree that we (the UK) should take an active role to improve the situation in Zimbabwe, after all, it was part of our empire and until 2002 was part of the Commonwealth, but we should be very careful using the imperialistic, strong arm tactics of Iraq as a model, in part because it is a morally questionable and in part because it is proven not to work. Labels: letters to the editor, my life, real world, soap box
Slow News Day
The letter I sent to the Reading Evening Post (see bellow) got printed. Not only that, but it was today's star letter
ROLFMAYO!!1!one!eleven
edit: I would like to point out that I did not come up with the headline "Give your DNA gladly? Not me". that doesn't even make sense. I could not give your DNA, gladly or otherwise, I don't even know where you are.Labels: letters to the editor, my life, real world, soap box
Letter to the Post
I have written a letter to the Reading Evening Post, I don’t know what this says about my transformation in to Guardian reading OAP, but I’m sure it isn’t good.
Anyway.
One of their columnists, Melinda Webb wrote a column on what a good idea forcibly taking DNA from everyone on the country and keeping it on a database to allow the justice system to pin crimes on unsuspecting members of the public (I’m paraphrasing a little here). My letter is below, who knows, maybe they will print it.
I have some comments to make on Melinda Webb’s piece on Mondays post regarding the DNA database.
It appears that Melinda is of the belief that if you haven’t done anything wrong then you don’t need to worry about the government holding your DNA data. I would agree with this if the government was infallible, but they are not. I do not trust this government (with their track record of failing to implement IT systems) with this data. If they where to make a mistake, you could find yourself in a position where proving your innocents could be impossible. This has already occurred with fingerprint evidence in the well documented 1997 Shirley McKie case (check it out on the Wikipedia)
Even assuming that this government has only noble plans for a national DNA database, what about governments in the future, imagine what would happen if ever a party such as the BNP where elected, as unlikely as that sounds.
Melinda says, “most people in this country would be happy for their DNA to be held on a database”, if this is true then there is no need to make it compulsory. I will not be providing samples of my DNA to anybody without a very good reason.
Note: I managed to get through the whole thing without saying “choked on my cornflakes”, “I for one”, “come on [organisation name]” and “its one rule for X and one rule for Y”.
Labels: letters to the editor, my life, real world, soap box
I cant wear anything I like to job interviews, Boo Hoo, poor oppressed little me.
I have just read a report in the Reading Post business section that states “Lesbians believe they have to disguise their sexuality or risk being overlooked at job interviews, according to a study today”. That sounds pretty bad doesn’t it. Your sexual persuasion, like your gender or race, should have no bearing in the great majority of jobs.
But hang on, let’s read further, this whole next passage copped out of the post word for word.
The study by researchers at the universities of Cumbria and Glamorgan found that many women tried to be as “gender neutral” as possible when applying for work.
“may deemed the job interviews as being stressful enough without having got choose whether to disguise their true identity through conforming to the acceptable feminine modes of dress” said project leader Helen Woodruff-Burton.
So you could read this as “evil big business specifically doesn’t want lesbians working for them”
Or
Some people don’t like having to turn up to job interviews “business smart”
There are lots of places in the world where self expression is great, but if you want to get ahead in life, the business office is typically not one of them. We could use as an example the Goth. I imagine that most serous Goths would be pretty annoyed at having to “disguise their true identifies” by not whiting out their faces and putting on a suit. At the risk of repeating myself from a previous post “Tough Shit”. This is *business* there are *accepted norms* that you have to adhere to sometimes. If you don’t like it DON’T WORK IN THAT SORT OF ENVIRONMENT.
For most of my career I have managed to avoided wearing a suit. I hate having to iron and I hate having to dress up. I recently had a change in job and I am now suited and booted each day (apart from “causal Friday”, how depressing). Do I feel like I am being oppressed? Perhaps a little. Do you know what I am going to do about it? Nothing, because in the team I work in, we are all expected to be business smart each day. If I really had a problem with this, I would not have taken the job in the first place.
So, if you are a Goth, or a butch lesbian, or a flaming queer mincing round in a rhinestone cowboy outfit, or a chav, or you like dressing up like you are in star trek I say good for you, I love self expression and I think it makes the world a much more interesting place. Just don’t expect to be able to easily get a job in the business world if you turn up to your interview with your chained up leather gear\ purple dungarees\ sequined cowboy hat\ tracksuit\ tricorder and phaser on.
Oh, and as in interesting side note, I was recently in Cumbria. From what I saw, if I was running a job interviews, I would be hard pressed to tell a butch lesbian from the rest of the women up there. ooh you bitch, saucer of milk for table three.Labels: real world, soap box
Virgin are in my bad books again
This time its the train service. Me and the Misses had a shocking trip with them on Monday, I have sent a letter of complaint for whatever good it will to, have a read here:
To make this very clear form the beginning, this not so much a “comment about your service” as it is a compliant (there was not an option for this in the drop down box on the web form that I am typing this in to).
This is a complaint regarding the Virgin Trains journey that my girlfriend and I took form Reading to Carlisle on Thursday the 23rd of August at 16:10 and the returning journey on Monday 27th of August.
I’ll start with the outbound journey. Our tickets where purchased online and in advance so we had seats reserved (always a good idea when you expect to be on an over crowded train). For some reason, this information had not made it as far as the little screens above the seats which where occupied by a woman and her wheelie luggage. There where no other seats available so I had a go at explaining to the woman that she and her suitcase where sat in our seats and I showed her our tickets to which she replied “you’ll have to find a guard then, wont you”. As annoying as that was, I didn’t blame her, I don’t think I would have offered to stand for the rest of the journey if I could avoid it either. I didn’t attempt to find a guard because I could not move up or down the train due to mild overcrowding. A while later, two seats nearby where vacated and we where able to sit for the remainder of the journey.
Now for the return journey. This one sucked a whole lot more then the outbound journey. Right off the bat, the train was very delayed, I think we had to hang around for an extra 40 minuets at the station sitting our bags, not a huge deal and not totally unexpected. The problems really occurred when we boarded the train. Again we had seats reserved and again the little screens above the seats did not reflect this. This time I didn’t even bother talking to the people in the seats, not because I didn’t want to have an argument (this train was much, much more overcrowded then the outbound journey) but because I didn’t fancy sitting in a sauna for the next 5 hours, the air-conditioning was broken.
The unbelievable list of problems to have as soon as we board the train:
1) Its very late.
2) Its very overcrowded.
3) Our seats had not been reserved for us
4) The air conditioning in coach F was not working
5) I will throw this one in for good measure, although it can be taken as read from a Virgin train, the whole coach smelled of the toilet.
So, in an attempt to find other, more suitable, accommodation we and our large bags attempted to move down the train, we got as far as the shop when we had to stop, the next coach was far too full to take our bags though, so I was pressed up against the fridge unable to move back or forward. While I was there I had to assts the staff in the shop by passing drinks out of the fridge for customers who had no chance of reaching them (a little un-planned voluntary work). After a while a member of staff managed to direct my girlfriend and I out of the shop and in to the vestibule… well, I say vestibule, I it was the concertinaed bit that holds the carriages together. Not very comfy, very hot and again, smelling like a toilet.
We made formulated a plan to get off at the next station and run up the train in the hope that there would be space further down the train. Ha. The sight was somewhere between the pictures I have seen of the Shane Punjab Express for Delhi and what I imagine the inside of a sardine packing factory would look like. We made our way down most of the length of the train because we literally could not fit in to the vestibule of any of the other carriages. The vestibule we did manage to squeeze in to was at the beginning of the first class section. In true first class style, there was just about enough for us to sit on the floor (well almost).
As an interesting side note, the toilets in the first class section smell exactly like the toilets in coach F, I guess this an example of a classless society, but I digress…
In the true spirit of the blitz we and the other passengers passed the time by lamenting the level of “service” that we received, commenting on the temperature and the smell, discussing what we would do if any further passengers attempted to squeeze themselves in to our first class toilet corridor.
Now, to make it very clear, do not take the jocular nature of this letter as a sign that I am anything other then furious at being transported in a way that makes be jealous of Veal. This is what I would like to see. Our tickets cost £88 each, I would like to see a reasonable portion of the refunded. Please let me know what you require from me to provide this. I would also like to know how so many of these issues could crop up at once, particularly the over crowding. I appreciate that it was a bank holiday, but I do not see this as any sort of excuse.
I await your response, apologies for the length of this letter of complaint.
Regards,
Stuart Winter.Labels: my life, real world, soap box
Pikies
Before I start this rant, let me be very clear about what I mean when I use the phrase “Pikie”.
I am not saying that have any sort of problem with those who want to live alternative lifestyles, weather that be living in a commune, being self sufficient like off of the good life, or travelling the land in a mobile community. Those who do wish to travel in such mobile communities and live in such a way that they don’t impose themselves on other communities and act in a social, lawful manor, I am going to refer to as “travellers”. As it happens I have never had personal experience of such groups, but I am sure there are some out there, and more power too them. I have a fantasy about living on a barge travelling the country, so I can understand the appeal.
Now, back to my Richard Littlejohn style rant.
To coin a well known phrase from the movie Snatch “I fucking hate Pikies”. I am now going to talk from personal experience, not from what I have read in the paper or from some bigoted, demonising position. When I was a kid I lived over the road from a park, this park would occasionally fill up with white caravans covered in chrome, when this happened our local community (if you can call anything in west reading a community) suffered. I remember the knocks at the from door asking if they could buy my bike, the answer was always “no”, so the easy way to get around this? Just take it. I remember seeing this Pikie kid riding around, on my road, on my bike. To my Dad’s great credit, he actually went over there and got it back for me. He should not have to do this.
There is a bit of an epidemic of Pikies in Reading at the moment. If there is a postage stamp sized bit of land, sooner or later the caravans will appear. Shortly afterwards the rubbish appears. Great fucking piles of it. And when the Pikes are gone, the rubbish stays. Why is it someone else’s responsibility to get rid of this stuff? Why must my council tax be wasted on this?
I am not going to comment on anything that I read in the local paper, I know how inaccurate they can be in their desire for a sensational story, so this next anecdote was told to me first hand by someone I trust. She lived out near the countryside, there was a bridge over a large road which was a vital means of getting from her village to the town. Pikies set up a unilateral toll system. I.e. give them some money or you cant cross this bridge.
I have some big problems with my feelings towards Pikies. I think I am typically what you would refer to as a liberal (little L). I do not believe in tarring a whole strata of society, social or cultural group with the same negative brush. For instance I do not believe that all Muslims hate the British and would blow us up as soon as look at us. So how can I justify these sweeping statements about Pikies? Because I do not believe them to be an “ethnic minority”. As I touched on in my first paragraph, what defines, for instance, the Gypsy community should not be a pre-disposition to law breaking (weather that be trespass, theft or taking money with menaces) but a shared history, genetics and an inherited culture.
Now, you can’t say that just because an act is part of a culture or that an ethnic minority do it that it is OK. For instance, If I decided that I was only ever going to live in tents in other peoples back gardens, do you think that would be tolerated. Or if I decided that I was going to live without paying any tax, just because I feel like it, would that be OK? Of course not, these things would get me in to trouble. I don’t understand how you can have a culture which has such negative effects which *has* to be accepted by the “static” communities because if you don’t like it, you are a racist.
What inspires me to write this passage is partially because of the latest infestation of caravans that I see on my way to work each morning, but mostly because of a program that I listened to on radio 4 called Romany Roads. The program was dealt with changes in Gypsy life since the end of the war. The program was from a very annoyingly pro-Pikie position. In one section a woman can be heard to say how her family are moved on from wherever they site themselves and all she wants is for her children to have an education because they cant even write their names. Now I don’t know if I am supposed to wring my hand sand say how terrible that is and how guilty I feel. I hope I’m not supposed to say that, because I actually say “tough shit”. If you want an education fro your kids, buy some land and say in the same place. If there are objections to you doing this because it would make local houses un-saleable “tough shit” rent or buy a house.
The whole of society should not and does not have to bend over backwards to accommodate the vagaries of the alternative lifestyles of a small an non-contributory group.
Wow, I didn’t realise I had so much to say on the topic.Labels: real world, soap box
Pretty blond girls get the best A level results
If the newspapers and television are to be believed the high A level pass rate isn't the big news story, its the disproportionate percentage of them that are pretty blond girls. Apparently, they have an even better chance of passing if they are prone to hugging each other.
Lets have a look at some of the on line papers:
Times Online
BBC News
The Sun
Reading Post
If only I had been a blond girl, I may have actually got some reasonable exam results, oh well.Labels: real world, soap box
Today, I am mostly pissed off
I have a dog, he is a little angle most of the time, but has been barking a lot at night recently. It has been driving us to distraction, but we are trying a few techniques to get it in hand. The real problem is that our next-door neighbours recently got a cat. This cat hangs around in our back garden and shits I our flower bed. You can imagine what effect this is having on the dog. He is on constant alert and barks whenever it comes in to the garden.
That is not the reason that I am pissed off (although it was at 03:00 this morning)
The reason that I am pissed of is finding a printed sheet of A4 stuck through our letterbox this morning saying that the dog barking is keeping people awake, we should “get our dog under control” and keep him in the house at night (which he is anyway) otherwise they will call environmental health.
It was signed “the neighbours”. How mysterious.
They are right, the barking needs to stop and I am genuinely sorry for any missed nights of sleep, and as I say, we are working on it. The part that is pissing me off is that this information has been delivered to us in the form of an anonymous threatening letter. We do not live on some sink estate somewhere, there are no rusting white goods in our front garden, it’s not like I was going to stick a knife in the ribs of anyone coming to ask if I could stop the dog from barking. In fact, I know loads of the people in my street to say good morning too and, as far as I was aware, had a reasonably good relationship with them.
It’s very frustrating to have complaints levelled at you with no obvious route to take to defend yourself. I have a suspicions as to who it is responsible for the letter and I may have a word with them tonight if they are in. What’s really annoying is that when these people moved in I specifically asked them if they dog was a nuisance
and said if he ever is, please let us know.Labels: my life, real world, soap box
WOMUD I have been to Womad every summer so far this centaury, so I was pretty peeved when it moved out of Reading. Being a hard core Womad fan, I had been considering going none the less, until a few weeks ago when I had a change of heart. I have been pretty stressed recently and decided I would rather spend the money on a relaxing holiday for a week then camping at a festival for the weekend with no option to pop home for a shower\nap\dump. I am extremely pleased to say that, according to the Reading Post, Womad was shit. The field was a quagmire, cars had to be pulled out by tractors, they had to close one of the stages and the toilets where questionable. As one regular Womad going was quoted to say “it lacked the Womad buzz”, which is really the thing that you go to Womad for. So for all of the hippy-for-the-weekend Womad hardcore that went even thought it is no longer within walking distance of Waitrose, I am very sorry if you had a rubbish time. Personally, I am just glad that I don’t have to kick myself about missing my favourite festival when I am sleeping until 3 in the afternoon, relaxing all day and partying all night in a Greece. Labels: real world, soap box
Search in private There has been a lot in the news recently about how Google and other search organisations are going to have to disclose records of which searches have taken pace to various government agencies if required. On the face of it, this sounds like a good idea, you can identify people searching for bomb making kits and researching suicide bombings and the like. The negative side to this is that, of all of the groups of people in the world that I wouldn’t trust to use this kind of power in an ethical way, it’s a government agency, and we live in a comparatively free country at the moment, think how litte I would trust them is if we where somewhere a little more like Russia or China. Here is a vision of the future, it sounds very Orwellian, but you can imagine a world where you search for some sort of shocking\unusual (but not illegal in itself) content and the next thing you know, the thought police turn up at your door and cart you off to Paddington Green police station to be held for 90 days for being a suspected terrorist. In the past, I have searched for information on the KKK because I find their organisation bizarre\funny, this dose not make me a red neck, white supremacist. I think it would take a very clever person to be able to identify threats via what people put in to a search engine without stamping on all of the other no-threats that are going about their daily business and who may be curios about the world outside of which celebrity is too fat\skinny. The trouble is, you use Google all the time, using the web without using search engines would be pretty difficult, so it raises the question, short of becoming some sort of luddite, how do you keep your personal searching habits out of the hands of government agencies. I was thinking that some sort of distributed, peer 2 peer search engine where rather then having a massive server farm full of computers, you use computers in peoples homes (much like the SETI@home project). I’d like to see the government subpoena an unknown number of home computers from around the world. Working on the theory that I never have an original idea, I had a quick search on Google (hope no government spook was watching) and it turns out there are some project that are looking in to exactly this. YACY. This project is pretty far along, they even have a demo search page where you can try it. It requires special software to run, but it also runs in your browser using Java. I have had a little go and Google this aint. But it’s a step in the right direction. Wikia Search. This is being set up by one of the guys who created wikipedia. It s wiki based search system that looks like it could fit the bill at some point. If these systems ever did take off, my next worry would be; What if those geeks who have this search engine running on their home computers care see what I am searching for!!! Better then a government agency, but still…. Labels: geek, real world, soap box
Calendars I have a well documented and well known blind spot when it comes to dates and times. I never know what is supposed to be happening when. Recently, I started using the calendar feature of my yahoo mail box to keep track of this which has helped a lot. But after a little research, I have pimped out my calendar system, an as such should never forget anything again. This is how it works. Central Calendar:
For my main calendar I use the one that comes built in to your Google Mail account. Its light-years ahead of the Yahoo system, I think its as good as any groupware system such as Microsoft Exchange, except its free, and it runs in your web browser. I have set it up to e-mail me to remind me of people’s birthdays and the like. Desktop Calendar:
I my main desktop computer at home I use the Linux Microsoft Outlook knockoff Evolution. You can synchronise your Google calendar with it, follow these instruction. If you use outlook, you can do it too, follow these instructions Mobile Calendar:
I recently got myself a new phone. It’s a Nokia | |
