Police Waste More Time and Money on Chris Huhne Case
That’s what it looks like according to this report on the BBC.
Enquiries started in May, so surely even the dimmest officer in the Essex Constabulary could have ascertained what the truth in this case is.
Either Chris Huhne was driving the car, in which case he should take the consequences or his wife was.
As they are both fairly high profile, I suspect that proof as to their whereabouts at the time should be fairly easy to obtain. I suspect too, that the CCTV at Stansted Airport would show the answer too. Unless of course Chris Huhne had dressed up as his wife, so that he could get off a speeding charge. But of course, nothing in his past life would indicate he would do that! One of the biggest problems men have with this, is often they are a totally different size to their wife.
It sounds to me that this case might end up with a more serious charge.
Whatever happened to the beloved criminal quote of “It’s a fair cop, officer!”
Banks Cut Services To Pay Bonuses
The Royal Bank of UK Taxpayers has now decided that a good proportion of its customers must use a restricted set of cash points.
Obviously, the savings will be going to pay banker’s bonuses and Fred the Shred’s pension.
IKEA’s Silly Screws
I’m putting the IKEA Stolmen wardrobe insert together now that I’ve got a complete chest of drawers. But why do they use such silly screws?
IKEA's Silly Screws
They are absolutely impossible to use, if you have a gammy hand and their little bent wire socket keys are definitely something for one person per end and as I live alone, what am I supposed to do?
I’ve given up on them as and as you can see, I’m using conventional nuts and bolts from Clerkenwell Screws. They were just a few pence each.
The great thing about the conventional hexagonal head nut and bolt, is that they are an almost perfect piece of design. They are easy to put together, they don’t roll away, when you leave them to their own devices and they can be screwed tightly together with a couple of spanners. I always have a nut driver handy for one end. Usually, you only find these tools at proper tool shops, like Clerkenwell Screws, Franchi or Mackays in Cambridge. But having one in the right size for a job you do often is worth the saving in anger.
In this example I’ve used standard bright zinc-plated bolts, but I could have used brass, as I did in the staircase.
I’m an electrical engineer, but remember the definition of a mechanical one; A nut who screws, washes and bolts.
The Facebook Two
Two men have been given substantial prison sentences for trying to organise a riot in Chester by using Facebook. as the BBC reports here. But they must have been two of worst riot organisers in history as no-one turned up.
Perhaps, the good people of Cheshire, have more morals, than these two have common sense.
You don’t send people to prison for this type of crime, especially when it would appear that nothing got damaged and no-one got hurt.
What they need is some form of creative community punishment. Perhaps, there is a derelict site that could be converted into a garden! Or some coal that needs painting white!
One is certainly appealing, and I’ll be very surprised if the sentence stands.
The Private Thoughts of Engineers and Scientists
Some years ago there was an attack on the Tokyo Metro using sarin gas. Although it killed a number of people and injured many more, it could easily have been a lot worse.
At the time, I knew a guy who was and hopefully still is a world class chemical engineer, who worked in the pharmaceutical industry. I asked him, just how easy it was to make Sarin gas. He said it was fairly easy, but in most cases, sarin will kill you before you use it, unless you can get the proper protection, which is the most difficult part.
He did however tell me a much more easy way to paralyse a city and cause a lot of damage. I will not repeat it here, but judging what I don’t see in London, other people have had the same thought and made the carrying out of such an attack impossible.
What worries me now, is if we had a jokey conversation in a chat room on the Internet about an attack similar to that in Tokyo, would our doors be kicked in?
Drunk In Charge of a Coolbox
You can hardly believe this man could be so stupid.
I suppose his only defence is that he is from Queensland.
The Last Imperial Legacy in the United States
A letter in The Times yesterday, explains why a city block in the US is the size it is.
City blocks, and indeed much of North America, were laid out in imperial measurements, many of which are still used today
Sir, Tim Teeman said in the Saturday Review on Aug 13th states that “200ft is the length of a city block”. Not so: it is 198ft, because that equals 66 yards or 3 chains or 12 rods, the units by which the whole of North America was surveyed and laid out, within the system of customary measures that still prevails there and survives unofficially in Britain.
I suspect that very few measurements in English cities, towns and the countryside are just how they were originally laid out or modified. They’ve just done the pavements outside my house, and I suspect the road is now about a centimetre narrower, as they’ve replaced the kerbs round the trees, which of course have grown since they were last replaced. I wonder if the Dutch company worked to Imperial or Metric units. I suspect that if they measured everything, it was the latter, but I suspect most of it was well done using the Mark One eyeball.
Solicitors from Hell
We’ve all used bad solicitors in the past, but few of us have done anything about it. But Rick Kordowski did according to this article in The Independent.
According to The Times yesterday, the solicitors don’t like what he’s doing and are turning their legal guns on him.
I’m reminded of the old American legal joke.
Q. What do you call a thousand American lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
A. A good start
Do Historians Ignore Facts?
Terry Deary, the author of Horrible Histories, thinks so and said as much on BBC Breakfast this morning.
I agree!
I once dealt with an archaeologist, who analysed a database of fragments found in peublas all over the South Western United States with Daisy. When we analysed the whole database we got totally different answers to those of an eminent professor, who’d discarded all of those entries that didn’t fit his personal theory.
A lot of people have been saying that the riots were caused by X and doing Y will stop it. Have they even got any facts, and if they have have used all the facts to get the answer.
Why Does Regeneration Create So Many Ugly Buildings?
his question was asked in the BBC web site and this article is what Owen Hatherley said.
The last paragraphs are about Leicester.
This is the site of the Leicester Science Park, where new things should be able to occur. A sign says “starting on site summer 2010”. There is no sign of it a year later.
What there is, is a new housing development. Little detached boxes in cul-de-sacs, designed for two purposes – maximising car parking and maximising profit. Each house has a little neo-Georgian porch, what the developers call a “gob-on”.
What you notice is the emptiness. Not just the huge empty wastes outside, but the empty-headedness of a society that has abandoned all hope that it could create something better than this bloody mess.
I think he’s thinking on the right lines.
For a start my new lifestyle proves that you can live without a car. But you do need a house with lots of clean space to work, socialise and relax.
C and I also brought up three kids in a tower block. Good ones certainly work and my middle son looks back on that flat in the Barbican with its superb views and lots of space with affection. My late younger son liked it so much, that when he first setup home it was in the block next door.
Too many though the Barbican is ugly. But not to the many who’ve lived there!
The Anonymous Widower 