Olympic Ticket Problems
I had no problems with getting my places in the Olympic auction for tickets. But then I reserved them three weeks ago.
When will people learn, that the deadline is not the day you actually do something? With the Internet, you can set transactions up early, so they happen at the right time!
Andrew Marr Comes Clean
Having watched Have I Got News For You and seen what Ian Hislop has said since Andrew Marr has come clean over the superinjunction, I think that he made his statement just in time. I think if Marr hadn’t broke his silence, it would have been all over the place within a week.
This always happens in the end, as someone makes a mistake or perhaps sadly one of the parties dies and then it gets published.
These privacy superinjunctions may have their place in some areas, like the protection of children But in many places they are just being used by indivduals and companies to hide wrong doing. Or should I say delay publication, as inevitably that’s what happens.
It would appear now that the tabloids are looking for the next person to come clean.
There is also a serious side to all this. Read this article in the Daily Mail. One person, who has found a serious health problem with paint, has even been prohibited from talking to his MP. It’s getting to be all very Kafka!
The Mail is also getting its claws into Fred the Shred in this article. At one time the injunction said that we couldn’t refer to him as a banker.
I’ve just typed his real name coupled with the w-word into Google. You get a lot of very funny articles.
Superinjunctions have now created this new game of Googling the Internet to find out the truth. You usually can! The google Toolbar is particularly useful, as it knows the common searches. Let’s say I’m a sportsman, who say has been associated with a Z-list celebrity, but I’ve taken out a super injunction to stop my wife finding out and divorcing me, thus relieving me of a lot of my money and half my salary, which would mean I’m unattractive to bimbos. If I continually type my name and that of the celebrity into Google, I can check that no stories are appearing. But all I’m doing is making it easier for people to find the association.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
How To Get Lost On the Hills
According to this report, it would appear the best way is to navigate using your iPhone.
What’s wrong with a map and compass?
Let’s suppose that you are walking one of the London canals and you’re aiming to be out for most of the day. By the time you get back, your iPhone will have exhausted its battery, so if you feel like taking a phone, why not take something with a sensible battery life, like a Nokia 6310i.
To AV Or Not To AV
I probably won’t be voting in the AV referendum. Or I might spoil my paper by writing 1 in one and 2 in the other!
As quite a few papers have shown, there would have been little difference if we’d have AV for the last couple of elections. And anyway according to some of my Australian friends, there is a tendency for people to give the first candidate your first preference, the second your second and so on. So you are more likely to elect Charles Aab than Samantha Zyzzx!
There has been some well-written stories in the papers too. I like this one, which quotes Anthony Eden extensively.
At the Angel this morning, both pro- and anti-AV supporters were handing out leaflets.
To my surprise and I suspect to many politicians, when I got on the bus to go home, about half the people on the Dalston Omnibus were avidly reading the leaflets they had been given.
So does this mean that people actually take more interest in elections, than the turnout suggests?
Phil Mac Giolla Bhain
With all of the death threats and bombs in Glasgow over the last few days and the statement from Paul McBride, I decided to search the Internet to learn more. After all, anybody who is less than a hundred bricks short of a full load, would want the problems to be sorted and be stopped for ever.
I found this excellent web site from Phil Mac Giolla Bhain. Read this post about a tax demand from HMRC and note some of the associated comments.
Tomorrow is another battle in the Glasgow Premier League. It will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 5 Live. Rumour has it that Jeremy Bowen has been asked to commentate.
Censorship
The Times today has been censored, just like papers used to be in Eastern Europe and still are in places like Iran.
It’s because they were talking about a sex scandal involving a well-known footballer. Apparently to mention his name in connection with scandal is now against the law.
Would I be guilty of contempt, if I put a list of all current footballers in this post, which on the law of averages would include him?
It doesn’t matter, as the truth will surface in a few days about who had the relationship with a former Miss Wales, Imogen Thomas, who appeared as a housemate on Big Brother.
But I’m totally against censorship, as it the tool of preference for every dictator since Stalin and Hitler. No-one should fear the truth.
Sniffing Out Cancer
The title of this post came from a little article in the Metro about a device called the Na-Nose.
Here is an article which describes the technique in more detail.
Florida Tourism
I can’t understand why anybody would want to go to the United States for a holiday and especially the state of Florida. After all according to this list from an official web site, they have executed 69 people since 1976.
I did hear though on Radio 5 this morning, that the clean-up after the Gulf oil spill has gone well and that the beaches are clean and tourism is on the rise.
But then you have the murders of James Cooper and James Kouzaris.
You wouldn’t catch me going.
It would appear that the murderer of the two Englishmen, is just 16 and will be tried as an adult and could face the death penalty.
So at least Florida has its priorities right. Tourism is more important than cleaning up crime.
Surely to improve tourism, they must do the other. But of course without using the death penalty. But then American justice is not about justice, it’s about vengeance.
Barking Mad
Why do we always talk about people Barking Mad? There is an explanation here.
A much more prosaic derivation, that the phrase refers to mad and possibly rabid dogs, is a more probable source. There are many examples of ‘barking like a mad dog’ in print.
This sounds feasible.
There had been an item on the news this morning talking about some rather silly yellow lines painted on the pavement in Ripple Road, Barking, so as I’d never been there, I thought I’d go there for a walk in the sun.
The lines do seem rather odd.
The Anonymous Widower 