[hiatus] not for too long - farewell

Once I was crazy enough to try bobsleigh - well actually luge, feet first.

It's an interesting phenomenon - once you're over that lip at the top, there is only one way down and there is no choice but to lie back and let the skids become part of you, using miniscule bodyshifts to minimize bends, on e false move and I think you can imagine.

Therefore, even though the heart was doing awful things, you had to suppress it and get the breathing going for when you hit the compression bends. There was one particular bend to the left and I remember the overhanging trees as I came into a short straight and the skids came back to the fall line and picked up speed - you couldn't sneeze or move the head except to strain the eyes downwards but in so doing, this lost speed.

Fat lot that mattered to me, speed - perfectly happy to lop a few seconds off and live. Halfway down the straight and it became fairly obvious that ... er ... there was almost a right angle left at the end [or so it seemed] and to go from semi-vertical to semi-horizontal in a microsecond was going to do interesting things to the metabolism.

At this point I thought of putting the legs out to stop before the turn but then realized that the walls would snap the legs back behind me and anyway here it was ... aaagh. The turn was bad enough, crushing the chest but when I shot up to the ridge, hanging centrifugally before flattening out to the fall line again with the skids wobbling left and right, it seemed it might be a good idea to ... um ... stop if you don't mind ... please?

Vague feelings now of high up near the ridge on the left, snap back, high up on the right, back to the line and then the final drop where it felt like taking off before the tube became gradually shallow and then severely reversed upwards and the blades finally stopped.

Um ... right. Exhilarating? For some perhaps but you could keep it as far as I was concerned. Count me among the spineless please - I'd prefer not to meet my lunch coming up on my way down. With thoughts like these, the base of the chairlift was beckoning again and there was a free chair.

Seems to me there's a huge difference between you brave people who go on the Oblivion, Megaphobia and so on and actually trust the damned thing not to come off whilst you're flung out into space. In my case, it was always going to be in my hands what happened and somehow that was more comforting.

Tomorrow is entirely out of my hands.

I'd like to sign off now and hand over to Colin Campbell for some time, trusting and hoping you won't shun the blog but will come to read some of the guest posts. One way or another I'll let you know what happened. Thank you so much too, those friends who put up with the maudlin mood in the last few weeks and stuck with me.

Cheers and let's leave on a good note:

Thousands of private counselors are offering free services to troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with mental health problems, jumping in to help because the military is short on therapists.

Now that's altruism for you. So don't miss out - apply today.

[sunday notes] bumbling around, getting it done

As Russia sweeps to Eurovision victory, this blogger quietly exits [yes that visa came through] Good luck to Russia who sustained me for so many years. 99% of the population and I got on fine but unfortunately, the wrong 99%.

Sorry to disappoint but there'll be no cutting expose from Higham - time to move on to new disasters [no, no - good things]. This week sees the action. As it will be pretty busy the next few days, I might not pop up again in that time, if at all.

In the meanwhile, may I leave visitors to this site in the most capable administrative hands of Haggiso, aka Colin Campbell, whose job it is to keep a motley collection of guest posters roughly in line or indeed - even posting.

Actually, we have quite appropriate weather just now - bitter grey skies, intermittent rain, plus 7 degrees and a chilly wind. It's been like this for some days but hey, this is meant to be summer, you know.

The big ask

Tomorrow, between 10 a.m. and 12 a.m. London time my companion and I will pass through a most dangerous time and a number of things can and might go wrong which will change the game plan so significantly that I end up in a different country to the one I had in mind.

Now, there is a passage in Matt 18:19-20:

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

So, reading the fine print here, it needs a minimum of two together, it seems but whether that means two or three in collusion at the end of an e-mail or whether it means you have to be actually together is not clear, as Matt's internet connection was down at the time.

Well anyway, I'll leave that one up to you.

Meanwhile

May I recommend to the romantics amongst you [sorry to be sickening] not a bad profile of Kate Middleton, the latest Gordo bashing is not worth the effort on Positive Sunday, we needn't bother either with the Hillary stirring in Florida but tomorrow being Memorial Day, here are a few articles about it.

Let's remember all vets everywhere.

So, best head off as a few people will visit today and I have nothing to put on the table just now. Back later in the day.

Nuts From The Chipmunk's Pouch

Notwithstanding the amount of hostile press she generates (and, ahem, requests to blog about her), Hazel Blears is possibly one of the least interesting characters about whom one could find anything interesting to write. Vapid and immature, her utterances remind one of a review once given to the actress Trish Van Devere, that she was little more than 'a smiling hole in the air'.

However, last night a whopper of a nut fell out of the Chipmunk's pouch; and right on the Channel 4 News.

For what it's worth, my own analysis of the Crewe & Nantwich bye-election result is that it does represent a political paradigm shift. If you want to register a protest vote, go for the Lib Dems; the fact that the Tories got so big a swing would indicate that the people want change and, above all else, stabilitys-something they won't get from a party of alcoholic coprophiles.

When Jon Snow confronted her with the result, Blears started gabbling the usual litany of New Labour achievements; and one of them was the enactment of new rights for agency workers. She justified this by saying that it had been done 'to prevent wages being undercut by agency workers'. There is only one class of workers she could have been talking about; migrants.

Yes, folk, last night, unless my ears were greatly deceiving me, Hazel Blears as much as admitted that migrants have been driving down wages. It would be very interesting to hear the recording again in full. If what I can recall hearing is correct, the Chipmunk has managed to chew through the hull of the good ship New Labour far below the waterline, and has handed the Tories a majority of at least 100.

[perception] more vital than the reality

It's never actually your situation which counts but your perception of it.

At the blackest point today after that visa stupidity which kicks off again tomorrow at 11 a.m., this blogger was as low as he's felt for years and that was reflected in the last post.

Then came the prospect of one particular lady, well two actually, who not only dropped in and lifted the mood exponentially but got down to helping clear out the flat, did this, did that and all I had to give them was a tub of salad, sweets and tea - felt so guilty.

They made as if it was a monarch's repast and by various nuances, the solidity of their friendship really came home, to the point I just had to sign off tonight in a much more cheerful mood, coffee and whisky beside me.

Now I'm actually looking forward to the adventure.

[bumper post] one size fits all tonight, including thought for the day

So far, in a day best left entirely forgotten for its shocks, disappointments and sheer bloody-minded callousness, I'll have to put everything into the one post now, as arrangements etc. have to be made later, in a number of 11th hour moves.


Crewe and Nantwich

Labour leader Gordon Brown said the result showed his task was to tackle people's concerns about rising prices.

No, you prat - the result showed people finally recognizing the total moral bankruptcy of Nu-Labour which I've been saying ever since Brownair came to power. The moment Blair said:

Enough of talking, time now to do ...

... it was clear Britain was doomed.


People don't want you to "tackle their concerns" about prices - they want you to either get the bloody prices themselves down, the wages up or else just get out of the way and let someone professional do the job.


Today

By 17:30 today, our university still had a girl in a huge queue at immigration trying to get a visa in order for me to leave the country. Having said that I must leave the country because my visa is only for May, yet they now say I need a visa to actually leave as well, on the basis of not having a visa to continue.

Presumably at the end of that time, one makes a mad undignified scramble for an airport in order not to be incarcerated for not having a visa which they failed to issue. I'm told the visa will be there tomorrow - let me report back to you then.

I have no further comment at this time and refuse to hit the whisky.


Thought for the day

Nil bastardo carborundum.

Click the thought for its translation. Have a lovely Friday evening, readers.

Media censorship and the McCanns

People, don't let this post go by. Follow it through - it's quite extraordinary.

Media censorship and the McCanns

This particular story for me started here "McCann advances against "T&Q", 16 May 2008". You will need to scroll down the page until you find it. It concerns a news report in T&Q on 24 August 2007. On 31 August 2007, BBC Radio 4 ran with the story and conducted an interview with the director of T&Q. I blogged it here. But, it wasn't until I blogged the same story on the My Telegraph blog here that I discovered that I had been...



However, whilst the My Telegraph blog team were able to censor me on their blog, they were unable to censor the Google cache as evidenced here.

I did manage to post the same post a second time with the same result of being censored, and when I posted again including the Google cache link this post also got censored.

Eventually, I received an email from the My Telegraph blog team in response to my two emails and they had this to say:

"Hello,

Our team of moderators respond to complaints about material on My Telegraph and remove anything which they consider to be potentially defamatory or abusive.

Best wishes,

Ceri Radford".

So, they censor first on the basis that it might be potentially defamatory or abusive rather than actually is?

Given that the story had already been printed in T&Q and 24 Hours, and aired on the BBC, it begs the question whether the My Telegraph blog team were being honest in their reasons for the censorship?

Xklamation also reports that the three posts she did on the McCanns were also censored by the My Telegraph blog team.

I would argue that we are going down a slippery slope here and that the brakes need to be applied to those intent on preventing freedom of expression.

[thought for the day] thursday evening

No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

[John Donne]

Well, if we can just stop talking of death and other fun concepts like that, the general principle is right though.

In these current weeks, for me personally, this principle has been brought home quite strongly - we can't go it alone, no matter how much we like to think we make the play. We depend on others, as those others might then depend on us.

Eye of the media tiger

Guest post by the Jailhouse Lawyer:

I was asked to climb aboard an anti-McCann bandwagon. Like the McCanns saying they have reservations about returning to Portugal for a reconstruction, I pm'd Tigger on the 3As forum stating I had reservations.

I was concerned about libel, once you step out of the relative safety of the blogs and forums. Any allegation made needs to be supported or the McCann camp will jump on it and exploit it for their own ends. In the end, I agreed to offer support on the legal and media fronts.

This has already received a McCann response on local radio in the areas of distribution. If the mainstream media (MSM) is not going to ask the right questions, then they will have to play catch up.

n.b. The report of the local radio is single sourced and has not yet been confirmed by a secondary source. It could be the source was hearing voices :)

[shopping malls] safety issues and crime profiles

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel collected data on more than 22,000 crimes reported at 13 South Florida malls from 2003-2007.

The vast majority of crimes involved shoplifting and petty thefts inside malls and car thefts and break-ins in parking lots. There were at least 508 violent crimes — mostly robberies, followed by aggravated assaults and batteries and a handful of sexual assaults and homicides.

Check out the video first and then some questions arise:



My most immediate thought is that potential attackers are going to avoid camera areas for sure. I read that many carry guns - how? Clearly no check on entry for fear of losing custom. Also - how empty was the mall? Seemed not many people shopping.

Even with cameras in most places, how trained are staff to know what to look for, as they said? Even then, how can the attack be prevented if security are not armed? One more thing - did you see the bit of the video which caught the two youths casing the place? Did you notice the ethnicity?

Seems to me that after a certain period of time, from the stats, a certain profile of criminals - ethnicity, gender, age, socio-economic status, general appearance - would have to emerge. Human rights advocates would say this is outrageous to profile this way but if there is a clear pattern [and I'm not saying there is] then what does one do?

Ignore the stats?

[geographical logic] sad but real

It's the old, old story about political and ethnic boundaries.

In the republic in which I live there is an ethnic Muslim population, a little over half the total, together with Russians and many other groups. Russian is the language of the people generally and the local language is more for local government level.

The problem here is the proximity to Moscow. From 1552 and Ivan Grozny [the Terrible], it's always been a problem and Moscow has seen the problem in reverse. There is no doubt that Russia insisted on its language becoming the universal one throughout all republics, even the nominally autonomous ones and it has kept relative peace across the land.

Westerners see brutal regimes and precious little democracy but the thing, truly, that people hanker for more is stability. For whatever reasons and you can put your own construction on these, the majority, entirely uncoerced, did go for Putin and breathed a sigh of relief when the power changed hands smoothly.

No one is doubting that Putin is still largely at the reins but the thing is - it's not necessarily seen as a bad thing, on balance. Many major issues, yes and hot debate on them at local level, if not at national level. What people fear most is the rein of lawlessness and in this town it was once so, with a devastating pall of anxiety hanging over the local populace.

Now the town seems to be flourishing and most people, particularly the young, don't wish to go back to the old days.

Returning to Tibet [at the end of the link above], it suffers from two things of course - proximity and its strategic value, not entirely as we have here. The issue will never be resolved but will wax and wane according to China's territorial consciousness of the time.

I claim no particular wisdom in this matter but I may see or feel a perspective the average westerner, even the widely travelled one, does not share. One can see China's point of view and can't blame it for pursuing its national strategic interests.

A glance at the map above, then superimposing that map on the all important silk road to Israel and Europe, alone is strategic reason for the TAR to exist, as such. Then we come to the Americans who are right in there, in Tibet, with their psy-ops and again, one can't blame America for wishing to encircle the new potential world hegemony. It would be failing its people if it did not do so.

As usual, the people in the middle are the meat in the sandwich and atrocities occur but nothing to the ones which are coming up later as this issue blows out of all proportion.