[bank holiday weekend] sun's out for now

The day started out superbly, the sun was shining and as I popped into my favourite caf in a town not far from here, the sun broke out and the tattooed girl said, 'Smashing day,' which made my heart sing and so I replied, 'It's going to rain - bank holiday weekend you know.'

'S'pose you're right,' she sighed. She made a further comment in the local dialect which I didn't catch but replied anyway, 'Yeah, for a while anyway,' at which she looked at me strangely and said, 'There's a funeral, like.'

Spinning round, I could see through the window that there was a funeral at the local catholic church, a bloody big funeral with hundreds of people. 'What's it all about then?'

'Doan know, do I? I got me spy over there now.'

Her mother came back and reported it was some local bouncer called Steve Fromme, aged 55 and he'd croaked it. The cleaner came past and said to me, 'You're real friendly like. I like friendly people,' at which I replied, 'Life's too short, innit?'

I swear it's true that 'What a wonderful day' was being piped through the tannoys at that moment.

With joy in the heart and the sun still out, next stop was the bank where the lady in front had to dash off for something and when she came back, she put herself at the back of the queue. 'What are you doing then?' I asked, 'Come on, I've saved this spot for you,' checking with the old guy behind me who said, 'I've got plenty of time today.'

Now these are the sorts of things which make you want to live in Britain. It is friendly up this way, the living is civilized, even for socio-economic E2s like me and it was in that spirit that I cycled back home to collect this letter from the letterbox [and I quote]:

Dear Owner/Occupier

You have not responded to our recent warning that your address is scheduled to receive an enforcement visit. So as your address remains unlicensed, it is now included on the list of unlicensed properties to be visited this month by the North Wales enforcement team.

Using TV receiving equipment to watch or record television programmes without a valid licence is against the law. If my officers suspect that an offence has taken place at your address, you may be cautioned and interviewed in compliance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, 1984 or Scottish criminal law. This interview may then be used for the purposes of prosecution.

You could avoid this visit, interview and any consequent legal action [including a court appearance and a fine of up to £1000] if you buy a TV licence now. YOU MUST NOT IGNORE THIS LETTER. If you watch or record TV at this address, you need a TV licence.

Yours faithfully,
John Robinson
TV Licensing Enforcement Manager

Welcome to the Bank Holiday weekend. I neither have a TV nor have any intention of purchasing or renting one. My computer does everything I need but thanks, Mr. Robinson for your compassionate customer relations technique.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend anyway.

[vortigern] lovely chap who invited us here

Appropriate day to post this. The Celtic site continues:

Vortigern was a warlord in Britain during the 5th century A.D. By all accounts, Vortigern appeared to be a usurper and a pretender to the rule of Britain and was shown to be a man of low character and inclinations. He achieved his position through assassination and treachery, killing even the young king, Constans, to whom he was an advisor.

Constans' baby brother, Uther, was unknown to Vortigern and so escaped his treachery. Vortigern ruled Britain with the aid of Saxon mercenaries who kept him in power until he, too, dealt with them harshly.

The Saxons eventually turned on him and Vortigern met his death in a blazing castle tower in Wales at the hands of Geoffrey of Monmouth, although some sources claim that the tower was mysteriously struck by lightning, catching it on fire.

(Later, when the Tarot decks of the middle ages and renaissance were designed, this imagery became the inspiration behind the card "The Tower". Vortigern is the figure in the foreground plummeting headfirst from the lightning-blasted tower.)

After Geoffrey's rule of Britain, Constans' brother, Uther Pendragon, became ruler of Britain, and Uther Pendragon was the father of the legendary King Arthur.

It all goes to remind us just how pagan and barbaric Britain has actually remained under the surface and how relevant the sacrificial groves [I’m quite near some Welsh ones and often pop down to observe proceedings], Rosslyn, Glastonbury, the Once and Future King et al, are to these dark satanic times. The Wicker Man found his ignorance of the real Bretagne to his cost.

Dark doings might penetrate the night, the Keepers of the Dawn might usher in the Morning Star, for whose delectation the Eastern Star awaits, the sacred feminin may be enshrined elsewhere and the Moriah avenging wind could well be poised to consume all. Kabbalah shabbalah [or whatever manifestation the message takes at the time] maitreya betrayer delayer [as it fails to pan out as planned], whichever image your master currently chooses to utilize, sorry to blunt your daggers, oh robed and hooded ones - the grand vision just ain’t gonna happen, however much you symbolically hang out your Calvist messages for all to see, beneath Blackfriar’s Bridge or splattered over Pillar 13.

The thing is, yawn, there’s the infuriating little Davidian problem of the Cross to overcome first. You might have torn the hearts out of the messengers, Agents Smith but you can never tear the heart out of the message.

[thoughtful thursday] anyone for ...

[data protection] snippets of shoddy practice

Sometimes it’s as well to go give yourself an hour and wade through inter-governmental reports, commissions on the reports and reports on the commissions, along with further analysis.

The movers and shakers rely on making the watchdog scrutiny of policy decisions like finding a needle in a haystack and the serious blogger who does take the time and writes his 32 page report on it – a DK or Unity, for example, is pushing faeces uphill to get the wider public to see, to understand and to accept this.

Below is a small example. Imagine you had a report on:



… also on:


… and the Statewatch report on that. Imagine you woke up, say, at 05:45 and for some crazy reason, saw a folder within a folder within a folder, containing these reports and you began to read them again. Imagine you came out with these snippets:















What conclusion could you come to?

Correct me if I’m wrong but this blogger concludes that despite Euro directives already in place, despite ongoing data protection discussions and despite the existence of Euro-courts and the like, a group of interior ministers had a meeting with a view to rushing through data availability, cross border data collection/sharing and our government went along with and supported this.

The problem with it is that the meeting was outside of EU law and yet the conclusions went back to National Parliaments and were pushed through without any discussion, without publicizing that it was even happening and presenting the bills as faits accompli, all amidst calls for greater transparency from others.

The bottom line is that your data in the UK is shared with other EU member nations, with no checks and balances and it’s at their whim if it gets out to the wider world. Thank you so much, Gordo’s warlocks and harpies.

I haven’t gone into any detail on the issue itself in this post and the snippets are hardly conclusive, merely indicative and yet, am I wrong in concluding that there is some very shoddy practice going on here which would have us subject to disciplinary proceedings and out on our ear if we were to try this on?

Another thing

One of the most frustrating things for the poor blogger who is even halfway serious is that he can bring the material to the readership [I’m referring to other poor sods, not myself here] and answer both serious and spurious questions on it in his comments section but how many people have actually waded through the material and how many see a block of print and tune out, rendering the work he’d put in to it well nigh irrelevant?

Sonus must feel frustrated that way.

How many bloggers write long winded posts, which is not to stay that the research was not impeccable and the conclusions not sound, only to turn around and click out of anyone else’s post if it goes much beyond five paragraphs, not really interested in the other’s take on it?

I’m still stunned by the blogger who went to … I forget, was it Mr. Eugenides [?] … and in response to an excellent post, commented, ‘My view is here,’ complete with hyperlink. He was, at least, being nakedly honest that he didn’t give a rat’s back passage what Mr. E had written but on the other hand, we readers were meant to go to his site and read his morsels of wisdom.

My unstated response to this man at the time was, ‘You can F off.’

Similarly, some years back, I had a friend who, in response to any statement I made, any statement at all, would automatically open his response with, ‘No,’ or ‘Not at all,’ or ‘You’re wrong there,’ thus dismissing everything I’d just said holus bolus. I’m sure he didn’t actually dismiss all, it was just his unfortunate mannerism.

He’d then proceed to state his own case, at least tacitly acknowledging them in his argument but as that argument was now couched in his own terms, it now had the official stamp of truth to it. When I’d point out that this had been largely what I’d been saying, he’d reply, ‘Not at all.’

Eventually he began saying, ‘I accept that but –’ which had the effect on me of at least wishing to continue dialogue with him for some years more.

None of which solves the problem of the gangsters at the top in our society.

Here's an interesting post on the biometrics and related issues.

[musos] jj and eric

[wordless wednesday] when eagles fly