Our beloved government are planning new measures to combat terrorism. These new measures break Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a fair trial. These measures of course apply to everyone in the UK, not just terrorist suspects. They include a “whole range” of measures they call control orders. Control orders could include house arrest, electronic tagging, denied access to communications (phone, Internet etc.) and denial of association with unspecified people. All of this without having to present any actual evidence to a court.
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the sky is falling
January 31st, 2005Tags: control orders, government, human rights, terrorism, tony blair -
tell them they are being attacked
January 27th, 2005Tags: government, nazi, terrorism, tony blairobviously an old and often reused quote, but I’d like to publish it here:
“…it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. … All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” - Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and one of the main architects of Nazi Germany.
Our governments have just replaced the threat from communists with the threat from terrorists. They only needed to change six letters and already here I am exposing the country to danger.
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what a human waste
January 26th, 2005Tags: aids, hiv, poop, sewageWe were sent home from work yesterday when it emerged that sewage, well, had emerged. Two inches of raw human output was pooled against the fire escape and was slowly seeping into our room. It didn’t really smell that bad but I found strength not to argue.
Today we’ve been relocated to a meeting room until things are sorted out. Apparently the main 1500mm poop pipe out of our site has been blocked for some time, and the “matter” had backed up all the way back into the building. It was blocked mainly with paper towels I’m told. That and shit.
This morning, as I grabbed my laptop, I noticed someone was making a cup of tea in the kitchen. They didn’t seem aware they were stood in a pool consisting primarily of fully digested food. Well, they were using Tetley’s tea.
update: I’m told on good authority, our janitor being the friend of a chemical biologist, that it’s perfectly safe to return to the office as he’s used some special disinfectant that, and I quote, “even kills AIDS!”. The first disinfectant to be able to kill a syndrome. I’m impressed.
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Indian cookery episode 2 - Attack of the cloves
January 19th, 2005Tags: bhaji, cooking, curry, korma, pakoraThis week we made vegetable pakora, sindhi korma and aloo bhaji. It actually all went pretty well. I didn’t burn anything, I didn’t forget any ingredients (that I noticed), and nobody died by my hand. This might have been something to do with working directly across from Louisa this time; being able to exploit her cookery skills. The food tasted good enought to eat two days in a row too.
I think there is a kind of rhythm to cooking; a beat to which ingredients must be added, flames are adjusted and mixing occurrs. Last week I was seriously out of time. This week I felt I was almost getting it. Imagine that it’s some groovy off-beat syncopated beat and I’m only managing to keep up a simple 4/4 with it.
I didn’t have time to deep fry my pakora, which I was kind of relieved about as the deep fryer scared me to death.
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Postal experiments
January 19th, 2005Tags: postSome US researchers did a series of postal experiments and published the results online. They mailed various packages via the US postal service to see if they were received and how long they took to arrive. They purposefully didn’t wrap items and chose very heavy, strangely shaped, suspicious, seemingly sentimental and even disgusting items. The results are interesting and hilarious.
In once case they wrapped and posted a brick. It arrived as a “plastic bag containing broken and pulverized remnants of brick. Inside was a small piece of paper with a number code on it.”. They also posted a small bottle of spring water, which they observed the postman open and drink during his round.
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maternal influence
January 14th, 2005Tags: blog, human rights, mum, nestleMy mum now reads my blog. She’s explained very clearly that the swearing must stop and I’m no longer allowed to publish my opinions on religion.
I wonder how this blogging thing will change our relationship. When we see each other we usually talk about what’s been going on in our lives. If she gets to read it all here then that’s kind of a spoiler. If I don’t find new ways of entertaining my mum I fear she will stop cooking for me. note to self: do more things and don’t write about them all in your blog.
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Indian cookery episode 1 - The kitchen menace
January 13th, 2005Tags: aagrah, balti, chicken, Cookery, lassi, meat, ncfe, pilau riceI attended the first lesson of an NCFE in Indian cookery last night. My culinary skills are a little rusty. For example, I had trouble remembering how best to slice a tomato. This is probably because I’ve never sliced a tomato in my life.
Meat. That’s a new one too. I don’t even eat meat. I learned that Chicken flesh is actually *flesh*. Pink and bloody. That’s certainly more than 6 degrees separation from your McNugget.
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dismatched
January 11th, 2005Tags: clothing, mismatchI have two pairs of the same black trainers. One pair is newer than the other and I wear them for work. To distinguish them apart in the morning sleep haze, I threaded white laces into the scruffy pair. This worked well.
Today I am sat at my desk at work wearing one new trainer and one scruffy trainer with a white lace. I only noticed on my walk accross the car park. I wonder if anyone will notice.
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Elvis 70 today
January 8th, 2005Tags: birthday, elvisTo celebrate the 70th birthday of Elvis today I mostly swanned about in my pajamas and watched Bubba Ho-Tep. Actually I was blissfully unaware of the King of Womanising’s birthday and it was just a co-incidence that I watched a film depicting an aged Presley fighting a redneck mummy.
In a relatedly bizzarre co-incidence, Louisa came up with an article showing what Mr. P. might have looked like if he’d lived on. Bruce Campbell had a better take on it in my opinion.
People who think that Elvis faked his own death to get out of the public eye obviously have no idea what kind of person it takes to be a rock and roll celebrity (or anything other egotistical attention-seeking psychopath). Now I’m not saying he didn’t do it to avoid paying taxes though.
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cars cars cars cars moss
January 4th, 2005Tags: cars, corrado, Friends, set leon, vw
My VW Corrado came back from the garage shortly before Christmas. The exhaust and immobilizer are now working perfectly. All I have to do now is fix up the electric sunroof, perhaps replace the heating controls, and touch up some paintwork and it’ll be ready to sell.It will be kinda sad to give it up though. It still looks and sounds great; but ’tis just a car, I won’t really miss it.
My Seat Leon Cupra company car replacement for it is actually faster. Even though the Corrado is a 2.9l and the Seat is 1.8l, the Corrado is 190bhp and the Seat is 270bhp! I’ve never driven anything so fast; it’s pretty stupid really. I’ll get a nice sensible slow diesel next time. Next time.
I met up with my old school friend Neil Moss last week. Shame he hasn’t fattened up as much as me over the years.
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a short review of a Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
January 1st, 2005Tags: bill bryson, reviewIf any of my science teachers at school had anything like the enthusiasm or insight of Bill Bryson, I’d probably be working for a pharmaceuticals company by now (thank goodness). In a Short History of Nearly Everything he explains how we think the universe, the earth and humans became the way they are. Just as interestingly he tells us the process we went through to find it. For example, he tells us of the first evidence of hereditary traits, which particular monk made the experiment, the various scientists that ignored it for decades and the particular guy who tried to pass it off as his own work after the monk had died.
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John Leach is a human being living in Leeds, UK.