Category: Uncategorized

Why don’t I care about Ken Livingstone’s private life?

Who really wants to care, except the stupid mainstream press that is. I wonder why they don’t pay more attention to policy differences between Ken and the other candidates and how as the re-elected mayor he may or may not be a good choice for the future.

The main reason I think, is that it requires a bit more intelligent activity on the part of the press and of course they take the simple way out and start to investigate his private life.

I watched the interview on the TV tonight and for once agreed with everything he was saying, it’s his concern and no one else’s.

Come on Press, get your fingers out start discussing the real policies.

Seems that the noise/clicking (was I being bugged?) on my landmine has finally stayed away this month and have had a pretty consistent connection during March.

There was  a little bit of speed fluctuation, but I suppose that this is to be expected.

Also now know via a second test that the true distance from the Reading South Exchange to my router is 3.84km as the wire ‘threads’ it way underground as opposed the way the bird flies!

Lets hope that this remains the same or even get better during April.

An announcement in response to a question from Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East, Sarah Teather, has revealed that the The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) ,  has admitted it had lost 96 laptops since 2001.

Another staggering admission by another incompetent government department!

How many laptops in total have been lost by government departments since 2001? I’ve post about many of the losses already, but Silicon.com have the full story here. The number; it’s over 1000 since 2001! Unbelievable!

At last it seems that the end is close for the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe! Unless of course Mugabe is looking for another reason to cheat his way into a win.

I am still amazed that the West has never even tried to get this man out of office before now – of course the fact that Zimbabwe might not have any oil reserves to speak of!

Of course if the MDC do manage to oust Mugabe,
then it will certainly be a new dawn for Zimbabwe. However, country is so badly wounded, it will take a long time to get it back on its feet. This will be a tough task for Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC.

Lets hope the new administration gets a much help as it needs.

When I saw the report on the BBC about the new species of Penguin that had been discovered that could fly, I fell for it hook line and sinker!!

It’s a great bit of digital editing  and a great April 1st prank.

Forgot that this was going to happen today, but it’s release day for another update to the BBC News site ( as part of their overall revamp of its web presence), this follows on from  the changes that have already happened to the BBC home page, thought I am convinced that many people thought that the BBC News page was the BBC home page!

Anyway, I like the new design, except for the over use of vertical white space. It’s far too much and needs to be reduced, not back to what it was on the old style web site – it’s been increased to aid overall accessibility – but the adjustment is far too much!

Seems that the changes have again solicited a high number of comments – 420 when I last looked. It is true that you can’t please everyone all of the time. However, I still think it looks better that CNN or Sky.

More changes are due to appear on other sections of the BBC web site over the coming weeks, it will be interesting to see what comments those changes create.

It’s the Boat Race today.

In light of that, this article from the 2008 Nurses’ League Newsletter of the Worcester Royal Infirmary was an interesting find and cause to me to have a chuckle as I read it.

Is it a fair comparison? I leave it to you to decide, but I guarantee you’ll find some of it it very familiar!

Enjoy.

12:30 pm Update – Seems that the BBC have a link now that has more info, but still not as comprehensive as the Daily Mail papers list, not that I’m championing that paper.

Previously: I watched the TV news today and saw the article about the removal of cough medicine from shelves that may be adversely affecting 2 year olds and below. What I found odd was that either BBC, ITV or Sky News actually mentioned any of the brand names of the ones that were affected!

I carried out an Internet search and much to my amazement I could only find one list that actually contained all the affected brands, that was the Daily Mail.

In this information age, I find it quite strange that a) you have to make a number of searches to find out what’s on the list and b) not even a public broadcaster like the BBC (or ITV/Sky) provides more information about the affected brand, not even on their own web site – certainly at the time of this post.

Is business controlling what TV news organisations can say about their products?

I took part in an online Webinar this afternoon and unfortunately the organisation had not supplied a local UK phone to dial in for the audio. I have normally used one of the many ‘discount’ dial-ups saving a few pence off the per minute rate for these type of calls.

However, I had heard that a number of newer companies using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technology to provide low-cost long distance calling routes and after short search on the Internet came across this one. Planet Numbers rate for the calls to the USA; one pence per minute!

There are a number of other companies providing similar services but for the time I’ll stick with Planet Numbers, unless I can find a better deal.

It seems that certain MP’s have something to hide when it comes to their expenses.

The Speaker of the House has launched a High-Court action to prevent any release of our esteemed Prime Ministers expenses being released.

It all seems strange, as we already know some of the expenses that he has clamed in the past, such as:-

£17,017 – Cost of staying away from main home
£18,961 – Office running costs
£86,055 – Staffing Costs
£9,557 – Air Travel

All taken from last years  Members’ Allowance Expenditure April 2006 – March 2007 listing.

If I didn’t think there was anything suspicious before all this started, then I certainly do now!

Does Michael Martin think that his actions will help the general public believe that MP’s don’t have something to hide, in particularly Gordon Brown! More to follow I’m sure.