Posts by Luther Blissett

Scroogling for dirty bombs

Would that mean a block on "depleted uranium" as well? Nah, they're clearly not that smart.

My tip for the top

Leningrad Cowboys Go St Petersberg

(then Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Ulan Bator ...). The ultimate alt road movie of all time.

// the ripe long afghan is mine, tak

Greenpiece wailing not whaling

Can we now hope to see Greenpiece trolling off the coast of Soviet California in defence of whales?

// You won't be needing your Antarctic coats there guys.

@Retired university lecturer (aka Peter Mellor)

>> We might never know "the truth" but we can get closer and closer to it with better and better theories, by debate based upon observed evidence (Popper!).

Slick use of quotes.

Because without them the truth of that statement is unknowable, except by assuming that Popper! was a God-who-Never-Lied (the evidence for this is underwhelming). It would also be tautological - truth is the product of better theories, but better theories are merely those which produce better truth. Round is nice for wheels, but circular reasoning is not much use in finding out what is really true, or what is really a better theory. In terms of social praxis (aka following the money), it implies "just keep on with the funding, and we'll find the bastard one day - right now we need a bigger telescope/cyclotron/office/remuneration package to do that". Shades of the hunt for OB-L there. Perhaps a telescope/etc big enough to let us read the labels on energy packets, then we can all unambiguously distinguish Hawking radiation from the fake designer goods (e.g. the radiations the Alien Greys are pumping at us from their orbiting spaceships)? So those quote marks are disingenuous - tantamount to admitting that science funding is a racket played on the public.

OTOH they really should be around "closer", don't you think. Does "closer" mean we will not know that we've got to the truth until like we're on top of it, perhaps having just fallen over it and sprawling (in agony or in ecstasy)? As I said figuratively, resort to figurative meanings to justify science makes the activity indistinguishable from that which say promotes totem pole enlargement (literally or figuratively) because they would then be so much closer to the Spirit in the Sky - or of course to those Alien Greys. But people with less curiosity about the natural world but with the same values of self-adulation have already mapped that semiotic structure onto their own bodies - and the surgeons are standing by. (In Rome wannabe PHs boast that Daddy has promised to pay for a boob job if they pass their exams). And natural scientists still wonder why they have trouble getting their message across...?

Not enough competition, one suspects. It's time to spread physics funding wider. And ensure the research can get published. And is made accessible. As for "getting the message across", forget your PhD in physics, this is the Media-Information Complex you're fishing in now.

A story to watch

This is shaping out nicely as an example of the hyperreal.

Ah-ha

Now we see the reason for this: Ofcom's radio carve-up could cut out mesh -

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/09/sur_proposal/

Business as usual, in this case MIC 2.0 - the Media-Information Complex.

Two sides on every coin

Usually the sides are a little different. One or both sides may be defaced, degraded, or difficult to read. And so on.

So here is the incident from the Iranian pov, from a videotape broadcast on Iran's state-owned English-language Press TV channel.

mms://217.218.67.244/presstv/080110/OUTPUT_11-10-00-Teh-Navy%20Patrol.wmv

Global warming causing dengue spread?

There are accounts of dengue in the UK in the 18th and 19th centuries, significantly in East Anglia, but even as far as Scotland. People born by the coast developed some natural immunity, but spouses obtained from further inland often did not survive very long when taken home. This was the time when Europe was emerging from the Little Ice Age, and generally cooler than now.

I suppose it means that the Insect Overlords want to do a bit of culling - presumably because the global warmingers haven't got their population control program together yet.

Another reason to reform the banking system

Anyone disagree?

Control in perpetuity

Andrew Heenan > "How can it be sensible to give control in perpetuity to a commercial enterprise?"

Roger Moore > While I agree that this is not the most sensible suggestion you do have to remember that "perpetuity" just means "until the government changes it mind" which probably means not that long if you are not actually using the spectrum for something popular.

Control in perpetuity of the money supply through the provision of credit was given away by the US government to a private company through the Federal Reserve System in 1913, and by the UK government to a private company through the Bank of England some 200 years previous to that. A monopoly like that would be worth killing for to protect, you might think, and you would be right.

The rest, as they say, is history... (and when you read it, forget about goodies and baddies, us and them, west and east, liberal and fascist ideologies, and just follow the money).

Except that very recently the kite has come off the string, due to the sub-licensees grandiose ideas for exploiting their "resources" in a way which neither the monopoly licensees nor the governments could comprehend nor control. Which bring us to the present. None of these "broadcasters" wants to trade "content" with the others for fear of buying worthless "noise".

Ofcom's proposal seems so very 20th century. It would be laughable except that there are people who would take them seriously. People like nu labour for example.

Fascism

An economic definition: "a regime which guarantees profits for business".

Not at the 'shopkeeper' end of the spectrum, but at the 'capitalist' end. Sometimes the guarantee is in the form of idemnity (e.g. subsidy), and sometimes it is achieved by regulation. Want to start a bank, say? Tough. OK, how about a credit union? Even tougher. Government IT contracts - now we're talking!

Quello che deve fare

Re: "they as a band still made more money off the "pay as much as you like" release than the sum total of download royalty cheques they've ever received"...

At the Grauniad online http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/story/0,,2222273,00.html we find that at 9 December 2007:

"Thom's reading Q by mysterious Italian anarchist group Luther Blisset. I tried to read that once, I tell him. 'Oh it's fucking ace! But my missus, that's her specialist field, so she's been explaining it to me all the way through. Medieval church carnage. It's mental. I want to get it made into a film. That's my next mission.'

"Using the In Rainbows profits?

"'Mmm-mm,' says Thom Yorke, shaking his head. 'I doubt it. That would cover basically the catering.'"

So as soon as Colin tells Thom, we look forward to hearing from the Incarnate One about making the film of our book.

Allora sbrigati, Thom, non c'e' tempo da perdere - siamo in fretta da incontrarci con un buon lestofante come te! Dannato cazzo di idea hai avuto - "double dipping" non e' vero?. Speriamo che ci sia posto sul tuo server anche per noi.

When Brussels cracks the whip

Culture Secretary James Purnell seems to move as fast as as the proverbial greased pig, in political terms at least.

It must have been only the week before last that El Reg had a piece on an EU program of "education" in net-saviness for all citizens of "Europe", and behold here is Comrade James already putting his shoulder to the British wheel of the EU wagon.

Little matter that Comrade James's straining like a mountain has produced the usual ridiculous quango of a mouse - someone somewhere will notice, and doubtless Comrade James will have his reward in Brussels, after the next election has confined nu labour to oblivion. Ecce homo! as it was once said. He has only to hope his eagerness has not caught the eye of Big Gordo, whose dilatory style over signatures in Lisbon is surely the example he should have followed.

WFT?

@ "What the fuck are Qunietiq doing reworking a boeing product back to a boeing design" Now THAT is an interesting question.

What Lewis is not clear on is whether the Quinetiq upgrade is purely to equipment/instrumentation, or to the FADEC engine management software which AFAIK is still not officially acknowledged to be a problem, tho pretty much everyone this side of the Atlantic except HMG believes it to be. It is difficult to infer which it is from the price of the contract, given the history of MOD procurement. As written, the story is consistent with a scenario in which Quinetiq get enough technical information from Boeing about the Chinook hardware to be able to rewrite the flight control software from scratch to be provably correct. But is this scenario the one here? Of course, if the software is not "a problem", then a big fat contract to "correct" it is not possible.

Perhaps someone with the relevant IT experience might be able to tell us how much it might cost to write a provably correct control system for a helicopter? From which we will know whether or not to expect more Chinooks to fall out of the sky in due course.

A critical reading

"understanding the economy of media and the difference between pluralism and media ownership" => "we intend to ensure that ownership of the media and communications remains in as few hands as possible (ie as few as we can get away with), while promoting the myth that everyones' views are equally valid and have equal access to it".

"being aware of copyright issues which are essential for a 'culture of legality', especially for the younger generation..." => "we do not much care for the disrespectful notion that the publishers of artistic works are thieves and liars, even if we might agree that the artists themselves are among the biggest thieves and liars".

"feeling comfortable with all existing media from newspapers to virtual communities" => "we want you to enjoy the self-serving pap we will feed you by whatever means, and to come back for more".

"actively using media through... interactive television, use of Internet search engines or participation in virtual communities" => "we want to you google to buy, and to consume in private. We the EU are your only really Real community, as we are the living embodiment of the Hegelian Absolute. Because this is a logical and historical necessity, your views and your votes on this matter will never count with us."

"having a critical approach to media as regards both quality and accuracy of content" => "the Hegelian Absolute is Perfect. What do you mean 'criticise'? You will not be permitted to criticise, unless it is of style or packaging. Neither will you be permitted to imply or act out your criticisms through protest or demonstration".

To which they mean you to infer => "Now fuck off you great unwashed - this is elite business."

In italian

vista is so past tense. Except when copying files, when you get tense.

merging,not just orbiting

Galaxies in close proximity always somehow seem to be merging... Neolithic bodies dug up from bogs always somehow seem to have been the victims of ritual sacrifice or foul play... Every year sees new climate records broken...

When HMG recently curtailed science research budgets you don't suppose they decided they'd had enough of these sorts of miserabilist outcomes?

Memo to Boffins: you really gotta give us good news.

Check the IT angle

Stuff the sheep (as some already have). Just as the USA has its Iraq and Afghanistan which justify its government feeding its MIC (military/industrial complex) huge quantities of US citizen dollar with little account of the outcome democratic or otherwise, so the EU has its own pet projects which justify feeding its MIC (media/information complex) huge quantities of euros and pounds with little account of the outcome democratic or otherwise.

So who are our new alien overlords?

@The clock!

But is it any more accurate than the pips on digital radio, which are several seconds out compared to analogue radio - or is it just another hyperreal simulation of reality?

The nu media/information complex

The old MIC being of course the old (but still good) military/industrial complex.

Both old and nu MICs are hegemonic. Both involve Big Government and BIg Business locked in a permanent mutual symbiotic embrace like Behemoth and Leviathon simulating the beast of the Apocalypse with two backs. Both require that you feed them every day with your taxes. Neither is benign.

Everyone still in love with the BBC?

Managers and/or leaders

One of the existential problems for people who inhabit the intermediate layers of a company hierarchy - those parts which are neither productive nor decision making - is whether they are managers or leaders. Their problem is not helped by conflicting and incompatible theories of management, such as exercising command and control at the same time as empowering the people under them. (Nor for that matter by scholars who have been banging on for decades about management failings without offering constructive proposals). As noted above, the existential affliction has reached government.

1. Thatcher was the last political leader the UK had. (Arguably she was not a brilliant manager, but she is never remembered for managerial defects, on account of her leadership).

2. Major was a manager who had to be a leader. (Not now remembered as a leader).

3. Blair could have been a leader but decided he would rather be a manager. (And we all rue what might have been).

4. Brown wishes he were a leader (even now as PM!), but it seems may yet not make a manager either.

The difference is this. You can impose a manager on people - because you decide. You cannot impose a leader on people - because the people decide.

The next time you appoint a manager, have a look at who the people to be managed are treating as a leader.

Time to abolish "sex offences"?

Rape, the primary sex offence, constitutes an assault, and could be prosecuted as such.

It would make conviction easier, by disallowing the mens rea defence (ie "I believe/d s/he consented"), and avoid the ongoing trauma and stigma suffered by victims _after_ the event, such as dealing with sceptical police (they have seen more false rape accusations than they care to admit), calumnous barristers (insinuations made after prying into the sexual history of the victim, sometimes after days in the witness box), and emotive societal attitudes which frequently result in the victim kept at arms length and sometimes abandoned (and sometimes killed) by the people one might expect to be most supportive. Sometimes rape does seem to result in a life sentence for the victim, and the perpetrator is not the only one to blame.

Instead, the category of "sex crime" is widened (to include, viz above, urinating in public). Indeed, the category of "sex" as a behaviour is also widened (viz, Bill and Monica). And HMG keeps muttering about skewing the legal process of rape trials to get more convictions e.g. expert testimony on how rape affects the victim (as if victims of muggings or battery can always skip away after giving evidence). And that is before we get to the IT angle and its fubars - garbage data, misinformation, privacy, etc.

If rapes were to be prosecuted as assaults, would there be other behaviour(s) that would still constitute "sex crimes" - or has this concept taken over reality, and propelled itself well and truly into the hyperreal?

There comes a time when there's no more point nailing another plank to a totem pole to keep it upright and looking straight.

Sand - as evidence of water

I doubt the Aliens use this is an indicator of good surfing.

We should care

Why should the spooks have for themselves the capacity for a radiological weapon?

The technological imperative says that if you can do X, you should do X. And spooks get paid to conceive of Xs that you and I would not entertain for one moment except at the movies.

As amanfromMars might ask, Hoo will spoOK the sPOOks xxx?

Institutionalizing the hyperreal

Hyperreal policing has existed for several years. This move brings the real and concrete into line with the established hyperreality. And it will be concrete. And barbed wire fences where the police can feel really (?) safe from the public, who might just turn up to ask where real policing has gone to.

Meanwhile HMG treats laws as publicity stunts, new ones to be unveiled to consuming journos every month, but thereby bringing the principle of Law into disrepute, and slackening on the pursuit of large-scale crimes such as fraud, while promoting "community" efforts against dropping fag ends, leaving dustbins on the pavement for longer than someone likes.

Meanwhile HMG treats communities as hyperreal abstractions, inventing new ones as publicity stunts to be unveiled to consuming journos every month, but thereby destroying communities and community spirit, closing pubs and bingo halls with specious fears about passive smoking and promoting "community" efforts against dropping fag ends, and favouring community-by-tower-block, or community-by-secure-housing, where it apparently matters less that you talk to your neighbours but that you have some abstract attribute in common, as if simply being old enough to be retired gives you anything in common with the person next door.

Meanwhile HMG treats policing as a hyperreal abstraction, for consuming journos (you're getting the picture now), manufactured by inverting and inflating some element of reality, and after a lull to see if the kite flies, destroying the reality. Roads need policing, say? Speed cameras in. Hyperreal distortion of the results. Elimination of traffic police. Now try fraud. Try real terrorism.

Deceit by conceit. And by a mistaken rationalist sociological positivism which is continuing to obsess our "leaders" (another hyperreal concept) as never before in their pursuit of a NAU or a EU. But then the sociological positivism is also a hyperreal delusion.

Before being disgusted, be amazed.

"Developing civil service skills"

Lovely piece of newspeak. It's supposed to imply that (presumably) senior civil servants are incompetent. But you'd have to be nu labour to the marrow to believe that a PPE or PPP from Oxford actually makes you less competent in administration than say a Cleansing Officer. Of course, in one way it does - it hones your bullshit detectors to be able to smell a stalinist all the way from Whitehall to Downing Street, and make you able to suggest alternative options and policies. And that is really what this is all about. HMG has too many toadies it would like to keep around. Meet the new PM - same as the old PM. Anyone now remember Birt of the BBC? Jobs for the boys - but only some of them.

UK government and computers

Doesn't really need further comment at El Reg, but I think there is space only for one elephant in the room.

Home Secretary

A Martian might observe that the job comes with the requirement to simulate a passive/aggressive persona.

We have had Blunkett the tender-underneath-caveman, Clarke the (hassled-)man-in-a-pub-with-too-much-to-do-but-in-dire-need-of-a-drink-anyway, Straw the (unhassled-)gook-with-the-i-can-grind-this-claptrap-out-longer-than-you-and-even-in-my-sleep attitude (well in place when he shook Mugabe's hand), Reid the et-tu-brute-up-yours-apparatchik. And so on.

Having seen the present incumbent operating over the extension to terrorist detention, and now here, she appears to be rapidly developing a no-point-asking-me-anything-I'm-just-a-stupid-woman-what-else-do-you-expect-really simulation. You should be able to predict her progress, tho YMMV.

All preconstructed and carefully assembled, of course, for the hyperreal. The borg/zombie of reality is not allowed.

Slim chance

The Audit Commission is quite good at spotting rubbish councils, but I suspect they are whistling in the wind with this one. Tendering for contracts is riven with corruption up and down the country, with contractors even paying each other bungs to queue in an orderly manner for their turn at the trough of council tax expenditure, and there seems little the councils can do about it.

Triste tropiques

Sad that Australians could think their primary cultural patrimony is dinosaurs, so that a cache of old animal bones could halt a project of dire necessity. But then it took a Frenchman (Levi-Strauss) to appreciate just how profound, subtle and logical the myths of your aborignal Australian inhabitants really were (sic).

But now your prime minister elect is going to sign you up to Kyoto, you will be bled dry by taxation even as you are dying of thirst, and put in fear of being invaded by Indonesians (Muslims, you see - always works), and I don't expect the primal Aboriginal gods are much enamoured of you. So don't expect any rest.

Good luck, and on behalf of HMG may I apologize for the resettlement of your ancestors. But before you file for compensation, do take a look at what happened over the Chagos Islands - we have ways of subverting democracy and justice.

And i'll bet the desalination plant has not been designed to take account of rising sea levels.

The story behind the story

The USA has a long relationship with Saudi which can be described as "delicate". Many strange things have happened, most notable perhaps being that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when all internal air flights were stopped, several planes were scouring the continent with passenger lists composed mainly of arabic names and removing those individuals from the country. Topically, the problem is to keep the Saudi oil running, and the dollar as its essential currency of exchange. If either of these falters, the shit will hit the fan at a rate of knots.

The USA therefore wants to have a secure hand navigating the tricky shoals. The last thing it needs is the ship's cat's paw on the tiller. It has now noticed the cat, and is wondering just how long it has been there. It suspects that decades of its selling military hardware to the Saudis has created a momentum in the ruling Saudi circles that is not necessarily vectored the right way. In the immortal words of Jack Nicholson, it has the worm up its ass.

What you will see is not necessarily what you will get - Blissett's Iron Law of IT. I expect BAE Systems to fall to the Carlyle Group. I therefore make BAE stock a recommended BUY.

I see an opportunity

The price of salmon and finished goods is going to rocket after these blighters do the same to Scottish farmed salmon as they just did in Ireland. By the time they eat their way through Scotland, it'll be cheaper to have smoked gold leaf for hors d'oeuvre. I hope they don't stop eating when they hit dry land, and stay hungry all the way to Holyrood.

Fundamentals

The principle of agent and principal seems to be relevant. It is generally held that a malfeasor cannot evade liabily for an act by blaming his lackey, missus, kidde, gofer, rottweiler, etc if he has ordered them to do it. So it could not be the computer wot did it, if the data entry and the intent to enter data so as to achieve a particular result from the processing is attributable to an (human) individual. So be very careful what you wish for from AI.

You could of course blame a man from Mars, but your testimony would likely be thrown out wholesale (including the good bits).

Lots of logic

data != knowledge, ergo

lots of data != knowledge, ergo

lots of data != lots of knowledge

- unless you're infatuated with dialectics and/or fatuous marxist-leninist notions of transformation of Quantity into Quality (see also Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). Or pre-scientific.

Reg readers prove the point

I note only one dissenter from the general view that the sun (not Murdoch's) shines out of the BBC's backside. The claim that the BBC causes Britain to have the culture that it does is just a metonym for that view. It confirms very high brand loyalty to the BBC. It seems reasonable to suppose this brand has a higher rating than, and is well positioned to beat, anything put up by Murdoch. Face it - if you are known as The Dirty Digger, your brand is starting off in debit anyway.

Personally I do not concur that the BBC's output is head and shoulders above the competition - it just knows style (production values) better than the competition. But in terms of substance I don't think it's any better (or worse) than commercial broadcasters. (Tho that technical ability with styles would assist its independent survival, at least initially and/or until HDTV is up and running and we can see that all sets are really like Doctor Who's). I don't get more or better news, or better facts or information, or better interpretation of events, from the BBC. Or better drama, better England matches...

If public service broadcasting is conceived in minimalist terms such as ensuring political issues and choices are adequately aired at election times. this could be done by putting some funding into C4 expressly for that purpose. It would not be a lot, as it would not need to be a lot. (It would also ensure Big Brother took a regular holiday).

The Persuaders

A very moot question, as it is now clear that at least half of England's Bingo halls will close due to the smoking ban, and their customers will need something to take their minds off the vandals who made it happen.

A very simple answer is to make it a crime punishable by a fine up to £2000 to not have a DAB radio AND and not having it playing at 70dB for at least 8 hours a day (all technically feasible).

With not much ingenuity it should be possible to have DAB radios report their usage stats back to the broadcasters, and fines for non-use issued automatically.

Of course that is not the idea. The idea is to have "experts" confirm that the analogue bands must be shut down to improve the service quality of the digital ones. The panel is necessary because well founded objections can be made that that is not an adequate solution, and it is these arguments that need to be concluded (i.e. trounced).

The whole little exercise is a model lesson in social engineering through applied psychology. It is not unique. (As if the Culture Secretary would be the first minister allowed to such mind-bending technology on a population of 60+ million!).

@Gulfie

>> When is the government going to see sense over PFI? (or, in long hand - Public F****d by Industry). We the UK taxpayers are funding obscenely long gravy trains for large UK and foreign companies to make the Government balance sheets look good.

The opposite point of view says the government knows exactly what is happening. The USA has its corporations profiting vastly and unaccountably in Iraq and Afghanistan at cost to their taxpayers. The UK, having been told that no way is it going to get a share of this action (remember BP started in Iraq), has, by some bizarre coincidence, entered into schemes which likewise cost their taxpayers vast and unaccountable sums, such as PFI and IT contracts. It could be argued that in both cases the vast debts from these government arrangements produce results which were either unnecessary or could have been achieved at less cost differently. (The UK example would require an understanding of the specific accounting rules of the IMF).

Except that is is not really coincidence. It is a way for the central banks (which supposedly stump up the money for governments to be able to pay for things) and their private operators to ensure massive recurrent revenues for the future, in the US from interest, in the UK from renting hospitals back and paying for their "management".

@I for one welcome our new mountain sized penises overlords.

So we have a Ms Coward in our midst. Would you like to meet your new overlord now?

However much I like fried overlord, I think I'll stand this one out.

Mercy killing

The jellyfish were on a mission to save the salmon from their Guantanamo cages and the sea lice infestations which drive them crazy when the bright lights don't. I gave up eating farmed salmon years ago.

But deep fried dried gelatinous overlord is rather appealing, marinaded in chili and spring onions (probably about 2 weeks) and coated in a temura batter. My middle name's not Nigel for nothing. And when I have had enough of that, there's giant jellyfish eating giant crab overlord to look forward to. Damn, how I love barbecued overlords. 100% natural. Totally organic. Until they start injecting them with nano-tech. Then I'll have to get my protein from DNA. Still, there are some tasty gene overlord specimens out there. Hi Richard.

A little boy did it, but we grabbed him

because we thought he'd run away, and that nasty Press gang would find him and make him blub up and implicate us big boys.

Is anyone counting how many government ministers are trotting out this preposterous story about "self-empowered" junior officials? My guess is they would have tried to pin it on the office cleaners had it involved anyone other than the NAO.

Basically

The BBC has to decide if people are stupid or intelligent.

If the former, then embedded reporters will continue to be interviewed in politically correct terms by talking heads about unverified snippets from dubious sources while spilling the beans in selective fashion, and people will use the internet to find the other side of the coin.

If the latter, then it has to get out of the way and allow disparate points of view to be put by those who hold them, and their narratives aired sufficiently fully so people don't have to use the internet to make up their minds. Since some narratives are more complex and/or harder to put across, it has to jettison its specious simulacrum of a concept of "balance" - which in any case would be irrelevant. (The question of when to pull the broadcasting plug on a narrative might be settled in various ways. One would be to see when it degenerates into tedium, repetition, blatant adversariality, tendentiousness, ad hominem attacks, personality cult, etc).

Mumbling about science, rationality or the postmodern is irrelevant.

Science is no seamless tapestry - discordant theories can be found wherever you look with an unprejudiced eye, and there are also facts which require hand-waving to be performed. Science does not even apparently require logical consistency, since you cannot believe in both quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity and be correct. Neither can it explain why one atom in a lump of uranium underwent decay just now, rather than a different one.

As for rationality, if this is to mean something more than how mental processes proceed in different tribes and tribal areas, it really needs an intellectual overhaul which does not leave reason itself as the privilege of a select few tribes or as a mode of life which one tribe can seek to impose on another. In other words, as Kant saw, but more modern (quotes optional) thinkers (quotes optional) prefer not to, either we all are capable of reasoning in one and same way, or none of us are.

I suspect this premise of the debate is obscured is because it could reveal who the censors of the present really are.

Universe now has a name

JeffyPooh: >> I was looking at 17P Holmes last night. I took a picture and analyzed it on my laptop. It's not a comet. It looks like a doily; an E8 doily. Oh my gawd, Garrett Lisi is right - THE UNIVERSE IS A DOILY !!!!!! ARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

In which case, it's name is Centrino.

O'Really - life as university Chancellor

It just so happened that one Ms Blissett not so long ago attended her graduation from LJM. Rather than compliment Ms Blissett on her fine achievement, Mme Blair had this to say: "Oooooooo that's a lovely top you're wearing".

Clearly a strategy honed to preempt attempts by the newly unemployed, resulting from her husband's education policies, to use the occasion to enquire of Mme Blair whether she had any unfilled vacancies in her entourage.

Dr. May can look forward to his graduation days being spoiled by lots of brats asking for autographs, tips on getting that Brain May guitar sound, the best direct injection devices, what really happened with the fat-bottomed girls stunt, whether the Queen is as short in real life as BBC video footage of her suggests, for jobs even, and perhaps the occasional question about the distribution of HI clouds in the vicinity of the Milky Way. No, not that Milky Way - that's why we send the brats to university.

Thank goodness it's 59%

and there is still time to persuade the other 41%.

A related issue, post 9/11 is if someone claiming to be from the security services arrived at your doctor's surgery and said they required your records for security purposes, and to avoid a terrorist incident, or some such similar insinuation. What would your doctor's response be? The correct response is F**k off and don't come back without a court order. The deplorable response is Here they are, and by the way, s/he is well acquainted with X, Y, and Z.

It's good to see some physicians can recall the Hippocratic Oath.

Would you let her be the mother of your children?

Can't believe no-one has expressed an opinion on this - maybe you're all agnostic. Or shape-shifting lizards.

Children, schools and education

Just a reminder that in England it is not illegal not to send your childern to school - only not to give them an education. (If they are already at a school, the local authority needs to be formally notified that you will be educating them yourself before you withdraw them). In practice it is simple to satisfy the criteria for giving them an education - most parents/guardians will far exceed the requirements anyway.