HACKERS

Gary McKinnon who hacked into US Government computers causing untold damage has lost his appeal against extradition in the House of Lords. He may be sent across the Atlantic quite soon and reports say he could be jailed for up to 60 years. Good. Personally I would be quite happy if all hackers and spammers were dealt with severely and if our police, politicians, and judges refuse to tackle the problem then they should let someone who will take over.

BBC AGAIN

Recently it came to light that the BBC had been faking winners of competitions and other frauds. Viewers sometimes entered competitions which the BBC knew they had no chance of winning. In some cases members of staff posed as "winners" and in other cases names of winners read out on air were fictitious. In one case listeners to a radio programme thought they were responding to a live show when in fact it was pre-recorded. Viewers had been cheated. Ofcom has now imposed a fine of around £400,000 on the BBC. Except of course in reality they have fined the viewing public as the money will doubtless come out of the extortionate license fee that every owner of a TV has to pay. It would have made more sense if the wretched watchdog had ordered an immediate reduction of license fees in the future and possibly a few sackings to boot. I would have thought there were grounds for criminal prosecutions against some individuals but perhaps everyone who works for the BBC belongs to one of the "special" groups that the police are reluctant to tackle.

GLASGOW EAST

So the SNP won the seat much to my delight although I have to say watching TV and seeing their candidate John Mason arrive at the count he seemed a bit of a prat giving victory salutes before the result was announced — there was in fact a recount so he had quite a long wait before it was official. Margaret Curran only has one snout but had she won she would have been able to put it in two troughs as it seems she was unwilling to resign her seat at Holyrood.

CEREDIGION COUNCIL

Thank heavens some councils will stop at nothing to protect the nation's health. Gordon Williams is a painter and decorator who has a van which he uses to take things to work and also for other things. Recently he went on a small errand to buy tea bags. He lit a cigarette and was promptly hauled over the coals by council jobsworths and fined for "smoking in the workplace". Not unreasonably he says that he does not work in his van and it can hardly be classed as a "workplace". This is sort of nonsense which is being funded by the hard-earned council tax of ordinary, decent, working people. If Hitler came back perhaps he could look to Ceredigion council for finding suitable henchpeople.

SPANKING

Some of the press are having a bit of a field day with Max Mosley who is suing News of the World for invasion of privacy. To simplify, it seems a number of women were caned, spanked, disciplined whilst he yelled at them in German. And of course in some minds German = Nazi. It seems all participants were consenting adults so I don't really see the problem. In fact the idea of a bare bottom, knickers pulled down, ready for spanking is quite titillating. And what's wrong with a little role-play? After all it's not unusual for these kind of games to involve pseudo- nurses, pseudo-doctors, pseudo-coppers, pseudo-firemen so why not pseudo-Germans or even, horror of horrors, pseudo-Nazis? I hope Max gets his damages.

BATS IN THE BRA

Just came across a report on the BBC website here in which a teenage girl found a bat in her bra. She removed it. Can this be right? I was under the impression that if you found bats in your attic you had to give them full possession and not disturb them under pain of instant death. The little critters are, like great crested newts, protected. If I find a bat in my knickers can I kill it, defenestrate it, declare it homeless or do I have to keep it warm and cosy forever.

GORDON BROWN

Following on from my previous remarks about Gordon Brown's request that we should throw away less food I see he is now at the G8 summit. On day 1 the assembled world leaders and their womenfolk attended a 6 course lunch and an 8 course dinner. I don't know how much food was wasted (perhaps some scraps were handed out to the African leaders who had not been invited to the banquet) but this sort of junket is paid for by the very people Gordon is haranguing.

BBC AGAIN

Just watched the evening (6 pm) bulletin on BBC1. Gordon Brown reportedly stated that we Brits throw away too much food. That information took about 30 seconds. The bulletin then went on for a further 10 minutes with a report on food wastage in Britain. One woman courageously said she didn't feel at all guilty about ditching food she no longer wanted. Good for her because neither do I. Not all that long ago we were hearing about EU wine lakes and butter mountains because our politicians were encouraging farmers to produce crops nobody wanted to buy. Wine was converted to vinegar. But my point is that all this is documentary and emphatically not news. And it's preachy which to my mind means self-defeating. And of course it's nonsense to suggest that because someone in Tunbridge Wells throws away a carrot someone in Africa starves.

And following on from that although I live in Scotland the BBC transmitted to me the local London news from 6.30. to 6.50. But of course it doesn't matter how incompetent these people are because they get the tax (TV licence fee) irrespective of performance.

BBC SCHEDULING

So today, at least from late afternoon, all the BBC TV schedules are all to cock. If you went to to your local cinema to watch the advertised "Superman" film and then as the curtains opened you found they had decided to screen "Sound of Music" instead you could well be extremely annoyed. You might want your money back. If the cinema was in fact a complex of small screens and they announced that they'd switched "Superman" to the place next door you might still be upset. If the cinema kept on doing this sort of thing people would go to a more reliable cinema and managers at the first cinema would be sacked or it would go out of business. BBC schedulers are very incompetent but of course that doesn't matter because although nothing tonight was screened at the time advertised on the channel advertised this is not a commercial organisation. The company get their cash and the managers their salaries (+ bonuses) even if nobody gets to watch what they want to watch. English Heritage are trying to make sure BBC Television Centre gets preserved for the nation. We need to ensure this wretched organisation (BBC I mean, but much the same applies to English Heritage) comes to a quick end along with all its managers.

WESTMINSTER GRAVY TRAIN

So yesterday our representatives at Westminster voted on salaries and expenses. Many (well most) voted against reforming the expenses system. Some MPs wanted wanted to introduce a degree of greater transparency in allowances claimed as well as a tighter auditing control. Those who voted to reject such plans include:— Jaqui Smith, Andy Burnham, Shaun Woodward, Paul Murphy, Caroline Flint. Some MPs obviously have the sense to realise that the mass of taxpayers is getting fed up with pushing the gravy train and that the reputation of Parliament in the eyes of the public demands some restraint. Others are totally without shame.

GOLDEN EAGLES

Just watched BBC news from the regions. The Golden Eagle is Scotland's "iconic" (their word) bird. It certainly is a magnificent creature and it would be a pity to lose it. But it seems it's not doing all that well. A pity it can't be eaten as a superior version of turkey as then we would have farmed eagle in the same way that we have farmed salmon and farmed lobster. Never mind Scottish National Heritage (SNH) is on the case and they're a bit worried about the eagles. Some smug employee came on screen to tell exactly how worrying it is. Of course if these SNH employees weren't being fed with a bottomless pit of taxpayers' hard-earned cash they might themselves be on the way out and a good thing too. People working all hours in the dark satanic mills of Scotland just so these assholes can go prancing over the hills worrying about a few birds.

BBC NON-NEWS

Not long ago watched the BBC 6.00 pm news. About 10 minutes in we had a lengthy report on the National Health Service (NHS)and were told that as it's 60 years since the 'birth' there will be a report every day for a week. Of course this is just an excuse for the BBC to roll out old footage and every minute spent on this documentary material is one minute less of hard news. Presumably all the people at the BBC have GCSEs in media studies or even degrees in media studies so it is a little amazing that they are unaware of the difference between news and documentary. Except perhaps it's not surprising as any fool can pass media studies at whatever level.

TOASTER

Last March I bought a toaster from Tesco made by Breville. It had 4 slots. From the start it never worked properly because one side of each slice was toasted more than the other side. A simple visual inspection revealed that this was because the wires on one side of each slot got lighter (=hotter) than the other. For heavens sake it can't be all that difficult to make a toaster so that all the wires heat up equally? Breville sounds a bit Italian so perhaps this is something the I-ties can't manage. Anyway about three weeks ago the 2 leftmost slots failed totally and last week the whole caboodle stopped working. This toaster sold by Tesco and made by Breville stopped working after less than 4 months use. For goodness sake this is a toaster not a mobile phone or something complicated. The Inquisition were toasting people 300 years ago. I have to say Tesco promptly replaced the machine but if Breville make cars I must remember not to buy one. By the way if "Breville" is just a fancy pseudonym of some UK company that would explain it. We no longer teach physics, mathematics and classics properly but everybody is into media studies and the like. Hence no decent engineers.