Abu Hamza

While indefinite detention at Guantanmo Bay without charge, trial or access to legal counsel continues to be a feature of US “justice”, should the UK government allow any of our citizens, however unattractive they may be, to be extradited to the US, particularly on terror–related charges?

Correct English

A message to the skinny posh bird in Starbucks. We are in England. It’s not a “kwahson”. It’s a bloody crassont, alright? I don’t CARE if you did a Masters at the Sorbonne. Oh and that’s not a “pan oh ray zan” either. Yes, your French accent is exquisite. But it’s still a bleedin’ raisin Danish.

No clash?

The talk of a “clash between Bush and Blair” over who is to be in charge in Iraq after the handover of power seems spurious. Blair and Powell sound like they are talking about different things. Blair says “final political control remains with the Iraqi government”. Which must be right. Iraq must be seen to be making the strategic decisions, if we are to be able to claim that there has been a meaningful handover of power. Powell says “US forces remain under US command and will do what is necessary to protect themselves”. Again, correct. At an operational level, after the strategic/policital decisions have been taken by Iraq, the US forces can only work effectively (and no doubt would only be prepared to continue to have a role in Iraq) if their commanders have authority on the tactical decisions. Or am I missing something?

More hire car hassles

Today I have gone into bat against these guys to battle the imposition of a Congestion Charge penalty notice against a vehicle that I hired over Easter. The charge was occasioned when I was directed off my planned route (which would have kept me outside the zone) by a uniformed police officer as a result of an overturned lorry blocking part of the road ahead. I went about 20 yards into the Congestion Charge zone before doing a U–turn to get back out of the zone and back onto my planned route. Because the notice has gone via the hire company, it’s going to cost me £80 quid if I end up having to pay it. But I think it’s a bit of a cheek and I shouldn’t bloody well have to pay it, so I’m going to fight for a while. No doubt I’ll cave in once they start threatening to get CCJs against me or have me struck off as a solicitor (as I did after blowing hard for a while about that ticket for parking on the pavement) but nobody tell them what a pussy I am when the going gets tough and maybe I’ll be able to convince them to waive it!

Most predictable reaction award

On the news recently was a story about an online church, where worshippers could log–on to services. I predicted at the time that, as with many other “virtual” environments (e.g chatrooms), people would not be as responsible and grown–up in this church as they would be in a real environment, i.e, while people would think twice about running into a real Church of England service, calling the vicar a bender, saluting Satan and pissing in the font, they would not hesitate to do so in a virtual church. And, yup, it’s been shut down within a week “after a large number of online worshippers logged in as Satan and shouted expletives”.

The Beardless Stitch-Up Show?

Would I be right in saying that MTV’s Punk’d is basically “Beadle’s About — Celebrity Special” / “Noel Edmunds’ Gotcha Oscars — US Special” but instead of a bearded tosser presenter, you just get a tosser presenter?

Track action

Top track day in hot sunshine at Snetterton today with 100% Bikes and a few of the MCN Ninjas. It was my first time in the intermediate rather than the novice group, so I was a bit nervous that I’d be out of my depth, but it turned out to be fine. Certainly wasn’t the slowest out there. The group was quite mixed, with a few slower guys and a few pretty quick guys.

Boring lap times so I remember them: toggle

New Newness Dance

Since newnessdance.org.uk had boiled down to being just a blogspot weblog, after we had the problems with our old ISP and lost the hosting and the rest of the pages, I thought I would try one of the new blogger templates as a quick redesign. Particularly useful given that it has now been going long enough to require archives, which the template sorts out automatically. The Newness Dance site needs work though, to turn it back into a proper full service site, rather than just a diary.

Scotland trip

Just got back from a cracking long weekend away in the Western Highlands of Scotland with some lads from work. It was my first visit up there. The weather was mostly good and the scenery was magnificent. We stayed at Borrodale House, a big old place which claims some interesting historical connections with Bonnie Prince Charlie. As I suspect does everywhere else up there. Saturday was wet and foggy, so we avoided the hills, but we did two full days walking on the Friday and the Sunday, tackling Gulvain and the Corryhully Horseshoe respectively. Knackering, but well worth it. Sunday was particularly spectacular. The day began with low cloud cover, which we passed through and emerged above on our first ascent, looking down on clouds beneath us and surrounded by the mountain tops poking through. Hard to believe it was on the same planet, let alone in the same country, as the central London we had left a couple of days previously. As the day went on, the cloud evaporated, leading to fantastic views from the summits and suntans all round.

Oh, and I just got back from a weekend visiting friends in America. To be precise, the town of Landstuhl in the west of Germany and the nearby Ramstein airbase that employs many of the local residents. The base in particular was like a mini–US; dollars in the ATMs and in the shops, people cruising about in mini–vans and SUVs and stuff like Cap’n Crunch cereal, Barg’s Rootbeer and Jack Link’s beef jerky in the supermarket. However, because it was Germany, there was also loads of nice German beer on sale. For 95¢ a bottle. And you can’t say fairer than that.

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