February 2005

February 28th, 2005. Michael Howard Loves Me

Yes, another political post.

Unless you like in-depth political analysis you probably won't be interested in this article* in yesterday's Observer, about how narrow poll margins are a Good Thing for every political party. What caught my eye though, was one line, about the Tories having "a computer programme [sic] of such allegedly awesome sophistication that it can use direct marketing techniques to pinpoint potential Conservative supporters with stunning accuracy."

It caught my eye, because said computer program seems to have my card firmly marked. Barely a week goes by without a letter written personally by Michael Howard landing on my doormat, reminding me that [Insert Candidate Name Here] is striving to overthrow the evil socialist government (or something along those lines). Often, they include a handily choice-free questionnaire too: "Which of these right-wing, tax-the-rich-less policies would you prefer?" In fact, it's amazing how many of their policies, when you come down to it, are all about reducing taxes for rich people - although that's carefully hidden in the press releases, of course. Their spin-process must go something like this:

Policy Meeting, Central Office: "Let's reduce taxes for rich people!"
Press Release: "We're going to reduce taxes! For rich people!"
The Plain People of England: "They're going to reduce taxes! Woohoo!"

The local Tories seem to think that they've got a good chance of winning the Cleethorpes seat in the next election. You can tell they're confident, because they've speedily dumped their previous prospective candidate** in favour of a "senior local councillor"; I'm assuming - possibly uncharitably - that he sees a parliamentary seat as his just reward for years' service in the tedium of local government. I'm also assuming that he is surrounded by friends in the local party, saw the seat as being his by right (rather than some outsider's), and has grabbed the candidacy as soon as it looked like a surefire win.

* By (former) daytime TV game-show host Andrew Rawnsley

** A random Tory from somewhere in the south of England - I forget her name.

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February 25th, 2005. Flashback

Talking of Edinburgh reminds me: the other day I decided to put some music on, and listened to Dear Catastrophe Waitress for the first time in a few months. I didn't realise just how personally evocative it is, especially the final track. It took me straight back to where I was when I first bought it: in Edinburgh, in the autumn, in my old job. It made me think of autumnal evenings walking from work to my then-boyfriend's flat, through The Grange, looking at all the millionaires' mansions and hoping that one day I'd be rich enough to live in a house like that, instead of my more-than-I-could-afford council-estate flat. It made me think of the smell of leaf-mould, and chill winds, and the particular smell of Gareth's kitchen.

(I've mentioned before that there's a room here at the office that sometimes also has exactly the same smell as Gareth's kitchen; walking past the door there takes me right back, too.)

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February 23rd, 2005. Personal space

As you'll all probably have noticed by now, the Edinburgh congestion charge referendum was a resounding no, at 46% no to 16% yes.* So, Edinburgh won't be introducing entry tolls. Chances are, neither will any of the other cities that were thinking about it.

Edinburgh does suffer in that there are no easy ways through the town. The City Bypass skirts the outer suburbs, but once you're inside it there are no conveniant major routes that don't lead into the city centre.** There are no radial routes worth speaking of.

Edinburgh's other problem is that a huge proportion of its population are rich. Ridiculously rich. They don't all move out to suburban estates, they move to the New Town, Morningside or The Grange. South Edinburgh has one of the highest concentrations of millionaires in the country. They all own expensive cars, and they don't want to have to get on a bus squeezed up against neds from Penicuik who can't afford their own transport. These people are never going to vote yes to pay money for something they regard as an essential human right.

When I lived in Edinburgh, I didn't own a car. You don't need to. If you live there, you might spend ages moaning about the bus service, but it's better than many other places in the country.*** It's a small, compact city, where it's often just quicker to walk. There's hardly any parking, and the rush-hour traffic is awful; not using your own car really is better. Now I've moved away, I can't do that. I live further from my work. There's no public transport to the office, either. Before I got my car, getting to work in the morning involved a half-hour bus ride followed by a half-hour walk; and the earliest I could get to work was half an hour after the time my boss wanted me to start. At my last Edinburgh job, I walked to work (for 45 minutes) out of choice, but the buses were there if I needed them. Here, there's hardly a choice at all.

* And 38% don't care, obv. Forget all those reports about three quarters of the people voting no, because that's only if you ignore the two-fifths of the people who could have voted but didn't, and the even larger number that could have voted but didn't, because they're not on the retail copy of the electoral roll.

** Apart from Ferry Road, but that's the only one

*** And it's mostly still provided by the local council, and not Religious Nutter Bus Services, Ltd Stagecoach

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February 21st, 2005. God's dandruff

We don't get snow here very often.

I sat by the kitchen window yesterday, looking up and watching thick grey flakes drift down out of the sky. Snow is supposed to be glittering white, but if you look up and watch it falling on to you each flake is a grey blotch on a light-grey sky. They wheel downwards spinning and eventually join the great mass on the ground.

It snowed again this morning at the office, but soon melted. Half an hour after the snow stopped, the ground was clear and meltwater dripping off the cars in the car park.

We're all snowflakes. We fly down and whirl independently, never touching, blown about with no control over where we land. When we do, we fade away and leave no trace behind.

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February 18th, 2005. Dying all day in thousands of little ways

Currently, I'm trying to come to terms with the realisation that I'm probably going to stay single for the rest of my life, as far as I can tell.

On the upside, there's a Channel 4 trailer at the moment with the Le Tigre song Deceptacon* on it. So it's not all bad news.

* the song that, above all others, makes me get up and dance whenever I hear it. Which means that watching the telly can be tricky at the moment.

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February 16th, 2005. Giving up quietly

Hunting is about to be banned. The last-hope legal arguments are going nowhere. The media are full of Countryside Alliance-inspired reports such as: fewer people now support the hunting ban (they gloss over the fact that, still, twice as many people want to ban hunting as keep it). Thousands of 'law-abiding' people are planning to go ahead and break the law on Saturday, under the slogan of "Support Freedom! Support Tolerance! Support brutal killing for pleasure!"*

What hasn't been reported much, though, is that behind all the sound and fury hunts do seem to be planning on a quiet future. There are several hunts in this area, and the local BBC News team have discovered that most of them have already started laying their staff off.** The public front may be one of defiance, but behind closed doors the hunts have started to accept that they're not going to be able to keep on getting their dogs to pull small animals apart for fun.

The hunt workers aren't happy, of course. "I've lost my job and my house," said one fired kennelman in his tweed cap and wax jacket, "and I've done nothing wrong. This job was my dream. Now, I have to go out and find somewhere to live." I feel it's worth pointing out that the hunting ban has been on its way for several years now. If you're too stupid to realise that your job is going to disappear, you're not going to get much sympathy from me.

* One of these isn't actually a genuine Countryside Alliance slogan. The other two are, though.

** I can't find the story on the website; it was shown on tonight's TV bulletin.

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February 14th, 2005. If you don't cry, it isn't love / If you don't cry, you just don't feel it deep enough

Well, I'm sorry that I love you
It's a phase I'm going through
There is nothing that I can do
And I'm sorry that I love you
Do not listen to my song
Don't remember it, don't sing along
Let's pretend it's a work of art
Let's pretend it's not my heart

- The Magnetic Fields, I'm Sorry That I Love You

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February 11th, 2005. Assertion

I've decided. The die has been cast. The appointment has been made. There's no backing out.

Tomorrow, I am going to change my hairstyle.

(Any suggestions as to what I should do with it, though? I'm a bit short on inspiration myself)

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February 10th, 2005. Latest News

Disaster Relief Targets Announced

Top Of The Stairs News Agency, Washington DC

The American government has announced that it will specify the use of the money it has donated for tsunami disaster relief. Its spending will be restricted to high-priority causes: rebuilding roads, repairing local water supplies, and teaching tsunami survivors that the disaster was "caused by the wrath of God, just like the destruction of Sodom".

"These people need to learn that condoms are the Work of Satan," said a Presidential spokesman. "Otherwise, tragedies like this will just keep happening."

Middle-aged man to marry

Top Of The Stairs News Agency, London

A middle-aged divorced widower is to marry a middle-aged divorcee, it has been announced today. Nobody was shocked or surprised by the shocking news.

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February 8th, 2005. Physical

The Azande tribe of the Sudan know how to identify witches.* They have an extra bodily organ. Inside a witch's abdomen there's a body which contains mangu, the concentrated essence of witchcraft. Even though the witch may not know what they are themselves, it's the mangu inside them which makes them cast evil spells** and fly off to sabbats.

Right now, it feels as if there's a similar organ that causes writer's block. I think it's shaped like a little rubber bung, somewhere in the neck or the upper torso. If I could cut myself open, delve inside my body and pull it out, then a torrent of words would gush outwards.

* if you've ever studied anthropology you'll know all this, because the Azande tribe of the Sudan crop up on just about every undergraduate anthropology course ever created, I think.

** They distinguish between witchcraft, which is evil, and magic, which is not. If you care about all this, you need to go away and read Witchcraft, Oracles And Magic Among The Azande by Sir Edward E. Evans-Pritchard

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February 4th, 2005. Three things

Work news: it's my birthday, which means yet more baking, and then proffering cakes round all the offices at work. Everyone so far has said "Ooh, that was lovely," but I haven't heard anything yet from the two people whose opinions I'm most bothered about: the Office Crush,* and the Office Cake-Baking Queen.

Personal news: the Student Loans Company are twunts. Utter twunts. It's that repayment deferral time of year again, and as usual they've managed to mess up the paperwork.

As I went to University for four years, I have four student loans. However, in the distant past, the SLC sold three of my loans off to a random finance company. This year, for the first time, Random Finance Co is going to be responsible for taking the money for the loans they own.** However, the SLC is still in charge of approving deferral. Therefore, they have sent me three deferral application forms - one for the loan they own, one for the loans from Random Finance, and a third one for all four. I'm tempted to send all three back in the same envelope, but instead will have to work my way through their hellish phone menu system.

Political news: Mad Musings Gert accidentally overheard some of the Tories' election campaign plans: promising to clean up hospitals and get rid of bus lanes. Presumably they're going for little, everyday issues*** because they realise people won't like grand plans such as "let's keep on with the war in Iraq". Frankly, and speaking as a driver and commuter, I love bus lanes, because they mean I don't have to stop and overtake whenever a bus in front of me pulls in to pick somebody up.

* who, it turns out, was the person sent out to buy my Office Birthday Card. Presumably because the Office Crush has more time off than anyone else.

** that is, if I was actually going to pay them back. Or if someone cocks the paperwork up.

*** More importantly: they're going for little, everyday issues that they think people who are already Tory supporters will love. Which is fine if you're worried about your party's ongoing decline, but shows that they can't be particularly optimistic about their chances of attracting other voters.

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February 2nd, 2005. Spam (part 1)

If you've looked at any comments on this site recently, you'll know that we now have one of those little image-thingies that you have to read and type back to prove that you're a human being.* Because they do help block spam. In fact, they're the single most effective thing you can do to block comment spam on your blog.

It's not just me that's saying that. The Register recently ran an interesting interview with a comment spammer. It's what he said. Changing your blog template is all well and good, but they can work around it.** Graphic-to-text keys fox them.

The spammer in the article claims that what he's doing isn't wrong. It's legal, and gives him an opening to earn a large amount of cash. He's rather guarded on the moral issue, though. My take on this is straightforward. What he's doing is wrong. Completely wrong. There's no grey area about it: spamming is spamming. It's stealing physical resources, and poisoning semantic ones.***

The spammer even tries to place the blame for comment spamming on the search engines themselves: if they weren't there, then he wouldn't be able to try to influence them. The equivalent of saying "it's humanity's fault that I'm a serial killer, because if people didn't exist I wouldn't be able to murder them." The sort of person who thinks like a spammer - who lies to themselves about the morality of stealing someone else's resources to advertise porn and drugs - will, I'd like to suggest, jump in at any opportunity to Make Money Fast at others' expense, whatever technology it uses.

* and that you're not blind, incidentally. If you are blind and want to leave a comment, then I'm very sorry. Email me, or something.

** although I've always thought it would be interesting to write a commenting system that completely randomises the internal field names on the comment form each time it's run - obviously, you'd need a key to decipher them, but it's straightforward enough to come up with a system that only lets the originating server work out which comment field is which.

*** Damn, I'm sounding pretentious today.

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