A judge says… (some dubious things)

Whilst passing sentence on Sean Goodfellow and Murray McAllan, both found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving, temporary judge Kenneth McIver said, ‘As in many of these tragic driving deaths, issues are here raised as to the wisdom of allowing new drivers immediate, unrestricted and unconditional driving opportunity.’

The judge also said, ‘To drive at speeds in excess of 90mph on such a road is complete folly. To do so while engaging in a contest of speed, effectively a road race with another vehicle, is indescribably stupid and dangerous.’

Whilst I agree with His Honour Judge McIver as to the folly of racing on roads, I think that the DVLA and VOSA should be taking immediate steps to remove Judge McIver’s driving licence from him until he can demonstrate his knowledge, by passing a new test.

Why?

Because the speed limit on that stretch of road is not ‘unrestricted and unconditional,’ to use the Judge’s words.

It is 60mph.

So the Judge appears not to know that the speed on that road is 60mph, and the Judge appears to be unable to understand that these two foolish young men, who drove at speeds of up to 90mph along it, would have broken whatever restriction had been put in their way.

It also seems to me that (again, to use his own words) the Judge seems to believe that we have some roads in the UK that are ‘unrestricted and unconditional’.

This is also not the case.

Therefore the Judge, Mr McIver, should have his licence removed and should be compelled to take a retest with immediate effect; he has clearly demonstrated he does not know some of the most fundamental rules of the road.

Source

Video (from the Latin: ‘I see’)

I’m desperately trying to keep this away from a Bristol-related rant. And also I’m going to work hard to keep this away from an ‘Underage and Having Sex’ (which we’re currently watching) rant…

I’m thinking of making a video.

No, really. A proper one, not one of those videos!

My sitcom sits on the hard-disk; finished and ready to get pimped around London. I think it’s not a bad piece of writing, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be setting myself up for the pain and rejection that the odds indicate are going to come my way.

I also think it’s not a bad piece of comedic writing (which isn’t much of an indication of quality, because writing comedy has always been my weak suit).

But, and here’s my problem, I’m having trouble seeing it as a piece of visual… stuff.

And that’s why I’m thinking of making a video.

Because making a video would help me with the visualisation, no? And it would give me an opportunity to fine-tune the screenplay and really help to develop the shooting-script. No?

It wouldn’t be a posh job.

We’re talking a wobbly hand-held or tripod-mounted camera and the whole product subjected to some seriously bad editing.

But the soundtrack would be a killer. And the soundtrack is a significant component of the sitcom.

My dilemma is, unfortunately, twofold.

Dilemma #1. Setting. Apart from the opening scene, all of episode one is set indoors – but in three different sets. But I think that could be OK. This isn’t supposed to be the finished article, and with a little creativity from the props department (me!) and a bucketload of imagination from the viewers (probably no-one), I think we can work around this.

Dilemma #2. The cast. Episode 1 scripts 6 speaking parts and a bunch of non-speaking extras. Even from the position that no-one will be expecting Oscar-winning performances, how does one begin getting the potential company together, where from and – when they’ve been found – what’s the best way of casting?

Hmmm… I think I need to consult an AmDram specialist. Fortunately, I have one at the stables.

In other news…

The girl on the television in the show ‘Underage and Having Sex’ was just talking about how, as a 13-year-old, she had sex for the first time.

She said ‘It happened, I don’t know how’.

Well dear, I could be a million miles off target with this, but I’d hazard a guess that you let him put his cock in your cunt. Is there anything else you need to know?

Tsk, kids.

As you can see, I successfully avoided a Bristol rant, but the ‘Underage and Having Sex’ rant just kind of slipped out. Sorry.

When is a military secret not a military secret?

When anyone with a brain can work the truth out…

The ’90,000 item Wikileak dossier’ has got some sections of the internet huffing and puffing like a highly excited bunch of huffing and puffing things.

There are flaps of outrage and indignation from the US and UK governments which, when subjected to logical analysis, are shown to be incomprehensible and meaningless.

William Gibbs, the US President’s press secretary said (and I quote), ‘these documents [being in the public domain] pose a real and potential threat to national security’.

My response to William Gibbs is twofold.

Firstly, can you please learn to speak English? Because, William, until you do, everyone on this planet is going to ignore you from this point forward.

Let me explain.

Something can either be a real threat, or something can be a potential threat, but something can not be a real *and* a potential threat.

And secondly, William, you obviously haven’t noticed yet, so it falls to me to point out to you, that the situation in Afghanistan is an *international* one.

You are in no position to put American national security before the international security of *all of the states* who are caught up in the conflict. No legal position at all!

The truth must out, it is that simple. No matter how unpalatable to our political servants (and let’s just remember for a moment that the people in The White House and Downing Street are working *for us*) the truth is, it must be our default position.

That there are high-level elements in the Pakistan government who are actively backing and physically supporting al-Qaida is blindingly obvious to anyone with a functional brain.

But the US Government doesn’t want to be *saying* that publicly because:

• it would cause a PR shitstorm in the US heartlands amongst the voters whenever a new raft of coffins are repatriated
• it would upset elements of the Pakistan government
• it would (rightly) cause distrust amongst the forces on the ground
• it would make many people in many countries ask what the fuck is going on, and question the wisdom of our elected politicians

To underline my point I bring forward Frank Askin, Professor of Law at Rutgers School of Law, Newark (USA, not the original Newark).

Professor Askin says (and again I quote):  ‘Transparency should be the government’s default approach to national security’.

The lack of transparency in this conflict is staggering. Under the sacred banner of ‘national security’ (which I have already demonstrated is a meaningless concept in this war), things are being unsaid, truths remain unspoken and massacres of innocents are being unreported.

All of these things are wrong.

What is the difference between 20 civilians being killed by the Americans, or 20 civilians being killed by the Pakistan-backed al-Qaida?

There is no difference.

Except in the former, the story is suppressed, whilst in the latter every single war reporter and every available photographer and film crew are ferried in to the area to record, in great detail, the once-human corpses, the blown-up cars, the dead livestock and the bullet-marked houses.

And come on, the only people who hadn’t figured out that the UK and US special forces have been operating under ‘locate and kill’ orders for the last couple of years, are sections of the UK and US public.

Does William Gibbs really think that members of al-Qaida have not worked these things out for themselves?

Of course they have.

I have downloaded my copy of the dossier and although I haven’t read it in detail yet, I have scanned most of it, and I have to say that all of the information I have seen so far would be known to the enemy!

All of it.

Yet the data has been withheld from the UK and US public.

The logical conclusion is that the governments of the UK and US see the public of the UK and US as the threat.

We are the enemy.

But perhaps we are not ‘the enemy’ within the context of this conflict in Afghanistan; just ‘the enemy of our elected representatives’ – by virtue of our power at the ballot box?

I’ll leave you with just one example of how the truth is being suppressed, and when it leaks out, corrupted.

When US intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, leaked a video that proved that US Apache helicopters fired on and killed two Reuters cameramen in Baghdad – information that, until that point, the US government had suppressed – who was charged with criminal offences?

Was it:

1. Bradley Manning for leaking the video, or
2. The Apache helicopter crews for murdering innocent civilians?

Ah, I can see from your wry smiles that you know the answer. The casualty is, once again, the truth.

Blogging bullets

• 17th March, 2004
• My first blog post
• Over here
• I’m re-reading it all
• Sad git

Ha-ha, fooled you!

Yesterday Soph and I drove in to London, parked the car at Queensway and caught the tube to Mile End where we met Ash for lunch.

Ash is a unique guy. Genuinely talented and blessed with an abundance of creativity Ash chooses to spend most of his time working in the public sector; providing valuable services to some of our fellow humans most in need of assistance.

With his free time, Ash indulges his creative talents as a composer/musician of serious ability – we have shared just a fraction of his musical talent with our podcast listeners, under the names of artists ‘Warning! Heat Ray!’ and ‘Unsound’.

And he writes; as a music analyst/reviewer, Ash is one of the few muso-writers whose opinions – and writing – I hold in genuinely high regard.

Lunch, with Ash, was brilliant; that’s a measure of what a genuinely nice guy he is.

Later in the afternoon we went back to the West End, had lunch in an Italian restaurant in Berner Street then walked to the place where we were to meet up with author Alex Marsh and renowned blogger Jonny B.

Alex Marsh and Jonny B are the same person, obv.

The occasion was an informal launch of Alex’s new book ‘Sex and Bowls and Rock & Roll’, or as Alex put it ‘Not a book launch, just a drink in a pub with a few friends’.

Sitting next to Alex was the deliciously gorgeous Catherine Sanderson (aka internationally renowned author and erstwhile blogger, Petite Anglaise).

So that wasn’t very intimidating at all, was it? Jonny B and Petite Anglaise sitting next to me.

Erm, yes. I may have slipped in to idiot mode.

More people arrived.

Mike Atkinson (aka influential blogger/journalist Troubled Diva) was followed by a pair of very influential internet characters, bloggers, writers and podcasters, Cliff Jones and Mr Angry.

The very lovely (he did me a favour by personalising a copy of his book for Soph) Andrew Viner.

And there were others!

People whose names I can’t remember; intelligent, articulate people who said bright, witty (if not outrageously funny) things.

It was a fun, funny evening.

We bailed out, leaving the survivors to carry on, around 8pm.

By the time we got home, watched Big Brother drank tea and fell in to bed it was midnight.

This morning Soph and I are teetering around the house like a pair of newly-dead zombies.

Because we are not the grown-up people we pretended to be on two occasions, in front of all those folk, yesterday.

We are a pair of kids  who went out and successfully fooled them all.

Ha-ha, fooled you!

But not only was it really nice to meet everyone – from lunch with Ash to Jonny B and all of his friends – it was very pleasant to meet such a thoroughly nice group of people.

Ha-ha, fooled you!

Yesterday Soph and I drove in to London, parked the car at Queensway and caught the tube to Mile End where we met Ash for lunch.

Ash is a unique guy. Genuinely talented and blessed with an abundance of creativity, Ash chooses to spend most of his time working in the public sector; providing valuable services to some of our fellow humans most in need of assistance.

With his free time, Ash indulges his creative talents as a composer/musician of serious worth – we have shared just a fraction of his musical talent with our podcast listeners, under the names of artists ‘Warning! Heat Ray!’ and ‘Unsound’.

And he writes; as a music analyst/reviewer, Ash is one of the few muso-writers whose opinions – and writing – I hold in genuinely high regard.

Lunch, with Ash, was brilliant; that’s a measure of what a genuinely nice guy he is.

Later in the afternoon we went back to the West End, had a meal in an Italian restaurant in Berner Street, then walked to the place where we were to meet up with author Alex Marsh and renowned blogger Jonny B.

Alex Marsh and Jonny B are the same person, obv.

The occasion was an informal launch of Alex’s new book ‘Sex and Bowls and Rock & Roll’, or as Alex put it ‘Not a book launch, just a drink in a pub with a few friends’.

Sitting next to Alex was the deliciously gorgeous Catherine Sanderson (aka internationally renowned author and erstwhile blogger, Petite Anglaise).

So that wasn’t very intimidating at all, was it? Jonny B and Petite Anglaise sitting next to me.

Erm, yes. I may have slipped in to idiot mode.

More people arrived.

Mike Atkinson (aka influential blogger/journalist Troubled Diva) was followed by a pair of very high-profile internet characters: bloggers, writers and podcasters, Cliff Jones and Mr Angry.

Then the gorgeous Girl With A One-Track Mind rocked up.

The very lovely (he once did me a favour by personalising a copy of his book for Soph) Andrew Viner followed on behind.

And there were others!

People whose names I can’t remember; intelligent, articulate people who said bright, witty (if not outrageously funny) things.

It was a fun, funny evening.

We bailed out, leaving the survivors to carry on, around 8pm.

By the time we got home, watched Big Brother drank tea and fell in to bed it was midnight.

This morning Soph and I are teetering around the house like a pair of newly-dead zombies.

Why teetering around the house? Because we are not the grown-up people we pretended to be on two occasions, in front of all those folk, yesterday.

We are a pair of kids  who went out and successfully hoodwinked them all into believing that we were grown-up.

Ha-ha, fooled you!

But not only was it really nice to meet everyone – from lunch with Ash to to the afternoon/evening’s meeting with Jonny B and all of his friends – it was very pleasant to meet such a thoroughly nice group of people.

A very Spanish show

This week’s digital broadcast (or podcast, if you prefer) is out and bouncing around every corner of the interwebs.

It’s a very Spanish affair – intended to celebrate a few of the *many* peculiarities that Bren experienced when he lived in Bérchules, a tiny, remote, high-mountain village in the district of Granada.

The music is Spanish (and yet it isn’t), and the facts are all true – even the one about Bren getting arrested when he lived there.

1. You can listen by streaming the show straight from our website: just click here!
2. Or you can download the show to your computer – or your mobile phone – so you can listen whenever you want, and in the privacy of your own home: just right click here and use the ‘save’ or ‘save as’ option in your browser
3. Or, if you have iTunes, you can get the show from the iTunes store (free of charge!): just click here and listen to it on your iPod, iPhone, iPad, your computer or other iTunes-compatible music player. Better than radio!

Sometimes I actually *like* winding people up

Dear Aurora Berg,

I feel eminently qualified to assist your company in a diverse range of operational solutions, but I feel that I could add most significant value in the area of helping you to read, write and speak English to a higher, more professional level.

For example, we never commence a business email with the salutation ‘Greetings’. Not unless one’s name is Joey Boswell and one is a member of the fictional television series ‘Bread’, as written by Carla Lane, in the mid-1980s.

‘Dear Sir’ or ‘Dear Madam’ are normally considered acceptable but, as you have taken the time and trouble to mine my email address from some portion of the website, ‘Dear Brennig’ would also be satisfactory – as would Dear Mr Jones.

Please allow me to congratulate you on becoming a manager of the HR department of a large multinational company. I can only hope, given the unfortunate circumstances in the United States, that the ‘large multinational company’ is not BP. Perhaps you would be kind enough to let me know the name of the large multinational company, so I may make some appropriate entries in my records?

Your next sentence puzzles me. ‘Our company is met in many departments, such as:
- property– bank account operations – transportation and logistics – private enterprise service– etc.’

Could you tell me what, precisely ‘is met in many departments’ means? I would also appreciate some supplemental information as to the precise nature of the core business of the multinational company. Let’s face it Aurora, all multinational companies have HR, property, banking operations, transport, logistics and service divisions. You should also note how I rephrased and improved the syntax of your sentence, whilst managing to make it more economical. I feel this further underlines your need for my services.

Unfortunately, I have to tell you that I am completely baffled by your next phrase:
‘Currently, we are looking for managers in Europe:
- salary 2.600 euro + bonus
- 1-2 working hours per day
- free timetable’

Are you telling me that my working day would be 1-2 hours for which you would pay me a salary of €2,600? That seems ludicrous. 1-2 hours (let’s call it 1.5 hours for the purposes of a mathematical equation) multiplied by an average of 220 working days a year is 330 working hours – for which you are proposing a salary of €2,600? That’s less than €8/hour, and that equates to £4.93/hour – which is substantially lower than the national minimum wage of £5.80/hour. Still, perhaps this illegally low wage might be offset through the deployment of what you call a ‘free timetable’. Perhaps you could explain what this means?

Your next sentence has, I fear, somehow become corrupted during the transmission of your email. ‘If you are ready to work as a regional manager in Europe send us the below information on…’
Once again, you have underlined just how much your large multinational company needs me to proof-read everything! ‘Send us the information requested below’ is grammatically correct. Your own effort fails the quality test. And, just a passing thought here Aurora, but wouldn’t all multinational companies be, by definition, large? Is there such a thing as a small multinational? I’m now wondering if multinationals are sizeist? Do they hang around behind the multinational equivalent of the school bike sheds comparing the width and girth of their corporateness in a ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ kind of way? Perhaps you could advise me on this?

I do love your bold use of post-modern irony in the next paragraph. The use of hyper-spacing in the first line and the total absence of spaces in the second, comprise an innovative blending of the rules of business writing and a subtle use of humour in the workplace:
‘email:h r m @ h i r i n g – w e s t u n i o n . c o m [please delete spaces before sending]
Name:Surname:Country:City:E-mail:TelephoneNumber:Mobile phone-number:’

I am so impressed with your humour that I am providing you with the information you have requested – in exactly the same format that you have requested it:

Brennig:Jones:Wales/UK(Ihaveputmycountryoforiginandmycountryofresidence):Witney(technicallyWitney
isatownnotacity):03001231212:+447765969952

I do feel that your next line has no place in a business letter. It looks contextually out of place and, frankly, it isn’t even written in good English:
‘Attention! We need just the people residing in Europe.’

‘Please, write your name and Telephone Number so that our manager could contact you, ask the necessary questions and answer yours.’
This, too is not written in English. My name is Brennig Jones and my telephone number is +44 7765 969 952. I would be thrilled to speak to your manager. While I am conversing with him/her I would be able to set out my proposals for a significant role in your organisation and give you my views on an acceptable remuneration package.

Yours sincerely,

Brennig Jones

____________________________

Original Message:
—————–
From: Aurora Berg Aurora.Berg@we-help-u.biz
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:15:01 -0300
To: brennig.jones@xxxxxxx.co.uk
Subject: Position Opening

Greetings

I am a manager of the HR department of a large multinational company. Our company is met in many departments, such as:
- property– bank account operations – transportation and logistics – private enterprise service– etc.

Currently, we are looking for managers in Europe:
- salary 2.600 euro + bonus
- 1-2 working hours per day
- free timetable

If you are ready to work as a regional manager in Europe send us the below information on email:h r m @ h i r i n g – w e s t u n i o n . c o m [please delete spaces before sending]
Name:Surname:Country:City:E-mail:Telephone Number:Mobile phone-number:

Attention! We need just the people residing in Europe.

Please, write your name and Telephone Number so that our manager could contact you, ask the necessary questions and answer yours.

So, this eventing lark…

Ho hum.

The commentary starts before we even left the yard because Tom, evidently, was having one those days.

Tom, who normally marches up the ramp in to the lorry, decided he didn’t want to load.

He went up on his hind legs and waved his front hooves around my ears. And again. And again and this time he pulled back as well as going up. And then he did it again.

On the last flying rear-up he pulled the lead-rein out of my hands (I will have rope burn for a week), turned, cantered at a five-bar gate and then flew over it.

He spent the next ten minutes evading capture (despite still having his head-collar on and trailing his lead-rein) galloping round and winding up the horse he’d jumped in with.

Bastard.

I fetched a bowl of feed and he turned, mid-gallop, and headed straight for it.

This time he loaded OK and we drove up to the venue.

Our dressage netted us 39.5 penalties which, frankly, felt that we had been harshly-marked.

Prior to show-jumping, we worked-in over the practice fences brilliantly. But as soon as we cantered in to the show-jumping arena Tom changed gear and wanted to do everything quicker than I did. He had two fences down and gave me a nasty run-out at fence 3, so that netted us 12 penalties.

The cross-country started off brilliantly. We attacked the first six fences with style and assertiveness; they felt excellent.

Unfortunately at fence 7 (the first part of three parts at the water), Tom decided he didn’t want to get his feet wet and no amount of riding could convince him otherwise.

So we bit the bullet and retired.

I’m not scrabbling around for the positives, they’re actually there for everyone to see.

Our show-jumping was more focussed, better controlled and despite Tom’s carelessness over the SJ fences, was far more fun at a competition than we’ve ever had.

The first six of the cross-country fences were also brilliant. I know that last time out we finished the track, but this felt *better*.

Hey ho.

Onwards and upwards.

Gone phishing

So the phishers/scammers are at it again and this time they’re almost but not quite clever.

An email screeched in to the podcast’s gmail account, you can see a screenshot of it below or Click here for a pdf version of the full email

I have several problems with this, but by the reports in the media, a number of people are falling for this phishing scam.

My problems are simple:

• It is not in English, it is written in something that closely approximates English, but no British clearing bank would surely send such rubbish out? And the sign-off, given that this communication is supposed to be from a bank,  is just pathetic. Why not put a few kisses on the bottom (oo-er) too?
• It is incredibly badly typed. The use of multiple trailing full-stops, the use of the hash-sign. Has HSBC taken to employing 14-year-old schoolchildren to write their customer service letters now? Erm, no.
• It has spelling mistakes on it. Really.
• The server in the ‘click here’ link is based in Taipei, Taiwan – that well-known bastion of British banking.
• So it is an email written in something that approximates but is not quite English. It is an email that is written incredibly badly. It is an email with a link to a website in Taipei.

Hmmm, is there anyone who is still feeling warm and fluffy over this email?

Here’s the double clincher; there are absolutely no names or telephone numbers on the email.

So out of a confidence score of a minimum zero and a maximum 10, my confidence level in this email being genuine is minus 12.

Why so low?

Because our little podcast doesn’t have a bank account, not with anyone, let alone HSBC.

It’s a fake. And here’s the html text of the email (just to grab some google traffic in case anyone is searching for information on it):

_____________________________________

Message begins…

We regret having to terminate the account with us.

Please be advised of the following causes.

# Reasons:- The account would be effectively terminated due to the recent information gathered from the profile does not match the background data.

# You have refused to follow the link which were sent to the email recently.

# You logged on immediately you verified the account which caused the verification been canceled. This may be our increasing inflation problem which have forced your account to close down several of its operations.

The account will cease operation effective 16/07/2010..

Our automated security systems have indicated that access to the account will be blocked after 17/07/2010.

To cancel the termination process>>

Please DO NOT CLICK HERE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES – UNLESS YOUR NAME IS TONY BLAIR, IN WHICH CASE YOU DESERVE TO BE RIPPED OFF YOU SLIMY PIECE OF DOGSHIT to verify.

If you have already logged on or if you need to login before verifing the account, please logout before you click the above.

*Warning*
____________________________________________

It seems reasonable that the login process needs to invalidate the session and perform an automatic logout before succeeding any attempt on subsequent verification.

Please do not login after you have verified the account within 72 hours, to avoid
duplicate access records in our database as this could cause the account being suspended again.

_____________________________________________

We regret any inconvenience caused…

Thanks,
We appreciate your business!
Administrative Department Team

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