Personal Blogs

I'd really like an answer to that.

People get put away for writing stuff on these here webs. They get banged-up for writing words.

When you hear that people have been jailed, you assume that they have done something awful; exposed a national secret. Have they?

And what, and where is the line drawn? I assume that I can refer to Cameron as proto-fat. That's not something that I'd be comfortable calling a kid. So there is a line and there has to be a judge.

So who are our judges?

It would appear that, our current, judges are to be our spook services. To which I say, "if even one fucking person dies by-terrorist then you have lost the right to judge". To which you say, "I am an awful individual who wishes that others die". To which I say, "what people? Me, the French or just your friends?" For you have surely been killing, have been involved in killing, holocaust amounts, of people in countries that you didn't deem occupied by people like us.

To make me safe, you say. Apperently you need need more powers to do that.

What do you call us? The people not like you. When you hob-nob at the water cooler; 'colls', or 'foreigns', or 'imms' or just, 'fuckers who don't deserve our interest: monkeys'.

Do you think, that I think, that it is OK to kill a million people if I survive?

Well I don't. I know that I'm mortal and I'm brave enough to defend my freedom with my death.

You say, let us defend democracy by taking it away from the people and giving it to the non-elected. What does that remind me of?

Put me in prision for whatever you think it is that I have done wrong.

Take me, for you are just Nazis with better PA.

You've already got camps for, what you call, illegals, how long will it be that you will have camps for us?

Be aware that there are camps waiting for you too.

I'm jealous, I'm feeling tired and sore.

I have to do two third-level courses, to complete my degree: artificial intellegence and concurrency, courses that I still need to sign up for. I'm putting it off because I need to get funding and I see that this is going to involve personal hell.

I will get funding because I'm a Scot living in Scotland but it will involve me in a whole heap of nonsense. Forms and phone-crap and crap... and crap and forms.

For some years my work offered to pay my fees, as part of their personal development initiative or something, it wasn't clear. I accepted their offers a couple of times. Guess what? I was involved in nonsense, crap-crap and I ended up paying the fees with my OUSBA.

It was easier for me to go short on stuff than to spend my life on the phone metaphorically bleeding my life away. I began to dread their phonecalls.

Everybody, you talk to funding about, is nice and helpful, they go the extra mile, they want to help but the default is that everyone in this country is some kind of cheating chancer out to rape the national riches. So everything is hard. Forms must be filled, records must be collated, you must provide evidence of something that you have you have no bloody chance of producing.

They, the nabobs, speak about an educated workforce, they claim that the money is there, true, it is. It's just that the people that it is meant for and who would benefit from it, find it hard to get it.

I'll get it I suppose but I'd rather that my twenty-one year old neice got it.

But if he could he would have; playing the role of victim, rather than that of the arch-liar which he was.

"Is anyone available to work this weekend?" A 'tell' as I think they say in poker, he wouldn't have asked unless he knew that he was on shogglie ground. He was the kind of guy who usually gives orders.

I wasn't going to make this easy for him.

I'd brought, just this, possibility up from the first. He, the boss of the cock-up, had to finish by [... a date...] so that I could arrange clean-up. Then he'd laughed, "...of course...". He was confident, even a touch condescending, he beamed at the other stakeholders and shook his napper, as if to say, "get him!".

Of course then I was just the poor sucker who had to let them into the building, now I was a wee bit more than that: I was the poor sucker who had to let them into the building.

Now they were in trouble, this was near school-closing stuff: in the papers, serious fallout.

"No". As I said I was going to milk this.

"This is important you know". He unassumed the limp that he never had, ramped the voice and attempted a loom-over move in.

"To you yes, I couldn't give a fuck, it's your cock-up".

He was much bigger than me but I'd backed our conversation into CCTV territory, and while I doubted that security central was actually watching and would dispatch thugs directly, at least any attack on me would be taped and could be used in court.

He seemed temporarily mute. A man used to getting his way I felt. "I need authorization from someone in the council", I said.

This was a wee bit of a killer, overtime hadn't been written in to the contract, he'd have to admit he'd made a boo-boo, take a loss and more importantly he'd be flagged as unreliable in any future contract negotiations. I knew what was coming next.

"Is there...?" This was a cash-in-hand offer. Which while we aren't being taped for sound, as far as I know, I felt that the offer was best left unspoken. Easy enough to edit that tape to make me look bad.

I turned round and pointed to the CCTV camera, "see that? Well with that and the alarms, everything that we do in this building is monitored. Talk to {REDACTED}. I'll work, but only if he asks me to".

He gave me a look which I didn't understand. It was like some of the looks that dogs gives you, meant for you but something that you don't quite get.

He stomped off, I detected no sign of a limp.

Funnily enough today a lot of workmen arrived at eight and now we no longer require to work the weekend.

Mons.

First commonwealth causualty, last commonwealth casualty share a cemetry, can see one another. And there's the sneaking suspicion that Mons had become a metaphor rather than an active target.

So when you listen to people who think that it is important that Britan [sic] cuts a rug in the world with their nukes and stuff ask them the basic question, "did you to go to war daddy, or did you just send others?" Or perhaps, "You must have load a shitload of profit in Iraq, did you give one pence to our soldiers? did you give one jot of care? Are you an abject piece of shite?"

We are wallowing in child poverty but we can't tackle this because we need to remain a bully in the playground of the world.

When cameron shaves can't he see the blood dripping from his hands?

<this was going to be a comment but..>

Not a bully, worse. The little shit who hides behinds the bully.

For better or worse people care what we, brits, do, our proudest moment: we more or less stopped slavery. We had our bad moments too, we more or less started slavery.

But because of who we are we have argued about this, we have argued about everything, we have a nuanced attitude. we have knowledge and an idea what to do. And we dislike killing people, and yet our government seem to glory in blood.

In your british heart you know that we have the answer, and that the answer is to be tolerant, despite provocation; to try to understand the strange, to care about fellow-humans. And we know that those now in power hype provocation, and, and here it has to be said, behave like fucking Nazis. They put immegrants in camps. Is that something that we should thole?

How long before they come for you?

I'm watching a, what on the face of it, is a reasonable representation, of our reasonable selves. A nice BBC man in a pullover. He is complaining, nay, having a go at, nay pillioring some poor person who has claimed benefits. From the context it is clear that his victim, ie the Nazi claiming benefits is spawned from a certain kind of evil.

He used to have a mate who turned over these hateful bastards, what happened to him?

"They've taken great care to fake an actual consumer programme, it could contain a whole load of shite.", said Anne Robinson.

"They don't even seem to wink at the end." She added.

So why do the BBC continue to use him?

Murray versus Djocovik in the final.

Given that the semis were a wee bit special, what can we expect?

Let us, first, stress the both Murray and Djocovik would rather die than lose a single point. Let us also stress that both players desperately want this, they may like each other but they'd really think about offing the other's mother if they thought that it would make a difference.

Fortunately we are not there; we have two great tennis players going head-to-head. This has all the hallmarks of the best match ever.

For me it can't be too long, I hope for five sets.

I don't even need/want a Murray win; all I want is the best tennis match in history.

I popped off, a couple of posts, to the course forum, this evening. Postsa about things that only fellow geeks will love; the funny thing is that I felt comfortable for the first time in an age of the me. They were posts that interested me.

For example, I dislike regexes, I like to fight about my dislike of these because I'm aware that I've taken a position rather than that I am right; I wish to discuss. And for the first time in ages I'm involved in a discussion.

I joined the OU so that I could meet people who thought that I was an arse. To be fair I've met a lot of people who think just so. But the people that I want to meet are those who see past my innate arseiness. I suck at much, but there are bits of me which are sharper than flint.

Drunken dissolute that I am, I am the best JavaScripter here...is that good for something?

neo

Gets more gallus by the day. Today I opened the front door, to go to the shops, in it hopped, cheeping and casting a pair of baleful-eyes upon our decor as if to say, "what were you were thinking of?"

We've hollowed out a wee cave amongst the ivy on our inner fence, so that hem [He/her] can feed in peace; this is a playground, gulls and crows swoop and squall, every bit of food involves a fight.

My wife and I went into the garden with cheese, and various other protein-bits for said cave, hem hopped and cheeped his way along with us.

My wife took photographs as he fill his beak, I took in the crow, perched and watching on the guttering of our roof and the seabirds circling.

I'm not sure what to worry about most: my wife's desire to make our new friend a pet, or the resident fowl-life's desire to eat either hem or hem's provander.

I'm going to try this. This being a post about something that would hurt people in a big way but may not be flagged up at spy-central. So here goes...

There is very little that we can do in this modern world to hurt those in power; except to plant Japanese knot-weed in their gardens. The beauty of this scheme is many-fold: knot-weed is free to find, the very "we-know-where-you-live" technology that they use to scunner us works against them too [they have to put details down to legally rip us off] ,who spots a new plant in their garden if they only care about money?

It's not even against the law. To plant it in the wild is, but there is no ban on us propogating it in a domestic setting. Even if that domestic setting doesn't be happen to be my own.

A creeping horror, once it's in there's no way that they can get it out. Forget your poison or bomb plans, in fact forget any, people must die!, plans. If you have a plan that envisions killing people then you are wrong.

Once we start killing we stop thinking, actually, once we stop thinking we srtart killing is oft the case.

Simple gardening is enough.

This is an actual horror that I don't intend to perpertrate. If, the spooks don't visit me soon, then we can cry shite to their spy-catcher crap. For what I [seem] to be planning is out and out envioromental horror. Still who cares about global warming, that's lefty crap, only supported by scienists and people who don't make us money.

In fact japanese knot-weed is a metaphor for all that is wrong with our society, rampant, greedy, hard to eradicate and ultimately destructive to anything but itself.

What, or who, does that remind you of?

In any game, worth playing, that I've ever played there is a moment when the big think is needed. Indeed, when it comes to chess and the maybe protegee it's a vital tell—do they have it when the game is still in the balance, or after it has been lost?

I think that, OU-wise, the time has come for me to have my big think.

Paint it how you may, my third-level maths performance has been sub-woeful. Why? I think it comes down to simple feckless idleness on my part.

I understand maths when I'm doing it, it's just that I can't seem to do it under any type of pressure. I panic and flap, my mind goes into underdrive, I get basic things wrong.

Over the last few days my exam performance has been unravelling in my head; that question about the order of a centre of a group? Oops missed out an order, oops it was the order of the quotient group that mattered, oops, of course centres are normal [as they are Abelian]. Oops, five marks become one.

So should I change my degree? Not sure that's possible, what with all the change that's going on around here and do I want to? I didn't start out to do this because I need a degree, good or otherwise, this is me in piss-around mode. The problem baldly stated is: I assumed that I was cleverer than I am.

So we continue along the planned route.

And after we have walked that part of life?

Firstly we stop referring to me as we and we finish that bloody solitaire project that has been hanging around inside your head for so many years...

But I've been playing a wee bit of online Go...

I'm a basket case.

As ever I walked to and from my exam, which this time was a wee way; I reckon about eight miles (round trip), perhaps more.

The Hibees ground: Easter road, I haven't been there in a while, it's changed a bit. We were in the West stand where there was a good view of the pitch, but felt too hot. Still, it was plush enough. If I had a gripe it was that, obviously hired [as a janny who hires-out] examination desks were on the small side; I had to store various bits-and-bobs on the floor.

I was the only one doing M336, so I was the only one who failed last time, which I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about.

On my right were geologists, who had a wee bag of rocks to open; on my left were M263ers, which piqued my interest as it is a course that I've done myself, I'd have liked to know what they thought. But after the exam I could muster neither the energy nor the courage to ask any of them about it.

The exam, for me, started shakily, literally. Despite making sure, I thought, that I had lots of blood sugar, the walk and the adreneline-kick made me shake badly. I made this worse by heading for a question that, although I knew that I could do it required some accuracy. I wasted about twenty minutes before I gave it up as a bad job.

Fortunately by this time the lemonade was kicking in. Yup that's right I've changed my drink; I'm going for high-sugar. I think this worked.

By this time we were about thirty minutes in, the shakes had stopped and I had gotten into the groove. I did about seven of the part I questions pretty quickly. Enthused I tackled my two group theory questions; the first was OK, the second asked something that I had not jot one of a clue about for the b). So I went back to the question that I'd tackled first, this time I saw what was required and did most of the question well, I think.

Now I had about forty-five minutes to go [did I mention that the clocks were visible from anywhere?] so I tackled a couple of question where I could make a good guess about the structure of the answer.

Now I had fifteen minutes left. So I tackled the lattice question.

What I didn't do was to make a diagram. Five marks a-begging, I will get none. If five marks are important I will kill the hat that I don't have lest I eat it.

You walk home the, three-or-so miles with, regrets in your head. In fact there was a moment where some street-performer seemed to have arranged some group of tourists to cheer passers-by when people walked past. He must have been disappointed by my utter unreaction because I heard him doing it again. And such things amuse only a certain amount of times.

Tomorrow the numbers and similar woes.

My B minion is going to have the day of his life; his entire day will consist of providing me with a number of random numbers between intervals that I will provide. I will do all the jobs that we have to do, solo, to make me think about the numbers he gave me.

Does this sound mad? Well it doesn't seem so to me; Thurzday/Friday many of the questions will be mainly this.

I think that I'm close to getting fairly rubbish passes, which is about all that I can aim for .