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Coming to visit me in Merkin Land? HiFX.com Currency Converter shows how many Dollars your English "Pounds" will buy.

This page was last updated: Saturday, March 15, 2008 7:10 P

Saturday, March 15, 2008 7:10 PM

A couple more domains registered today urban-gomi.com and urban-encroachment.com.

Saturday, March 8, 2008 6:10 PM

It's been two years since I last updated this blog! A whole lot has happened since then. I'm probably to move to using Blogger so you can keep an eye on me here. That said I

want to keep these older pages as a matter of "record" - I've just been reading through them and reminded myself of a lot of things I'd forgotten!

Please make sure you undertake to do the same. To do that click on this link here.

Friday, March 3, 2006 2:30 PM

Wednesday, March 1, 2006 11:42 AM

A whole two weeks? Sorry :)

So, when DO The Who intend playing Spain? Come on you bastards, get your act together. I have no intention of going to Germany!

Weekend planned in UK from 10th March until late on the 14th but only Monday free to meet. Put your bids in now folks :)

Wednesday, February 15, 2006 11:39 PM

More than two weeks since the last update? Sorry. Busy. Heck, what can I say?

The Who play the UK. So, anybody want to join me?

Franz Ferdinand have confirmed they'll be playing the T In The Park festival in their native Scotland.

The band will play the event on the Saturday (July 8). It's their first appearance there since their 2004 debut, when they performed to the bash's biggest ever Main Stage crowd.

Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Who have already been announced as the headliners for this year's event .

The Chili Peppers will headline on the Saturday July 8 and The Who will headline on the Sunday July 9.

Saturday night sees the Kaiser Chiefs and Sigur Ros playing the main stage.

Primal Scream will headline the King's Tut Tent and Felix Da Housecat will headline the Slam Tent , both on Sunday.

Arctic Monkeys and The Ordinary Boys are also scheduled to play.

T In The Park 2006 takes place at Balado , Kinross near Glasgow .

Saturday, January 28, 2006 8:12 PM

In Memoriam

On Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members: flight commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee; pilot Michael J. Smith; Ronald E. McNair; Ellison S. Onizuka; Judith A. Resnik; Gregory B. Jarvis; and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.

Saturday, January 21, 2006 12:38 PM

ASBOs in the 17th Century? For non-UK readers this is an attempt by the British goverment to limit hassles caused by "chavs". Seems they had similar issues in 17th Century Italy!

"A 1659 Decree fixed to a wall in the Tartuca.

S[UA] A[LTEZZA] S[ERENISSIMA] E D' ORDINE DELLA MED[ESIMA], I SIG[NORI] ESECUTORI DI GABELLA [P]ER LORO BANDO DEL 17 7BRE 1659. HANNO ORDINATO CHE IN QUESTA STRADA, E NELLE CASE CHE CORRISPONDO IN ESSA CON PORTE, NON ABITINO MERETRICI, E DONNE DI MALA VITA, ANCHORCHE MARITATE, SOTTO LA PENA DI SCUDI DIECI.

HIS MOST SERENE HIGHNESS, AND BY ORDER OF THE SAME, THE LORD EXECUTORS OF THE GABELLA, BY THEIR DECREE OF THE 17th SEPTEMBER 1659, HAVE ORDERED THAT IN THIS STREET, AND IN THE HOUSES WHICH OPEN OFF IT, ARE NOT TO LIVE ANY WICKED WOMEN, OR WOMEN OF BAD LIFE, EVEN IF MARRIED, UNDER PAIN OF TEN SCUDI.

There are various versions of similar Decrees scattered around the city, identifying for us where the shady areas were in the 16th Century. His Highness is the Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Gabella was the principal tax gathering authority of the city. Ten Scudi was a considerable sum of money at the time."

A lovely image copyright to

Mark Ynys-Mon

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 9:29 PM

Alex St Clair obituary from the Times..

September 14, 1941 - January 5, 2006
Influential guitarist and founding member of Captain Beefheart's Magic
Band



ALEX ST CLAIR was responsible for bringing the voice of Captain
Beefheart to the world.
In early 1965 St Clair invited him to sing with his band at a
Californian college. Beefheart, who had never performed in public, went
on to become one of the most extraordinary and influential figures in
alternative rock.

As the leader of the first line-up of his Magic Band, St Clair played a
key role in helping to forge the radical sound on such seminal Captain
Beefheart albums as Safe as Milk and Strictly Personal.

Born Alexis Clair Snouffer in 1941, he grew up in Lancaster, a
satellite town of Los Angeles about 80 miles from the city. At school
his fellow pupils included Frank Zappa, leader of the Mothers of
Invention, and Don Vliet, the future Captain Beefheart.

While St Clair and Zappa both played in the high school band, Vliet was
a more retiring musician, concentrating on painting, although he did
add some vocals to early recordings with Zappa and St Clair.

In 1964 St Clair left town to take a job at a casino in Lake Tahoe but
on his return to Lancaster, he put a group together to play R&B covers,
with the guitarist Doug Moon, the bassist Jerry Handley and the drummer
Paul Blakely. He also asked Vliet to sing with them at their first gig,
a “battle of the bands” contest at Pomona College, Claremont,
California.

“I don’t think we knew how to play together but we knew we had
sufficient music in us to beat the other group,” St Clair recalled.

According to Beefheart’s own account, he told St Clair: “I never sang
anything. I don’t know anything about music.” St Clair said: “Tonight
you’re going to sing.” St Clair then told Vliet his voice was
undeniably “horrible”, but if they played the gig, it could only get
better.

St Clair also played a key part in the strange names that became part
of the Beefheart legend. When he decided to rename himself Alex St
Clair, Vliet followed suit, adding Van as a middle name. “We changed
our names because the police were after us for smuggling sponges into
Nevada,” St Clair claimed in a typical example of the zany humour of
the time.

Soon the group was known by the even more exotic appellation Captain
Beefheart and His Magic Band, and Vliet gave all of his musicians
pseudonyms of studied weirdness.

The band’s new name betrayed the shifting balance of power between the
two men. Initially Magic Band had operated as a collective, with
Beefheart contributing lyrics and St Clair taking the lead musically.
But Beefheart swiftly emerged as the dominant and ultimately
dictatorial personality, shaping the band to reflect his own musical
vision and his growing confidence as a writer and singer.

By 1966 the group had secured a recording contract and cut their debut
single, a version of Bo Diddley’s Do Wah Diddy, improbably produced by
David Gates, who went on to fame with the middle of the road soft-rock
group, Bread. The single attracted the support of John Peel, then
working as a disc jockey in California and who became the band’s most
ardent fan. But after a second single, A&M dropped the Magic Band.

With the addition of Ry Cooder on slide guitar, they then signed to
Buddah and in 1967 rerecorded the material A&M had rejected. The result
was Safe as Milk, a remarkable record that marked the first flowering
of Beefheart’s warped blues sound, but was also characterised by St
Clair’s impressive, staccato guitar playing.

He stayed for a second album, Strictly Personal in 1968, but after a
European tour St Clair left the band, to be replaced by Bill Harkleroad
(also known as Zoot Horn Rollo).

By then St Clair was married, and — uncomfortable with what he saw as
Beefheart’s rapidly expanding ego — was also looking for greater
financial security. This meant he did not appear on Trout Mask Replica
in 1969, one of the great cult albums, although given the stories of
what Beefheart put his musicians through during its recording, he may
well have regarded this as a blessing.

Yet he remained on friendly terms with Beefheart and after some old
sessions featuring St Clair had been belatedly issued on the album
Mirror Man in 1971, the following year he rejoined the line-up.
An apparently contrite Beefheart apologised in an interview for his
past attempts to “sculpt” his musicians in his own image. Yet the
rapprochement did not last long. After playing on the Unconditionally
Guaranteed album, St Clair left again in 1974 after a confrontation
with Beefheart over money that resulted in the entire Magic Band
leaving.

Beefheart did reach out one last time, when Vliet recorded the song
Owed T’Alex on the 1978 album Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), with
lyrics that recalled St Clair’s visits on a motorbike to see his mother
in Carson City in the 1960s.

Beefheart gave up music in the early 1980s to return to his first
passion of painting, and St Clair was never to play in a successful
band again.

In later life he worked as a gardener and a barman and he also spent
time in a rehabilitation facility. He was found dead in his apartment
in Lancaster, California.

Alex St Clair, guitarist, was born on September 14, 1941. He died on
January 5, 2006, aged 64.

Saturday, January 14, 2006 12:28 PM

After two days of torrential rain, today I can sun-bathe on my terrace, watching the sea slowly lap on the clean(ed) sand. Reading The City Of Falling Angels by John Berendt. Highly recommended!

Saturday, January 7, 2006 2:28 PM

Happy Xmas, Happy New Year. Rolling Stones booked for May in Barcelona and The Who are touring! 2006 should be fun. Apart from that, busy as a very busy thing. Thought I'd updated this more recently but looks like not. London maybe mid month. More later folks :)

Oh, the hotel in Barcelona? Here:

C/ Rambla del Raval, 4C- 08001 Barcelona
Tlf. +34 902 153 163 - Fax. +34 93 363 23 33

And this is the bar:

and the rooms:

Friday, December 30, 2005 9:46 AM

Useful additional menu options:

Sunday, December 25, 2005 00:01 AM

Egg nog binge shuts down ceebee.com :)

Happy Xmas to all my loyal readers! :) Have a great time and see you in 2006.

Friday, December 23, 2005 6:45 AM

You a US citizen (or even just live there)? You need to read this article in full then:

Tracked by cellphone
Mark Rasch, 2005-12-22

We know that technology can be used to track people's location via a cellphone, but how difficult is it for law enforcement to get a court order and do this legally?

An old physics joke recounts that Werner Heisenberg (of the uncertainty principle) is pulled over by the police for speeding one night. The police officer asks the professor, "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?" Heisenberg replies, "No, but I know exactly where I am."

Being tracked via your phone

Recent court cases in the United States raise the question of the standard required when the police want to know exactly where you are, using your cell phone to track you down. The issue again raises the question of how new technologies can invade privacy rights, and how quantitative changes in the type and amounts of data collected and stored result in qualitative changes in privacy rights. These require a reexamination of even established laws of privacy and of probable cause. These precedents also apply to entities like ISPs and telephone companies that routinely collect massive amounts of data about individuals which may be subject to eventual discovery or disclosure. It is important that we establish and apply the correct legal standard for obtaining this information now.

Whenever you carry (much less use) a cell phone that is turned on, the cellular network is constantly "scanning" to determine where you are so that it can route telephone calls to the appropriate cell location. By examining the relative signal strength of three of these cells, through a process called "triangulation" the cell provider can determine - with relatively low level of precision, where you are at any point in time. Other technologies employed by cell providers, such as those employed with E-911 services, can determine your location with greater precision. Finally, some cell phones are also equipped with GPS capabilities, which passively receive certain data from geosynchronous satellites to enable the phone (but not the provider) to determine its precise locations - often within a matter of feet.

This digital location information, coupled with high-speed internet access in some cell phones, can be a great boon to users. They can use cell phones to locate restaurants, theaters, or other entertainment in their area, make reservations or arrange for carry out as they travel. They might use such technology to locate family members, including children. In a disaster situation (assuming the cell towers continue to work), the technology might be useful in locating survivors - well, at least locating the survivor's cell phones. One can imagine their use by law enforcement agencies in kidnapping cases.

Such data is already being used by cellular providers to determine demand for and therefore location of new cell towers. It is not difficult to imagine the economic usefulness of this data as well. Cell providers can collect this information, link it to specific users as well as the demographic information provided when the subscriber initiated the cellular contract. They can then sell, lease or otherwise provide this information to third parties. In addition, cell providers are increasingly becoming indistinguishable from Internet Service Providers, as people use their handheld devices to access the Internet from anywhere. Thus, cell providers will have the ability to collect records of every place you have been, who you have talked to, and collect location and content of text messages, e-mails, web traffic, IP video and downloaded or streaming audio. It is time to set some rules on what information can be collected, and what can be done with all of this information.

Location, Location, Location

In at least three separate cases, the U.S. government has attempted unsuccessfully to obtain court order to require the cellular providers to provide them information about the location of a cellular customer gleaned from the triangulation of the signals they have received. This in and of itself is remarkable. When the government wants a court order to obtain a wiretap, a pen register, or to search for or seize documents or records, it files the paperwork ex parte and in camera. What this means is that only the government is represented. If the government believes that a certain law applies, it and only it presents the law to the magistrate judge. In fact, for virtually all such applications, the records relating to the application are sealed - either automatically by statute or as a matter of routine by application of the government. Thus, we have no idea how many times the federal government has gone to court to obtain cell phone location data and been granted the data, with no questions asked. The fact that three magistrates refused the government's request is itself amazing.

What the government was trying to do in these three cases, one in the Eastern District of New York (Long Island), one in Maryland, and one in Texas, was to obtain "prospective" cell location data. That is, they wanted the court to order the cell companies to tell them whenever a particular cell phone moved, where it went, and how long it was there.

It is important to note that all three of the courts recognized that the government could get this information if it needed it. All three courts also recognized that they had the authority to order such prospective cell location data. At issue was the legal standard the government had to meet to obtain the information.

Legal requirements for cellphone location information

Essentially, there are four legal standards for the government to obtain cellphone location information. First and lowest is a pen register or a trap and trace device. This is simply a record of the telephone calls made (from and to) and the time of each call. Because of an assumption that these are merely records of the telephone company, and therefore one can't possible have an expectation of privacy in such records, for a court to order the production of such records (even prospectively), all that needs to happen is for a prosecutor to certify that the records are relevant to some ongoing investigation. Indeed, with such a certification in hand, the court is not even permitted to question or challenge this - it MUST give the government the power to obtain the records from the provider.

Next on the list is stored communications and subscriber records. This would include things like stored SMS messages, stored e-mails, and the information provided to the telephone company when the customer created the account. To obtain these records, the government would need to meet a slightly - and only slightly - higher standard than the above. The government would have to demonstrate specific and articulable facts as to why such records are relevant to an ongoing investigation. Congress made a distinction between communications in transmission or in temporary storage versus those that are incident to transmission and are actually stored. In the former case, the "interception" of the electronic communication is similar to eavesdropping on a telephone call, and in Congress' opinion the same kind of warrant should be required. For stored communications however, since the records already exist and are stored somewhere, its more like seizing a printed document (a printed e-mail). Thus, Congress presumed that a lower standard should apply.

A third standard applies for the installation of "tracking devices" to monitor the location of people or things. To install or monitor such a device, the government would have to show (albeit in an affidavit that the target never gets to see or challenge in advance) that it was more likely than not that this would reveal evidence of some crime by somebody - and not necessarily that the person being tracked was committing a crime.

Finally, as noted above, the highest standard is for the interception of the contents of communications (voice or electronic) in transmission. These warrants can be issued either on a finding of probable cause by a regular court, or on certain finding by a special intelligence court, or as recently disclosed by the New York Times, by executive order and with no warrant (as was done with the National Security Agency).

Government argues "real time" electronic data doesn't exist

In the New York, Maryland and Texas cases, the government wanted to track the location of cell phone holders in advance under the lower standard of simply demonstrating some facts as to why they wanted it, rather than the slightly higher standard of providing probable cause. They argued that the records are merely stored records of "communications." The courts in these cases pointed out that the signal being measured (for signal strength to determine location) was not a "communication" under the statute. The government then argued that, despite language in the statute mandating that phone companies cooperate in pen registers or trap and trace installations (the infamous Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA), which stated that "the authority for pen registers and trap and trace devices cannot be used to obtain tracking or location information…" that they could get such information under a lower standard than probable cause.

The next government argument is somewhat astounding. The courts all agreed that the lower standard of "articulable facts" would apply to the disclosure by the cell phone company of "historical call site information." That is, if your phone company retained records of where you were, the government could get them with a subpoena, a search warrant, or even a warrant on a lower standard. Indeed, the court recognized that the government could demand that the phone company retain and not destroy such records in anticipation of a later court order. The higher "probable cause" standard applied only to the creation and dissemination to the cops of records that didn't yet exist. This is where the astounding argument comes in - the government claimed (with a straight face, no less) that as soon as the cell towers in question determined your location and recorded this fact, these were now "historical" records subject to the lower standard. Thus, according to the government, there is no such thing as "real time" data or even data "in transmission."

As a technical matter, this is likely true. Indeed, I have argued that there is no such thing as interception of packets "in transmission." The packets have to be stopped, copied, and reassembled to be read. Nevertheless, the law makes a distinction between historical data and real time data. That the government would seek to extinguish this distinction in this case does not bode well for the government's position in other cases. The government could then argue that it could listen in on your VOIP calls with nothing more than a subpoena (for which no probable cause is required) because all it is doing is looking at "historical" packets - albeit merely hundredths of a second in the past. This is clearly the opposite of the delicate balance Congress sought to strike. Thus, it appears that the government is seeking to convert all interceptions into seizures of "historical" data, and adopt the lower standards for such data.

What about your privacy?

All of this discussion is somewhat beside the point, however. The real issue is whether people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the location data in the first place. As a general rule, the U.S. Supreme Court has adopted what I call the "breeze rule." Effectively, if I am outside (and can feel a breeze), I probably don't have an expectation of privacy in what I am doing. Thus, if I am growing pot in my backyard with a 20 foot un-scalable fence, the cops with a helicopter and a telescope (or, presumably a geostationary satellite and a keyhole telescope) can monitor me without probable cause or a warrant. If I am walking or driving down the street, the cops can follow me without a warrant or even suspicion. The same goes for using technology to enhance the ability to search. Thus, drug, money or explosive sniffing dogs can sniff me, my briefcase, my car, and presumably my house (if there is no trespass to do so) without any legal restriction. If I walk into my house however, the Supreme Court has ruled, the cops can't for example use and infrared detector to monitor my activities in the house without some kind of warrant.

Thus, the cops can follow me around, either directly or using technology. If they use their eyes, binoculars, a telescope, a helicopter or other similar technologies, they don't need probable cause or a warrant. If they install a tracking device on me, however, they do need probable cause. But what do they need to simply obtain records from the phone company (whether in real time, slightly historical or historically) to accomplish the same thing?

The real problem here is that the cell phone providers have the ability to collect, store, collate and aggregate location data on hundreds of millions of people. These records then become a commodity: subject to use, sale, transfer, subpoena or other discovery. In past cases, the government (with a warrant) has turned on people's On*Star GPS tracking and telephones to track them and listen in on their conversations. Technically, the government isn't "installing" a tracking device on you - it is merely retrieving the records of a tracking device you didn't know you already had. What this means is that Congress needs to step in and establish guidelines for both private, public, law enforcement and intelligence acquisition and use of this passive tracking information. Will they do this? As Dr. Heisenberg might say, it's uncertain.

Thursday, December 22, 2005 9:07 AM

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No new content, blah, blah, blah :) Google won't like me. You won't like me. Just too fsck'ing busy ATM, so much to do before year end. Promise to do something then with all the 'photos and writings that I've got stashed away.

Thursday, December 15, 2005 10:31 PM

Sunday, December 11, 2005 10:07 AM

Right, spent today moving the large amount of photos around discarding the ones that were useless or out of focus or unrecognisable inc. shots of the volcano spewing lava unfortunately :( I'll be putting those onto Flickr (my area is in this link) within the next 24 hours and am finishing off the highlights report ready to go up here in hopefully the same time-scale!

Wednesday, December 7, 2005 0:09 AM

Yes, I know! Sorry folks. Just back to Spain with lots of catching up to do. Bad Net access in Costa Rica (READ: slower than a piece of wet string in a hurricane!), so no chance to keep this thing uptodate but from tomorrow that'll be rectified.

Monday, November 21, 2005 9:55 AM

Great week at work and also had some really fun times at Kennedy Space Centre on Saturday PM and then on Sunday off to scare ourselves to death at Universal Studios and some of the most exciting rides I've ever been on :) Lots more photos to come, including one of me standing beside a real, live Saturn 5. Since childhood, I've wanted to go into space, so much so that if I was offered a chance to go today with no gurantee of a return flight, I'd take it like a shot!

Thursday, November 17, 2005 9:51 AM

Sorry for the lack of updates, Michael & I have been really busy here in Orlando. Weather has been fantastic. Strange wild-life here. Armadillos running round behind the office. "Football roadkill" as they call it in the office. Hadn't really realised how flat Florida is. We're some way away from the Everglades but it's still incredibly green & verdant. Managed to get lost on numerous occasions driving around - neither Michael nor I seem to be able to work out left from right or East and West. We don't appear to have done anything illegal (well, apart from a U-turn that I think may have been pushing the envelope!) and they drive so slowly here that driving into somebody wouldn't cause any damage. The limit is a maximum of 75mph for Heaven's sake! Most areas it's around the 40/50 mph mark, so you find yourself continually taking your foot off the accelerator and just coasting.

Monday, November 14, 2005 11:37 AM

Finally arrived in Orlando! 24 hours late, thanks to a system wide (all London airports) failure of their on-line check-in systems. By the time the manual processes had been worked, the crew had gone over their legal hours so we were forced to spend a night in the Hilton at Gatwick. Chaos! Finally left on Sunday (unfortunately too late for Austen's party), arrived at Orlando at about 5.30pm and were picked up by the delightful Jasmine and the even more delightful Tara from the office and delivered to our hotel. Checked in, grabbed a quick shower and then off to Charley's for the most enormous steaks I've ever seen in my life and a great wine list. Slept for England and woke about 7am to get ready for the office.

Beautiful day here, not too humid, no clouds and spent the trip to the office gawking at all the sights. More later.

Wednesday, November 9, 2005 8:26 PM

A wonderful spoof from Owen Barder licensed under a Creative Commons licence:

	News Sport Weather World Service Languages

Low Graphics version | Change edition	Contact us | Help

News Front Page World UK England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales Business Politics Health Education Science/Nature Technology Entertainment ----------------- Have Your Say Magazine In Pictures Week at a Glance Country Profiles In Depth

Last Updated: Monday, 1 April, 2006, 12:51 GMT E-mail this to a friend Printable version Blair announces abolition of elections Mr Blair said he had been advised by the police 'We cannot risk changing course now', Tony Blair said today, as the government published proposals to cancel parliamentary elections. Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, the Prime Minister said that "even the chance of a change of government would be a victory for the terrorists". "We must not let them change our way of life", said Mr Blair. "Terrorism will not be defeated until our determination is as complete as theirs, our defence of freedom as absolute as their fanaticism, our passion for our way of life as great as their passion for tyranny." Advice from the police Mr Blair said that the police had advised him that elections would be dangerous. "They would divert attention from the war on terror", he said. "If the public chose a new government, that would be a victory for terrorism. We must not take that chance. Holding elections would be contrary to the strong advice given to us by our security services and our police, and I am simply not prepared to do it." "This is not an issue to play around with," he said, accusing critics of trying to generate a propaganda victory for terrorists. "The civil liberties of the majority who need protection should come first," the prime minister said. There had to be a "very good reason" for politicians to say to the police, "no, we know better than you", he argued. Conservative leader David Davis said that his party would fully support the government's proposals. "We recognise that times have changed", he said. "The most important liberty is the right to life, and we have to accept that some of our other liberties must be curtailed. Mr Blair has announced that MPs will in future be nominated by the Government. He is under pressure from backbenchers to create a Parliamentary Appointments Panel to advice on nominations. But a Downing Street spokesman ruled out any concessions: "We have to be make sure that only properly vetted people are appointed", he said. The security services and the police are advising us that we need to take these unusual steps to defeat those who are planning and plotting terrorist activity in our country Tony Blair Home Secretary David Blunkett, whose return to front-line politics has caught Westminster by surprise, said that "middle class do gooders are putting our lives at risk". Speaking to the Sheffield Echo, he said "They complained when we abolished trial by jury. They complained when we introduced detention without trial. They complained about the introduction of ID cards. They wanted us to stop using evidence obtained by torture and to end rendition. But the vast majority of hard-working families up and down the land don't want all these procedures: they want speedy and effective justice. They are fed up with the civil liberties lobby crying wolf. " Stan Miner, MP for Yorkshire North, said he would reluctantly support the idea. "The Prime Minister would not be proposing this unless he had clear advice from the intelligence services", he said. Angus McFaddyn, who represents a constituency in the Scottish highlands, said that he too would be supporting the Government. "This is a necessary evil in England and Wales", he said. "I am pleased that the Government has accepted that, with the lower risk of political instability here in Scotland, we should to continue to hold elections." Addressing MPs at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons, Mr Blair added: "What I have to do is to try to do my best to protect people in this country and to make sure that their safety and their civil liberty to life come first, and that is what I'm going to try to do." E-mail this to a friend Printable version BBC NEWS: VIDEO AND AUDIO Watch scenes from the last ever parliamentary debate KEY STORIES Clarke says elections pointless ID cards will 'help to keep track' MI5's 'torture' evidence revealed Four terror suspects bailed Lords consider 'torture' appeal Judges 'could get detention veto' ANALYSIS AND BACKGROUND Muslims: Their fears heard? At-a-glance: New terror plans Ringing changes on phone taps HAVE YOUR SAY WHILE YOU CAN Your views on end of elections IN DEPTH UK terror threat How freedom helps terrorism London attacks Be very afraid RELATED INTERNET LINKS: Labour Conservatives Liberal Democrats The OMB is not responsible for the content of external internet sites TOP UK POLITICS STORIES NOW Blair announces end of elections Tory rivals aping Blair, both say Terror 'fears gripping UK' Clarke apology in terror debate | WTF is RSS?

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 10:03 PM

Packing for the USA now. 10 days from Friday in the Orlando, Miami and Dominican Republic offices, then 12 days with Val in Costa Rica. Want anything bought back? Put your wish list in now!

Couldn't afford the car

so bought the pen instead:

Sunday, November 6, 2005 6:36 PM

I realise I'm, in comparative terms at least, "old" but having Iggy Pop advertising everything from a car to a Nick Cage film in the space of five minutes is a little bit scary. So is reading the contents of my iPod. 500Mb plus on generally "old" stuff. Just like the Teds idolising that one time in their life (Elvis etc.) when it all came together (sex, music, life) and that I used to both sympathise with and simultaneously decry so much.

Easy to do this. Not interesting, but easy.

Saturday, November 5, 2005 1:22 PM

Sorry folks, really, really busy. Trip to UK and blown away by how good Microsoft's CRM and BizTalk is. More news and updates later.

Monday, October 31, 2005 8:56 AM

Quiet weekend. Lovely massage from Veronica (with Michael in attendance!).

Work has finally started apace on the building site below us:

Friday, October 28, 2005 8:58 AM

From the inimitable P.J. O'Rourke ©, "Third World Driving Hints and Tips

It's important to have your facts straight before you begin piloting a car
in an underdeveloped country. For instance, which side of the road do they
drive on? This is easy.
They drive on your side. That is, you can depend on it, any oncoming
traffic will be on your side of the road. Also, how do you translate
kilometers into miles? Most people don't know this, but one kilometer = ten
miles, exactly. True, a kilometer is only 62 percent of a mile, but if
something is one hundred kilometers away, read that as one thousand miles
because the roads are 620 percent worse than anything you've ever seen. And
when you see a 50-kph speed limit, you might as well figure that means 500
mph because nobody cares. The Third World does not have Broderick Crawford
and the Highway Patrol. Outside the cities, it doesn't have many police at
all. Law enforcement is in the hands of the army. And soldiers, if they feel
like it, will shoot you no matter what speed you're going.

Learning to drive like a Native
It's important to understand that in the Third World most driving is done
with the horn, or "Egyptian Brake Pedal," as it is known. There is
a precise and complicated etiquette of horn use. Honk your horn only under
the following circumstances:

1. When anything blocks the road
2. When anything doesn't.
3. When anything might.
4. At red lights
5. At green lights.
6. At all other times.

Animals in the Right of Way
As a rule of thumb, you should slow down for donkeys, speed up for goats,
and stop for cows. Donkeys will get out of your way eventually, and so will
pedestrians. But never actually stop for either of them or they'll take
advantage, especially the pedestrians. If you stop in the middle of a crowd
of Third World pedestrians, you'll be there buying Chiclets and bogus
antiquities for days.
Drive like hell through the goats. It's almost impossible to hit a goat. On
the other hand, it's almost impossible not to hit a cow. Cows are immune to
horn blowing, shouting, swats with sticks and taps on the hind-quarters with
the bumper. The only thing you can do to make a cow move is swerve to avoid
it, which will make the cow move in front of you with lightning speed.

Actually, the most dangerous animals are the chickens. In the United
States, when you see a ball roll into the street, you hit your brakes because
you know the next thing you'll see is a kid chasing it. in the Third World,
it's not bills the kids are chasing, but chickens. Are they practicing punt
returns with a leghorn? Dribbling it? Playing stick-hen? I don't know. But
Third Worlders are remarkably fond of their chickens and, also, their
children (population problems notwithstanding). If you hit one or both, they
may survive. But you will not.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 1:03 PM

Why are men so bad at romance? No point asking me but this clip may make you laugh. Its a 2MB download, so take care if you're only on dial-up.

Monday, October 24, 2005 6:46 PM

Booked for the meeting with AT Comms here in Essex from the 2nd to the 3rd November..

Sunday, October 23, 2005 12:01 PM

Left work early on Friday as feeling so lousy. Gobbling lots of tablets in an attempt to stave off what is only a bad cold/cough and not Avian Bird Flu after all!

Up to the campo house. Dell and Harlee have been keeping an eye on the place and the flowers and plants have bloomed dramatically after their brush earlier in the year with the frost. Jason not in town, he's apprently setup a removals business, so was away "removing" but met D & H for a nice meal courtesy of Juan at the Bar Piscina. No gossip though, everything seems pretty laid back at the moment. Met the delightful (and, as always, beautiful) Carmen, back for a week on holiday from her teaching at a private school in London. Have her email and mobile now, so will stay in touch. Mariano is in Glasgow for his first trip outside Spain with Trish and Iris. Should have a great time shopping there.

Lunch today with Ray & Teresa (a full English roast which I haven't had for ages) - the quid pro quo is that I sort out her Skype problems :)

The Florida hotel Michael and I are booked into is here - looks like a nice place, with apparently, some really good bars!

Thursday, October 20, 2005 4:10 PM

Busy as a very busy thing. Must upload some shots of the work going on on the building site below our terrace.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 2:08 PM

How to Start Each Day with a Positive Outlook

1. Open a new file in your PC.

2. Name it "George W. Bush"

3. Send it to the trash.

4. Empty the trash.

5. Your PC will ask you, "do you really want to get rid of George W.
Bush?"

6. Answer calmly "yes," and press the mouse button firmly.

7. Feel better and vote in November 2008....

Tuesday, October 18, 2005 5:19 PM

Just uploaded a Google Site Map. Will be interesting to see what effect it has.

After two days of rain and cloud in Marbella, I'm getting bored with this English type weather! Bring back the sun please whoever took it? Thanks.

Sunday, October 16, 2005 7:57 PM

Luton Airport has to be the vent point of the universe. Spending 4 hours there after a flight from Nice (after a night at Cannes Casino with my namesake) isn't fun and I have no intention of doing it again.

The Nice office likewise is a change. I sooo love French food, wine and women!

Lots done there and some good friends made. Hope to be back there soon!

Sunday on the beach (less than sunny today I'm afraid) with a long meal at the chiringuito talking to Paccqui (and her boyfriend Paola who works for Ericcson), then home to wash the apartment of dust after the storms whilst I was away, loads of washing and a report to finish.

Oh, and bird flu may kill 50K+ people in the UK? Finally a few warnings are being given.

Why does e.g. MCR spend only 25% of their funding on male prostate cancer against female breast cancer when the incidence is the same?

A great mini-biog of Jon Courtney-Grimwood. The reason I post it? More books due this month inc. 9Tail Fox and End Of The World Blues ! Yeah! You may of course choose to buy these through the Amazon link above:

" Born in Malta, 10 weeks early following a water-skiing accident, he was kept from his family and cared for by Catholic nuns for the first week in case he died. During this period the ghost of a black-robbed priest was seen bending over his crib. Christened in the upturned bell of a destroyer, he spent his early years in a house on the walls of Valetta, Malta. Sent to an English boarding school at the age of 7, he retaliated by demolishing the heraldic beasts on a great wooden staircase in his frenzied search for (non-existent) buried treasure. Moved to another school, he lived for his summers spent in the Far East. His first brush with mysticism came when a fakir on a breach in Penang tried to teach him, without success, to turn a piece of driftwood into a snake and back again. He left school with enough O and As to get a place at Sandhurst, but refused out of sheer bloody mindedness. Following a year spent washing planes and plates in Oslo, he took an honours degree at Kingston in English, History and Philosophy. In the summer of his second year, managing again to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, he was on board an Italian train hijacked by fascists (or it may have been the red brigade, he wasn’t very coherent at the time). Finding himself next to a woman from the Chinese Embassy in London he joined her in singing the Red Flag, survived his own idiocy and later established diplomatic relations on the floor of a train to Copenhagen. A year later he joined book publishers Benn Brothers, and within 2 years rose by accident to head-up a production department. Still in his early 20s but rapidly developing an ulcer, he resigned and went to Spain, where he wrote a bad, unpublished novel. On his return he worked as a freelancer for Weidenfeld, writing captions, reading manuscripts and editing. Then in the early 80s he was offered the job of editor by Blandford Press and moved from London to Dorset. During the next few years, while working for BP, he wrote extensively for magazines and newspapers. In 1985 he wrote Mrs T's Bedside Book. Two more books, A Photohistory of the 20th Century and The Royal Bedside Book followed a year later. Mrs T's Election Bedside Book came in 1987. The following year he helped ghost Inside Intelligence, the memoirs of a MI6 man. Returning from a trip to New York, he found the Treasury Solicitor camping on his desk and discovered himself minus his job as publisher of Javelin Books (paperback division of United Newspapers). He spent the next two years dead for tax reasons. Eventually he settled on a job as fiction editor for a women's weekly, to which he contributed innumerable stories, before being fired when the company accountant discovered how much he was being paid. A stint as consultant editor at Boxtree followed where he commissioned novelisations of video games and graphic novels of Aliens, Predator, Spiderman, Wolverine and Ghost Rider. He then worked as "men's news editor" for women's glossy New Woman, while writing features for a number of men’s magazines including Maxim and reviewing Japanese films for Manga Mania. He now lives with his son in North London, tries to spend a month each summer at a small house in the mountains in Spain and is currently writing his fourth novel. When not working on books he writes for a number of glossy magazines/papers and designs web sites. He is also working on a TV series."

And finally, some more images from CR:

Thursday, October 13, 2005 5:32 PM

The business park is huge and we managed to get slightly lost both mornings driving in. Luckily we hadn't realised how big it was, stretching almost 20 miles along the coast or we'd have been more worried when we kept taking turnings leading us away from where we thought we ought to be. The map here gives you some idea of the scale.

And avian fly is now confirmed in Turkey, so I won't be visiting our office there for a little while!

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 3:37 PM

France office is fun. On a very large and inpenetrable jungle of a business park outside Nice. Hotel in the old town of Nice. Some fine restaurants there which of course we've had a brief opportunity to sample.

Saturday, October 8, 2005 1:40 PM

And two more trips, France for a couple of days at the beginning of next week and London for a couple in early November. Drove up early this AM to see John & Lourdes in Mojacar. Only took 2 hours and 35 minutes, nice fast trip as the roads were really clear. Couple of days of R&R :)

Friday, October 7, 2005 10:27 AM

Looks like a business trip to the USA, encompassing Miami, Florida and the Dominican Republic. A little bit of re-jigging of my flights to fit around this before I go to Costa Rica (i.e. cancelling the Gatwick - Atalnat leg) but in the USA from the 12th to 22nd November, then off to Costa Rica on the 23rd!

And this old joke of course doesn't apply to me:

Yuppie BMW driver pulls over in his new BMW to use a public phone, don't
know why, must have forgotten his mobile.
As he is getting back in the BMW a lorry speed past very
close by and rips the drivers door off. The BMW driver was distraught and
when a policeman pulls up the BMW owner shouts "Look what that lorry has
done to my beautiful new BMW."
Policeman replies "I don't know, you BMW drivers, all you think about is
your car, you haven't even noticed the lorry has also ripped your arm off"
The BMW Driver looks down at his missing arm and says "Oh God, not my Rolex"

Thursday, October 6, 2005 7:33 AM

Some more shots from Costa Rica, downtown La Heredia which despite appearances is an Intel centre for chip manufacture!:

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 11:13 PM

After a truly, truly shitty end to the day at the coal face for reasons I won't go into here, this made me laugh when I finally got home. Anybody who's offended can just FROAD:

A fleeing Taliban, desperate for water, was plodding through the
Afghanistan desert when he saw something far off in the distance.

Hoping to find water, he walked toward the object, only to find a
little old Jewish man sitting at a card table with neckties laid out on
it.

The Arab asked, "My thirst is killing me. Do you have water?"

The Jewish man replied, "I have no water. Would you like to buy a
tie? They are only $150. This one goes very nicely with your robes."

The Arab shouted, "Idiot! I do not need an overpriced tie. I need water!"

"OK," said the old Jew, "it does not matter that you do not want to
buy a tie. I will show you that you have not offended me. If you walk
over that hill to the east for about two miles, you will find a
lovely restaurant. Go! Walk that way! The restaurant has all the
water you need!"

The Arab staggered away toward the hill and eventually disappeared.
Four hours later the Arab came crawling back to where the Jewish man
was sitting at his table.

The Jew said, "I told you, about two miles over that hill. Could you
not find it?"

"I found it all right," rasped the Arab. "Your brother won't let me
in without a tie!"

Tuesday, October 4, 2005 9:36 AM

Busy weekend, in the office all day Saturday and Sunday. Hey, one day we'll have a period of calm! (Dream on Bulow!).

Those who know me will know how keen are my powers of observation. How then did I fail to notice that the BMW X3 had six gears plus reverse? Anyway, that minor omission aside, it runs really nicely and the CD player (currently playing The Ramones Live) is pavement rocking loud :) NOTE: for the USAnians out there, "pavement" is the correct word for "sidewalk" :)

Sunday, October 2, 2005 12:39 PM

Friday, September 30, 2005 2:58 PM

For those of you who missed out on the free release of DivX, it's here for download.

Thursday, September 29, 2005 1:32 PM

Don't forget Macmillan Cancer Relief's "The Worlds Biggest Coffe Morning". Register here and make another persons life better. Do it now!

Tuesday, September 27, 2005 11:34 AM

Email from John Allison of NYC. "And from a Bulow/Allison geosynchronous view, their wedding was held all of 24km from the Allison family home in Costa Mesa - still home to my brother, and frequent lodging to myself. Small world gets smaller every day." Small world indeed.

Monday, September 26, 2005 7:21 PM

Apologies folks, normal service will be resumed shortly. Incredibly busy weekend, so no time to keep this uptodate.

Sister Kate should by now be well and truly married. More news and photos later this week.

Friday, September 23, 2005 11:49 AM

Donald Rumsfeld is giving President Bush his daily briefing. He concludes by
saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in an accident'

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as
the President sits, head in hands. Finally, the President looks up and asks:

''How many is a Brazillion ??!'

Wednesday, September 21, 2005 9:00 PM

Sorry about the deathly hush. Busy clearing the house of the detritus that has accumulated and has been carried from house to house over the last 20 years or so. Plus the laptop PSU died a death, so no access to the laptop and only sporadic access via the kind offices of Jeff at the Deal Hoy to email. Plus, with the laptop dead in the water, the mobile couldn't be charged, so frantic calls on people to allow me to charge it from their car cigarette lighter!

Completed on the afternoon of the 19th - much stress and pressure dropped away when I could logon to my HSBC account and see the transfer going through.

Still at work as I type, so more later...

....later. Three days of dumping stuff at the tip, dropping off books and curtains and clothing at the Oxfam shop, finding a "man and a van" to take away all the rather lovely pine furniture that we hadn't time to sell, chasing the solicitor for news of what was happening whilst he gave a very good imporession of being deaf, dumb and blind. Jeez, I really do hate most of the members of that "profession". If I ran my work like that, I'd have been sacked or escorted off site in a very short space of time, whilst these sharks swan around (sorry for the mixed analogy) with all the time in the world whilst causing severe heart strain to their long suffering clients and then are the first to be paid when it finally comes to fruition.

Managed to see Jeff and Amanda who will be coming out soon, they promise :) Mum's fine and I stayed with her on Monday night just before she jetted off to the USA for the first time ever to attend Kate's wedding. And Aileen and Pete popped round for a drink - I donated to her the plants as she's kept them alive for the last 12 months or more as well as some alcohol and a rather lovely, delicate silver bracelet and ear-rings as a "thank you" for looking after the place whilst I've been away and for being such a good friend. Didn't get to London as, for once, the train system worked well and routed me via Tonbridge direct to the doorstep at Gatwick. Hopefully next time!

Deal is dead - nowhere to eat or drink at what I now consider a reasonable time i.e. after 10pm at night or before 10am in the morning. Sooooooo glad to be back here in Spain.

A couple of items turned up in the mess of drawers and cupboards that we emptied, including my Father's old watch and Zippo lighters, my first ever drawing from primary school, lovelingly annotated by Mother, my very first passport, issued just before my first trip to New York with a picture of me sporting a rather fetching (and frankly scary) Afro hair-do and a picture of me at a very tender age (12? 13?) in woolly tights performing in some Becket play at the Grammar School. You'll need to pay a lot of money to see either of the latter :)

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 8:53 PM

Won't be seeing any London friends I think, as they're all busy on the only day I can get up there and I'm rushing around as well. Great shame, but will aim to get in touch and plan further in advance for the next "home coming" visit.

Dull, cloudy and misty day here today. The surf is high as well. Beautiful moon though. Hope that's not a precursor for the UK! Plus I hear the lemmings are chasing around after any sniff of petrol as we're "running out" or "it'll all be blockaded soon" and the UK will collapse into the Dark Ages in a matter of days. Jesus. Is stupidity being bred into more and more English people? From here, it looks like it. Whilst I goggle at some of what the Spanish deem entertaining on TV, I despair about my fellow (ex) countrymen.

At least Aileen will be in Deal. Which is good news! We've missed her. Well, I certainly hope she is. After all, she has the keys to my house!

Bloody solicitors! I should have remembered how completely pants they are at (a) doing anything at all and (b) staying in touch. If you're selling in Deal, I don't recommend CM Robinson for your conveyancing needs. Joe at Bright & Bright, the estate agents, has on the other hand been a complete star. He and I have done all the work, told the solicitor who's said what to whom and generally agreed that if we could drop these leeches from the whole chain it would be a Very Good Thing Indeed. And for this they charge me over UKP800 plus VAT? fsckwits of the first order. There. That's off my chest. Must dig out that page of lawyer jokes soonest for your delectation.

Remind me some other time to tell you of the travails experienced with Spanish banks?

Back in touch with Mr John Allison of NY City. Hurrah! I promise to send you an email soon John. Honest guv.

Had enough of junk calls and telemarketers? Try this superb solution. Elegant and funny at the same time.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005 8:29 AM

I spoke too soon about the reduction in accidents! Rounding a corner, co-incidentally to the sound of the Stones singing the line, "you're driving too fast" from their new album, I see the normal hazard flashers blazing away and a lorry atop a car. Ambulances and police in attendance and the normal delays as the Spanish drivers exhibited their inherent desire for a sight of gore and slowed to a crawl!

A lot quieter on the beaches now; loungers being removed as the "holiday season" has finished. Far fewer people there at the weekend. And not a single overnight party all weekend either. The topless lady is still there every Sunday I believe however.

Sad news from Aileen - Scully died last night. Not sure of the reason, although possible kidney failure following ingestion of some form of poison has been suggested. I'll miss that dog, she was a lovely creature.

Full steam ahead planning for the house sale trip and, further down the line, for Costa Rica. Hope to be able to get all the old furniture out by the Saturday, leaving the house empty for completion on Monday. And then get the necessary jabs for all the many and varied diseases that conspire to kill me in Central America!

This is the "Ooops! List", a truly inspired collection of photos of that moment when you go "Oops" or words to that effect. Very funny and well worth a visit.

And two London friends, highly recommended:

Sunday, September 11, 2005 8:53 AM

Far less carnage on the N340 now that the tourists (both Spanish & foreign) have started leaving. I haven't seen an accident or the remnants of one for two or three days now.

Friday, September 9, 2005 11:53 AM

yeah yeah I know you've heard them before, but...
FROM BRITISH NEWSPAPERS!

1) Commenting on a complaint from a Mr. Arthur Purdey about a large gas
bill, a spokesman for North West Gas said, "We agree it was rather high
for the time of year. It's possible Mr. Purdey has been charged for the
gas used up during the explosion that destroyed his house." (The Daily
Telegraph)

2) Police reveal that a woman arrested for shoplifting had a whole salami
in her underwear. When asked why, she said it was because she was missing
her Italian boyfriend. (The Manchester Evening News)

3) Irish police are being handicapped in a search for a stolen van,
because they cannot issue a description. It's a Special Branch vehicle and
they don't want the public to know what it looks like. (The Guardian)

4) A young girl who was blown out to sea on a set of inflatable teeth was
rescued by a man on an inflatable lobster. A coast guard spokesman
commented, "This sort of thing is all too common". (The Times)

5) At the height of the gale, the harbourmaster radioed a coastguard and
asked him to estimate the wind speed. He replied he was sorry, but he
didn't have a gauge. However, if it was any help, the wind had just blown
his Land Rover off the cliff. (Aberdeen Evening Express)

6) Mrs. Irene Graham of Thorpe Avenue, Boscombe, delighted the audience
with her reminiscence of the German prisoner of war who was sent each week
to do her garden. He was repatriated at the end of 1945, she recalled.
"He'd always seemed a nice friendly chap, but when the crocuses came up in
the middle of our lawn in February 1946, they spelt out 'Heil Hitler.'"
(Bournemouth Evening Echo)

Wednesday, September 7, 2005 11:46 AM

A further dash to the hospital with Val as she was in so much pain. Puked in the car but bravely missed the upholstery and contained the fluids in her skirt! Further blood tests, X-Rays and a final diagnosis of both a small stone (which has now been passed) and a kidney infection and together they were causing her a major amount of pain. She seems to be much, much better now, I assume just waiting for the kidney to come back to its normal size!

A friend sent me this "Public Service Announcement": "If you sell your old mobile phone it is a good idea to clear the phone memory first. It is a particularly bad idea to leave the SMS memory full of messages which reveal that you are arranging assignations with multiple girls at any one time. It is an even worse idea to leave the land line number of your drug dealer - clearly labelled as such - in the phone book.

Roger - who has just bought a second hand mobile."

Is it too early for this? I don't think so:

The tattooist entrusted with the work on my latest work of art is here, called La Geisha Tattoos.

And this is my next vehicle, the BMW X3:

Monday, September 5, 2005 8:42 Woken at 3.30 AM as Val in lots of pain again. A quick dash to the Costa Del Sol Hospital in Marbella. And a less quick wait for all the tests (blood, urine, X-Ray etc) to be undertaken and processed. Finally got home at 8.30 after the kidney was pronounced fit and healthy but likely to have a very small stone, so "the patient" needs to make sure that she takes in at least 3 litres of water aday in an attempt to flush it out. If not, then probably an ultra-sound smash will be needed. But good news as Val was fearful that she might have something more serious wrong with the kidney.

As I type, some pasta is cooking as I'm starving! And Val's asleep in the sofa.

Off to work after I've eaten but probably a reasonably early night beckons :)

No idea how many generations of wild cats we've seen born below us on the waste ground since we arrived back in April but there are yet another 5, jet-black kittens, bouncing around now.

Sunday, September 4, 2005 2:42 PM

Forgot to mention that the house sale is confirmed for completion on the 19th! Assuming that the buyers don't drop out at the last minute, that is. Why we don't get a 10% deposit in the UK, I don't know! So, back to UK between 15th and 20th of this month. Hopefully, in between moving and dumping and packing (want to make sure my lovely pictures get safely packed & despatched), will have time to catch up with old friends and family.

Worked all weekend and Ray arrived yesterday to finalise cabling. We had major problems finding the actual block in which his apartment was located (every other one apart from Block 1, Apartment 1611!), so after driving around miles of unlit and un made-up roads and virtual building sites of developments, we decided to call it a day (as it was early morning), so he stayed over last night (we got home around 1pm!) and then straight into work for 7am. Knackered. And an early start also tomorrow :( I hope that I get a chance to go to the beach next weekend. Obviously, only to improve my tan ready for Costa Rica and absolutely nothing to do with the plethora of topless Spanish ladies parading or laying around!

Val had to go to hospital on Friday night (I drove her into Fuengirola and we found a great little Emergency place open) as the kidney infection had got worse, despite her self-dosing with antibiotics. Luckily after a couple of hours she was well enough (having been pumped full of strong antibiotics and even stronger happy juice which caused much mirth as she staggered around and giggled!) to come home. She seemed a lot better when I left today. Good that it was before her visit to Costa Rica.

Did you think that Steve Ballmer would love Google? Of course not! "In a sworn statement made public Friday, Mark Lucovsky, another Microsoft senior engineer who left for Google in November 2004, recounted Ballmer's angry reaction when Lucovsky told Ballmer he was going to work for the search engine company. At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: 'Just tell me it's not Google" Lucovosky said in his statement. Lucovosky replied that he was joining Google.

"At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office," Lucovosky recounted, adding that Ballmer then launched into a tirade about Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google." Schmidt previously worked for Sun Microsystems and was the CEO of Novell."

Saturday, September 3, 2005 4:42 PM

The beautiful invitation from Kate Bulow and Tom Earle (apologies for the crap scan, this is lovely in the "flesh"!) to their wedding dropped onto the mat at work:

A writer put these words to paper in 2004:

"It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana,
the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured
outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those
inside paid silent homage to the man who invented
air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a
hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there:
Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as
hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the
city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than
a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000
remained, however--the car-less, the homeless, the aged and
infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any
excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead,
pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water
crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake
and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies
below sea level--more than eight feet below in places--so the
water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick
ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth
Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District,
until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon
Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25
feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto
roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated
by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the
flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited
to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by
then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment,
a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was
the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't--yet. But the
doomsday scenario is not far-fetched.

- Joel K. Bourne, Jr., Writing in the October 2004 National
Geographic."

His imaginary scenario took less than a year to
come true.

Friday, September 2, 2005 8:39 PM

Terrible sights and news from New Orleans and surrounding areas. This page is the official site for the city, normally with news of tourism and other good things. At the moment, it's filled with very sad updates about how this city is quite literally sinking.

One wonders quite why it's taken 3 days to even start getting some aid into this area. If this was Iraq, they'd have pin-point bombed the entire area within a few hours. Is it because it's not a white, financial city but instead a black, poor area that everybody from Shrub on down seems to be saying things will get better instead of actually doing anything?

Busier than I have ever been in my entire life. I gobble stress every minute. And gallons of fine coffee. But it's still fun.

And finally, a warm welcome back to everybody who's been on holiday in August and are now drifting back as visitors to the diary.

Monday, August 29, 2005 4:46 PM

I've got me an iPod, so a very big vote of thanks to all my friends in Marbella who clubbed together and bought me one for my birthday together with a bottle of cava and some good red wine. Thanks guys and girls. I'm very touched :) Am now busily filling it up with ripped MP3s from my CD collection and will spend tomorrow on the beach listening to Spurts the new Richard Hell and the Voidoids collection!

Sunday we drove to Mojacar to stay with John and Lourdes, along the coastal N340 through mile after mile of plastics. Some bits of dual carriageway where you can reach up to 220Kph but still large stretches where it's down to single lane traffic behind a lorry and negotiating extended sets of traffic lights. The new road, still being built (which has been the source of much local discontent!), can be seen in parts with massive towering bridges spanning heart stopping drops. Once complete it'll take this trip down from 3.5 hours to closer to 2 which will be a boon. You can still see the even older road that hugged the cliffs and that must have made this drive even scarier and slower 20 years ago.

The plastics are used to force grow vegetables and fruits and stretch from the shoreline right back up to the foothills. Not the most attractive area in the world by any stretch of the imagination but apparently, the per capita here is the highest in Europe! Once past that you reach the very wild and barren hills of Almeria and finally, Mojacar, which until about twenty years ago was a deserted village with barely a property in sight. It's now a wild beach with even wilder night venues and bars. Managed to find two good restaurants and at lunchtime a delightful cave bar with fantastic decor and food where we managed to get slightly drunk whilst looking out over the fantastic view into the valley. It seems to have attracted that sort of English person who's as thin as a pin after 20 years of drinking all day, every day, with no food and having been lucky enough to have bought a property for 2 shillings back when there was nobody else here and have managed to hang on ever since!

Bought a gold Indalo Man - apparently it's been a good luck symbol for over 12,000 years, so here's hoping:

Spoke to Mum who sounds fine and excited about her trip to Kate's wedding. I really don't think I'll be able to make it. The house sale should complete around then and Val is off to Costa Rica, so need to be available for both of these. A real shame but Kate understands and I'll be there in spirit.

Speaking of which, I'm designing my last tattoo - to celebrate Liz, who if she was still around would laugh like a drain and tell me not to be so stupid! But am asking a friend who translates Arabic to transcribe it into that language for me and then off to a local emporium to have the last damage done to my body!

And equally strange heiroglyphs are being painted on the building site below us in blue and orange:

Friday, August 26, 2005 11:30 AM

Looks like I won't be able to make London next week :( The house sale seems to be going through OK, so will have to pop over in a couple of weeks to arrange for furniture to be sold/stored/dumped.

And it's my birthday on Monday!

Thursday, August 25, 2005 12:16 PM

Don't try this at home folks but here's an hilarious record of how to light a BBQ with LOX (liquid oxygen).

This one should have you exploding coffee over your keyboard or partner depending on where you read it. Copyright and all credit to Joe Wall 2005 whose other LJ entries are here as well: