Comments - Come One Come All

 I’m pleased to see some comments on this old blogspot.

The main point I want to make is that my comments and opinions are my own and I don’t expect everyone, or anyone, to agree with them, neither am I in the business of proselytising. The main purpose of this avenue of publication is provide me with an outlet to say the kinds of things which our increasingly politically correct society attempts to deny me.

Please do feel free to comment – for or against- and, provided they are not obscene, or illegal I’ll happily publish them.

One thing I would say about comment is that I don’t appreciate those who choose to take the cowards option of pontificating for the safety of anonymity. If you have an opinion at least be brave enough to “sign-up” to it.

In answer to Kirsten comments on “Sod Your Bike – Mind My Car!:

Yes Kirsten you are correct I am “quite angry”. I am also somewhat surprised by the naivety of your arguments in support of the parasitic lycra clad loonies infesting our fair highways and byways . You state:

“Cyclists pay for the roads - and cycle paths - via income tax and council tax, just like everyone else.” So, are the people who don’t have cycles and are paying the same taxes as cyclists subsidising them? If so why should they? You could, by this argument also state that the group who don’t have a car or a bike are subsidising both, howeveras the motorists ARE paying it’s the cyclists who are getting all the freebies.

“as bikes cause so little wear and tear on the roads, you could argue that actually cyclists are paying far more than their fair share of road costs”
My point was not about ‘wear and tear’ but about the amount of congestion and consequent pollution cyclists cause by clogging up an infrastructure they do not directly contribute toward.

“Are you going to argue that "green" cars should be banned from the roads because they're zero-rated too? “
No – only that they should bear the burden like the rest of us. If you really want to know what I think of the militant Green lobby see my blog http://mistermerlin.blogspot.com/2008/08/eco-warriors-please-dont-represent-me.html

“cyclists are on the road as of right, as are pedestrians and horse-riders.”
With rights come responsibilities. My argument is for cyclists to shoulder their share of their responsibilities not just expect the car drivers to pay for them.

“Roads were actually built to facilitate easier cycling, long before the nation became obsessed with cars.”
I think you will find that history shows that the practical modern cycle and the motor car are virtually contemporary. I’m not sure if you proposition can by supported by the facts? Cycling has almost always been a leisure activity rather than one of the great drivers of commerce and it is the generation of wealth and investment brought about by the motor car which, I would contend, has lead to (and paid for) the development of better, mettled roads.

“As for your remarks about accidents - do you know how many pedestrians have been killed in collisions with cyclists in recent years? Less than 10, and there's nothing to say the cyclist was at fault in all of them, no matter what your own prejudices. Do you know how many pedestrians are killed by cars on the pavement? More than 10 a week. There is a killer on the roads, but it's not cyclists.”
My point was not about the number of accidents caused by either side but that fact that cyclists seem to be increasingly immune from the consequences of their actions. You may note that I only argued for a ban on cyclists “until they are forced into obeying the rules like the rest of us (motorists) and, more importantly, are made to pay for their privilege of sharing the roads with us “

As for my prejudices I am please to say that they remain my own. 

Okay - So I'm Now Officially Old

Okay, so maybe it is me and I am officially getting old. The problem seems to be that I am increasingly at odds with the current manifestations of modern society. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pretty computer savvy and fairly techno-literate, I like to think that I have a reasonable grasp of current events, politics and the current economic disaster that is Labour party politics. It’s just that as soon as I turn on my television, or radio, I seem to be seeing and hearing a picture of a society that I no longer recognise.

Firstly I no longer agree with what I perceive to be the modern interpretation or definition of “celebrity”. As I said in an earlier Blog, I believe that there is a definite distinction between the modern concepts of celebrity and, what I believe used to be called fame. With fame, those people who are acknowledged, and indeed may be lauded, for their talent and/or abilities should always have a place in our society. Those who contribute to politics, the arts, science, sport or entertainment etc. deserve recognition, acclimation and applause. For me the problem is that we are now deluged with an increasing raft of people who appear to be “famous” for no more than being famous. What have these people actually done; what is their achievement; where is the evidence of their having paid their dues to the actual effort of learning their craft or profession?

Which leads me on to “The Apprentice”; I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. From the little I have seen of this sorry excuse for a so called ‘Entertainment’ program is filled with a pathetic bunch of sad “Wannabes” who think that they are “Already-ares”. I thought the whole concept of an apprentice was of someone who wanted to learn the skills of the master, i.e. someone who was prepared, in humility, to acknowledge their ignorance in order to be taught. What I seem to be seeing is a bunch of people who want to demonstrate that they already know it all and that they are better than the other know –it-alls against which they are competing. For me this program is not about who would make the best apprentice, it’s about who has the greater hubris. What I don’t understand is, when did hubris become a virtue?

The second thing that is exercising my mind at the moment is the total erosion of our civil liberties. Those who know me, even a little will testify that I am not, by any means, a bleeding heart liberal. I am however at a loss to understand how we have arrived at a state where the police can kick down anyone’s door at 4 a.m.  and then be incarcerated for 28 days without, apparently, any evidence of any crime or offence having been committed. Over the last couple of years literally hundreds of people have suffered this trauma, all in the name of the fight against terrorism. Then they have been released without charge. I find this confusing. If the police or the intelligence services believed that these people were guilty of an offence then surely they should have been charged and prosecuted. If, after 28 days the authorities have failed to find any evidence of wrongdoing then surely we should be told what the evidence was that caused them to act in the first place? What happened to the concept of “wrongful arrest”?

I know that we can’t turn the clock back and all go and live in St. Mary Meade next door to Miss Marple but can’t these excessive swings of the social pendulum be addressed and adjusted?

Celebrity Still Lives (Unfortunately). A Plea To Stop Emphasising With The Enemy

I have a piece of news for everyone.

Someone you don’t know and have never met, a young mother, has, sadly died.

How do you feel? Well I’m sure that, given the circumstances described you feel sorry for the family left behind and sad at the potential of a life cut short. I’m sure too though that the news won’t radically affect your everyday situation and having paused for just a brief moment you will move on with the rest of your day and never give the matter another thought. All of which, I think, is very right and proper, after all how do you empathise with someone you don’t know and have never met?.

Why then has there been this national obsession with the death of Jade Goody? Frankly my attitude is that, apart from a brief acknowledgement about the grief of her family, I care not one jot. Let’s get real here.  I did not know the woman, apart from the lurid details of her sad life which she managed to ram down the throat of my attention seemingly on every occasion. It’s not that I don’t care about Jade Goody (I don’t, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make) it’s that this national obsession with the lives of other people (so called celebrities) is, to my mind, total madness.

I’m not arguing for the eradication of fame. People who are acknowledged, and indeed may be lauded, for their talent and/or abilities have always had a place in human society. Those who contribute in politics, the arts, science, sport or entertainment etc. deserve recognition (as something of an actor myself I freely admit I do it for the acclimation and applause). I believe however that in the case of the famous it is their talent, ability or achievement which should be honoured, not merely their lifestyle. Having such individuals as role models and striving to emulate their achievements is a good and positive thing, I just don’t believe that empathising with a group of people who flaunt their excessive and decadent lives helps any of us in any way.  

Jade Goddy’s approach to and use of  her so called celebrity, like that of all the other parasites who live off the bloated, rotting, corpse-like body of “star publicity”, leaves me feeling as though a particularly unattractive, smelly, vagrant has suddenly whipped up their T-shirt and forced my face between a pair of wobbly, rancid breasts. I don’t care about how many drugs Amy Winehouse has taken, how much botox some sad old soap star has had injected into their face, or which drunken football player has shagged which silly girl in some over priced hotel room.

I do however have a circle of friends whose lives touch mine in ways that change and affect it every day. I hope too that I touch the lives of those I know. The fact is, that apart from this small group, the rest of the world’s population have very, very little relevance to my physical or emotional wellbeing. It is virtually certain that non of the ‘celebrities’ who parade themselves across the pages of the glossy magazines will ever affect or change my life in any way.

I think we should concentrate on those we know, love and can actually interact with, rather than these posing ponces who constantly, drunkenly debauch themselves across our televisions and newspapers.

Jade Goody, like that other rabid, ravenous, slathering put-bull of a publicity seeker Princess Diana, is dead. Jade, again like Diana, is someone you only ‘knew about’, not ‘knew’ in any real or meaningful sense. Don’t waste any emotion on either of these women, or any of their ilk, save it for those real people whose lives you are a part of. Show them you care; not about some fantasy idiot your saw on TV or in Hello magazine, but the real people who also care about you. Save you emotion, love and care for those you ‘know’ and stop emphasising with the enemy. 

Please Stop The Whining of The Bleeding Hearts

I am just sick and fed up of the increasingly long line of tragic and pathetic people who are paraded on our televisions and radios with some tragic story and who are used to promote a case that something or another should be banned, or a new law further curbing our ever diminishing freedoms should be enacted. 

“My child/husband/wife/dog/cat/hamster (strike out which does not apply) was run over by a drunk driver” is an example of their whining cry. Therefore, their so called logic dictates that all cars should only be driven at 30 mph anywhere, even on motorways (20 or 15 if past a school), and the sale of alcohol to anyone who has a car, or who even possesses a driving licence, should be stopped immediately. Why do people believe that an increasingly stringent set of ever growing rules, implemented and overseen by the thought police, will make our society totally safe? Another example of "shoot from the hip" law maiking was when some clearly deranged psychopath gunned down a class of school children. The reaction was to ban handguns for everybody – has this stopped gun crime, has it prevented anymore shootings? The knee jerk reaction of the imposition of yet more laws is not always the answer. 

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a total anarchist and I do recognise that in a civilized society some rules must apply. I realise too they have to be policed; however we seem to have forgotten that, in the main, people are ultimately able to regulate their own lives within a set of broad guidelines which we all recognise are for the common good. Just because some poor unfortunate has suffered a tragic accident surely it does not mean that the rest of us have to suffer the restriction of our choice and liberty? 

When will this control freak of a government realise that all the weapons it has tried to use to socially engineer our society,  to a point where we are all good little drones who think what we are told, are far too crude to achieve their goals and should really be classed as ‘weapons of mass destruction’?

Eco-Warriors, Please Don't Represent Me

This weekend (9^th – 10^th August 2008) has been marked by reports in the newspapers (Sky News, The Guardian, The Telegraph, etc.) of a mass protest at Kingsnorth Power Station in Kent. Apparently these “pals of the planet” are trying to stop the building of a new, coal powered generation facility on the site.

When will this bunch of Eco-Wallies realise that they do not represent the vast majority of the rest of us? No one voted for them, no one asked them, so why do they think they are empowered to represent "The People". They have obviously been deluded into thinking, just like our current excuse for a government, that they are our nanny and that nanny knows best. Now I know that the average member of the Great British Unwashed is barely capable of coherent speech let alone a cogent thought process, however they are I strongly suspect, happily content to be cocooned in the warmth, luxury and convenience of the benefits of twenty first century living. They don't need a bunch of alternative lifestyle extremists telling them how they should live their lives and frankly neither do I.

Ask any typical member of the common heard if they want to be Green and Eco-Friendly and they will probably answer in the affirmative. This is I suspect only because they have been brainwashed by our Big Brother “Central Soviet” government and their media spin doctors into accepting the “green – good, carbon –bad” doctrine. The government really doesn’t give a toss about saving the world, a superhero team Gordon Brown (PrattMan) and Alistair Darling (Dobbin) they certainly are not. What they and their leftie lackies are really concerned with is what label or cause can they use to introduce a whole range of new taxes and other revenue raising measures. What the underclass don’t of course realise is the actual cost to them of adopting the policies of the Gaia Fathers and Earth Mothers.

Leaving aside the direct and indirect tax burden for a moment (after all if you are on benefit you're not paying taxes anyway and the black market economy of illegally imported tobacco, alcohol and drugs are largely exempt) most people want to be able to switch on the light and the TV whenever they want. They want to turn up the central heating when it gets cold and the air conditioning when it’s too hot, they want chillies from India to make their curries and cheap designer trainers and hoodies from China. Taking on the doctrines of the Eco protesters would, for most of them, mean having to give up most of the supporting pillars of their sink estate lifestyle. Now ask the question if they want to be green or not – I suspect you’ll get a very different answer. It’s not just the lower orders either. The middle classes are also starting to count the cost of going green. Rising fuel costs, higher motoring taxes, the cost of air travel, are starting to make going green look a little like appearing sickly bilious. Just like the lower orders these parvenu's want things only a power and fuel rich economy can provide; strawberries for their dinner party in November, a skiing holiday in July and while hybrid cars many be the fashion accessory of the moment imagine dear Amanda telling Justin and Jocasta that they may have to swap their Range Rover Sport for a Toyota Prius for the school run. No; ask most non-involved, non-activists to pay the real cost of adopting the green agenda and any change to their lifestyle that would impose and support for it would evaporate even faster than a labour government can tax and spend.

I for one don’t want to live in a felt tepee in the middle of a muddy field subsisting on a diet of roots and berries which is what the adoption of the so called green agenda would ultimately mean. Personally I want it hot, air conditioned, microwaved, broadband, gas powered and preferably delivered in a 4X4 supercharged hummvee.

No; the shiftless, whining, pewling Eco warriors don’t represent the majority of us, they have just conned us into believing that they do by only telling us half the story. We should stand up and tell these weirdo members of a minority group to go back to their lentil stew and get back to knitting a bicycle from their beards. We do want an answer to the energy crisis, most of us however I suspect want that answer to involve us producing more energy not less.

Sod Your Bike - Mind My Car!!

Cyclists – when are these pathological parasites going to get off our roads and stop being what the medical fraternity call “A Thrombosis” (Definition: THROMBOSIS – a clot which blocks the whole of the bleeding system). How often have you had to crawl along in a stream of traffic because one or more of these lycra clad loonies are hogging more than their fair share of the carriageway?

At a time when the motorist is being taxed, fined and regulated beyond penury and perdition, these so called Eco-busting planet savers continue to clog up our highways and byways with their selfish egocentric meanderings. All of this without paying a penny for the roads, or even cycleways, they arrogantly commandeer, seemingly to the exclusion of everyone else. I wouldn’t mind so much if they were made to make a contribution to the provision and/or the upkeep of the infrastructure they seem to feel is theirs by right, however they continue to demand all the benefits of free access without bearing any of the costs. Not even the so called pedestrian footways are safe and they seem to have almost completed their invasion and domination of the canal towpaths.

Let’s face the truth here; cyclists make no contribution to the costs of providing them with any of the roads or paths they have selfishly usurped. They don’t pay any fuel duty like the rest of the road users, they have no licence to pay and, of course, they have no compulsory insurance cover. Remember, if one of these idiots damages your car or your property where is your recourse for damages or reparation?

In recent months we have had reported cases of cyclists killing pedestrians and causing road traffic accidents. In most cases I believe it was the cyclists themselves who were at fault by either blatantly disregarding the rules of the Highway Code, or blithely assuming their god like status and superhuman powers would grant them supreme deference from those other road users who have to pay for the privilege.

Let’s lobby to get this menace banned from our roads until they are forced into obeying the rules like the rest of us and, more importantly, are made to pay for their privilege of sharing the roads with us.

The Heresy Of Gnosticism. A Time For Reformation In The Church Of IT?

One definition of Gnosticism is “The doctrine of salvation by knowledge”. The Gnostics however only reserve their salvation for the special few who are privileged not only to view this special knowledge, but also to understand, practice and implement it. Why then has the computer industry always been a thoroughly Gnostic church?

It has always been easy to draw comparisons between computing and religion. The divisions between PC users and Mac devotees can be as passionate and fundamental as those between Hindus and Sikhs and the internecine warfare amongst PC users as they fight for the merits of Microsoft versus Linux, or Outlook over Lotus Notes, can rival anything as bloody and violent as the Christian reformation had to offer. As with most religious doctrinal arguments however; the real loser in these disputes is always the poor; the masses in the pews, or in IT’s case the humble user.

The computer industry has always adopted the attitude that; “In order to be a user you must learn, understand and then implement our special knowledge”. Users, in the religion of the IT it seems, must always conform to the strictures of the rules and doctrines of their chosen Operating Systems (OS) or application. The OS and the applications that run on them always seem to be written by the expert, aimed solely at the cognoscenti, with the average “user in the street” being forced to keep up. Why is it never the other way around?

The industry would argue that as the systems become more and more complex and sophisticated, the interfaces and controls provided to use them must also grow more complex and sophisticated too. This has not been the case, however, in two of the most user intensive industries on the planet, both of which have a “User Base” far in excess of those using computers.

Our global telephone network is, without argument, the largest and most pervasive IT system on the planet. The complexity of the system and the increasing amount of sophisticated services it offers to the individuals that use it are obvious to all; however the user interface could not be simpler. Pick up the receiver, check for a dial tone, enter an 11 digit number and; “Hey Presto” you are connected. You don’t need to know anything about how the underlying system works; all you need is the ability to push a button.

Automobiles too are today hugely complex and sophisticated systems compared with the Ford “Tin Lizzy” of yesteryear. However, actually operating the modern car is a much easier task than it was even ten or fifteen years ago. You just turn the key, put it in “Drive”, and off you go. The traction control, the ABS and the Engine Management Systems, not present on the cars of yesterday, all play their part but without forcing the user to take on a whole bunch of new skills to implement them.

Not only has the computer industry forced people to adopt an ever more complicated user interface, where getting the user up to speed has failed, it has replaced education with a network of “Expert Priests” or (forgive the expletive) “Consultants”. Just as with the heresy of Gnosticism the masses are increasingly excluded from access to the most sacred mysteries, or the salvation of actually being able to use the stuff, by the complexities of “specialist knowledge”. Users don’t want to have to learn new techniques just to use a computer, access the internet or program their VCR.

I think that it worth pointing out that for many potential IT users even using a mouse (and the complexities of understanding the difference between an icon and a shortcut; not to mention mastering the double click) is considered the learning of a new technique too far. This resistance is not Ludditeism. The mass of ordinary folk want to be part of the broad IT church, they just feel excluded from it by an unfamiliar and unfriendly user interface.

From within the security of the IT industry it is safe to imagine that we are in the majority, or if we aren’t now we will be when the “saved” are counted. Surely everyone knows how to use a mouse? The majority are familiar with a QWERTY keyboard? Everyone knows the way files are saved in folders and folders are stored within each other? The truth is, however, that there are many more people out in the real world for whom those things which we take for granted, are mysteries as deep and impenetrable as Transubstantiation, the Immaculate Conception, String Theory or Schrödinger’s cat.

In the 17^th century society forced some elemental changes on the European Christian church, forcing them to remove some of the more obvious barriers, like Latin texts, altar rails, and the strictures that only “professional priests” could administer the sacraments. All this meant that the church was forced to change its user interface from one of sacred mysteries and specialist knowledge, to one the ordinary people could understand. More fundamentally, to achieve these changes, people were forced to challenge the very way people think. Doctrines and things which had for hundreds of years had been taken as “gospel truths” had to be examined and, in some cases overturned.

These reforms (hence the period being called The Reformation) lead to an explosion in exploration, art, science, politics and social changes, which we called The Renaissance, which in turn has given us many of the benefits of the open society we enjoy today. Surely it is high time for the designers of the user interfaces, application controls, and so called “help manuals” that increasingly make up the everyday fabric of our modern world, to be shaken by some Martin Luther or John Calvin from their cosy positions as the dispensers of “special knowledge” to a point where they stop producing arcane mysticism and give us something that ordinary people can understand and use.

Users today want access to IT for all. They want access to the Internet, the use of email, digital cameras, printers, scanners, PC's and all the rest, to be as easy as making a phone call or driving to the grocery store. Let the brothers and sisters of the broad church of IT rise up and demand a new and better way, let us cry out for prophets and programmers who can give us salvation through technology solutions that are as simple to use as the box they came in.