Bank Holidays

From the BBC:-
“Britons currently enjoy eight bank holidays compared with 11 in France, 15 in Germany and 16 in Spain. Slovenia is top in Europe with 18 days.”
No, we don’t “enjoy” eight bank holidays. We are forced into taking days off when we’d rather not. Bank Holidays cost employers and without them, we’d be […]

Christmas Trains

Libby Purves in The Times
So that’s it. No trains. Precious few buses. Everybody stranded, unless they drive. So they will drive, and the Department for Transport’s fatuous Act on CO2 campaign will ring hollow once again.
No it won’t. From an environmental point of view, I think the government is doing exactly the right thing.
It’s a […]

Casino Royale

I watched Casino Royale. I’d heard good things about Daniel Craig as Bond.
The main thing about Casino Royale is that this is Bond closest to the character I remember reading by Ian Fleming. He’s still a tough, resourceful and womanising secret agent, but he isn’t smooth like Roger Moore or Sean Connery. He isn’t loaded […]

The Government Data Colander Leaks On…

Nine NHS Trusts Lost Patient Data
Hundreds of thousands of adults and children are thought to be affected by the breaches, which emerged as part of a government-wide data security review.
So, chances are that no-one was going to find out without it. Not only irresponsible with the data, but irresponsible when it came to managing […]

Smoking Ban Update

From the Morning Advertiser:-
Horrendous sales figures over August and September saw on-trade liquor volumes nosedive by 7% posing further long term doubts over the ability of hundreds of UK pubs to survive.
Beer sales alone over the two months witnessed a huge 10% drop as the two months failed to compensate for the disastrous summer.
So, the […]

The Return of the Ring

Normally, I don’t have the time for such things, but I was tucked up in bed with a cold yesterday, and I decided to watch the Appendices to Peter Jackson’s Return of the King. These are the 2 extra DVDs that make up the 4 disc edition. Mostly, it was in-depth material into the whole […]

Christmas Preparations

Along with the tree, the mince pies and the bottle of Baileys, I thoroughly recommend having yourself a copy of Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift For You, his christmas album featuring a bunch of “Wall of Sound” artists.
Personally, I particularly like The Crystals’ Santa Claus is Coming To Town, Darlene Love’s White Christmas, and The […]

Security Diversion By Gordon Brown

From the BBC
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the government has a “long way to go” on its IT strategy. He told Commons committee chairmen that public and private firms had to come to terms with IT security issues.
That’s a cute attempt at diversion over this issue. The private sector aren’t perfect, but I’ve yet […]

Credit Card Scam Information

From the BBC
Despite paying £25 a year to protect her card against loss, theft or fraud, she has been told she is not covered because only the card details were stolen, not the card itself.
I’d assumed the details were covered too.

Facebook Beacon and Privacy

I visited the rather good Kongregate website today to have a game of bloons.
A few minutes later, a popup appeared telling me that my Facebook profile had been updated with an entry saying that I’m playing Bloons.
I don’t really care that anyone knows that I’m playing Bloons. It’s just that I didn’t tell Kongregate that […]