Pies and Prejudice

In what will likely be the first of many posts on Stuart Maconie's
excellent book, I (and the author) have got to Crewe. He mentions the
Railway Hotel -apparently Alexei Sayle set a novel there. I stayed
there once. Better yet, he has the same sniggering reaction to teenage
boys trying to dress like gangsters as I do. He expresses a similiar
concern to that which I felt that this reaction is middle aged.

He's trying not to look at us

Minding my own business heading to the lift on my floor of the Hotel this morning, I encountered two largish Ladies of I guess about my own age done up to the nines in summer attire including hats and struggling with huge volumes of luggage.

One of them looked me up and down and and said "you're a bit underdressed".

I was a little taken aback.  My current client doesn't demand a suit and tie, but I was wearing a sober dark suit and smart shoes and shirt, although it being warm in the office, I have taken the opportunity to do without a tie.

Then I tumbled - they were off to Ascot.

We got into the lift.  The mouthy one said "he's trying hard not to look at us"

I agreed this was true.  The reason (although I didn't say so) was that it was a ghastly apparition, especially so early in the morning.

I related the tale to a workmate who opined that it was possible they could have had a drink in spite of the early hour in preparation for the day, I must admit I hadn't considered this.

Good point, well made

A letter in today's Telegraph made me smile. In the light of even
more top secret and sensitive data being left lying around in public
places the writer points out that if the government and civil servants
made as much effort keeping the stuff secret as they did trying to
keep details of MPs expenses secret, the problem would not arise.

Abu Qatada's bail 'disappointing'

Well, that's one word for it.

I know the government can't tell the Courts and Judges what to do - and that's a good thing. 

However something is badly wrong when they can manage to get 42 days detention without trial, but they can't send a bloke who came here on a false passport back to where he came from, but instead they use my cash to support him and his considerable family on benefits.  I don't normally go on about "scroungers" but this guy and his family are parasites.

42 Days too far

This is a sad day for Britain. I pity the people who believe this will make any of us safer. The terrorists have the help of the Police and Gordon in destroying our traditional and hard-won freedoms. They should all hang their heads in shame.

42 Days too far

Gordon Brown says that in order to protect freedom and democracy, the State must be able to put people in jail, with no evidence and no trial, for up to 42 days. This isn't the kind of freedom I understand, and whilst I oppose all forms of terrorism, I am happy for me and mine to take any risks associated with living in a free society.

Gordon is wrong on this, and I hope he is defeated.

Charlie Wilsons War

Sat down to watch the DVD. Before we could watch it though, we had to sit though a compulsory propaganda film about AIDS in Africa introduced by whining Gwinny Paltrow (I had to ask who she was). The DVD wouldn't let us fast forward past it. We paid for this! Next we had a piece of propaganda about pirate DVDs. Hello? We paid! We paid for you to lecture us. Next time I'm downloading or buying a pirate copy.