Remember A Day

Do you remember when the television had to be left to warm up for ten minutes when it was first switched on? Do you remember when programmes didn't start until 9 or 10 in the morning? Remember when it was News at 10, a film and then the national anthem. Remember just four channels? Remember five or ten buttons on the front of the TV, a volume and contrast/brightness/colour knobs and no remote? Remember getting in from school and watching kids TV whilst mum made dinner and you waited for dad to come home? How 2, Grange Hill, Count Duckula, Thundercats, Bagpuss, Byker Grove, Knightmare. Do you remember when childrens TV presenters had to press the buttons to start the next cartoon and fade it out at the end?

All gone. None of this any more. I saw a show on BBC 4 last night about the history of childrens TV. The BBC asked Oliver Postgate how he mananged to get the sound of Ivan the Engine being emptied of coal. His answer; I just got some coal in a bucket and poured it into another bucket. Do you remember when TV was made on a smaller scale without focus groups and PC?

Fed Up with my ISP

I'm fed up with my broadband provider. I signed up for this package on promises of a good and reliable connection with excellent customer support. More fool me. I never get anywhere close the connection speeds advertised. 101 kb/s is the most I ever get (at about 5am). I paid for the package up to 2MB but my local phone network is nowhere near good enough because I live in a satellite village of a larger town. The broadband company could have very easily checked local availability and offered me a price based on the speed they could genuinely offer. But no. I went for the package with the slightly higher speeds and tied myself into an 18 month contract to pay for something I'm not getting. And they know this.

The connection is unreliable too. I noticed that after a day or two of heavy downloading the bandwidth dips artificially to a rigid 20 kb/s. Again, I bought the package because it was advertised as having unlimited downloads and uploads but it seems an artificial cap is being applied if I use the service too much. The final straw comes with my personal webspace. This page, which has a paltry amount of space allocated has to be regularly updated to stay valid; if you don't change things regularly then they freeze the site because of 'inactivity' even though my visit tracker shows that the people who I set up this static page of information for visit it consistently in a steady trickle. Boo. When I call them I get diverted to a non-UK call centre where I have trouble understanding the operative and they have trouble understanding my accent. I know these people aren't stupid and they do their best but it doesn't work. I asked them for help setting up my free modem with linux and the line went quiet, they asked their supervisor and then said they weren't sure what I meant, a computer is Windows isn't it? Sheesh. As soon as my contract expires I'm going to pay extra to get what I pay for and before I switch I'm going to read every review and comparison of ISPs I can find. Hopefully by then I'll also have moved house to an area with cable internet. If anyone reading this has a suggestion that isn't spam then please recommend me do.

Hoaxed

Hetracil is a hoax. I couldn't find Shetty Pharmaceuticals but didn't dig any further. Anyway, an eagle eyed reader got suspicious about the number of prescriptions and googled it.

So I got caught by a very well done hoax. Utterly believable which is a bit scary because it means either (a) I have a low opinion of American medicine/ethics or (b) American medicine/ethics could stoop to something like this and I wouldn't be surprised just outraged.

And this all leads nicely into the new Michael Moore film about the US health system, 'Sicko', which is about to get a Cannes premiere after the master tapes were successfully smuggled out of the US.

'Thank' God For Hetracil

Wonder drug hetracil has been prescribed to 54 million people. The 'disease' that it treats is described on the hetracil website, and I quote;

"More than 80 million Americans suffer from some type of Homosexuality, and one in eight persons need treatment for Homosexuality during his or her lifetime. Homosexuality is not a character flaw; it is neither a "mood" nor a personal weakness that you can change at will or by "pulling yourself together."

Many healthy men can identify with having some of the symptoms of homosexuality, such as experiencing sexual fantasies about other men; But Homosxuality is diagnosed only when these activities take at least an hour a day, are very distressing, and interfere with daily life.

We encourage you to Learn more specifics about homosexuality from your doctor- The more you know about the illness itself, the more you can do to manage and recover from it.

Hetracil is the world's most widely prescribed anti-effeminate; it has been prescribed for more than 54 million people worldwide. Chances are, someone you know is getting better because of it. Learn more about how Hetracil works to make you better, so that you can know what to expect while you work toward your recovery."

What do you think about Hetracil, the people that make it and the 'disease' it is used to 'treat'? I am offering no personal opinions on this one because I think the quote speaks for itself.

Harriett Harman and Madeleine McCann

Harriett Harman, the unflushable underachieving turd of the labour party has made her bid to be deputy PM. Her main selling point is that she feels there should be a woman at the top of government. Excuse me? You think you're the best person to help run the country, to take charge when Gordon goes on holiday because of your physiology? We should positively discriminate and give you the job even though you have been a dismal failure in the past just because of the configuration of your genitalia? Go away, step aside and let the best person get the job.

On another note an interesting point was raised today on Question Time about the Madeleine McCann abduction case. Her parents are both doctors. If they were unemployed would their two children have been taken into care because of their negligence? Many children go missing every day. MPs never wear ribbons for black kids that go missing in Peckham. A complete double standard because of the media attention and the location of the abduction (and our ability to sneer at local Portugese investigative techniques) and the status of the parents. Why people buy Rupert Murdochs mouthpieces I will never know. I guess it's to read in their white vans and on the train.

Tony Blairs legacy to me

1. Impossible housing market
2. Student debt
3. Pensions crisis
4. Failing NHS
5. Roads clogged with lorries

The Emperor Has No Clothes

Gilbert & George, artists based in East London since the mid 1960's have been exhibited at Tate Modern and last night the BBC did a show about them. One thing struck me; they are an intriguing and original pair of people, their artwork is provocative and they have stuck at it and defied all the odds but.... their work isn't any good. It's just all reaction and no content. They have been pretty much ignored all these years but now Tate has decided to exhibit them, the first British artists to have an exhibit (normally British artists exhibit at Tate Britain). And why? Just because they seem to have decided they are now trendy. But when I take a proper look at their work, past the reactionary, provocative content and just at the work I just feel that the Emperor Has No Clothes.

Fight the Power

My bank charged me £23 because one of my accounts accidently went a few pounds overdrawn even though there was more than enough money in my other account to cover it. I asked them to give me the £23 back, they said no. I then said I was going to go through the official complaints procedure to get my money back and that I would switch to their rival first thing tuesday morning after the bank holiday. They called me back and said that as a gesture of goodwill they would repay me the money.

The banks are in mess over charges they make. Interest charged on mortgages and loans is much higher than interest paid on savings and the banks make a killing (see my earlier post about banking and its profitability). The other way they make money is by overcharging people for going briefly overdrawn. The banks fold as soon as you show willingness to contest these charges officially. They don't want to go to court because a ruling against them would bring down their whole system of robbing money out of the cashflow situation of the poor working people of this country. So if they charge you unfairly complain and go through official complaints. I know loads of people who have won back money. Fight the power.

UK Elections

Nearly 40 million people got the chance to vote yesterday in local elections. I didn't vote. Not because I'm lazy. I have received no information about any of the candidates, no visits to my door and I have seen nothing on the web or in the local press. I don't know what any of the candidates would do for my village or for the city as a whole. I decided not to vote along party lines because I'm not interested in sending a message to No. 10 because that will be ignored or spun. I despair. My local council seems to be run for the benefit of the councillors and their business friends. In my village most people pay no local council tax so the ones who do pay tax pay more than people who live in equivalent properties in other areas. I would have liked a say about how my village and the wider city is run but I was denied a chance by inept and lazy campaigning.

On a lighter note soldiers in Iraq have been wearing t-shirts that bear the slogan "I'm Harry!" in a Spartacus like show of solidarity.

News Roundup

Last night the BBC Horizon science programme was fantastic. It was about the Large Hadron Collider, a $6 billion machine built underground to look for the Higgs particle, which is responsible for some particles having mass and others (like light particles) being zero mass. The content was superb, the explanations clear and interesting and the usual overegging of the CG effects was toned down. Great TV. Why don't horizon do programmes like this all the time (see my earlier posts about skyscraper fire safety and what if the dinosaurs were alive today).

I was at the Crucible yesterday to watch a quarter final session of the World Snooker Championships between Shaun Murphy and Matthew Stevens. I saw two century breaks and a comeback from 3-0 down. The BBC has an article up today describing what a visit to the crucible is like. Seeing snooker live is an absolute joy.

If English football fans are attacked tonight in Italy then Italian teams should be evicted from Europe for a few seasons. There is no excuse. AC Milan shouldn't be in the Champions League this season anyway after all the corruption last year. Travelling English fans have been warned not to use the subway, not to speak English in public and not to wear England flags or Man Utd shirts. I do hope the Italian police do their job and that they have some English speakers amongst their number this time. We shall see...