Monthly Archives: March 2007

Anyone up for the Wok world championship 2008?

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We watched the annual Wok World Championships on Pro7 what is now last night. It’s now one of those annual events in the house and here’s a bit of the history of it.

It started about 6 years ago, sadly I missed the first few championships but it comes from a bet made by a German TV presenter called Stefan Raab. No one will probably have heard of him on these shores but if you think combine Parkinson with Ant & Dec that’s a good approximation. He’s massive in terms of German TV with a mix of comedy, light interviewing, heavier interviewing and some completely madcap stuff at times.

Anyway, story goes he made a bet with another presenter and if he lost he agreed to go down one of those bobsleigh runs in a wok. He lost and had to do it. Then came the idea that it should be turned into a championship and every year since he’s organised a World Championship event.

However, almost always the teams/individuals are from Germany so I was thinking what it really needs is a Team GB to enter. I’m completely up for it if anyones interested in getting together to check how we might take part. There’s the individual event and the 4 man bob event which I think we’d fare better at. So there you go, if there’s three others out there with enough bottle to throw themselves down a bobsleigh run in a wok then I’m up for it. Those carrying a few extra pounds would be especially welcome as the more weight equals more speed.

In the dog house

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I got it in the neck yesterday, see here. Apparently I missed the fact that it was international women’s day and as it appears a few other bloggers fell foul of this given it’s heightened importance in the Eastern parts of Europe to my native Western Europe.

Suffice to say I have been doing my best to help out a bit more, pamper (not paper) Mrs Penguin and make International Women’s Day plus 1 a little nicer for Mrs Penguin.

This of course has kept me away from my blog and indeed proper work that I meant to do where there is much to catch up on so it looks like a long night is ahead although contrary to my last post I won’t be writing a post critical of the Government, it requires a bit more research before I’m happy with it and I’ll be too tired by then to do it justice.

They’ve set the tea boy on me….

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OK, to be frank I really didn’t wish to go here but hey if they’ve got nothing better to do then why not.

Here’s how it started. A friend forwards an e-mail to me that he received from David Cameron admitting his website Webcameron has generated ‘more ridicule for me [him] than serious debate’. We share the amusement of Cameron admitting this and to spread this minor amusement around a bit I stick a post up on my site for others to have a bit of a laugh at.

Let’s be honest, this isn’t exactly some major scandal, much in the same way there’s been plenty in terms of mock-ups knocking around about Cameron admitting he had a few joints at school, quite frankly no one really cares that much, it’s just a bit of fun and of course that’s how I meant it. I was even quite complimentary on Cameron’s attempt whether cynical or just naive to use new media in the comments section and if I truly wished to have a go at him then it would be for something far more serious.

That said I was out yesterday and didn’t get back till late afternoon and there waiting for me was an e-mail from the Tories Google tea boy, sorry, Sam Roake head of their web department. I’ve deliberated hard about whether to publish his e-mail and have decided not to because I’m not intrinsically a vindictive person and out of common courtesy he did ask for his e-mail to be kept in strictest confidence.

Now just for the record, because Sam contacted me via the contact section of my website that means that his message was forwarded to me via my webserver. However I have checked my stats and indeed the person who sent the mail was on my site from Tory central Office’s server so although in theory it could have been anyone there who sent the message, I’m going to assume it was Mr Roake.

Anyway, the bits I will reveal from the message basically go like this. Sam claims I’ve been had. The e-mail I published was a fake, he’s contacted David Cameron’s office and can confirm that the e-mail I received was a fake. Then three minutes later he sends me another message wanting to know why I hadn’t forwarded the e-mail to him following his request. OK, here’s how it goes.

1. If you ask why someone hasn’t forwarded the e-mail to you then it’s pretty bloody useful to have requested it in the first place which he didn’t.

2. Maybe it’s just me but giving someone 3 minutes to respond seems a bit on the demanding side. I have said this before but perhaps it needs repeating. Contrary to popular belief I do not spend my entire life sitting in front of my computer waiting for tosspot Tories to demand immediate responses from me. I have a life, I have responsibilities, I have commitments that I need to fulfill. These also mean that I have been known to leave the house for a few hours at a time to do them.

So, just for Sam here’s the original e-mail minus a few little bits which would indicate my source of course:

“CAMERON, David” wrote:

Subject: RE: Facebook
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 15:19:17 -0000
From: “CAMERON, David”
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dear XXXXXXXXX

Many thanks for taking the time to email me regarding Facebook. I have made a formal complaint to Facebook as the accounts were fake as you correctly identified them to be, and now have as I understand it been removed.

I had no idea of them until you kindly emailed me about them. I may consider setting up a Facebook account soon, but I think as with my attempt at setting up “WebCameron” on Youtube, these things can all too often have superficial effects and on occasions in the case of “Webcameron” certainly, generate more ridicule for me rather than sensible debate, which is what I originally intended it to do.

It is a lesson I and other politicians who try and court the internet shall perhaps have to learn fast as time gets on, sometimes to our detriment!

Many thanks again for your thoughtful email. Keep in touch.

Kind regards

David

David Cameron
Leader of the Conservative Party
Leader Of The Opposition’s Office
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

www.conservatives.com

From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sent: 27 February 2007 20:10
To: CAMERON, David
Subject: Facebook

Hi David

Can you just confirm for my peace of mind which (if any!) of the two David Camerons on Facebook you in fact are?!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

One of you has your photo in colour and very little detail with it (and not many friends!), and the other has your profile photo in black-and-white and a lot of detail about you, and many more friends.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

However, if you’re not currently signed up to it and both are in fact fakes then you should report them to Facebook and get them removed.

Many thanks, best wishes

XXXXXXXXX

Happy now?

So there you go. Now forgive me if I’m wrong but ‘camerond@parliament.uk’ is David Cameron’s e-mail address isn’t it?

So here’s the question. Who sent it? Well there’s a couple of theories.

1. It’s a massive set-up concocted by Labour activists with nothing better to do with their time. Given the person who forwarded the mail to me is a complete and total technical idiot, I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that, he openly admits that he is so I don’t think this is a runner for the cause.

2. It was sent from David Cameron himself and in a bit of outright frankness admitted some failing of his web strategy. That’s possible I suppose.

3. Dave doesn’t actually write his own e-mails and some dipstick in his office wrote it for him.

Personally my money would be on 3, but who knows.

However if 3 is correct this would pose some interesting questions.

1. If David Cameron doesn’t write his own e-mails then maybe he should. Much as I’d like to be partisan and give him a good bashing, I honestly don’t think he’d be daft enough to write an e-mail admitting faults to his own web strategy.

2. If it was penned by someone in his office then perhaps David Cameron should consider his policy on who he allows to write on his behalf using his e-mail address and if this is the practice in his office then they should be pp’d by the actual author/assistant as is common in these situations. Let’s be honest, many politicians allow stuff to be sent out in their name, they’re busy people and one would presume any leader of a party doesn’t get the time to write everything themselves.

3. Assuming it was penned on his behalf by a member of staff and the guy responsible for the Tories web strategy and Webcameron in particular gets on the phone to find out, who’s going to admit to him that they implied his work was crap while they busily delete stuff from their outbox?

That last point is why I’m really not going to have a particular go at Sam Roake over this one. He’s probably just being given the brush off by someone who doesn’t want to appear foolish and let’s be fair to that person as well, no one wants to admit they’ve said something wrong that might embarrass their boss do they?

So there you go Sam. Much as I was personally tempted to give you a good going over on this issue I decided not to because I think you’ve just been made to look foolish by someone else and I’m not going to have a go at you for that, it happens to most people from time to time and getting away with being called a tosspot and a tea boy is very mild by my standards when I lay into people so please don’t take personal offense.

Anyway, enough of this, I’m going to get down to a serious post criticising my own Government’s policy now. Ta ta.

And the prize for fuckwit Tory Councillor of the day goes to…

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Rachel Walker, Tory Councillor for Rushall Shelfield in Walsall and also Cabinet member for Environment up at Walsall Council.

You see, Rachel’s a bit new to all this council stuff. Actually she’s only been one for the last couple of years but she has risen quickly to the giddy heights of being the portfolio holder for Environment in Walsall so she must know her stuff mustn’t she? Or maybe not as the case may be.

Here’s the issue. Traders across Walsall aren’t too happy about not being able to put advertisement boards, ‘A’ frames, stock etc outside their shops and on the public highway. To be frank, this isn’t a new issue, it’s been rumbling on steadily for years but appears to have come to a head recently and thanks to Rachel Walker, because don’t forget, she is the cabinet member for Environment in Walsall the situation has now been clarified.

Here’s what Rachel has to say:

“Action can only be taken if the displays are ‘perceived’ to present a danger or nuisance to the public.”

“It’s not a new policy. I am very sympathetic to the traders but we have a duty to the people of the borough. we have to keep the highways safe.”

She added:

“That signs or wares on display outside need to be ‘perceived’ to present a danger for action to be taken.”

Suffice to say a lot of local traders in the town seem very happy and so they should, but there is one slight problem with this advice from Councillor Walker. It’s wrong, misleading and potentially opens up many traders to the possibility of prosecution and or litigation from anyone who might injure themselves on displays or wares put outside shops.

So, just for Rachel, if you didn’t know, here’s the legal stuff, and if your advisors up at yon council can’t tell you this then perhaps you should consider handing them redundancy notices instead of the street cleaners, dinner ladies and all the other frontline staff who actually do a bloody good and useful job.

Highways Act 1980 – Section 130.

(1) It is the duty of the highway authority to assert and protect the rights of the public to the use and enjoyment of any highway for which they are the highway authority, including any roadside waste which forms part of it.

(2) Any council may assert and protect the rights of the public to the use and enjoyment of any highway in their area for which they are not the highway authority, including any roadside waste which forms part of it.

(3) Without prejudice to subsections (1) and (2) above, it is the duty of a council who are a highway authority to prevent, as far as possible, the stopping up or obstruction of -

(a) the highways for which they are the highway authority, and

(b) any highway for which they are not the highway authority, if, in their opinion, the stopping up or obstruction of that highway would be prejudicial to the interests of their area.

(4) Without prejudice to the foregoing provisions of this section, it is the duty of the local highway authority to prevent any unlawful encroachment on any roadside waste comprised in a highway for which they are the highway authority.

Simple enough, the highways authority, in this case the local council has to enforce this. This issue has also been the subject of referrals to the Local Government Ombudsman who have upheld cases against authorities who have failed to undertake their duties.

So just for Rachel so she knows what she should look for, Walsall Council introduced a policy relating to the matter on 26th September 1991 which established the following policy:

1. No advertisement boards at any location.
2. No shop displays in Park Street.
3. Shop displays may be tolerated if the display if the display protrudes less than 0.5 metres from the shop front, does not exceed 1.0 metres high, does not extend beyond the shop frontage and there remains at least 1.8 metres of unobstructed footway.
4. Any displays must have adequete warning for the blind.

The policy also states that:

“In the event of any legal action arising from such displays, the liability remains with the shopkeeper and toleration by the Authority of such displays will not be viewed as an approval, authority, exercise or licence to obstruct the highway.”

Let’s just look for a second. OK, it’s a bit of a bad policy to start with as point one contradicts everything in 3 and 4. It’s also nice to know Walsall Council is happy to tolerate stuff being put outside shops, but if anything happens then it’s nothing to do with us guv, we’ll hang you out to dry when you get sued.

Now one would presume that this semi-non-committal policy of it’s OK within reason is what Councillor Rachel Walker might be referring to. However as the Cabinet member responsible one would have thought that she should know her own department has looked at the issue again. Agreed that this policy was not in keeping with the requirements put upon it as the highways authority and was scrapped and replaced by an interim policy while a new policy is drawn up for the future.

Oh, and we’re not talking as in new policy came out last week, it draws its origin from a report by the Overview and Scrutiny Community Equalities and Values Equality Advisory Group that set this out on the 23rd of April 2003. Yes, almost 4 years ago and the interim policy was introduced on the 8th of November 2004.

It says, and I will paraphrase here as I can’t be arsed to type the lot out. That Walsall Council will comply with it’s duty in relation to the removal of unlawful obstructions on the highway as set out in the Highways Act 1980. No one can place anything anywhere on the highway and in particular the pavement. Under the current legislation there is not authorisation to place advertisements etc on the pavement and to do so constitutes an offence. OK, I think you get the drift, nothing at all anywhere on the pavement, it’s illegal and the council will do you for it as one of the enforcement agents with the powers to do so.

So what we have is a Cabinet member responsible telling local traders it’s OK to put stuff outside the shops as long as it’s not ‘perceived’ to be a danger. Sadly she’s wrong, her own council, the Highways Act 1980 and case law have all said no it’s not.

The problem comes because having been down the town today, there’s plenty of shops with wares and signs outside, the word’s gone round the traders that it’s OK because good old Rachel has said so. So should anyone trip over, break their leg, damage their buggy by running into or any other accident happen. When the lawyers start getting involved it’s going to be the individual traders in question who get it in the neck, and more specifically the pocket. Equally by breaking the law, any trader that does take Rachel’s word for it, is liable to a fine by the enforcement authority for

Cameron – Webcameron generates more ridicule than sensible debate

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This passed my way which is good for a laugh.

Background: David Cameron was e-mailed to inform him that two ‘fake’ accounts for him have been set up on Facebook. Here’s his response:

Dear XXXXXXX

Many thanks for taking the time to email me regarding Facebook. I have made a formal complaint to Facebook as the accounts were fake as you correctly identified them to be, and now have as I understand it been removed.

I had no idea of them until you kindly emailed me about them. I may consider setting up a Facebook account soon, but I think as with my attempt at setting up “WebCameron” on Youtube, these things can all too often have superficial effects and on occasions in the case of “Webcameron” certainly, generate more ridicule for me rather than sensible debate, which is what I originally intended it to do.

It is a lesson I and other politicians who try and court the internet shall perhaps have to learn fast as time gets on, sometimes to our detriment!

Many thanks again for your thoughtful email. Keep in touch.

Kind regards

David

David Cameron
Leader of the Conservative Party
Leader Of The Opposition’s Office
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

So two things from this. Cameron admits his website has been a bit of a mistake which is patently obvious but for me I like this bit:

“my attempt at setting up “WebCameron” on Youtube”

Hang on there, did someone not mention to him that Webcameron hasn’t got anything to do with YouTube whatsoever or doesn’t he know the difference? Oh dear, someone keep him away from the interwebnet, he’ll get eaten alive.

What’s Hutton up to?

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Few days old but wanted to cover it. This little bit reported by the BBC.

At first glance I instinctively thought not another bit of sideways privatisation of public services but then I realised something. There’s not actually anything that new about this announcement, in fact it’s almost identical to announcements made in January and last December so what’s the story here?

Well as far as these proposals go I’m not too overly keen on what Hutton is saying. I’m just getting the vibes that it’s another bit of state organisation bashing and how wonderful the private/voluntary sector could run things, which having worked in all these three sectors I know exactly which two I would certainly not trust with the job, one in particular.

However if that is the way things are going, or if some smart arse in the civil service has pointed to a way of ‘cutting’ the cost of the civil service by outsourcing services therefore them not being classed as a cost of the civil service, yes that one was in Yes Minister and it’s still used today then so be it.

Equally, if John Hutton is serious about improving services then he need look no further than his own department. From personal experience I’ve dealt with a wide range of governmental and local governmental departments over the years and up there as probably the most pisspoor would be the DWP. I’ve had so much trouble with them fucking up this that or the other that I am personally sick of the sight of their envelopes when they drop through my door.

So if John’s up for a challenge, I suggest sorting out his department first before going off in pursuit of all those naughty single parents who just, might just wish to be around in their child’s lives post 12 years old because sadly, much as it may be the case that in some sectors of the economy that family friendly working hours are available, for many of those single parents in our country, who it’s fair to say often inhabit the lower end of the social spectrum, it ain’t such a rosy picture.

We’re not talking about well educated middle class single mothers who can do a bit of work from home, run an internet e-bay store, we’re talking about those who do the shit end of the job market where if you’re not available to work when the employer wants you then you can piss off and if your kid is sick and has to take time off school then you ain’t gonna get paid for the time you take off which for those on low incomes is a big fucking deal.

Oh, and on a personal note, yes John should do something about the DWP because they are sodding useless, don’t listen, don’t read the things you send them, give factually incorrect advice, process claims on the basis of evidence and then change their mind without even informing people, cut off people’s benefit without telling them and as the Secretary of State is ultimately responsible, ie if you take them to tribunal it’s you vs him, then I can personally claim to have taken John to tribunal and given him a thorough arse kicking, not that anyone from his department had the guts to turn up to argue their side because they were simply wrong.

So this brings me back from my little rant about the ineptitude of the DWP. What’s John up to repeating what is old news? Equally us Labour Party members all had an e-mail from John the other day laying out these new plans so why’s his profile suddenly jumped?

Anyone would think he was mounting a bid for the leadership of the Labour Party or something….

Apologies

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I’ve been away for the last couple of days. Not literally as in not present at my normal address, but more not being an active participant in the blogging circle. There’s a good reason related to my post about upgrading my Linux computer.

The reason I upgraded it was that for some strange reason I was getting repeated system halts. After upgrading to the Edgy Eft version the problems persisted to the point of not being usable. After much soul searching and questioning my faith in what up till now has been the most stable operating system I’ve ever used I decided to put a spare hard drive in my Windows machine and install it on there to eliminate the variable of it being a hardware problem, and just to make things even more complicated I decided to whack a Nvidia graphics card in for good measure that’s been hiding under the bed for the last three years.

After a phenomenally quick install of Dapper Drake I realised one of the things I wanted to try was only supported in the latest Edgy Eft version so I installed that. Got the Nvidia card working well (something not so easy in Linux given the gits won’t release their source code) and messed about. I did have a bash at installing one of the cube desktops and to be quite frank completely fucked it up to the point of having to re-install. I had another bash and fucked it up again however not to the extent that I couldn’t get into the terminal (thing that looks like DOS for those who remember it) and fix the problem.

So with most things reinstalled and up and running I’m back to normal again after a couple of days of interesting experiments and messing about when I should have been doing more constructive things.

Anyway, that’s the excuses, back to the subjects sometime later tonight after I’ve just install a new website structure.

I love Liberal Democrats…

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Hey, promised I’d be doing something on the LibDems. Actually this isn’t what I planned, it just sort of cropped up today by accident. Was reading through the BBC’s news and spotted this article on how old Ming the Merciless has faced down all those peace nick party members who wanted to scrap Trident.

Then I though to myself, hang-on a bit, I’m sure I saw a section on my old mate Colin’s website, he’s the guy who works for Ian Shires, leader of the LibDems here in Walsall who is employed by Walsall Council and also the guy who is one of their organisers in the West Midlands and was their Parliamentary Candidate for Wolverhampton South West in 2005.

So I decided to drop by his site out of curiosity and this is what I found:
Image

Hang on, that’s a bit strange, I’m sure I saw something there to the effect of ‘say no to trident’ can’t be imagining things can I?

Then it came to me, I took a screenshot of dear old Colin’s website the other week and hey here it is:

Image

That’s strange, there one minute, gone the next. Then I decide to have a bit of a look around the net. Hey, try it yourself with ‘colin ross trident’ plenty of vociferous calls for the LibDems to scrap Trident.

So what’s Colin got to say now that Ming’s stuffed them on Trident?

“The motion that passed is an improvement on our current position, the Liberal Democrats are now committed to reducing Trident by 50%.”

So erm, that would be Colin the ardent campaigner to scrap Trident now saying that to reduce it by 50% is OK?

Got to love those LibDems for their consistency.