Grombles

Is it just me, or does the West's indignance about Putin invading the Crimea reek of hypocrisy in the light of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and countless other invasions and regime changes we've tried to effect during recent decades? And the people we've 'rescued' don't even speak our language, share our cultures or have the faintest idea who we are. And none of them are thanking us now. The other side of the hypocrisy is exemplified by the Falkland Islands whose inhabitants voted to remain British - despite Argentina, not unreasonably from a purely geographic point of view, claiming territorial sovereignty. So it is OK for the UK to sail half way around the globe to maintain British dominion in far away places, but not OK for Russians to pop next door to protect Russians. It would seem that at least 96% of Crimeans welcome Putin's invasion if you can trust their referendum... which the West are trying to call illegal. I don't recall being asked if I wan...

I have been battling with a dilemma. The concept of god is artificial. I am not going to argue the case for atheism here. It's overwhelmingly argued in thousands of books and blogs, and if you were still in any doubt, just listen to a few creationists or watch any religious service for acres of mumbo-jumbo helping to make the case for a 'wake-up' call. My dilemma is about the idea of perpetuating the brainwashing of populations who haven't woken up, or been allowed to, in order to encourage changes of behaviour to improve the world. In other words, if populations are already led by balmy divine instructions, why not harness its control of their minds to do good (whilst also trying to reach the same muddled brains to encourage a rational view of how the world really works). At their hearts, religions are sets of rules which: Justify, protect and propagate their own sources of power (eg 'There is only one god', 'You will not worship any other' etc). ...

Every country needs people who WANT to work. Immigrants want to make a better life for themselves and for their children. The emphasis is on the word 'make'. This is in contrast to a massive UK benefit culture that's become the lifestyle of choice for so many claiming to deserve it solely because they were born here. Rights without responsibilities weaken societies. To leave your family, friends, language (usually), customs, familiar places and climate (usually better than cold damp UK) to forge a new life in an unknown place takes courage and determination - both qualities we should welcome into our society. The UK has always been a melting pot of nationalities. Until very recently we were by far the largest trading nation on the planet. Our nation is designed to mix peoples and cultures economically and culturally. By opening our doors to foreign cultures, our lives are enriched. Food, music, dance, art, theatre, sport and many other aspects of the way we entertain o...

I'm truly sick of Vodafone ( after having been sicker of O2 ). Both networks aren't networks in that a network is meant to connect things - and my phone doesn't connect to anything most of the time. Vast swathes of the UK are invisible to it, but especially the barren unpopulated wastes (not) of Surrey. My biggest gromble is about the lack of signal (3G especially) that I experience on the train between Guildford (county town of Surrey) and London - a distance of around 35 miles through some of the most densely populated parts of the planet. Wealthy too. At best you get a Vodafone signal for half the journey and perhaps only 5% of it is usable for data (ie 3G). This independent comparison research explains why I decided to experiment with a new network, EE (Everything Everywhere), who have combined the masts of Orange and T-Mobile: I have an iPhone 4S on a Vodafone contract which recently expired. So I'm due either an upgrade from them or I can easily move to a n...

In the summer of 1986, I met a guy in a pub. At the time I was between jobs having left mainstream marketing at BMW and trying to make a go of Marketing 4 Motorsport (most of my start-up businesses subsequently contained a numeral... 2nd Byte, 10ACT, Calls2Account, R9 etc). The bloke I met, Tom, was a freelance systems engineer (a sort of software expert) who had formed a company called Tome Associates Ltd with another systems expert, Carl Mattocks (now living in New Jersey). Together with an academic duo - Alina Vickery and her husband Professor Brian Vickery, from the University of London, who were much published in the field of Information Science... or librarianship - they formed a company called Tome Associates. The Vickerys had developed some pioneering software with a small team of computer experts at UCL that used an expert system to formulate and then modify boolean search strategies (sets of words combined with AND, OR and NOT that you could use to search textual databases) f...

I've arrived at the conclusion that the Conservatives can improve their chances of victory at future elections by making them as boring as possible. My non-PC logic is as follows: Nobody will disagree that we need more and better national infrastructure, education, healthcare, defence, law-enforcement, support for the arts etc etc. The question is, which party has the best chance of delivering it? The ones who prioritise how we can afford it  or the ones who prioritise doing it Ask the average voter if they want more money and more public services, and the answer's bound to be 'yes please'. And turkeys never vote for Christmas (although if turkeys could think a little clearer, then the only reason they exist at all is for Christmas/Thanks Giving - so not voting for Christmas etc means extinction. But I digress). So it's really easy to make the majority believe you're nicer and on their side. The problem is, countries like ours need tough love. What's...

I was in Paris this weekend to watch England very nearly beat the French at rugby. Really close game, only marred by a) not winning, and b) getting mugged that morning at an ATM for €200. It was about 9.30 in the morning on a relatively quiet road. I needed a top-up of Euros having arrived the evening before with my wife and two (female) friends for a weekend of rugby (yes, I know). So naturally we'd run out of cash since the shops had already been open a good hour. (Note to self... rugby trips are cheaper with blokes). I went up to an ATM outside a post office while the girls stood to one side. I had noticed a couple of teenagers hanging around nearby (one bizarrely was sitting on a grating in the pavement (sidewalk) apparently warming his butt), but I paid them no attention. I inserted my card, entered my PIN and then realised that the kids had flanked me on either side. The guy on my right held a piece of newspaper on top of the lower screen (the one with the keypad buttons). ...