Hair Cut

One of those problems with not driving is that you have less of a choice where you go. I went to the barbers in Keighley at lunch, sat down at 12:50 with only two people in front of me and one in the chair.

I walked out at 13:35, wasn't even close to being served. The barber was going to ridiculous lengths to trim hair that no one sane would have noticed out of place.

The bloke in front of the bloke in front of me looked like he'd last had his hair cut the week before. There's pride and there's vanity and that is vanity. But it still took 15 to 20 minutes, getting the sideburns and hair behind the ears micrometre perfect. Next bloke had his
eyebrows trimmed and everything.

There was a conversation with the last bloke and the comment was that he should see the place when it is quiet. Well to 3 customers in 45 minutes isn't busy at all!

In the library there was a relatively short queue but it still took ages because there was only one person dealing with returns and one woman, rudely oblivious to the fact it was lunch time, was asking silly questions at the level of "what's a book?"

Arrrggghhhhhhhh!

Anyone want to read...?

Does anyone want to read books 2 and 3 in the Jasper Fforde Thursday next series?

I have just finished (back-to-back) Lost in a Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots.

Incidentally I picked up on Saturday a copy of the The Big Over Easy from a bargain book shop that appears to have been signed by Jasper himself! Not sure if the signature was genuine or someone in the distribution chain having a laugh, but it was a bargain anyway.

It's not that I support the person you're ranting against, you've just got the details of their crime wrong.

The coverage of two news stories has annoyed me somewhat.

Firstly Caroline Flint, sometime last week, outlined ideas that social housing should be more than just handing over a set of keys once you get to the head of the queue. The suggestion was that the minority who sit comfortably on benefits while turning down retraining opportunities, and making no efforts to look for work should be made to feel less secure in their accommodation.

This is a terrible idea for many reasons. Firstly the benefits systems already keep tabs on whether claimants are making the effort to look for work, so this would be yet another New Labour law to tackle something that's already being tackled. Secondly it will distress tens of thousands of genuine tenants, in order to get at a handful of recalcitrant.

But what I find worse is people railing against the idea calling it "work or lose your home." I hear so often people summing up the proposal being that people should be evicted for being unemployed too long, rather than for not looking for work.

Then Rowan Williams suggested "some aspects of Sharia law could be inevitable". BBC news ran the story with pictures of the more extreme aspects of Sharia with a commentary saying the pictures were obviously not of the aspects of Sharia Williams was advocating, but would be what people would be thinking. In that act the BBC legitimised having a shallow and knee jerk understanding of a situation. That sickened me.

All week we've had reactions that completely and utterly miss the point. We have people suggesting that he was advocating something more than simple mediation and contract law.

Now call me weird, but I feel if you want to rant against something, I think you should attempt to properly understand the details of the situation.

The Caroline Flint proposals were merely sensationalist and unworkable. The Rowan Williams idea was something much more worrying, but we cannot focus on the truly worrying aspects of his speech because the media is going "Waaah, waaah, separate law, waaah, chopping hands off, waaaghh, stonings and discriminatory treatment of women waaagh".

And the hysteria over what was definitely and obviously not intended has obscured the rather worrying special treatment Williams was seeking for all religious groups.

YouGov! (What? Me squire?)

Ever seen in the media where they say 40% of people say X and then quite YouGov as the source.

Well YouGov are an internet polling company. Unlike many they pay you actual cash to take surveys. It's about 50p to £1 per survey, which they pay into your account, and then every so often they send you a cheque. It doesn't cost anything to sign up, and many of my friends are on their way to their second cheque.

Sign up !here, you've nothing to lose!

Holiday

We've booked our Spring holidays! In March we are heading, by train, to Seville, taking in London, Paris and Madrid on the way. And in April we are heading off to Krakow to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

Can't wait!