Beyond reaction

The terrible events that are being uncovered in Austria are really so extreme it's difficult to react. I find that I've gone beyond horror and revulsion into a weird sort of wide eyed fascination.

A rubbish post

I've got conflicting emotions about this story.

On one hand the fine seems a little petty, and out of proportion. But on the other hand the man lives in a house with a reasonable sized garden, and has been warned- several times. It seems he doesn't want to think about his rubbish beyon making sure it goes in the bin.

I don't think it's too much to ask people to think about what waste they produce when they buy their food, to be honest. Am I being too Marie Antionnette here? I don't think so. In times past we would be creative with our food. We would eat everything on our plate because it would be rude not to, and we would save and reheat the left overs. We'd be creative with our cooking. Now we just throw out anything that's 5 seconds past the useby date, and don't do anything to avoid it.

It's true our supermarket culture sells a lot of over packaged goods. Recently a columnist tried to live a plastic-free lifestyl. But there are alternatives- even in the supermarket. Meat can be bought in a simple plastic bag with a sticker. You can buy some of your veg loose and despite having a plastic window, a mushroom bag takes up less room in the rubbish to a box.

We have a very good stystem in our street. We have a fortnightly recycling collection, with which you can recycle almost everything reclcylable but only 1 in 10 houses in our street use it. It seems too much effort and something needs to be done to snap people out of their complacency.

Yes there are circumstances where fortnightly collection won't work, in high rise blocks in inner cities you have no storage space for example. But because a system doesn't work in one area doesn't mean it is universally useless. In some areas food waste is recycled weekly- putting the pressure on people to think about how much of everything else they use without causing a health hazard.

In short the man should have been fined. About £30 would have been sensible.

I'm getting old!

I referred to my debit card as a Switch Card this morning. It's not even a Maestro card, so I don't have the nerdy get out of "well the company behind it is still the Switch consortium..."

It's been said before

When looking round for sanity I found this nugget of it from Stuart Lee. It's a diatribe from the Radio 4 show Heresy:

It really worries me that 84% of this audience agrees with that statement, because the kind of people that say “political correctness gone mad” are usually using that phrase as a kind of cover action to attack minorities or people that they disagree with. I’m of an age that I can see what a difference political correctness has made. When I was four years old, my grandfather drove me around Birmingham, where the Tories had just fought an election campaign saying, “if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour,” and he drove me around saying, “this is where all the niggers and the coons and the jungle bunnies live.” And I remember being at school in the early 80s and my teacher, when he read the register, instead of saying the name of the one Asian boy in the class, he would say, “is the black spot in,” right? And all these things have gradually been eroded by political correctness, which seems to me to be about an institutionalised politeness at its worst. And if there is some fallout from this, which means that someone in an office might get in trouble one day for saying something that someone was a bit unsure about because they couldn’t decide whether it was sexist or homophobic or racist, it’s a small price to pay for the massive benefits and improvements in the quality of life for millions of people that political correctness has made. It’s a complete lie that allows the right, which basically controls media now, and international politics, to make people on the left who are concerned about the way people are represented look like killjoys. And I’m sick, I’m really sick– 84% of you in this room that have agreed with this phrase, you’re like those people who turn around and go, “you know who the most oppressed minorities in Britain are? White, middle-class men.” You’re a bunch of idiots.

Facebook

Facebook added this great new feature. It's one I've felt was needed for some time.
It takes all your facebook friends, and sees how many have common friends who may be parts of your social circles you've missed.

Surprisingly there's been a tiny backlash, with some desribing it as creepy and sinister, which I really don't understand. Sure it could do with a "don't recomemnd me this person again" option, but creepy? Only if you're paranoid. It's not forcing you to be best mates, it's only suggesting that there's someone you may know that you might want to be in contact with. Or not. The choice is yours- where's the problem with that?

I only ever add people on facebook I know through other channels. 99% of my facebook friends I met face-to-face before adding them- the other 1% I know other than through facebook. Perhaps my usage is different to others.

I'm not a nasty, vindictive or unpleasant person. Maybe I'm abit too boring, bland and logical, but hey- is that a crime? So if anyone has a problem seeing my face up there, it's their own failing.

I admit, there are a few, very few, people I actively dislike. But I try to be grown up and not freak out at the sight of them.

Is this the news you're waiting for?

Maybe this story about how climate change is going to affect our beer is what some people will need to sit up and take notice!

Welcome to our bandwagon. It's good isn't it?

Gordon Brown is facing a back-bench revolt over changes that were announced in the 2007 budget. David Cameron and the Conservatievs are also getting in on the act.

Shame they didn't cotton on at the time, like a lot of the rest of us did. Some of us even drew graphs.

It's not like they can claim no-one tried to highlight the issue at the time. Ming Campbell highlighted the issue in the budget response.

What annoys me is there is no display of shame at their lack of ability to notice something so glaringly obvious.

Of the realm...

Has this link sent to me at work. It seems that a massive redesign is afoot, giving for the first time since decimalisation a unified design for our coins. The current designs go back 40 years- the first decimal coins being the 10p and 5p, minted in 1968, replacing the shilling and two shilling coins in the then still pre-decimal system.

And contrary to the rantings of certain sections of the community the new lot are even more British in their symbolism, and indicative of our heritage than the old.

The redesign has cost just £35,000 plus the costs of running the competition. Given the millions usually wasted on branding exercises that produce far less inspiring results, I would say it's money well spent.