April 02, 2004
ID cards
. This does not look good. In terms of permanently degrading Britain's liberties it seems that Al-Qaeda is set to succeed where Hitler failed. It's going to be a while before I see the funny side of this one.(Historical note: Identity cards were compulsory during WWII. They were tolerated as a necessity of war, although the intrusiveness of petty officialdom asking Britons their business was much resented. After the war government efforts to make them permanent were seen off by the courts. Until recently the view that this was a victory for common sense was uncontroversial.)
A reader enquires
if the invitation to buy a photo of my car mentioned below might have been sent by the Police Benevolent Fund. Come to think of it I do remember some mention of the Force on the letterhead, and now I'm feeling bad that I threw the letter away with scarcely a glance. After all, I did support the firemen when they did the sponsored car wash. I've decided to go back to the same place and hope that the nice man takes my picture again. Only this time I'll go a little bit faster in the hopes of getting that cool motion-blur effect. It's a totally empty stretch of road so I'm sure no one will mind.
April 01, 2004
Oh, how nice.
Some entrepreneurial roving photographer has sent me a picture of my car. It's a neat idea, but is it really going to "take off" (pardon the pun) the way that selling people aerial photos of their houses did? Although this unposed action shot has a certain undeniable freshness and spontaneity, besides bringing back happy driving memories, I have to say that the picture quality is not good, and I don't think a black and white rear three-quarter view shows her to her best advantage. There also seems to be a lot of paperwork to fill in before you get your framed glossy photo.
Sorry for the lack of posts
- we've had a guest staying in the computer room. How times change. When we first got the computer we put it in the guest room.
March 30, 2004
Cand X.
Jim writes:Dear Natalie Solent-or-whatever-is-your-real-name-is,
On this blog, honey, I tingle with evil Solentoid Nataliness in every nerve and sinew!
Over 30 years ago undergraduate physics labs in Glasgow University were run on very similar lines to the Oxford system you describe.My cat has allowed me to publish this laughable human delusion as part of her psyops strategy.Of course I never cheated and so have known for certain ever since that the true value of c is 231.4 mph, which means the Sun is only about 31 miles above our heads. You see, the Universe is so much smaller than these so-called experts keep trying to tell us. It all makes perfect sense.
But really I’m concerned about your apparent defection from cat to dog. How can you overlook the only alien species that lives among us, and clearly so intelligent too? Dogs may look up to us, but cats employ us as their servants. And you don’t have to take a cat for a walk. After all, they made it the full nine million miles from Alpha Centura by themselves.