Tony's stuff

The perils of Web 2.0

I received an email this morning telling me that one of my photographs had been included in an online guide. So what you might ask, that is after all one of the reasons I publish under a Creative Commons licence. Well it would seem obvious that this site is mostly compiled using a bot to pull together the text and photos, because they are reviewing the Yorkshire Gray with a picture that shows quite clearly that it has been knocked down.

Should I tell them?

Geek Joy

Life has been made even easier for those of us wanting to pull data out of Flickr for whatever purpose. For a whole bunch of use cases you now don't need to write any client code to deal with the output of an API call, just use something that already understands RSS or Atom or KML!

Mobile phone software

What software do you have on your phone that you make a lot of use of?
Would you recommend it?

Warning to Hillsborough residents.

On Sunday 7th September a bunch of bloody nutters raising the profile of private medicine will be responsible for cutting off major road and public transport links between Hillsborough and the town centre.

For more info on road closures, see the Council website, there is apparently supposed to be info on the the Supertram and Travel South Yorkshire websites, but it doesn't seem to be up yet.

Phones

I am having similar angst to dave chimaera over mobile phone upgrades.
Summarises as:
I think I want an Nokia E71
Can't get that as an upgrade on T-Mobile
Available on 3
Also available as a new contract through expansys but I'm not sure if I can do that as an existing T-Mobile and if there is any chance of keeping my number.
Several independents have said they can't do that phone on T-Mobile.

Farmers' Market

The Sheffield Farmers' market has changed timings, it is now on the 4th Thursday of every month from 09:00 to 16:30, still on Barker's Pool.

This is I imagine good news, there will be much more passing trade on a Thursday so hopefully this will mean more sales and therefore the economic development of the market. Bad news for people who don't work in Sheffield during the week and for me who up until today was unaware of the change and so expected the market there today.

What I did on my holidays.

While I wasn't here I shifted and looked after a large amount of beer and renewed my First Aid at Work 'qualification' the usual mix of a course that is designed to be passed to please employers, advice that is out of date as you are being taught it, system hacks and when you should try and bend or break the rules.

Some first aid things:

Neal Stephenson's Anathem

Synopsis:

Here is another brilliantly original novel from the cult author of "Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon". Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians. There, he and his cohorts are sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, unpredictable "saecular" world, an endless landscape of casinos and megastores that is plagued by recurring cycles of booms and busts, dark ages and renaissances, world wars and climate change. Until the day that a higher power, driven by fear, decides it is only these cloistered scholars who have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. And, one by one, Raz and his friends, mentors, and teachers are summoned forth without warning into the unknown.

800 pages 1^st September.

Can I have some help here?

it is not possible to draw up a typical profile of the "British terrorist" as most are "demographically unremarkable" and simply reflect the communities in which they live.

If we can't find terrorists using behavioural science and they are mostly British nationals, not illegal immigrants and, far from being Islamist fundamentalists; can someone please explain to me how on earth an ID card is supposed to help detect and prevent terrorism?

So along with P.A. Consulting demonstrating yet again why we don't want anything in a government database especially this information. You would hope that at some point soon the shower that inhabit the cabinet will realise that no does indeed mean no.

NO2ID will be 4 in October.

Wanted:

medieval re-enactment types with their own costumes, weapons, vague sense of how to wield stabbing implements etc

England Vs South Africa ODI Trent Bridge 26/08 Day/Night match

I have won a pair of tickets to go to Trent Bridge and see the ODI next Tuesday. As I haven't quite grown fat enough to require two seats I have one spare.
Do you want it?
It would be very useful if you have a car. I am not looking too optimistic about the trains, it is a Day/Night match so the scheduled close of play is at 10:15 which doesn't leave long to get to the last train and that doesn't get back in until half past one in the morning.

Kelly Narcissus

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Dorset snaps himself.

At last they are to fall.

Tinsley cooling towers will be demolished in the early hours of Sunday 24 August.

Back

I'm back!
What did I miss?
Got a touch of the post festival blues, but I suppose it is to be expected.

Don't Blink

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Interesting effect with the strobing lights

Clockwork courtier.

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

At the Dr Who exhibition.

K9

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Affirmative Master

Pooh saves us from Dalek Zik

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Brave bear, I hadn't even had time to dip my mallet in the Hand of Omega.

Dalek Zik goes for a wander.

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Kim had been to the Dr Who exhibition and hadn't maed it through the gift shop unscathed. I sensibly didn't take my wallet.

James takes a hop shower.

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

'naked' James didn't learn from the the lessons earlier in the week that many of the Theakston's beers were so heavily dry hopped that they tended to block the venting tool.

First beer at the staff bar

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

this is where the festival begins.

First beer at the staff bar

this is where the festival begins.

Gone...

I've gone to work at the Great British Beer festival. Maybe see you there.

Thought for the day

If Orwell hadn't written 1984 using a pseudonym, we wouldn't have the word 'Orwellian'. Instead, we'd probably say 'Blairite'.

Following the least effective example

"Internet users will be protected from abusive bloggers and malicious Facebook postings under proposals to set up an independent internet watchdog, The Daily Telegraph has learnt."

"Under the proposals, the new internet watchdog would operate in a similar way to other industry bodies such as the Press Complaints Commission, which enforces a code of practice for the UK newspaper and magazine industry, covering accuracy, discrimination and intrusion."

Obviously the Telegraph isn't going to say this, as it is part of the conspiracy to keep the politicians in the dark about the PCC, but it does no such thing. What the PCC does is deflect calls for more formal governmental regulation of the media by pretending to regulate newspapers and magazines. If you are rich and influential you have some hope if it slapping the odd wrist but apart from that it, like any other self regulatory body is pretty toothless. Admittedly not all politicians are fooled.

The telegraph article also says "It is understood that it would also be able to order bloggers and social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace to take down offensive messages or photographs." presumably backed up with some sort of mechanism to have court orders granted, which is fine for any site or service based in the UK but many are based overseas. The Americans have already started to backlash against our libel courts it doesn't take a great leap to see them objecting to this sort of order as well.

Advanced databases for beginners

I was reading a blog post decrying Drizzle suggesting it really was a good thing that MySQL now had all the things that a "proper" RDBMS should have like referential integrity, triggers, views and stored procedures. That lead to a presentation from where I got the title of this post. It is obviously slightly less easy to follow as you don't have the author filling in around the bullet points but it seams to me to be a good introduction to more advanced database concepts for the quick and dirty db generation (of which I often am, a more traditional member questioned my use of an implicit join recently, I didn't have time to tell my range safety proverb).

This then lead me on again, to find out more about the web presentation framework used. It is called S5 looks to be simple to work from and about a nanosecond's research has already found at least one conversion tool from another documentation format and it looks ideal for use with many of the current templating engines.

Food Survey

Please click here to take a quick survey on food shopping and welfare.

Labour are utterly screwed.

John Prescott has said: 'no potential successor had the "right skills" to replace the PM.' in other words Gordon Brown is the most qualified person the lead the party right now.

On the other hand, do you trust what JP has to say?

New web project

It is clear to me that there is a niche in the market for a price comparison site comparison site. Unlike the 1st generation comparison sites there is unlikely to be commission to pay for it all but I imagine annoying adverts will do the trick. After all people will be so grateful to learn which site out of them all saves you most. Obviously we would start in the car insurance sector, then other insurance followed by the wider financial market.

Of course since this is such a fabulous idea soon there will be lots of similar sites, but we will remain one step ahead as we will have the price comparison site comparison site comparison site ready to roll out. Anyone feel like putting in the start-up capital?

What do the outsiders see?

Is it a truism that every organisation needs to examine itself thoroughly from an external point of view from time to time? To not only look for validation of what it is doing (and how and why) but to ensure that the image it is portraying to the general public is the right one.
I am a member of the Open Rights Group and subscribed to their main discussion list. From inside the tent things look good but then I saw something that a friend wrote:

I don't so much mind Andrew Orlowski being a bitter and twisted polemicist, but he could at least get his facts straight.
'The British ORG [Open Rights Group] originally grew out of a campaign against copyright, and a contempt for creators and peformers is what binds it together.'

Erm...no it didn't. This is the original pledge, which mentions nothing about copyright. And, while it's clear the ORG is by no means perfect, I'd certainly not say it had contempt for creators and performers - there are frequent, balanced debates between a bloke who runs his own music company and the rest of the list. Shame, really, as the ORG *does* have a tendency to be a little smug about it's own (eg, the people who post most) and some decent opposition could help keep it on the straight and narrow. What a wasted opportunity. - Catherine

I will admit that last bit struck a chord, I don't know what is being done in ORG's inner circle, but I hope that there is work going on to keep the campaign grounded, relevant and coming across appropriately to the general public. The sort of things I am talking about is sessions working with external perspectives; opposition position work/devils advocate arguments; reviews of media coverage from a neutral point of view and the like.

I would say the same about the other campaigning group I am a member of, CAMRA but that tends to have the opposite problem, there are plenty of differing points of view, so the list of motions at the AGM will always have at least one pair that contradict each other. On the other hand we do manage to run a pretty fine beer festival.

Vote

Don't forget Iain Dale is running his survey for the top political blogs in (or about) the UK.

If you haven't voted yet, send in your top ten blogs, ranked in order to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com.

In other voting news, it has been very interesting watching the reaction to Glasgow East, I think the most damaging for the clown in Number Ten is all the coverage of who is trying to dampen down any rebellion. Having David Blunkett as one of your top cheerleaders must be one of the most depressing things that can happen to you in politics.

Fail

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Interactive information point fail.

Fail closeup

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Interactive information point fail.

Goth in sunshine

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

In the car park out the back of the museum, before seeing the Dark Knight.

No such thing as a free lunch

I had an opportunity to eat for free today, the combination of being an unrepentant omnivore and seeing I am off to see the film it is currently tied in to tonight I decided to try the Dark Whopper^[1] for lunch. My nearest BK is in the station and along with all other Select Service Partners outlets it has signs telling you that you get your food for free if you don't get handed a receipt, which in this case I didn't. I thought for a moment but decided not to mention it, partly because I disagree with the policy on environmental grounds (I know that merely eating that kind of food has it's impact, but they don't need to kill the extra trees).

The biggest reason I didn't was they nagging suspicion that while it would mean a free lunch for me, it would be a world of pain for the lad serving me. I must at this point stress that all this is supposition, I have never worked for SSP, so none of this is based on observed facts of their employment rules. Having worked in the service industry, those serving the public are under a lot of pressure from management to make the most from each customer through up-selling, cross-selling etc and to minimise waste. That pressure is applied as in most arenas using carrots and sticks, cooperative ladders and voucher incentives for those that do well, harsh disciplinary penalties for those that are considered to be failing or cannot balance their till at the end of the shift.

In that moment contemplating I thought about the possible scenarios for the person in question after I had my money back, a black mark on the record or even having the money deducted from their wage packet all for not handing me something I didn't want or need. It was this last one that definitely stopped me, I wasn't going to risk that he would have worked for more than an hour during the lunch rush for no pay to feed me.

^[1]If you want to know, not anything to write home about, probably why I can't really compare it with last time they did it it just doesn't stick in the mind. Not as disappointing at the Angus 6 pack, or as tasty as the angry whopper and no-where near the excitement of walking in and asking them to Kong my whopper!^[2]
^[2]Note to self: I must remember to finish tweaking that footnote plugin.

The have found something that might make me watch some Olympic coverage.

Monkey!

Judge gets it on security

The Dutch judge who has overturned the injunction stopping Radboud University revealing how they cracked the Mifare Classic chip said:

Damage to NXP is not the result of the publication of the article but of the production and sale of a chip that appears to have shortcomings.

Bruce Schneier said:

As bad as the damage is from publishing - and there probably will be some - the damage is much, much worse by not disclosing.

and then rightly pointed out that assuming that no criminals were exploiting this problem was a foolish position to take.

This is of course an analogue of the classic security position that encryption algorithms shouldn't be kept secret, they should be open for everyone to examine for flaws and only the key should be secret.

Anyone interested in free Rugby League?

SHEFFIELD EAGLES VS FEATHERSTONE ROVERS

Friday 25th July, 2008, Kick Off 8.00pm - Don Valley Stadium, Worksop Road, SHEFFIELD, S9 3TL

We are offering the one-off chance for everyone in the South Yorkshire/North Derbyshire Area, the chance to bring their families down to Don Valley Stadium, to watch this Rugby League game free of charge. All we ask is that they fill-in the relevant form to allow them into the stadium. If you are unable to download the attached form, or need any quantity of forms for free entry, please contact me as soon as possible.

Our main aim and our new mission statement is to Bring Super League to Sheffield with Regionally Developed Players. Over the past couple of months we have signed five young talented players, who have come through local junior teams and our own scholarship programme. It is Sheffield Eagles aim to have a team of players from this area that are capable of competing at the highest standard, within the Rugby League Super League.

This game is live on Sky Sports and we need to show that Sheffield is a Massive Sporting City.

We are presently in National League 1 which is the league below Super League and are presently close to the top of this division.

A 'family' could be a family with children, all adults, a family of friends, etc. So why not bring your friends down and experience the atmosphere of live Rugby league!

I hope you can join us, in what promises to be a very memorable evening.

Please pass this on to anyone you know who may be interested.

Regards
Simon Proctor
Commercial Manager

Latest from the test

asw909 has come out to bat.

Headingly

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

First day second test

Headingly

First day second test

Lack of visibility

As I walked past the Town Hall this morning the only sign of a strike was a lone placard leaning against the wall next to the back door.^[1] I thought about wandering down to the nasty modern building that has many more actual council workers in it to see if there was a better turn out there but decided against. Unison obviously wasn't really making an effort. They missed the prime opportunity to be visible as people arrive at the various bus and tram stops near the Town Hall on their way to offices or streaming past to the station. The chances to put their case to people lost. I don't really support this strike anyway, while yes they are getting low pay rises this year, so are most of the rest of us. The economy is screwed and while I understand that they say that they haven't had decent pay rises in previous years when the country wasn't feeling the pinch, it seems somewhat foolish to hold your biggest strike in years when there isn't any money.

I am much more disappointed that I haven't seen anyone in uniform for the TA's centennial 'Uniform to Work Day' I hope that if I go out for lunch I will get to see people being proud of this very important work they do.

^[1]I think you go in that door if you want to licence your taxi or register a birth, marriage or death. As I have never done any of these things I am not 100% sure.

Will this be as magic as their roundabout?

It is difficult to be definitive about the announcement from Swindon about withdrawing from the local "safety camera" partnership. They point out things that are demonstrably true, such as the money goes to the treasury, but also point at research into the statistics, which without seeing the figures is impossible to comment on. So it is impossible to say if they are the sane ones fighting against the camera stazi or if they are truly feckless endangerers of their resident's lives.

The council's position, that they think the $400,000 will be better spent on other measures is the key point and it would be nice to know that they have thought this through and are actually putting the public's safety first. As I understand it the economic argument is much less clear cut, given that while the revenue from the cameras heads to Westminster the money in question here will have originally been a grant from central government. I do hope that Swindon release the statistics they are basing this on, they may well already have done, I can't see them on swindon.gov.uk or in any of the press reports (the later being of no surprise, even if they have been released) and I will be interested to see what measures they will use instead. I think that both sides are probably somewhat correct cameras help, in some places, but you need other measures elsewhere.

The last point the coverage raises is if Swindon Borough Council are giving £.4m to Wiltshire & Swindon Safety Camera Partnership and the rest of Wiltshire is giving £1.2m how many real live human traffic police could you get for the £1.6 million pounds?

Of course they could just build more of these.

OMFG

Stagecoach have obviously switched all the trams to run on Windows.
They had to reboot the one I was on half way up Netherthorpe Road.

Internet musical miniseries from Mr Whedon

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day

A law about the law

Should it be illegal to represent the law?

Should a PCSO face action when they tell a photographer they aren't allowed to take photos in a public place when even the Home Secretary states "there is no legal restriction on photography in public places"?

Is it right to be aggrieved when you are told in a pub "It is against the terms of our licence to serve you that" when you ask for a Black and Tan or a Snakebite, when what they mean is "the manager doesn't like people drinking those in case people think the beer is off"?

What do you think?

Are they worried for his safety the rest of the day?

Obviously if this was a story about shared transport like a mini-bus or coach with other children this would be a sensible and sane decision. But it isn't, it is about the lad's mother, trained in the use of his drugs trying to make things safer for him by travelling with him.

This needs to be added to the list of things where some common sense is applied as Tom Mullarkey of RoSPA suggested last year while criticising the Health and safety “extremists”.

Bad news, good news

I just cut myself shaving...

Strolling players

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

We are ready to play. We are also prepared to retreat to the village hall in case of sog.

Strolling players

We are ready to play. We are also prepared to retreat to the village hall in case of sog.

a Synod in the right direction.

Even the most liberal Christian will acknowledge that as archaic as the staunch traditionalist view is on gay clergy, it is at least based on something explicitly stated in the bible.

The arguments against women as priests before and as bishops now are altogether more to do with interpretation and supposition. The Internet and academia are littered with essays written on this subject from both sides none of which have the direct word of Christ or God on the matter. There is the primary argument that we should follow his example and he only chose penis wavers to be fishers of men. However on that note no vicar can eat pizza, Christ didn't. Archbishop don't get on that aircraft, is is not approved by the demonstrative school of rules about following the apostolic succession.

The secondary arguments are mostly based on readings of the Epistles, the salutation to Junia (along with Andronicus) in Romans "my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me" Vs 1 Timothy and "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection" with of course the attendant debates about authorship of those letters.

In any case we can but speculate about the motivations for the all boys club, so why do some people hold that there opposition to the ordination of women is a gospel truth?

Question.

Take this a seriously (or not) as you like:

What makes you happy?

Dr Who

Not in a position to watch tonight's episode, so I am watching Remembrance of the Daleks instead.

Badger fight

In the red corner, former Chief Scientific Adviser and Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Sir David "I never met a nice South African" King

In the blue corner, the Principal of Jesus Oxon., Vice President of the Royal Society, John "Son of the Cycle" Krebs Baron Krebs of Wytham

Ok, ok I'll stop with the grandstanding it was a long night trying to nurse some health into a broken switch. What am I on about? Hilary Benn's decision not to cull badgers in order to try and control bovine TB, which flies in the face of scientific advice and also follows it. The arguments are figure-headed by a an ornithological zoologist and a chemist. The former designed a series of experiments to determine the efficacy of culling and has concluded that the government should use other weapons to combat the disease. The latter had the data re-analysed and concluded a cull would be effective. Both sides of the argument are using data from the Republic of Ireland to back up their position and claiming the other side is looking at in the wrong way.

Perhaps we should cull the cattle for giving the Badger's TB in the first place?

Two scientists, both alike in dignity,
In fair Britannia, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where Badger's blood makes civil hands unclean.

Yesterdays answers and scores

"Kennick is a top rated premier rainbow trout fishery" then it is me, then my Mum (well her book).
Sound Associates (they are a cinema engineering film, the logo is based on the Maltese Cross mechanism).
The BBC, mainly due to my post about their RSS feeds.
I don't have a can of Ubuntu Cola on my desk, it is now in the fridge chilling ready to be drunk.
I can see the Cholera Monument, the Hubs is the other side of the building and the Showroom cinema is underneath us.

astatine210 		3
azrael316 		2
blue_jez 		4
bonedancer 		3
caf_pow 		3
cassandra_7 		3
delanthear 		4
gourou 			3
gwengothelf 		3
jozafeen 		1
littlejenny123 		3
loucifer_ 		2
mathcathy 		2
njfuzzy 		2
psycho_magnet_ 		4
silverixnay 		1
twilightembrace 	3
xurble 			5

Pointing out the bleeding obvious

A good number of you will have seen this already as a bunch of you must be gamers and if you are a gamer you have to watch and like Zero Punctuation right?^[1] this week Yahtzee is talking about web comics but the narrative about childish attitudes both to people being critical and by those critiquing sounds very familiar, it probably always did, but at the moment it is just in our faces.

There are two classic examples in the air right now, first the ironed sardines situation where a man who causes great offense (nothing to do with his criminal one, but his views on certain subjects, you will note he hasn't been on my blog-roll for months) has the balls to admit it was him behind the mask. Second the fall out from the liberal bloggers' event at the Guardian, specifically the session on feminism. (I have to at this point say I rarely write on feminist topics, I have far to many penises to be really qualified to speak on them. Any previous blog posts^[2] about that sort of issue have tended to be more about scientific method etc than the feminist principles involved). For example Penny Red's rejection of 'ignored VS abused'. and all the other posts documenting self defeating arguments of the XY crowd.

So sit back and try and rewrite the script of the video for 'blogging' rather than running a comic, bet they both look the same though.

^[1]Zero irony ;-> besides if you aren't a gamer but a politico reading this you must recognise the style from Lee's political pastiche
^[2] abortion for example

Word map

Word map of this blog:

Warning if you use the feed based creation tool and you are logged in to LJ all private, custom and flocked posts are in the feed.

Word map of this blog

Frustration at this nation

I have railed before at people objecting to something third or forth hand when they haven't checked the original story. I have also covered (along with many others) the extremes you get with commenting on mainstream news stories. This story about some research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation follows the pattern, I found the report a few clicks away from that page but it is quite a way down the page, after a large number of comments all suggesting that because there was a suggestion of suing public transport that it had to be all done in London because no other tons or cities shave public transport, before someone else who has bothered to read it points out that most of the work was done in the Midlands of England with London having a check group along with Wales and Scotland. Why they couldn't have read the report I don't know.

The other great thing the comments highlight is that because the result isn't exactly right for them the commenters have to do tedious and pointless maths to show how they are special, missing somewhat the point of statistical benchmarks they are there to measure populations against not you you self centred idiot, they are there to inform policy to ensure that more people, preferably everyone has a decent standard of living and it is unlikely that any policy maker is going to specifically draft something just because the 43 doesn't run at the right times for you to get to work so you drive or you have a large student loan due to re-sitting a year. Get a grip.

Points at Reynolds

After reading the story of this sorry excuse for a government and their plans for the NHS earlier I had a post brewing in the back of my mind on the way home. It is another one that didn't get beyond the draft stage as my view as a user of the system is much less powerful that that of Reynolds in the post Dear Lord Darzi.

Wow that must be galling

In a country renowned for unfair elections, so presumably they are quite practiced at them.

Where a campaign of terror, violence and murder has caused the opposition candidate to withdraw leaving a single valid choice to vote for.

They still can't get the results out on time.

It really mussed be utterly embarrassing to be the chief Zimbabwean ballot box stuffer this weekend.

Accidental live blogging of the ODI

I didn't itend to live blog the One Day International but after the first few status updates (on Facebook/Twitter) I carried on. I thought I would copy it here to keep a record of my pain.

10:00	Tony awaits the ODI with mounting excitement.
10:43	Tony hopes KP winning the toss is a good omen.
11:11	Tony thinks Ambrose may have reignited the wicket keeper debate.
11:47	Tony wonders if Styris's sidebar picture was taken as a ferret went up his tracksuit.
12:11	Tony w00ts the demise of McCullum.
12:59	Tony notes you don't need to smack Flynn in the mouth to get him out.
13:33	Tony already hates the new magners advert as much as the bulmers one that has been running for weeks.
14:21	Tony isn't too unhappy at the prospect of chasing 266 as long as the buggers don't collapse like a sandcastle being hit by the incoming tide.
15:48	Tony says Go KP!
15:59	Tony is pretty sure 24 isn't a justification for picking Cook over an all-rounder.
16:48	Tony knows that a man with less blind loyalty and faith would start to worry at this point, but is resolutely not that man.
17:15	Tony may, only may, be starting to entertain doubts.
17:26	Tony has dropped the 'may's.
17:43	Tony starts composing a heroic ballad praising the skills of Shah and Broad ready.
18:01	Tony crosses out all he has written so far on the ballad.
18:17	Tony even the most optimistic fan can have no hope now.
18:26	Tony joins Sir Ian in the rush to blame the selection policy.

Flash bang wallop

Philip Gwynne, of the West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership, which is responsible for speed cameras in the county, said: “Mr Fielden was doing what any other loving husband would do pointing out where something was possibly being done wrong and he attempted to do that using the laws of physics. “However, the judge has ruled that as in any other situation English law can over rule the law of physics. “Maybe it is time that we left physics in the classroom and allowed cameras to get on with the job of raising lots and lots of lovely money for us. How dare people challenge the universal truth that these things are far cheaper than real police officers.”

I must declare an interest in that I know the Fieldens, but I don't know any of the specifics of the case. Other coverage suggests that it wasn't just a simple case of attempting to blind the court with science in order to get off a fine, but that the camera was set up contrary to the manufacturers instructions. While I picked Mr Gwynne's comments as the easier target for satire the more worrying quote from the Examiner article is “I hope the large costs in this case will cause other motorists to think carefully before mounting spurious challenges.” from Trevor Hall, managing director of road safety support for the Association of Chief Police Officers, in other words, stop complaining peasants and accept what your lords and masters tell you, questioning us will just lead to punitive costs. Only those with large amounts of money should be given a fair day in court, the rest of you back to your mud.

Matlock

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

The sign doesn't point the way, like John did.
- Camera phone upload powered by ShoZu

'special' dvd

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Tori personlaised my copy of the Screaming Banshee Aircrew DVD

Old Friend

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Bumped into at the Union Beer Festival

Someone lost the Game

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Have you? [map]

Co-op Vodka shelves

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Bankers Draft

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

A hugly messy table in an understaffed pub with a magazine that is bosting about how much they are investing in staff and that they will have the fastest service and cleanest toilets and tables.

Hills an clouds

thegreatgonzo posted a photo:

Couldn't be bothered to go quite as far as the mountains, so had to make do with hills.

Rain in sheffield causes the Porter Brook to rise.

The tame little stream that flows down from Ringinglow to meet the Sheaf under the station is looking a little full...

Author: thegreatgonzo42
Keywords: Sheffield rain porter brook flood
Added: June 25, 2007

Gatecrasher fire

watching the plume of smoke,then watching the watchers.

Author: thegreatgonzo42
Keywords: ShoZu fire s1+1dj gatecrasher sheffield
Added: June 18, 2007

Ed

At work

Author: thegreatgonzo42
Keywords: ShoZu
Added: February 26, 2007

The Mallet Dance

The annual Bar Managers' mallet dance at the Great British Beer Festival

Author: thegreatgonzo42
Keywords: Mallet Dance GBBF
Added: February 17, 2007