Norway

It's impossible to stop this sort of thing happening.  It just takes one determined individual with enough skill and luck on their side.

Kids only

Just chatting to the wife about the culture/art event last Saturday and we brought up an interesting point.  All the interactive events were involving the kids.  Almost no adults were actually taking part - some of the stuff like fencing and judo had been organised specifically for younger participants, put crazy golf, drumming and origami stands had no restrictions - yet very few adults participating.
My wife has been involved in setting up a local history archive, and has attended several council meetings to discuss what's wanted.  The main driver is the need to preserve an archive of papers and artefacts that has been built up about the local history.  Yet an awful lot of the council specified requirements if for the facilities to appeal to youngsters.  Provision of a classroom for school groups, making any displays appeal to family groups with children.
The same thing is happening at Belfairs woods, local to us.  A quite large area of woodland has been sacrificed to an adventure play area - there was already an area of swings etc.  There is due to be a woodland centre built and opened there soon, and again a lot of what I've heard is centred around attracting young people.
I do casual work in the adult education colleges.  Even here the focus is being moved onto younger adults gaining work qualifications.  Any leisure courses, even where culturally valuable are being cut back, or at least not subsidised.  The cost gets quite prohibitive for pensioners and the like.

One can only applaud the provision of facilities to attract children, but this should not be at the expense of infantilising what are by their nature serious cultural facilities. Libraries need to remain focused on literature and information.  Woodlands need to remain as havens of nature and peace.  Museums need to retain their archives.  While beeping and flashing interactive displays have their place, they are by their nature limited in what they can present.  There is also good reason for children to be exposed to serious exhibitions and to be taught about how to behave in such environments.
Fine for kids to have their fun palaces.  Can some provision also be kept for adults to enjoy things in an adult way please.

Repeat rant for restaurants and pubs....

Conceptual art(ists)

Just returned from a visit to an event organised by our local 'cultural promotions' unit.  I believe it's getting quite a bit of public money one way or the other and puts on several artistic/cultural events a year at various local locations.
I'm certainly not against the idea of a bit of culture being made freely available to the masses, but I am left wondering who decides what types of culture should be made available.  The local group is predominantly conceptual artists - I take this to mean that they're more into multimedia and challenging works rather than conventional painting and sculpture.
I'm sure I've put this elsewhere on my blog, but my definition of art is something that doesn't have a particular useful function but nevertheless enhances our lives.
Today's event was a bit of fun with public participation, so by that definition today's even works.  What I found rather disappointing was the quality of the workmanship on much of the artwork and many of the installations.  Loads of public money has been lavished on the buildings the artists in residence use, and much of their work (play?) is at public expense.  So why do the mechanics of the interactive installations keep breaking, or not work adequately.  Why do some of the artwork look as if they're constructed with kindergarten level skills and techniques.
I suppose what I'm saying is that while conceptual art with original ideas is fine, it does need to be backed up by the artists having the craft skills necessary to create a good quality artefact from their ideas.  Taking a toy and spray painting it gold, or bodging together a lot of cardboard tubes with duct tape really doesn't justify these artists having superb facilities provided for them - it's sheer self indulgence on their part to think the public must support them for their 'challenging ideas' when they don't have the basic artistic skills to produce the goods.
Lets get back to artists starting with the basics and doing an'apprenticeship' of conventional art before they're considered competent to move on.  And lets have the general public deciding what enhances their lives (and so is art) rather than allowing the art world to completely detach itself from the real world.

Wishful thinking

Fox in my garden has been suffering from mange for a while.  I sent off for some mange treatment, and the honey sandwich I've been putting out for him with the treatment on has disappeared regularly.  Hadn't seen him for a few days, but yesterday the fox turned up at sundown with quite a bit of fur on his tail - still very manky, but not the bare bone of a tail he'd had before.  With just enough light I took a photo and posted on facebook proclaiming success with the treatment!
This morning scruff the fox was in next doors garden - still with his bare bone of a tail.  Closer inspection of yesterday's fox photo shows it's clearly a different fox with a black cast to his back fur.  The amount of fur is very obviously too much to have regrown in the few days I haven't seen him.
So ... we have a second fox with mange visiting our garden.  Question is, how do I tell the foxes only to eat one sandwich each if I now put out two sandwiches a day?

Playstation generation

Seen several articles recently about older people not being very competent with the latest technology.  Maybe that should be 'familiar' rather than 'competent'.  I'm not a believer in using satnavs, ipods, blackberries and the like.  I can't say they're rubbish or anything because I've never tried them - I've just never felt the need or desire to own them.  I am sitting here using a laptop to blog, something I certainly wouldn't have done a few years ago for much the same reasons I don't have a satnav now.
As technologies become more mature, I feel they improve and get easier to use.  At the same time, they can also get more sophisticated and more difficult to make full use of.  I've got a relatively simple mobile phone with camera and mp3 player, but I only ever use it as a phone.  If I need to take a photo it's a case of searching through the menus, despite the fact I know there's a quick button on the outside somewhere or direct access to the camera function.  I'm not entirely sure, but I would imagine over time the manufacturers will standardise how controls like this are presented, just as the major controls on a motor car were standardised quite early in automotive history.  It's still often a problem finding the fog light switch!

A major reason I don't rush out and buy new technology is the rate of change.  Buy the latest gizmo and it's going to be superseded within a few months.  Give it a couple of years to prove itself - the design will settle down to include all the useful functions and the price will come down and it will become apparent if the thing is actually useful.

A major gripe with technology is the way many manufacturers change things to no real purpose other than to make older versions obsolete.  Microsoft keeps changing the interfaces on its software, 2007 being a complete break with previous designs, rendering a lot of knowledge redundant and requiring re-learning.  Even worse is the recent operating systems not being backwardly compatible.  Much older software doesn't work on the new operating systems, buying new versions is, to say the least, an annoyingly expensive business.  While I understand that at some point the technology has to radically change to make use of the latest developments, it is surely not beyond these mighty companies ability to include a simulator program to allow the powerful new generation PC's to (even very inefficiently) simulate the old operating systems and allow the obsolete software to work.
And then there are the web providers who keep tinkering with their offerings.  Their 'improvements' are often not communicated to the user community very well, they can affect the security of the user, they require effort to relearn the changed functionality, and they often don't improve the user experience anyway.

Maybe I need to stay out of these area fr a decade rather than just a couple of years - wait 'til it all gets properly stable!

Foxes

Guy had a go at me because I was wearing my fox t shirt.
Apparently his rabbits were eaten by a fox.
Still don't know why he decided to have a go at me.  I can see that it's upsetting to have your rabbits eaten in this way, but my shirt only depicted a fox and cubs, there was no slogan supporting foxes rights or anything.
The only reply I could give him was that foxes are vermin and wild animals and they will obey their instincts and do things like this.
What I would have liked to say to him -
It's really cruel of you to keep rabbits in a hutch just for your entertainment.  If you're going to keep a foxes natural prey contained where it can't escape it's YOUR responsibility to keep the animals safe.  If you know there are foxes about the hutch must be fox proof (and then some!)  Foxes are intelligent animals, but you can't expect them to realise your pets are off limits to them.
Not wanting to start a punch up, I refrained from saying this, but it's a pretty nasty type of person who will have a go at a stranger about something that's really their own fault.  However upset they are.

Responsible citizenry

When is breaking the law not an offence and offensive?
Much of the time if you look at the behaviour of many 'responsible law abiding' citizens.  At least that's what they'd like to think of themselves as.
Think traffic act speeding, parking on double yellows, cycling on pavements or without lights at night and you'll understand what I'm getting at.  This type of offence seems to be accepted as OK by many people, plus a fair number of police who think they've got better things to do.  the really surprising thing about these offences is that the perpetrators know full well that they're breaking the law but seem to indulge themselves in some form of doublethink that they're not criminals!  The job of the police is to enforce the laws as enacted by government.  In some of the above cases they seem to want to make the law and allow some of the offences to go unchallenged. Surely even if resource restraints prevent 100% effort to prosecute the above offences, there should be periodic crackdowns to remind everyone what the law says.  A bit of publicity in the local papers beforehand and there would be no need for warnings - immediate prosecution or fixed penalty fines should be the order of the day during a crackdown.
As always the best route is for individuals to willingly obey the law, but if individuals won't comply, enforcement is a necessity in any civilised community.  If any individual wants to make their own laws, they can't complain to the law when someone assaults them for doing something the other person doesn't like!

Another issue is ignorance of the law.  This indeed may apply to youngsters riding bikes on pavements when their parents say it's OK and the police fail to enforce or inform.
The particular issue I'm thinking of here however is public nudity.  Subject brought up on another forum I've been looking at.  It's not illegal to be naked in a public place.  How many people in England would agree with that statement.
"Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 it is not an offence to be naked in public in England and Wales. It becomes an offence if it can be proved the person stripped off with the intention to cause distress, alarm or outrage."  Quote from BBC news item.
I find that quite surprising and would expect to be arrested if I walked down the local street nude.  That word 'intention' in the causing alarm bit is very interesting - I wouldn't have thought anyone could walk down the street nude without realising it was very likely to cause offence and or alarm - it's just not done.

That's enough from me for now.  Today's issue in a nutshell is the difference in what the law says to the public perception of what's OK.

Monday - quiet

Had a go round the shops today.  A lot of my bushcraft clothes were getting rather frayed at the edges.  It's never seemed worth buying new as they do get dirty and smoky.  I recall walking in to Tesco after one course - I'd remembered to take off my sheath knife, but stinking of woodsmoke, covered in mud, pheasant blood and assorted other grime isn't what shop assistants expect in urban Essex.
Anyway, there's a Go Outdoors that opened a year or so ago near me, I've been meaning to visit for a look and this seemed a good time.  Walked in to the store and there was an american style greeter on the door.  I surprised myself by rather liking the experience - the guy did seem genuinely welcoming and not the false 'have a nice day' bit.  Wandering round the store I was again offered help several times - not in a pushy way and I was left alone when I declined help.  Then I found I'd  left my reading glasses at home and needed to ask an assistant for help reading the sizing on packs of socks.  He happily helped and also noticed a bit of the display was awry and stopped to push the display part back into place.  The till girl was also more than willing to explain their discount card scheme.
A good experience - I got cargo walking trousers, a medium weight fleece top and some recommended socks (the most expensive I've ever bought!).  Exactly what I set out to buy, and spending less than I'd expected.  On a Monday morning the shop was practically deserted, almost more staff than customers.  I was still impressed with the staff though.  Is that just chance that they were a good bunch, or is that shop doing something right?  Later in the day I went to a B&Q - the staff didn't offer help, the displays were, to be kind, grubby and it was more the usual big store shopping experience I'd expect.
The big point here is that the Go Outdoors staff seemed a lot happier than other staff I've met in big stores.  I'd really like to know if happy staff give good service, or caring about your job makes you happier.  I know I responded to the service by being nice to the staff - and the 64k dollar question, how does management achieve a happy staff corps eager to do their job well?  Feel sure it's not just a case of paying them more.

Celebrity

It's often in the papers about celebrities having their privacy invaded.  The phone hacking business being a main area of discussion at the moment.
Anyone who makes their living from entertaining the public, or who represents the public (MPs and councillors) know what they're getting into.  In the case of sportspeople and entertainers, their income is directly affected by their public profile.  If they're content with a 'normal' pay level, then maybe they can expect a normal level of privacy.  Those who demand mega-salaries have to accept that with that level of pay, they must accept that they're owned by the paying public and every aspect of their lives is under the microscope.
Our public representatives must also accept that if we're going to vote them into power we have a valid interest in their morals, beliefs and way of life.
Personally I've no interest in the seedy details of a lot of these people and can't understand how publishing sex scandals boosts the circulation of newspapers and magazines.  This is one sort of article I definitely won't read.

I still don't get why individuals are paid so much for playing a game, however well.  MPs having multiple jobs also seems to me corrupt - it cannot be possible that they're offered directorships without the employing company expecting some undue influence over government.

Sickies

Just wondering why I and my family don't ever seem to be seriously ill.  Probably tempting fate here, but none of our family have required hospital treatment, excepting childbirth, pretty well ever.  I did go in for one night's observation as a teenager when I fell off my bike, but that's about it.  Oh, and treatment for depression - I'm undoubtedly rationalising, but somehow I don't see that as a physical illness.
Other families I know seem to be taking their kids up to the hospital every other week.  Many of my friends and in laws have a variety of ongoing and one off health problems, some without positive diagnosis.
Some of this is undoubtedly just the luck of the draw, but I do wonder if some of these people are verging on hypochondria, taking their kids to hospital for every little thing, and I do wonder if there's a genetic element in a tendency to either get ill or maybe even have accidents.
This isn't one of those things with a definite answer.  Personal attitudes, lifestyle and upbringing must influence whether we get ill, have accidents, and how we respond to these life events.
There's suggestions in the newspapers that very obese children should be taken into foster care to sort their obesity - and related health problems - out.  It does raise the wider question of whether the state has the right to interfere with our lifestyles where it results in a cost to the state, the NHS in this case.
Maybe a better solution would be for anyone with an unhealthy or risky lifestyle to be required to buy insurance to pay the extra costs.  It does seem unfair that individuals who look after themselves are required to contribute to the care of those who don't.  By extrapolation, others who cost the country cash should also be required to pay - get criminals to repay all the costs of bringing them to justice, compensation to victims (& repay insurance payouts) and their stay in prison.
Just think how complex the politicians could make the systems if they went down this route.  Jobs for the whole population just sorting it all out and chasing non payers!
As always it would probably end up in those with assets being penalised, and the workshy and unprudent getting off scot free.  Another subject for another day, but I'm now defined as 'below the poverty line'... and doing fine thank you.

National debt

Saw in the newspaper (or the daily mail at least) that the national debt, including future commitments is 80K for every family in Britain.
Might wonder where the money's going to come from, but in another article it commented that 60billion has been wiped off the value of the nations savings accounts by the excess of inflation over interest rates available to savers.
The bank crash cost me about half my savings as I worked for a major bank and had been encouraged through various schemes and tax breaks to invest in company shares.  OK shares can go down as well as up, but there's something (probably criminally) wrong when a major banks shares go down from £7 to 10p in a few months.
Lose your sanity with the pressure of working for a cost cutting company, then lose your job at the same time you savings get wiped.
No big deal, it's all only numbers on a statement anyway, until you try to buy something you want.

Zoning out

Just had an interesting question asked on another forum I look at.
They needed to stay still modelling for an art class, and asked how they could 'zone out' while remaining focussed enough to stay in place.
It's something I'm pretty good at - doing wildlife photography I may need to stay absolutely still for an hour or more while being ready to operate the camera at any time.  However, how is it done?
Eastern sects talk about a beginners or empty mind, and it seems to me there is a need to 'switch off' the conscious decision making and critical parts of the mind.  Achieving this state may be the same as the states named 'meditation', 'trance', 'self induced hypnosis'.
I get there by physical stillness and practising a variety of shamanic exercises I've learnt over the last few years on bushcraft and holistic courses.  It is remarkably similar to the state of mind I used to experience while Kart racing, however strange that may seem.  The Kart racing required hours of practise of the techniques of cornering, braking, balancing the kart on the throttle round bends.  Once these techniques became second nature, actual racing ceased to need the concious part of the mind and the instinctive, subconscious mind took over and did a far better job.  I've heard similar descriptions from musicians, artists and combat soldiers.
What's going on?
One of the reasons I took to bushcraft was being made redundant/early retirement from my main job.  While on outplacement training I received advice on interview technique.  A point it made was that decisions by the interviewer are often made unconsciously - The need for good hygiene, neat haircut, trimmed nails, pressed shirt are not to impress the conscious decision making, but the unconscious.  Our logical minds can process just 3-7 pieces of information at one time.  The unconscious processes 2-3 million pieces of data simultaneously.  Just think - every single nerve ending in your body, every cone and rod in your eyes, every olfactory cell, your balance and sense of acceleration is sending information to your brain constantly.  The remarkable barely understood organ has to filter out what's important and present it to the part known as conscious thought.
If you can let go conscious control and trust that the programming you've provided by rehearsing the techniques required for any activity, you instinctive or unconscious mind has far more data at it's disposable, and less inhibiting criticism to get on with the job far better.
There's also the aspect that we are happy to assume animals have evolved instinctive behaviour during evolution.  Surely humans, with their advanced evolution, must also have a store of instinctive wisdom held somewhere in their being.  We can't seem to access this consciously, so again 'letting go' with the conscious mind may just allow us to make use of this instinctive behaviour.

Try this exercise, based on shamanic rites -
Stay 100% still.  Now concentrate on the nearest sound you can  hear - listen just to that sound.  Now move to the furthest sound you can hear - listen just to that sound.  Without allowing your logical mind to criticise, build a mental picture of what the furthest sounds represent.  Come back to the nearest sound - if it's, say, a clock ticking, build a mental image of the workings, whatever, let your mind build a picture of what the sounds represent.  With practise you may find some remarkable results.  To my mind you're not tapping in to mysterious energies or receiving message from god, you're just tapping in to the vast streams of information that are normally filtered out before they reach your conscious mind.
Warning, you may feel strange or dizzy after doing this properly, take a few seconds to gather your wits once back in the room.

Just another thought - how much are the rituals of religions intended to get the faithful to drop their logical, conscious faculties in the interest of belief in the supernatural.

Bushcraft

Just back from four days/three nights living under a basha in private Kent woodland.  I help out on Natural Pathways bushcraft courses.
These events really bring out the best in everyone, in five years of going to these courses I haven't met a single unpleasant person.  Many have not been the sort of person I'd normally want to associate with, but they've all had something to contribute.  This last weekend I've had discussions on anything from the weather to the possibility of a universe with a second time dimension.
We also had the owner of the woodlands grandson doing the survivalist bit in another part of the woods.  The disturbance he and his two friends caused alerted us to their presence, so we wandered down and found their camp.  They weren't there and a bow and arrows, machete, food and various equipment was scattered around.  their shelter they'd built was pretty poor (they also had a tent) and their fire was uncontained and built among pine trees - risking a forest fire!  This somewhat shows the need for a bit of training before being let loose in woodland!  We hadn't been told he'd be there, so phoned the owner assuming they shouldn't be there - somewhat of a relief to find they were legitimate.
During our course we ate some delicious tender young rabbit, shot the day before and prepared by our group.  Another wild delicacy was some jelly ear fungus, fried with wild garlic and herbs.  I must say I eat more and better than I do at home.  The variety of dishes (not all woodland sourced) that I wouldn't consider preparing at home that I eat here is amazing.  The wild cooking expert here blends herbs and spices in the way a fine artist uses colour in a painting.
Everything at a camp like this takes longer and much more physical effort than you'd use in a normal domestic situation, but it's all much more satisfying for that.  You generally don't have a compost toilet at home that needs emptying and the contents burying.
It's a rather tempting option to buy a piece of woodland and live, at least part of the time, a more natural existence.  I've got some good friends from my time doing bushcraft, and a small community of likeminded friends would be excellent.  Living in a real community rather than an amorphous mass of people too big to all relate to each other would be a new experience for me, and I think a good one.  These weekends with a great variety of people provide a small glimpse at how a community rapidly builds from disparate group of people with a common interest.  The altruism shown, with everyone using their better attributes to compensate where others are weaker is wonderful to see.
One of the regular comments at the end of the weekend is "Oh well, back to reality tomorrow".  Before I'd retired, I replied quite spontaneously to this comment "Not really, this is reality here, I'm going back to the hell of commuting, it's just not natural or real".

Bureaucracy

Half a days work this afternoon.

I do casual work, either for local colleges or private groups.  The council run colleges are a nightmare of paperwork and bureaucracy.  While it means your tax gets paid and al the admin done, it can take tow or three months to get paid.  Small wonder that many private organisations just do it all cash in hand - one may even wonder if many of the employees, who only probably earn a couple of hundred a year, bother to go through all the official hoops to declare their earnings.  That would also mean they're probably not declaring their earnings against any benefits they receive.

Personally I run a self employed photography business and lump these cash earnings into this self employment, but for just these earnings it wouldn't be worth my time, or come to that the tax offices time, to process these small amounts.

The government should recognise these small scale earnings and allow them to be declared and duly ignored.  That would mean they're legitimate so that when (if) they grow into a reasonable part time job, they can be merged into the tax system without the earner having to worry about their previous undeclared earnings.  It will always be difficult and arbitrary to set the limits for amounts to be ignored, but if it's not an accepted derogation of the system, these earnings remain 'black' and encourage individuals to remain outside the mainstream system - and to continue claiming undue amounts of benefits after they've finished needing them.  It also removes a fairly reasonable excuse when people are found cheating on a very small scale.

Sun!

Yesterday and today we've seen the sun out, hot and bright.

Nice couple of lazy days - minimum housework and maximum sunbathing time in the budgie smugglers.  Don't know about others, but I don't use sun block.  I just sit in the full sun for less hours and then retreat under the shade of our rowan tree.

Experts never seem to fully agree what is good or bad for you.  A few years ago you were supposed to avoid sun exposure at all costs.  The along came vitamin D deficiency and a bit of exposure is deemed good for you.  Now there's evidence a bit of sunbathing can reduce various cancers.

It's in the paper today that being a thin male can give rise to diabetes - first I've heard of that one.  And apparently thin males are much more prone to serious injury in motor accidents as they've got less protective padding.

Moderation in all things I say, listen to your body's instincts and ignore the experts.  I've been in for five minutes now checking my email and doing this blog, so I'm going back out to enjoy the sun again.

Sunday

Sitting here after traditional roast Sunday lunch.  Kids on PS3.  Wife on PC in dining room.  Washing up done/in dishwasher.  Me on blog.

Maybe I should watch the Wimbledon final if I was interested.

Oldest son went out for a picnic with his girlfriend twenty minutes ago.  They've just come back because the roads are near gridlocked - they going to walk to the park instead.

Next week will be very different.  I'll be out in Kent woodland helping on a bushcraft course.  No traffic, no electronic stuff, no crowds.  Just a small bunch of people living in home built shelters, cooking on a camp fire, and following the bears' lead for other necessities.  Physically much harder than my normal sedentary life, and everything takes much longer, it's all so more meaningful.  If I win that crazy £154,000,000 I can buy a nice piece of woodland and just live there.  Probably end up not spending anything!

The more entertainment and leisure opportunities I have, the less inclination I seem to have to actually do anything.  Reduce life to the basics and I'm eager to be up at first light, seeing and hearing the animal activity, tuned in to the natural world.  Being over-fed, under exercised and over stimulated with drivel is not a satisfying way to live.  Big problem is the need for space:  Living a natural existence requires acres of land for each person to provide their needs.  Uncontaminated water, fuel for heat, animals to hunt, plants to forage from, space to dispose of waste.

Glancing up at the PS3, there's a game set in derelict urban/industrial scenery with various monsters to be killed.  Yup, that sounds like most of the games there are - replace monsters with enemy forces and add cars occasionally.

Be quite nice to come up with a pre-industrial type SIMs game.  I wonder if the knowledge base still exists to create a realistic set of rules as to how to live in a natural environment.  Could be very educational with good and bad plants to eat, divvying up your effort into the necessary functions in order to thrive.  Be very interesting if it was an on-line, thousands of players, multi player game with restricted resources.  Would individuals cooperate or compete, and could the rules be set to enable either strategy to be viable.

I'm not even going to think about a default starting scenario...

Sunday afternoon - now for me followed by every day holding the option of leisure or working.  Semi retirement provides the options, but it's up to me to provide the decisions and actions.

(Dis)agreement among friends

I've been seeing some pretty rude comments between 'friends' on social networking sites.  It's very hard to tell if they're meant as banter or if they really are being rather ill mannered towards each other.  It does make me wonder at the etiquette of online communication - should it have the same rules applied as face to face, or is a greater degree of rudeness acceptable.

It's always seemed to me that I need to be a lot more careful with emails and forum posting.  Computer text lacks the visual clues to indicate that a remark is banter (emoticons excepting).  It's very easy to offend unintentionally.  Plus, if offence is caused there's, the chance that the sender will never know that offence is caused - any apology for offence caused will also be delayed.  Face to face, you'd soon realise if what you're saying goes against your listener's beliefs and could moderate or explain your comments.

I've had the experience of posting on a forum and using a particular word in a restricted context - another user read it in a wider context and, fortunately, laughed at the unintended insult.  I think they realised what I'd actually meant.

Another time, a friend on facebook that I rarely meet had posted a series of diatribes against the break up of the forestry commission - an organisation I've never much liked.  I either had to bite the bullet and ignore their comments, start an on line argument, or, as I did, just quietly defriended them.  We met up a couple of months later and talked the issue through.  I could see their points, and in a face to face situation, they could amicably see my view.  We remain friends in real life but defriended on facebook.

There's a series of culture clashes online.  The usual demarcations between classes and generations cease to exist.  I have my sons as friends on facebook, something which is maybe needed for safety.  But I really don't want to be privy to their 'playground banter', and I'm sure they don't want me seeing their peer group opinions and language.  It would be good if you could have groups of friends, and interact only with the selected group(s) you want to.  OK multiple accounts would do that and maybe it can be done anyway but I'm not savvy enough.

Text speak / spelling / grammar.  OMG - I think that means oh my god.  How lazy can people get.  It's the responsibility of the sender to make what they send intelligible.  I don't want to have extra effort unloaded on to me by lazy ****ers making me try to understand their sloppy typing.  I know young people adopt a 'secret language' deliberately unintelligible to their elders - that's OK.  I also know it is possible to get too worked up about one or two errors, but for many people there are some basic errors in their efforts which demonstrate they're really too idle to care.  If you're one of these people careless with your grammar and spelling, please be a bit more careful.

If you didn't get the to, too, two, there, their, they're, you're, your usage then swot up.

If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you're a teacher, thank the rest of society for providing you with a job and all you need to live and teach.

Form filling

Just had two letter from the student finance people demanding information about my income.

I'm getting quite upset about the amount of information this particular department keep asking for, and seriously question why they're asking in the first place.

My son (2nd of 4) is at university.  He's twenty.  When it comes to child benefit, tax credits and the like he's considered a non dependent adult.  When it comes to assessing his financial position he's still our dependent child.

Because I've taken early retirement, our family income has crashed.  OK, I've asked for current year assessment of our income and given details.  They've now asked for details and proof of my 2008/2009 income - Firstly I've already given them this information as my first son was at university over this time, secondly what possible bearing has that years income got on this years application?

This all comes after the hassle of filling in my annual self assessment tax form.  I've got a very small self employed income and the amount of work it takes to record and fill in the forms positively encourages anyone to cheat and not declare small amounts of income.

This brings me to the big question.  Is the government system meant to be serving us, the people, or are we meant to be slaves pandering to every whim of the government system.

Yes I know there's quite a bit of fraud going on, and I accept that if I 'try it on' the system should come down hard on me.  BUT, I play by the rules and meticulously follow the advice I'm given - I'm still repeatedly hassled for the same information by different government departments, and the threatening tone the take BEFORE any wrongdoing has taken place is completely over the top.

Try chucking your telly out as I did a few years ago and see if officialdom assumes your innocence when it comes to not having a TV licence!

I've come across individuals working for the government who are friendly and helpful, and others who are right bureaucratic pains in the posterior;  I'm not particularly having a go at the people who operate the system but the complexity of the systems and the alienation engendered by the assumption of guilt the letters they send so often have.

MPs are supposed to represent us and serve our needs, as are all the various civil servants.

If they wish to serve my needs, please provide simple transparent systems I can understand.  I don't wish to avoid my responsibilities, but for heavens sake keep it all simple so I don't inadvertently break the law.  I don't earn that much that I can afford (or justify) spending hundred or thousands of pounds on professional advisers.  If I'm suspected of fraud, or for a random check, I'll cooperate with any investigation - up until the point anyone is found guilty of fraud, please treat us with a decent amount of respect.

I also didn't vote for any government to spend more than the country can afford, and certainly not to get us all into debt.

Re the strikes going on at the moment.  15,00 employees going from Lloyds, private pensions decimated by G Brown changes to pension taxes.  Government employees need to have a look at the world outside before they think they're hard done by.

Re Greek riots.  They're not helping anybody, but I can't help wondering why the British people aren't on the streets rioting about things like the national debt, officialdoms attitudes, stupid priorities...