Astrology…the oldest scam?
A superb blog article flaming astrology today by qwghlm. I’d never thought of it as fraud before, I wonder if astrologists can be sued if a horoscope is shown to be false?
A superb blog article flaming astrology today by qwghlm. I’d never thought of it as fraud before, I wonder if astrologists can be sued if a horoscope is shown to be false?
There is nothing more depressing than taking down the Christmas tree and decorations. Even more so if, like me, you have had a great Christmas. If you’ve had a crap one then you can take the decorations down and console yourself with things like “bah, humbug” or “let’s get on with the new year”. If you’ve had a good one then you’ll just wish it was still going on.
Anyhow, the tree has been taken to the recycling centre and the decorations are in various carrier bags waiting for me to find somewhere to stow them for the year. So long Christmas 2004, you really were a great one.
I attended the Romanian Orthodox Holy Liturgy service today (and part of the Morning Mass too) at St Dunstan-in-the-West church in Fleet St, London. It’s very different to a Baptist or Anglican service. The biggest difference perhaps is how traditional or “untopical” it is. Apart from a few brief words at the end about the tsunami it could have been a service held at any time over the last 500 years. At a time when when Anglicans, Catholics, Budhists and Muslims are working together to provide aid and having to deal with the question of “why does God allow such suffering?” The Orthodox Church seems to have side stepped the question altogether and made the comment that “we should help these people even though they are not Christians”. I believe there was a collection point in the church for the tsunami although I didn’t see it. Having said that it was a lovely church, full of worshippers and the bit where all the babies being spoonfed wine was a cute thing to see.
Left it too late to book something for New Year’s Eve but managed to get into Anatolia’s which had a very attractive belly dancer dancing around (and on) the tables…I wish I’d taken my camera. Good food too. The only downer was that the place wanted to close before Midnight. Anyhow, it was a good night out and we got home in time to toast in the new year and watch some of the plenty of fireworks at midnight too.
Some random recollections of Christmas 2004…
And of course the Asia Earthquake/Tsunami disaster; watching the initial and hopelessly optimistic death toll estimate of 500 rise to over 120,000 and realising just how minor the emergencies in my last post really are.
1. Yesterday morning I was walking back over Midsummer Common after buying the last present for someone. I started to cross the bridge that leads to Mitcham’s Corner when I heard a child scream. The scream was followed by a man shouting. My first instinct was that a child was being shouted at and that I probably didn’t want to get get involved. A moment later I saw a woman running away from the child and man and the I assumed that this was a major domestic argument that I definitelly didnt want to be involved in. Another moment later and I saw the still screaming child, his face covered in blood. I ran across the road still trying to process the data of the situation. Man -father- hysterical shouting English and German, trying to comfort the boy. To me: “you have a phone?”. Yes, I said as I dialled 999 and handed it to the woman “you talk to them”. I found a pack of unopened tissues in my day-sack and passed them to the man who trying -in vain - to stem the blood escaping from the boy’s forehead. More people appeared. Everyone offering to help but no one knowing the name of the road that we were on and the Emergency Operator insistent that she needed to know exactly where we were. Someone else had called 999 too and I found myself talking to another Operator on someone else’s phone while the boy’s mother talked to the first operator on my phone. Oh well, it wouldn’t hurt if they sent 2 ambulances would it? Slowly the boy calmed down and his bleeding slowed too. His father calmed down too which was good, his German shouting was annoying me. As well as telling the Father to maintain pressure with the tissues I suggested he do up the boy’s coat to help prevent shock which he did. One passer by kept waffling about the risk of infection from the tissues and everyone managed to avoid saying “fuck off mate” to him. Another person said that the ambulance shouldnt take him to Addenbrookes because that was “so far away”. Yeah, like 5 miles, 5 miles in an ambulance with flashing lights and a siren. Where else would you take him? An ambulance turned up (very quickly I thought) and I said my goodbyes. A few minutes later I saw another ambulance racing to the scene. Hopefully the boy (4 years old) is fine now. I guess he might have a scar on his forehead but then he’ll be like Harry Potter so he’ll be cool.
2. Came back from Tesco’s this morning doing the last of the food shopping. Couldn’t get into my flat, one of the locks on the front door jammed. Had to force open the bathroom window and climb in. Surprisingly difficult: high window, opens from the top only and only a small amount. Also had to avoid all the lotions and potions on the window sill inside. I knocked one which fell into the bath. Did it break? No, but it chipped the enamel of the bath, curses. I ache all over after that. Burglars must be very fit. Door lock has worked perfectly since then. Grrr. Still, at least I didn’t have to pay for a locksmith’s call out fee.
Both these things (for me anyway) are minor in the Grand Scheme of Things and had (for me anyway) happy endings.
Best Wishes for Christmas.
Ex-policeman jailed for indecency. Towards the end of that article: “Swabs taken from his webcam showed evidence he had been pleasuring himself, the court heard.”
Oh how lovely, the Duke of Gloucester, who happens to be President of the Institute of Advanced Motorists is banned from driving for speeding.
OK, so you’ve nicked 22 million quid. Now comes the hard part: laundering it. Actually I’m glad to see the Police have said that “professional” criminals planned the robbery, I’d hate to think that just anyone could do a robbery like that.
My faithful artificial tree (11 years service) is up in Orkney so we bought a real one for the Cambridge flat. My first real tree since I was a child. Here it is all nicely decorated.
So, Blunkett has resigned. Could this be part of the real reason why? “It’s a good day to bury bad legislation”.
Quoting liberally from a cam.misc post we can see how Blunkett changed his tune as time went on:
- I had no contact with the IND letter and only checked the application myself. It did not go through my office.
- I brought the application in to the office and got someone to read it to me there (for some reason) but it did not go through my office.
- Someone in my office must have got it and acted on the application anyway (how would they know the link with Blunkett though?). But I had (definite statement) no contact with the IND letter.
- I was always aware of the letter.
And then he starts using the fatal words “I have no recollection…” which is a key phrase to use when you’ve been caught bang to rights; especially when what he fails to recollect has evidentially been shown to be true.