Scargill

Last night my wife and I went to see Cirque Du Soleil Varakai at the Theatre Royal in London.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this is NOT what I do – I’m a fan of TV series and movies that cost countless millions in special effects, personally, however marriage is a compromise and so I went along willingly to see what I thoroughly expected to be a bunch of guys prancing around in coloured costumes and not doing too much.

To be fair, this was INDEED all about a bunch of guys prancing around in coloured costumes – but the finest colours I’ve seen for a long time and the acrobatics beat anything I’ve seen on TV without CGI. The whole atmosphere was GREAT, sadly I can’t show you any photos because they asked us very nicely not to. Fabulous imagination, fabulous sounds – great show.

All I CAN say is that if you want a great evening out, get your tickets now – very, VERY good.

And to feed my need for movies… keep an eye out for JUMPER – coming out somewhere in February. Trailers are here http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/jumper/

Today was fun… my wife and I were due to take the train to London this afternoon and because of some problem at Darlington on the return they were trying to convince us to split the journey and do part of it by bus… erm, no thank you.

So I made the mistake of deciding to take the PLANE – you see, I still have fond memories of when taking the plane used to be FUN – but I’m afraid those days are long gone – between late planes, lost luggage they’ve totally demolished that fantasy.

Anyway, needs must so we re-organised to take the plane. My fault I guess, I completely forgot the fact that you need to be a the airport car park MUCH earlier than if you took the train.. and Maureen’s job meant she could not get to the airport quite in time. So we organised a cheap train down to London for her.

Great… only small loss then? Well no. I set off this morning at 10am for a mid-day flight – parked the car – no problem. Got to the airport – “Where’s Mrs Scargill?” said the helpful assistant. I explained that I needed to inform them she would not be on the outgoing flight.

“No problem” said the attendant – “you’ll need to speak to BA customer services”. So I did the business and rang BA Customer Services.

After HALF AN HOUR with my mobile glued to my ear, listening to adverts, apologies, useless redirections to their website and other rubbish, I finally got through and explained the situation… I could hardly believe my ears at the response…. “sorry, can’t do that, if Mrs Scargill doesn’t take the outgoing journey – she can’t take the return journey”.

I tried to follow the logic – seat is empty – no problem, it’s paid for – less fuel used… why on EARTH should her missing the outgoing journey affect her ability to come back? Well, I won’t bore you – the answer was NO, NO, NO. So what do I do I asked? “She’ll have to buy a one-way ticket for £180” was the answer.

I’m a polite guy but at this point I told them we’d get the train. As it happens we managed to get a flight with EasyJet for WAY less than half of that… thanks for nothing, BA. As it’s too late for them to sell the return flight as a job lot on lastminute.com – I cannot for the life of me see the point – the flight could not be used by anyone else….

But it gets worse, I got to the waiting area just in time to be told the waiting area was changing – so off we all went to a new location- THEN the delays.. to cut another long story short -I too kmy allocated seat and it was BUST… so they had to me me – THEN the plane was an hour late lifting off. But it gets WORSE -having sat waiting all that time I missed lunch – no problem I thought – get lunch on the plane!!! Erm, NO, the pilot in his wisdom had decided we’d rather be ONLY an hour late rather that pick up the sandwiches.. so there wasn’t even any FOOD on the plane!!!

But it gets WORSE _ just as we were about to get to London the pilot announced there was no-where for us to land – and we’d have to circle for another half an hour – which we did.

So it’s not ok for me to screw up an outgoing flight – but it’s FINE for BA to completely mess up our flights!!

Maybe – just MAYBE there was some security implication with Maureen not taking the outgoing flight I pondered. But if that were the case, you might wonder why not at ANY time today was I asked for identification!! Not booking in (the attendant helped me use one of the terminals as it didn’t like my electronic ticket number), not getting on the plane, not getting off the plane – my drivers licence didn’t leave my wallet ONCE. I could have been ANYONE.

I left the house at 10am – and arrived in London mid-afternoon – I COULD HAVE ALMOST DONE THE TRIP THERE AND BACK ON THE TRAIN!!

Next time if I can’t get the train – I think I’ll just cancel the JOURNEY!!!!

Thanks BA for turning a mountain into a molehill. I’ll make sure as many people as possible know how helpful you were.

I’ve updated an older post here – created when the government first starting to lose laptops. Now it’s becoming a habit and the MOD has managed to lose unencrypted details of 600,000 servicemen.. and they serious expect us to believe they are capable of looking after identity cards? Would you trust them with a SECOND HAND CAR?

Add to that the lost 3 million learner driver records and all the rest of the losses – all with minimal or no encryption. And what kind of response do you think YOU would get from the taxman if you said “oh, sorry, I lost my computer tax records” ??

I suppose I should prefix this by saying “thank heavens we’re in a democracy” – because at least we find out about this stuff – there is no way you’d ever hear about such losses from the Russians – they spend a generation blowing up their own space rockets without telling anyone so a few missed records would never make it to the press.

I recall my blood boiling about an earlier affair, wherein a hard disk went astray and the response from Ruth Kelly was “did not include personal data such as credit card or bank details”.

The problem with THAT statement is obvious to anyone who lives in the 21st century – the worry is not the odd loss of data, it’s the ACCUMULATIVE loss of data. the fact that these records contain name and other contact details makes it a snap to tie this up with other information. There are disks available on the web with the personal details of millions of individuals and half a million squaddies – add this information to the collective whole – and you can start to form a serious database on millions of Britons and SELL IT.

The problem is that once this kind of information is out in the public – it tends to STAY out. Anyone with an email address will know that once you make the mistake of making your email address available – you’re FOREVER going to get spam from all corners of the world – there is no “withdrawing” information – and although it’s easy enough to change your email address, changing your home address and other important information is NOT quite so easy.

In one of the earlier transgressions, the transport secretary said that the disk was “formatted specifically to the Pearson configuration” and was not easily read by third parties. It doesn’t NEED to be EASILY read, if it’s decoded ONCE the information can end up on the web for sale and end up in thousands of databases in a matter of DAYS.

So, does anyone REALLY still want an Identity card??? You’re kidding, right???

It would appear that the first applications to create human-animal embryos are in! The promise of course is the possibility of cures for serious diseases.

Opponents worryingly say “we should not interfere with nature”.

Have you ever heard such a stupid phrase in your entire life.

Here’s nature for you. Natural disasters that kill tens of thousands prematurely and ultimately nature kills us all. Cancer is natural as are heart attacks, virii and countless other diseases. It is quite natural to come into this world, develop sentience and the ability to understand that you are going to die and then lose the lot with a stroke.

Give me a break – nature is best…. nature is not very nice AT ALL and the sooner we start to learn how to look after ourselves without relying on “nature”, the better!!!

The government (apparently) is considering the idea of opt-out for spare body parts – AT LAST.

Like most of us, I “keep meaning” to get an organ donor card but lets face it we’ve all got so many other things to do… meanwhile people are dying out there despite our technology – because the doctors can’t get the parts they need to save lives.

As I get older I get more disillusioned with society and so if you’re still a believer in the good spirits of your fellow men – don’t go over to the BBC website – they’ve an article about this subject and there’s a comments section – you have never seen such a load of selfish responses in your life – one guy is worried in case the heart he gets is of the wrong religious persuasion – GET A LIFE – YOUR ORGANS DON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. The sad thing is that I’d be prepared to bet the bank that those who make such comments, if they were on their deathbeds waiting for an organ – would take ANYTHING as long as it works.

As far as I’m concerned if my heart or lungs give up I don’t CARE about the background of the person who’s parts I get – as long as they’re HEALTHY!

What with this and starting the ball rolling on nuclear power plants, there’s hope for this government yet!

I just can’t praise this website enough… http://www.ted.com/

REALLY excellent videos. For those of you who are in TV hell at the moment partly because of the RUBBISH they’ve had on TV (including Sky) over the Christmas and partly because some of the more promising new shows from the US are dead right now because the writers are on strike – and assuming you’ve an enquiring as against passive mind – there is some WONDERFUL material in here. I have clearly not seen every video on the site so don’t blame me if there are some duffers -but the first few minutes of Al Gore’s video is REALLY funny, there are some amazing videos – including one guy who demonstrates calculating squares of – wait for it – 5 digit numbers – in his head live on stage (and he doesn’t look ODD either) – to people doing amazing work on bionics – and more. Well worth spending some time there.

I’ve the greatest respect for Microsoft – but this is really funny… you may have to click twice…

This is just marvelous – made my day – No further comment…

Flying spaghetti monster

A recent report shows that despite 30 years of social engineering, success in educating kids still depends to a large extent on their up-bringing – with the life-shattering conclusion that kids who’s parents are successful – do better at school – even if the kids themselves aren’t the sharpest tools in the box!!

Well, you could have blown me away. Having destroyed the educational chances of millions of kids by introducing the ill-fated comprehensive system – something the current government recently admitted was not one our best moves, we’re now going to hear a load tosh about how the class-based society is still holding kids back.

Here’s my logic – and it’s obviously far removed from civil servant logic. If you have parents who don’t give two hoots about success, the chances are they don’t live in the best neighbourhoods – so not only have their children to live in a house where success is not a priority – they probably are surrounded by peers who’s parents are of the same mind. How can ANYONE fail to see that this is going to have a detrimental effect on the kids.

You’ll gather by now I am NOT a believer in the idea that everyone is equal. I don’t think kids start off equal in the womb – and I don’t believe for a minute that everyone has equal potential – because that would assume that we all start as a blank slate – and that genetics has no bearing on our development – a popular view but complete tosh.

Kids not only have different levels of intelligence – but their desire to develop that intelligence is markedly influenced by their up-bringing and the attitude of their peers. Look at any "hacker" – these kids develop devilish programs to rip off software and to devastate PCS not because of the money but because of the ego trip – if you’ve ever taken an interest in this stuff you’ll see they develop "crews" – where guys compete against each other as to who can produce the best "hack". Misguided as this may be it is an example of how peer pressure within a group can drive excellence – or the exact opposite.

Put a kid in with a group of no-hopers who’s major ambition is the next delivery of amphetamines – and with exceptions you know what the outcome will be – put the same kid with a group of peers who are enthusiastic about their education and who’s parents are supportive…..

So it seems to me that kids who come from generally bright and enthusiastic parents who’ve carefully picked their neighbourhood, have a good chance of being more successful in life than those from the opposite end of the spectrum. This is nothing to do with "class" and CLEARLY after generations of trying, we can’t markedly change ANY of this with social "inclusion".

The old USSR under communism, despite their failed way of life, had great success in the Olympics partly because they took their best athletes and gave them special training in special schools – to make damned SURE they got lots of gold medals. Perhaps it is time to start thinking about putting out-dated views of class to one side and accept that in order to survive the 21st century, Britain needs a well educated public – but more importantly, we need a small cache of world-class designers, manufacturers,business-people and others to ensure that a good number of the mega-successful companies of the future are run by British business people, that their key designers and engineers are British designers and engineers … and that we lead the world in as many subjects as possible – as against, well, not a lot right now.