Law

Before I am shot down in flames, let me say that I wish Paul J Chambers every success and more in his quest to shake off the ridiculous conviction for threatening to blow Robin Hood airport sky high.

I've never been an accountant. I know some people who have though, and, when pressed, they will tell of the training they've been given. It involves things like checking numbers to make sure that no bad deeds are being done, that things are on target, that boxes are ticked. It's a little more complicated than that, but not much.

None of them, so far as I can tell, have had any real training in the development and deployment of any quantities of plastic explosive, timers, triggers, remote detonation devices or the like. Apparently it isn't part of the job description.

Now, I know how to make a sizeable bomb. I also have enough equipment right here to design and develop a device which COULD blow Robin Hood airport sky high. I don't have the inclination to make such a thing at the moment, and I have a real problem with maiming and killing innocent people. I don't know Paul personally but he seems a good sort, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't have the inclination or the motive, either.

Sometimes I get cross. It's a by-product of living in a world that has changed so much since I was a lad, where we built our own bikes out of stuff we got from the landfill site, and played around on building sites and stuff. Where we built our first piano from a couple of scrapped broken ones because we didn't have loads of money. Where I got a box of wood and a saw for one of my birthdays and was chuffed to bits. I still have the saw, which as I remember was the first thing I ever got brand new. Where we made our own fireworks out of weedkiller and sugar, and where Plod came round to check whether I'd really bought that amount of weedkiller for my Dad, or whether I was up to no good. Which I was. Where I got a bollocking. Often.

When I get cross I tend to say what I think. I try not to upset people, apart from those who desperately need it. I have been known to utter such garbage as "Bloody Luton needs blowing up and rebuilding", for instance. I doubt if I could work round the logistics of actually blowing it up, in its entirety. Perhaps I need to try harder.

Anyway, the upshot is that Paul Chambers probably couldn't blow up a banger at a bonfire party. Most people wouldn't have a clue.

Therefore, what he said was bollocks and had no stature in intent nor in ability. Therefore none in law. For the spirit of the law, as any fule or skoolboy kno, is what it's all about.

I read yesterday that the next appeal would involve a "high-flying barrister". That means that some fancy overpaid fancy-dressed chap will be wordsmithing and trying to beat the judiciary with words and cleverness and trickery and the minutiae of the law.

And THAT, chaps, is wrong, so very wrong. That means that, regardless of the outcome of the appeal (and I hope beyond hope that Paul is acquitted and that the previous two judges, the security man, the Plod and the CPS all eat shit), the law has already won.

This case should be revisited at the highest level and this travesty of justice reversed immediately. And Paul should be compensated. Not by the public coffers, by the endless collection of idiots involved, any ONE of whom could have stopped this before it started.

Communications

I'm not a lawyer.

One reason is that I'm thick. The main one is that it would bore me rigid.

Here is some law, interpretation, and common sense.

You are reading this. You chose to.

Paul Chambers tweeted something which no sensible person would have found threatening nor menacing.

I didn't see it. I wasn't following him. Bet you didn't either.

An anal security chap from East Midlands Airport who was on his day off spotted it. Because he looked for it. That is so sad. He then alerted the Plod, presumably because he was a small-minded little cunt, and the rest is history.

I tweet, and blog. What I'm typing now is between me and me until I press this button. However, these characters are going through my LAN, onto my router, up to my SP and from there into the ether. Google is watching as I type, because autosave is on.

This is on a public network. You won't read this until I want you to.

I just typed something. It was grossly offensive and menacing. Google saw it. They should have called Plod. They haven't, have they?

Because it's between me and me. But they can see it. GCHQ (hello!) can see it.

I selected that bit and just deleted it. Google still have it. GCHQ still have it.

It was REALLY offensive. And menacing as fuck. It involved a famous public building, a dildo filled with semtex and a black one-legged lesbian muslim nun in a wheelchair. Something for everyone, right there.

Did you see it? You should have done. Those electrons were all over the internet, right there.

If you read this, you chose to. If you read what I tweet, you choose to, or you choose to read what other people might retweet, from me.

If you like, you can search Twitter, Google or what the hell you like for news about airports, bombs, carnage, anything.

It's up to you.

It is not public. Public is the telly doing it right in between Strictly and the X-factor. And, FFS, they are exempt from this fucking stupid, badly thought-out law.

Incidentally, the judge in this case (see Daily Mash for details) could have put right the life of an innocent victim of gross misuse of yet another one of the Blair fiascos. But she didn't. And for that, I sincerely hope she is ashamed. Very, very ashamed of herself. I couldn't sleep at night if I had ruined someone's life on a point of principle viz., it's the LAW and it's MINE and I can DO WHAT I WANT, which is exactly what she did.

Now, can one of you decent bloggers please come up with something?

Thanks.

Quick

I'm not sure why I'm writing this.

I don't like horror films and stuff, not at all. I thought the Exorcist was quite funny, and Shaun of the Dead, but I don't like proper scary stuff.

Just that someone twat, or is it tweeted? On the subject of paperwork. "Returns". Forms. Lots of them, red tape, bullshit, so the STATE can determine how much they can bleed you for. It isn't the STATE. It's the chosen troughers.

It reminded me. Some wag had posted something on Twitter recently about an Iranian who, because of Sharia law, had been sentenced to cross-amputation without anaesthetic. That's one leg, and the opposite arm. And like a berk I clicked on the link and got halfway through before I realised I shouldn't be reading it.

The bit that did my head was where he was "invited" into a room lined with polythene sheeting. There were beardy ragheads present, like high priests. Sharpening saws and stuff. Nightmare fodder.

I got as far as "make it quick", which is apparently what he said to the cunts, sorry, priests. Following which, I will leave to your imagination.

Luckily I live in Britain, where the only carnage the "law" inflicts on you is to spend what could be productive time filling in forms, acting as an unpaid administrator and/or tax collector. So it can go into the bottomless pit that they call society.  You can change that by paying some accountant/solicitor/other who will milk you instead.

I wouldn't let someone cut my hand/foot/leg/dick off without a proper fight. Really. Sheep, lamb, hung.

And I'm not going to give my hard-earned to them either, on the same basis.

That is all.

Oh, by the way, turns out that the amputee was innocent. "Whoops" doesn't really cut it, does it?

I *am* allowed to say "raghead", am I not?

Oxymoron

This is just plain daft. Bombs, from Yemen with love.

The news claims that the FBI/CIA/MI6/Plod are examining these bombs. Knobwits with quite posh accents are interviewed. They don't know when the bombs were going to go off, nor where. Nor why, it seems.

And then the startling revelation that these bombs are built into toner cartridges.

I am not a bomber. Nor am I in the spooks. But I know.

And now, toner cartridges have entered that long list of things even more dangerous than cigarettes. UPS and Fedex are no longer trusted in Yemen.

Why does MI6 stand for Ministry of Intelligence?

I presume I am not the only one who knows when are where these were supposed to go off, how they would be detonated, why they were in toner cartridges?

Or am I the clever one? I don't think so.

Why?

I have been avidly watching the "CUTS".

I have worked for smaller companies, such as one which turned over around £10m p.a., where the IT hardware budget was £3k. Yes, a year. You can buy a heck of a lot with that. We never needed to go over budget, and that included supplies such as laser toners.

I have worked for medium-sized companies. Ones whose turnover was around £100m p.a. In those, the IT hardware budget was more than ten times that of the smaller ones. A heck of a lot more. In the order of £3m. Because you HAD to have "servers" (a server in this context is a PC, for those who think they know differently). You had to have dual redundant PSUs and RAID and all sorts of other cock which mainly didn't work. And spares. And they HAD to come from huge companies, because they did, that's all. And of course they had to be at least 64-bit because 64 is bigger than 32. Even though most programs only ran on 32-bit and ran slower on 64, because they did. And all IT hardware last for two years and then it goes bang. It does.

I have worked for huge companies. Billions of pounds. £xbn. The IT hardware budget in these companies would pay for a decent-sized battleship plus crew and well-stocked bar. Really.

So, what's the analogy? Well, this. Everything I'm hearing has the word "cost" in it.

Here are some examples:

• A battleship costs £x
• A mobility scooter costs £x
• It costs £x to house a family of four
• It costs £x to bring up a child
• It costs £x to provide a bowl of rice to an African goat

That sort of cost.

And here is what is so, so wrong.

It doesn't. It costs what you are prepared to pay. If a submarine, you know, a common or garden one, that can carry a Trident, costs £23,000,000,000, that's what it costs. If company X makes such a submarine, and nobody else really does that sort of submarine, someone will pay that. Especially if it isn't their money.

But in a smaller company, someone, such as I, will ask "how much?". And it will then cost a lot less. A LOT.

So, peoples, NO. I would love to take the piss and charge what I like. But I can't, because I don't sell to idiots. If I tried it on, I would be dumped, and someone else would jump in.

Wake up. That is all.

Fiddle

Remember the olde pubbe song, "Old King Cole"?

Fiddly-diddly-dee, diddly-dee, went the fiddlers?

Here's one, just from my timeline on Twitter. If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always rely on Paul's support.

Let us have a grant, have a grant, say the scientists;
Money for a house, for a house, say the homeless;
Money for my child, for my child, say the parents;
Let me smoke indoors, smoke indoors, say the smokers;
Let me shoot a fox, shoot a fox, say the hunters;
Let me learn for nowt, learn for nowt, say the students;
Give me great big ships, great big ships, say the Navy;
What about the planes, 'bout the planes, say the Air Force;
Give it all to us, all to us, say the EU;
Spunk it up the wall, up the wall, say the Quangos;
We've had the lot, had the lot, say the bankers;
Claim what I want, what I want, say the troughers.

And the refrain ...

                   let me raise more tax, raise more tax, says the gov'ment.

Feel free to add your own. It might catch on.

Know what I think? You can all fuck off. Earn it. Just earn it. I have to. And you're not having mine. Not unless I think you deserve it.

Ornery

A Twitster yesterday twoth that she had, unaided and unabetted by any male, successfully assembled a piece of flatpack furniture.

Git that I am, I casually mentioned that my nine year-old girl makes these. Sometimes with a bit of help from her eleven year-old sister, very occasionally with a bit of guidance from me.

But I think that anything creative is a good thing. Especially trying to decipher the pictures which are meant to be the equivalent of multi-lingual instructions on the cheap. Trying to line up the mis-drilled holes. Wondering why there is at least one screw/bolt/dowel left over.

The Twitster in question was my MP, Ms @LouiseBagshawe. She writes books. Not books I'd read - they're called chicklit. Sort of girly books. Like Sparkles. I don't know what book-writers get paid, but I should imagine that they get more than the girl who works behind the till in the One-Stop. I expect, though I don't know, that Ms Bagshawe, MP, could afford to get a bed from a posh shop and get it delivered. And probably get someone to make it up for here every day as well.

I disagree with nearly everything Louise says. She's a staunch supporter of the smoking ban, she must have voted for continued carnage in Afghanistan, as she wasn't one of the ten who voted against, she's a feminist ... I like feminists, actually, I think they're cute.

Ms Bagshawe went to Oxford Uni, so she's probably posh/lucky/well-orf. I've spoken to her though, and she doesn't sound that posh to me, she sounds quite normal, and quite nice too. I think she's got her head screwed on and her heart's in the right place.

And she's made flatpack furniture. That tells me a lot. That tells me she's real. And I'm proud of her (but don't tell her, obv).

You know what I'd REALLY like to see? Remember the programme "The Generation Game" where the contestants had to do some silly task, demonstrated to them first by an "expert"? I'd like to see Cambo, Cleggy, Miliballs et al assemble an Ikea chest of drawers.

Because I don't think they'd get past opening the box.