Chris Hansen’s blog

There is an interview with Iranian gay activists behind this link. It’s an interesting look at the situation over there, in particular the recent hanging of two gay Iranian teenagers.

This news has been all over, so I won’t bother with a link. However, I do want to post my thoughts on the incident.

Armed police used to be the exception here. The common-garden miscreant and the bobby on the beat had an unspoken agreement: I’ll come quietly if you find me, says the burglar; I won’t brutalise or shoot you if you come quietly, says the cop. Truncheons were used only in crowd control or subduing violent drunks.

We will never know why that Brazilian man ran from the police. He was a legal resident here, able to work, and unknown to them previously. He had a heavy coat on in the summertime. However, a lot of the streetpeople I see have all their possessions, including their winter coats, on them all year round. They don’t get shot by the police.

I’ll bet that he didn’t know they were police (they were in plainclothes) and only saw that they were chasing him. Perhaps he thought he was going to be mugged, and tried to escape in the Tube station. In any case, he’s now dead andthere are two enquiries starting here into the circumstances. His relatives in Brazil are likely to sue the Metropolitan Police.

While it’s a difficult question, I think that this incident should make the cops pause when chasing a suspect using deadly force. They should also make an ex gratia payment of a substantial amount to the Brazilian man’s relatives, establishing a precedent of sorts.

The rest of us need to be cautious. Not only do we need to look out for unattended bags, we need to look out for groups of armed plainclothes cops chasing us and ordering us to stop.

The advice columnist for the Boston Globe has some wise words for this young man. I wish that someone that wise had said something to me when I was 12.

Well, we seem to be under siege again. The BBC has been on since 1:30 here with speculation, rather than a lot of fact. I think that the four “explosions” were probably meant to kill, but were set up by someone who is not terribly skilled at this. Thus, the detonators went off but the bombs did not. This is quite remarkable considering that the explosive reported used in the 7/7 attacks is quite volatile and fairly sensitive to heat, electricity, or jostling. I think that at least one of these guys has been arrested as he was injured in the explosion. One of them happened at the Oval, two stations south of the Elephant and Castle on the Northern Line. I myself went to Brick Lane, quite near today’s bus incident, to buy black bread and a lunch bagel around 12:45 pm. In the midst of life…

Thank God there were no fatalities. Thank God they may have caught at least one of them.

A defense security analyst on BBC News 24 just now has said that the public has to be super-vigilant, and pay special attention to Asian-looking people. I think that it’s going to be very difficult to be Muslim and young and male in the United Kingdom in the next few days, weeks, and months.

HWMBO and I are OK.

I knew it was only a matter of time before I recognised one of the victims of the 7/7 bombing. This was Sam Badham, who was PA to the Chairman of Quantime, my first employer in the UK. She was killed instantly in the Russell Square Tube bomb, and her boyfriend, who was with her, died yesterday without regaining consciousness. Sam was a real live wire, or a “hot ticket”, as my sainted mother used to say. She was a ray of sunshine in a somewhat grim job. After Quantime was sold to SPSS, she remained as PA to the head of the Market Research division, and was on her way to work when she was killed.

I am, slowly, recovering, I think, from the traveller’s diarrhea I suffered a week ago. Wednesday was the worst day, and I haven’t slept in the bed since Saturday morning. I’ve been sleeping on an exercise mat in the front room, padded with towels. It’s closer to the downstairs loo, and it wouldn’t disturb HWMBO, who has been a real brick through all this.

Anyway, while I did get up a few times last night (perhaps TMI, I suppose), I have been relatively stable today. This is all no thanks to the quack. I went last Monday, she diagnosed giardia as most likely, gave me a prescription for the medicine for that, and said to call her if it didn’t work. Well, it didn’t. So I called her. Twice. Left messages, She didn’t call me back. I left a stool sample for analysis, and that hasn’t returned. I’ve been dehydrated, uninterested in food until today, and close to despair several times. I wept Wednesday night for an hour.

So now, what to do? I feel that the office staff at the GP’s surgery is probably not very efficient, and I expect that she never got the messages. However, HWMBO has also gotten the runaround from the staff there, and I’m starting to think it’s time for a change. There is another surgery up the road that a lot of St. Matthew’s people use; I’ll canvass their level of satisfaction with the service they get there, and whether they are open for new patients, and decide whether I need to change GPs.

I haven’t said much on the London bombings yet in this place. I appreciate all the calls and emails I got from people worried that I or HWMBO had been injured or killed in the events. I do have a couple of observations.

First, I am so very proud of our Mayor, Ken Livingstone. He has said exactly the right things, he exudes a level of love of the city and of Londoners that it would be difficult to find in some other mayors of large cities, and he is passionately committed to helping us cope with this and anything else that fate throws in our path. Even though I’ve never met him, I get this sense that he personally is committed to my welfare as a Londoner, and that he’d go the extra mile to do whatever was needed to make me safe. I’ve not had that feeling in other cities where I’ve lived. Ken is that rarest of politicians: he loves us and our city unconditionally and not for his own gain. I hope he stays in politics after 2008 when his term ends.

Second, our civil liberties will indeed be under threat in the future from this event. The police and MI’s 5 and 6 have cooperated for years in tracking and neutralising threats, and have said all along that the events of yesterday were inevitable. If the new security regime we’ll be living under only includes more CCTV cameras, I’m not so concerned about that. While Big Brother may be watching me, it’s unlikely that anyone will review the tapes unless something has happened in the vicinity. This event will be used to justify even more tight controls on where we can do, with whom we can associate, what we can do, and the like. While it’s unlikely that any sort of airport-like security can be introduced on the Tube, who knows? The problems of screening 3 million people a day, some of whom enter the system through an open door rather than a staffed gate, would be almost insurmountable. And, inevitably, there would be a slip-up when you’re screening so many people every day, and something would eventually happen. So this won’t happen. ID cards will not assist in this case; the fact that there is a database won’t help police on the beat much as it’s unlikely they will have instant access to the database. In any case, a project of this magnitude (a database of 60 million people with god-only-knows how many separate pieces of information attached to each person) is unlikely to be supple enough to use or cost-effective to implement.

So what will help? We could ensure economic opportunity in our poorest neighbourhoods and among our poorest communities. This will ensure that jobless and idle people will not become enraged at the UK for purely personal economic reasons. We must also ensure that people who espouse extremist views, no matter where they originate, are made to stop. This includes the BNP, fundamentalist Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, and any other fringe group that advocates curtailment of life and liberty of another group. We must continue to examine our involvement in Iraq, and ensure that we withdraw at the earliest possible opportunity. We must also ensure that we do not engage ourselves in another adventure of this sort without a proven, public, and personal threat that can be verified–we are not in the business of changing regimes for the sake of liberty. For goodness’ sake, we can hardly preserve it here!

For anyone reading this who is contemplating a visit to London, please come! We are open for business and for pleasure, we are a world-class city with some of the most historic sites in the world. HWMBO and I would love to show you around (and we may even have guest facilities). People here, yesterday notwithstanding, are as safe or safer than they are in their own cities and countries.

PS: After spell-checking this entry, I discovered Livejournal’s suggestions for replacing the word “HWMBO”. To wit: HOMEBOY, HBO, HMO, GUMBO, JUMBO, HOBO, HOMO, DUMBO, LIMBO, RAMBO, BIMBO, COMBO, MAMBO, HEMP, HOB, MOB, HEB, HEM, HM, MB, HEBE, HERB, HEME, HUMOR, HEMS, HOMOS, HUMP, HYMN. How can we add HWMBO and save ourselves from this dreck!!!

My own digestive problems pale in comparison with the 7 blasts which occurred in Central London this morning. There are few accurate reports on casualties at the moment. WL is OK (he called me).

The problem is that the PM and Home Secretary will use this attack as an excuse to push the ID card scheme and other laws designed to reduce everyone’s civil liberties, in the name of protecting the UK from attack. People who oppose them will be labelled as pro-terrorist and we will all be subjected to a police state in the name of protection.

Went to the quack this morning, very fearful that my sphincter control would not be very good. Managed to get there and home without an accident.

The quack said that she thought I most likely had caught giardia. However, she needed a stool sample (which I provided later) for lab tests. I persuaded her to give me the antibiotic for giardia; after the lab report, she might change the antibiotic to one more suited to whatever parasite I’ve picked up. Let’s hope that she got it right this time as she says that I should be feeling better within 24 hours if she is right.

Meanwhile, I’ve had a good conversation with the other course presenter and it looks like we may be doing some more work–thankfully in the UK at first, so that I don’t pick up any unwanted guests.

You Are 19% American

You’re as American as Key Lime Tofu Pie Otherwise known as un-American! You belong in London or Paris… Get out fast – before you end up in Gitmo!

This American!

and I wish it would leave. I think I know what caused it, and I shouldn’t have drunk that drink on the road between Pune and Mumbai.

Immodium, bananas, orange juice, and bread. Hopefully these will all bung me up.

I feel wasted.

Pune is about 70 minutes away from Bangalore, southeast of Mumbai. It used to be called “Poona” and is a regional IT centre. The plane trip from Bangalore was in a puddle jumper but they _still_ served a full meal _and_ cleared it away in 70 minutes.

I was met by an extraordinarily handsome man from the company that commissioned me to do the courses–if I had been free to do so and I’d thought he’d accept I’d certainly have propositioned him–he was about 6′ 1 or 2″ tall, olive-coloured skin, slim. Yum, yum. But, it was all business.

I ended up in the Hotel President in Pune. The room was better than Bangalore’s Hotel Ramanashree’s room, but there was no wi-fi (they suggested I use my MODEM, fergawdssake!) and no fridge. The food was better, though. South Indian food is predominantly vegetarian, with a bit of chicken on the side (sounds like Michael Jackson’s life, doesn’t it…) Dal is ubiquitous, as are various vegetable stews, lemon pickle (I had it with every meal except breakfast…I’m certain my blood pressure hasn’t recovered yet), and paratha bread. Use the bread to dip into the stew or dal, but not with your left hand–custom dictates that this is unsanitary.

The course consisted of 18 people, and was a rerun of the Bangalore one. But logistics was again a problem. There were never enough copies of the course material to go around, the projector and my laptop refused to cooperate to show the slides correctly, two days the course was on the first floor and the last day it was in the banquet room. The Indians are very much a hot-climate people in that the ones I encountered didn’t seem fazed by changes, difficulties, or absences of things they needed. They just waited around for the difficulty to be dealt with. Of course, Anglo-Saxon me was reduced to a gibbering wreck when things didn’t turn out as I was told they were to be.

I did no sightseeing, as there didn’t seem to be much to see in Pune. The South India guidebook didn’t even have it listed. So I stayed in my room watching BBC World (what a waste of electrons–the same news and features endlessly repeated all week. But, I was desperate for some news as the Indian papers are like American ones; they are little concerned about foreign news except sports news), drinking 660 mL of Kingfisher or Fosters each night with my dinner, and doing Sudoku puzzles. There were power cuts every day, of two to five minutes’ duration. I nearly got stuck in an elevator during one.

The staff were very eager to please. The first day there, I needed some laundry done, so I followed instructions and put it in the laundry bag with an inventory sheet. It arrived at the end of the day, laundered and pressed. The next day I returned to my room after lunch and discovered that the jeans and polo shirt I’d folded to await my trip home had just disappeared along with my undies and socks from the previous day. I hadn’t asked for them to be washed, but washed they were. Not only that, the laudryman ran down the hall with another bag and wanted to remove all my clean shirts from the closet to wash them as well. With difficulty, I persuaded him that they weren’t in need of cleaning and he left.

It’s monsoon season, so every day waves of rain battered at the hotel windows. I didn’t even go out. I wonder how the denizens of Pune keep from becoming mounts of mould each summer.

So the last day came, and the students were sitting their exam, under an invigilator who was an absolute mess. He couldn’t have grabbed his ass with both hands. I was supposed to have a social hour/meeting with the head of the company that brought me to India, but this was cut short. Instead of leaving at 6:30, I had to leave at 4:30, because a religious procession would bring most traffic in Pune to a standstill. So I checked out, went to the company’s office (in a somewhat run-down office building with rutted earth streets in front) and had a cup of tea with them. There may be more work coming my way there.

The handsome man, the driver, and I then set off for Mumbai by car. After getting out of Pune, we finally got on the Mumbai expressway. It’s as good as or better than many highways we have here in the UK. The scenery was beautiful: the expressway is surrounded by mountains, and in the monsoon season (June through August) they are cloud-shrouded, and little waterfalls course down their sides to end up in the drainage ditch next to the highway. Sometimes we dipped under a mountain into a tunnel, picture and videos of which are strictly prohibited by the government. We stopped at the rest-stop and had sweet lime juice and pastry, while sheltered from the monsoon. It took us about 2 hours to get to the outskirts of Mumbai and another 2 to get to the airport. My handsome guide got out and wished me good luck, I tipped the driver 100 rupees (about GBP 1.20) and I was left at the airport.

I met a businessman in my line of work in the queue for the x-ray machine (it’s do-it-yourself x-ray for checked baggage) and we propped up the bar with some good Ould English G&Ts while we talked about outsourcing, integration testing, and the perils of bidding for government contract, until the plane started to load at 2:10 am.

So I’m back in London now, with a touch of delhi belly that just might be joy at returning. I’m pretty certain that I’ll be asked back.

OK, I’m now back in my hotel room after the third and final day of the ISEB Foundation Course in Software Testing. What a day! What a last few days!

Yesterday, Day 2, is the most challenging, not only for the delegates but also for me. Some concepts of “white box” testing such as branch and statement testing, are difficult to explain and very difficult to illustrate. I fell down a few times on the illustrations, so I’ve written in the manual the answers. But I felt like a fool up there. Fortunately, the students were all quite nice about it. Looking at the course evaluations, they all rated me either Good or Excellent.

Today was a half day of lecture, a mock test, some revision (=US “study”), and then the real exam. Remember I said in my last entry that I hoped there were 26 exams? Of course, you know what happened. There were 25. Samir, the man who’s responsible for coordinating the courses, decided that the last one to sign in on the first day would be the one who had to take the test later. I told him that I would not be the one to tell the poor guy that he couldn’t take the test. Samir did it over the phone. I felt so horrible for him. (Not Samir, the man who didn’t take the test). He and I talked about it later and I reassured him that he could take the test later without retaking the course.

After the mixup was settled, the 25 students who did take the exam all said that it was easier than the mock exam. I’m convinced that most if not all will pass (25 out of 40 correct is the passing grade).

The campus in IT City was really stupendous. It would not have disgraced Palo Alto or Mountain View. There are two buildings of 5 stories each connected by a bridge on the first floor (=US second floor). One building is meant to represent a lighthouse, the other a ship. They are extremely modern inside, all computer amenities and people amenities as well, although they are still in the “cube farm” phase, not the “open plan” phase I’m used to in London.

The cafeteria was really stunning. It was on the roof, covered by a canopy, and open to the air. The food was South Indian food, dhal, roti, lime pickle, various lentil things, vegetable stew, really lovely stuff. All the students were amazed that I liked Indian food, even up to and including lime pickle. They are convinced all Westerners and Brits and Americans in particular would not be able to eat their food. I showed them that at least one Westerner would. They asked about Indian food in London, and I repeatedly stated that London’s “Indian” food is mostly in restaurants staffed by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. They were amazed by that as well.

As one would expect, all the students wanted to know how I liked India, and how many times I’d been here. When they found out it was my first time here, they were eager to find out how I liked it. I was in a quandary: some of my experiences here have been frightening (like at the airport), some have been tedious (dealing with logistics problems that shouldn’t be my problems but handled by the company that’s commissioned me to deliver the course. The beauty of the countryside that you drive through to get to IT City is really lovely. But the traffic is a horror, no one uses seat belts and no scooter driver uses a helmet (or few, anyway). I saw one vespa-type scooter driven by Dad, with little Sis in front of him, Mom sitting sidesaddle at the back, and big Bro between Mom and Dad. They all looked like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Cows do indeed roam the streets wherever they want to go. There are lots of stray dogs just lying on the pavement looking like roadkill. Then they get up lazily and get out of the way.

Indians are so proud of their country. They have just cause to be: India is the home of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of non-violent protest (his face is on all the currency, just as the Queen’s is on all sterling notes in England and Wales). They have rockets, satellites, a vibrant IT industry, and great centres of spirituality. As a Westerner, however, it’s hard to balance this against the squalor and dirt that many people live in. In three days of being driven to and from the site, I’ve seen two or three accidents. Their food is wonderful, and some is even healthy (I wouldn’t claim that the lime pickle is healthy). Were I to have to stay a few weeks or a month, I might be able to get used to it (but HWMBO would still be in London, so that isn’t an option).

I decided that rather than try to cope with the airport alone, I would tip the “Travel Desk Manager” downstairs 100 rupees (about GBP 1.20, or USD 2.00) to get someone to accompany me to the check-in desk at the airport. He was amazed, as it was probably close to his daily wage. However, I made an instant friend and I hope and pray that my transport tomorrow will be efficient and that I’ll be able to get out of Bangalore without being fleeced yet again. I tipped the driver 50 rupees yesterday and today, and got sterling service. It seems that the key to getting good service here is tipping well. It’s a lesson that I think will help me cope with the rest of my stay here.

I also asked whether he could send someone out to buy me a new luggage tag, as mine disappeared between Mumbai and Bangalore, although it has safely travelled to the US three times, Singapore once, and Ireland once. He told me that the driver would take me to a shop this afternoon that would have one. The shop he took me to had luxury goods, textiles, but no luggage tags and no leather goods such as sandals or bags, which HWMBO would like me to buy but which I haven’t tried to get here. Samir better know where some of these things can be bought in Pune and bring me there. I found a relatively sturdy cardboard one, and will use that for now.

So tonight I eat and pack, and get ready for course two in Pune. I’ll try to keep in touch. I really enjoy the wi-fi in the hotel and being able to read email and update my live journal live, rather than taped.

Well, I finally got here. Lots of trauma, especially around getting to and from airports. The number of people who want to “help” you with your luggage is amazing. I do not want to go through that again but don’t know how I can avoid it, as I have to fly to Pune on Monday and then fly home from Mumbai in a week.

I’ve had two days to get accustomed to India. It’s so different from anything I was prepared for that I’m dumbfounded, really. It’s a strange mixture of Third and First World countries. I’m connected via Wi-Fi from my hotel room (after trying to get connected for a whole day), but on the streets outside tuk-tuks ply for trade, horsedrawn carts and cows vie for street space with modern cars and people without helmets on scooters and motorcycles.

There is no public gay scene here, as it’s illegal. I am going to be a nun for the next 8 days.

I decided not to go out today, which is just as well. I have found the food edible, but have been somewhat parched as I’m hesitant even to try the bottled water. However, I’ve brought some British water which I’m brushing my teeth with and I suppose I’ll just have to use the local bottled water shortly. Breakfast was a bit odd, with toast advertised but only plain bread on offer. There was watermelon, which was good, and I was so desperate for carbohydrates I had a small glass of pineapple juice which did not appear to have had ice dissolved in it. No problems so far, knock on wood.

The guy who’s commissioned the course is due soon so we will have a chat and maybe dinner. Then, I have to relax for tomorrow. The course is “on-site” rather than at the hotel. I hope this is not a harbinger of things to come, as almost everything they’ve told me hasn’t been carried out (different hotel in Mumbai, 26 students rather than 25 (I wonder if there will be 26 exam papers at the end of the course?), and God only knows what else. So, save me a thought over here as I start trying to get 26 people to pass the software testing exam.

No, it’s not my birthday. However, people who were born on my birth date (November 8) include:

35 – Nerva, Roman emperor
1622 – Charles X Gustav, king of Sweden
1656 – Edmond Halley, British astronomer, mathematician (birthday according to the Gregorian calendar)
1836 – Milton Bradley, manufacturer, lithographer, game maker (d. 1911)
1847 – Bram Stoker, Irish novelist (Dracula) (d. 1912)
1848 – Gottlob Frege, German mathematician and logician
1866 – Herbert Austin, automobile pioneer (Austin-Healey)
1868 – Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician (d. 1942)
1883 – Arnold Bax, composer
1884 – Hermann Rorschach, psychiatrist
1893 – Clarence Williams, American jazz pianist and composer (d. 1965)
1896 – Bucky Harris, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1977)
1898 – Marie Prevost, actress (d. 1937)
1900 – Margaret Mitchell, American author (d. 1949)
1900 – Charlie Paddock, American athlete
1904 – Cedric Belfrage writer, socialist
1907 – Katharine Hepburn actress (d. 2003)
1908 – Martha Gellhorn, American writer and journalist (d. 1998)
1914 – Norman Lloyd, actor
1918 – Hermann Zapf, German designer
1919 – P.L. Deshpande, Indian author
1920 – Esther Rolle, actress (d. 1998)
1922 – Christiaan Barnard, South African heart surgeon
1927 – Patti Page, singer
1927 – Nguyen Khanh, Prime Minister of South Vietnam
1927/1929 – Lal Krishna Advani, Indian politician
1931 – Morley Safer, journalist
1931 – Darla Hood, actress (d. 1979)
1935 – Alain Delon, actor
1942 – Angel Cordero Jr., horse racing jockey
1949 – Bonnie Raitt, American singer
1953 – Alfre Woodard, actress
1954 – Jeanette McGruder, musician (P Funk)
1954 – Rickie Lee Jones, singer, composer
1967 – Courtney Thorne-Smith, actress
1968 – Parker Posey, actress
1968 – Zara Whites, Dutch porn actress
1975 – Tara Reid, American actress
1981 – Joe Cole, English footballer
2000 – Madison Poer, actress
2000 – Marissa Poer, actress
2003 – Lady Louise Windsor, daughter of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex

Anyone else for listing people born on their own birthdates? I don’t tag, but feel free.

I’m now going to stop surfing and start packing.

I began swotting up on the course I’m going to be delivering last night. To my surprise, and horror, I discovered that my boss had sent me lots of bumpf (including the printed-out delegate manual pages with the slides on them), but had not sent me the actual powerpoint presentation itself! My blood ran cold at the thought that if I’d just put it all on my laptop and blithely went off to Bangalore, I might have been extremely embarrassed. I sent my boss an email and text message, and heard from him at around 11, very apologetic.

This morning I found not one, not two, but three copies of the slides in my inbox. He is an amateur actor, just finishing a play’s run last night, so perhaps the cast party was a success.

I decided to take an afternoon constitutional up Waterloo Road, and bought my Guardian on the way. I was wearing jean shorts cut just below my knees, and my favourite flip-flops. At the bus stop across from Elephant and Castle station, a complete stranger (male) walked up to me, shook my hand, and said, “Those are the finest pair of legs I’ve seen on a man in a long time.” and continued on his way.

Now I’ve been told things like this before (the owner of my gym said to me once, “You know, people would pay money for your calves.”) but for someone with a pretty horrible body image, it felt really good.

Had I looked at my lj instead of my PDA, I would have noticed that in my last entry I correctly entered the time of the travel clinic appointment as 11 am rather than noon.

My bad.

It’s been a very hectic two days, folks. I got on the train at London Bridge destined for Gatwick Airport and the Atlas Health Clinic. It’s fiendish to find (go behind the Costa Coffee at the International Arrivals area, down a flight of stairs unmarked except for “Emergency Exit”, then walk along the pathway until you see the brown building…) and I entered noon into my PDA rather than 11 am. Thus, when I arrived, I was 3/4 hour late. Luckily for me, they took me anyway (after profuse apologies), and I got vaccinated (three shots, GBP 100) and malaria pills (24 pills, GBP 84), and got back on the train home. This was Wednesday, the day I normally would be at the consulting job. I thought I didn’t have any meetings scheduled for that day.

Thursday I went to the Indian High Commission to get my visa. I arrived around 7am, and there were two ahead of me. An Indian older gentleman seemed to be “in charge”, and he assigned us numbers, and then shepherded us into line at around 7:30. I brought John Allen’s biography of Benedict XVI (originally published as a bio of Cardinal Ratzinger, hurriedly updated with one chapter and a new picture on the cover) to read, and got through quite a bit before the place formally opened at 8:30. By that time the line consisted of about 70 or 80 people snaking around India Place (which is what the plaza next to India House is known as).

?When the window handing out queue tix finally opened, I was number 2 rather than number 3, as the first-in-line person turned out to have an Indian passport, and they go to a different line, to a different window, and that window doesn’t open until 9:30.

We scrambled through the door, through a metal detector (which beeped slightly when I went through but I was told not to worry; I presume that people with large amounts of metal in them or on them might make a louder noise), and up to the hall. A bank of metal chairs faced the clerks’ windows. As number 2, I got right up to a window and got my application accepted. I got a 6-month multiple entry visa, GBP 30 please. I was told that I could return at lunch to pick up my passport from Window #1.

So I went into work, and got called over by one manager, “Where were you yesterday? We waited for 1/2 hour for you.” Oh dear. I forgot to enter one meeting into my PDA, and thus ended up missing it. I had emailed the office admin and my company supervisor to explain that I was changing days, but neither of them happened to be in so the information didn’t get out. Luckily Jeff likes me, so we rescheduled after very profuse apoogies.

Back to India House at 11:30. I again scrambled up the stairs, through the faintly-squealing metal detector, to find a gaggle of people in front of Window #1. They crowded in, right in front of the little slot through which (we hoped) passports would soon be slithered. There was no room for someone in back to step forward and claim a passport. No clerk was visible at the window. Ten minutes later the clerk emerged with a handful of passports. He started calling out numbers beginning with D (as in D85). Those at the back had to hand their receipts to someone right in front of the window, and had their receipt and passport handed back the same way. Those at the window seemed nailed to the floor. My heart sank. Obviously, he’d called out “Number 2!” many hours ago, and I was at work rather than waiting for my visa. One by one those who were nailed to the floor in front of the window got their passports and left. After twenty minutes of waiting, and a further reinforcement of passports from another clerk, he finally ran out and my turn came, and I got my passport back. There went my lunch hour. I now know what being in the middle of a human feeding frenzy feels like.

I recounted my experience back at the office, and was told that my life from June 21 to July 1 will be like that…at the mercy of faceless and often-absent clerks and functionaries in the Indian Subcontinent.

I just hope I can avoid the water and the mosquitoes.

Oh, and that I can swot up the course fast enough to ensure that all my students pass the exam and I then get more gigs training. Perhaps some of them might even be here, where you can drink the tap water and mosquitoes are (at present) only a slight annoyance, not a deadly danger.

I got an email when we returned from Dublin saying that BCS has approved me as a tutor for the ISEB Foundation Course in Software Testing. This means that India is on. I need to (1) go to Uxbridge today to confer with my boss, (2) go to the Indian High Commission tomorrow to try to get a visa, and (3) go to Gatwick tomorrow 11 am for travel inoculations and malaria pills. Then work on Thursday at Searchspace, and try to rest Friday. Monday Searchspace again, and Tuesday I’m off to Bangalore. I feel like Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour, with a bit of Deming and Beizer rolled in. (Deming is the “quality” guru beloved of the Japanese and Beizer is one of the gurus of the modern software testing industry). Later, after the course in Bangalore (25 people) I will travel to Pune, for another course with 25 people. Then, to Mumbai and home on July 1.

I hope it goes well. If it does, I may be invited to conduct courses here in the UK, as well as more courses in India. At least then I’ll not need inoculations. However, it looks like I might be on malaria pills semi-permanently.

I’m off/on the road/to Bangalore…..nope, doesn’t scan, and doesn’t sing well either.

“Heigh-ho, heigh-ho/to Bangalore I go.”

That’s better.

This man’s life has gone from one high to another with great lows in between. He was so cute as a kid, and very talented. A great singer. Now he has been acquitted, and good luck to the jurors who acquitted him. I thought they’d not reach a verdict, but with all my information filtered through the news media, I believe that the picture we all got of what was going on at the trial was not accurate.

As for Jackson himself, where will he go? He has massive debts that can only be settled by selling Neverland (I’ll bet that whoever buys it turns it into a freak show, with tours of Jackson’s bedroom happening every hour on the hour…), selling the rights to music that he has bought, and generally trying to restart his career. In this time of rap, what will he do? How will he make any money?

Personally, he has now had two second chances. This is his opportunity to do whatever he likes, but be mindful that this kind of trial may happen again. He should consider the public relations angle of being so chummy with adolescent and pre-adolescent boys. If I were him, I’d ensure that all my bedmates (chaste or not) were well above the age of consent and could prove it in court.

I wish him all the best in his future life.

We’re just back from Dublin today, quite exhausted. As I’ve mentioned, HWMBO has gotten a new job; thus, we had to take a short holiday before he starts. We settled on Dublin because (1) it is not in the UK, and (2) neither of us had ever been before.

We took BA from Gatwick, which airport I swore I’d never use again after my last trip to the US, where the train trip exhausted me before I actually got to the airport. However, HWMBO and I met at Victoria after I’d gotten the tickets, and we had a trouble-free ride to Gatwick, used the small people mover to get to the North Terminal, and got on the plane. As we’d expected not to be fed on such a short flight, we ate a small dinner before we emplaned. Wrong! They fed us a chicken salad sandwich and some other stuff. The operative word for this trip was food, from the very start.

After we got through immigration (they detained me not at all, and WL only for 30 seconds or so), and got our bags and got a cab, we discovered that the hotel was only about 13 euro away and relatively close. However, the hotel (name not mentioned to protect the gulity) was only 3 star, which didn’t include such luxuries as: air-conditioning (yes, it was very hot in Dublin Friday and Saturday!), noise-free nights (Sunday morning I was awoken by someone from an adjoining room shouting out the window, repeatedly), breakfast included (10 euro a pop for an OK breakfast), a tub that could easily be stepped into and out of (I kept banging my shin on the toilet), easy chairs (there was only one chair in the room, and it was a desk chair), decent beds (they were Murphy beds, fergawdssake! I suppose one has to expect such things in Dublin, but really…I haven’t seen a Murphy bed outside a lame slapstick comedy in my life.), and polite staff. When we started out on Thursday morning, we read in the hotel guidebook that bus schedules were available at the front desk. When I enquired, the polite, red-cheeked, jolly young lady moo’ed “No, we don’t have any.” and went back to her crossword puzzle or whatever. Quite annoying.

We managed to get into town, and found Dublin to be very like…London. Some of the same chain stores, most of the street furniture (the postboxes were green, but some still had George V’s or Edward VII’s cypher on them), and the left-hand driving were all the same. It’s a bustling city, with horrendous traffic jams around its central river, the Liffey, on which we saw only two boats while we were there, one a Duck tour and the other a moored barge. One chain hasn’t yet made it to central Dublin: Starbucks. However, before you Starbuck-haters rejoice, a permit was seen on a building next to the Bank of Ireland building that will allow Starbuck’s (Ireland) to build a branch there.

Trinity College and the Book of Kells were our first formal stop on Thursday. The tour is 10 euro, and was worth every euro-cent of it. Not only did we get a tour, with a young student whose wit and story-telling ability were exceptional, we got to see the Book of Kells (ancient Gospel book) for no extra charge. I gave him a 5-euro tip at the end and said, “Forget the student stuff, stick to the standup comedy and tour-guide business.” We also saw the College’s modern art museum, which had some interesting and innovative works. We then walked around and took the tram line. It doesn’t go anywhere interesting, but ran OK. We came right back, and then went to the canal.

We walked along the canal, which was very pleasant and serene with the exception of some of the characters on the banks. One tried to offer HWMBO a phone for sale, but he looked more likely to take HWMBO’s phone than to sell him one. A swan preened by the side of the canal. Goths preened on its banks, drinking some type of brew while doing so. The luxury apartments a-building along the river and the boat basin would have done London proud.

When I told people I was going to Dublin, almost everyone said, “Have a Guinness for me.” Now, I don’t really love the stuff, but we did want to go to a bar to drink in the ambiance. So we went to one right on the Liffey at O’Connell Bridge. I had a pint of Guinness and HWMBO had a latte and then a sparkling water. The air inside was breathable, thanks to the new no-smoking in pubs laws in Ireland. What a difference! I do wish they’d hurry up and get one here. The only thing we noticed was that there is a lot of smoking on the streets and outside buildings because the law forbids smoking inside. This is mildly annoying (having to walk through a cloud of smoke) but we managed.

The people were very cosmopolitan. There were many Chinese/Japanese, some of whom were not tourists, lots of people-of-colour of many other origins, and lots of bi-racial couples (beside us)! We had lunch on Thursday at a local sandwich chain and it was very good. We had dinner with a former workmate of mine at Quantime, Graham. It was at Tante Zoe’s, a Cajun restaurant on Crow Street in the middle of the Temple Bar district. It was delicious.

Friday we had breakfast at the hotel again, and discovered the charge (no one charged us for Thursday’s meal). So, we went out full but unsatisfied and made our way to the Irish Museum of Modern Art. This is housed in a Georgian building and was originally an old soldiers’ home. After Irish independence it was turned into the HQ of the national police force, the Gardai, and then abandoned. The government restored it and put a very creditable museum inside, as well as magnificant grounds and a formal garden outside. What a lovely spot! They concentrate on Irish art, but have other examples of art. Their cafe is first-rate too, and we then contentedly made our way back to Temple Bar. Here’s a picture of the bell tower over the chapel (which we didn’t get to see, unfortunately, as they only have tours in the summer, usually starting in June but this year in July…):

We did a lorra lorra walking; my feet were killing me. We had two lattes and two tiramisus at a coffee shop on the corner of Crow Street. The tiramisu were HUGE! Had we known, we’d only have ordered one. As it was, we managed. then some more shoeleather, and a picture of the “Elephant and Castle” restaurant (gay-owned, I’m told, by a couple who have the same name), of which more later. Then to The Juice, a vegetarian restaurant, where we met our friend Stephen and ate and talked until much too late. It’s so nice to know people in the places you go to as a tourist.I had tabbouleh and a canneloni, along with some very nice wine. Back to the hotel.

Unfortunately, the hotel has entertainment in the evenings, and on Friday night it was “Tina and Tony’s Italian Wedding”, with much feasting and booze. The music and shouting went on until the very wee hours. I wanted to shut myself up in the Murphy bed. Saturday night it was a “Christmas party” with some fake rip-off band. The drunks in the next room were shouting until 5 or 6 in the morning. Horrible.

Saturday was our quiet day. We decided to skip the 20 euro breakfasts and made our way to Bewley’s Cafe, a Dublin landmark that has fallen on hard times and been sold to new owners. I had two poached eggs and bacon on a bagel. It was delicious! We did some shopping, had lunch at Elephant and Castle (I had a Stiltonburger where the cheese was somewhat dry and under the burger, which didn’t help much. However, the fries were good. HWMBO had Buffalo-style chicken wings and couldn’t finish, there were so many.

Dinner was at the Bad Ass Cafe, still in Temple Bar. One of its claims to fame is that Sinead O’Connor once waitressed there. The food was good but I was bloated from all the eating and couldn’t finish the fajitas after a lovely vegetable soup and bread. No dessert for me.

The boys and girls of Dublin are really good looking. There was lots of skin on show all weekend, and even some bears for HWMBO. I got my fill too.

Oh, here’s a tip. Don’t use Dublin Airport on Sunday morning. It’s mobbed, why, I don’t know! We were in a queue for about 3/4 hour, with lots of families who seemed to be moving all their earthly possessions in a multitude of suitcases that weighed a ton. We did get on the plane, and got back to London and rested for the rest of Sunday.

Here’s another tip: get familiar with euro coins. I was forever scrabbling in my coin purse for the right coin or two and ended up using notes instead. We found lots of euro cents and 5-cent pieces on the ground. People actually don’t think they’re worth picking up. I will do my homework next time (if the euro is still in existence by then…)

One last thing: Dublin needs a gay and lesbian and bi and trans area. That would make it a really lovely livable and open city. We’ll definitely be back.

Whatever that is.

1) Total number of books I’ve owned:
The last time I moved I had about 45 cases of books. I have the equivalent of 7-1/2 floor-to-ceiling Ikea bookcases some of which have more books in them as they are two layers deep. I would guess about 1500 or so books.

2) The last book I bought:

Today, St. Augustine’s Confessions, in an abridged version (which I found out only after I bought it). I’ve been working with a group who together are translating it as a Latin exercise. It’s quite difficult later Latin but fun to translate.

3) The last book I read:

A book by my Columbia University faculty advisor and Dean of the College Peter Pouncey, “Rules for Old Men Waiting”. It’s his first novel and quite interesting.

4) Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):

The American Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer. My first exposure to Anglicanism and much better than either Common Worship or the Alternative Service Book.
Isaac Asimov’s biography, “In Memory Yet Green” and “In Joy Still Felt”. Interesting and voluminous 2-volume autobiography covering about 57 years. It goes to show you what keeping a diary can do for your memoirs.
The Bible. Sorry, folks, but there it is.
Hitchhiking to Heaven, by Lionel Blue. His fuller autobiography. He is an openly gay Rabbi here in the UK who is retired but often appears on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. He is funny, poignant, and a role model in that his faith is constantly tested and he is constantly seeking transcendence in everything and everyone. He’s one of my heroes.
The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies. He was a very funny Canadian author. The first book in the trilogy includes a character who reminds me very much of a friend of mine from the seminary (who is now dead). He was not the scoundrel that Davies’ character was but the character’s mannerisms and views on life remind me of Richard very much.

5) Tag five people and have them fill this out in their LJs

On second thought, let me tag one person, spwebdesign. He gets what he asked for!

or the plane, to Dublin on Wednesday night. As HWMBO is about to take up a new job, we felt we should have a short break before he has to start. So it’s off to Dublin, where we’ll be sightseeing, meeting friends, and chillin’ next week. I’m really happy about that and hope the flight and the stay are a nice break for us both.

And, at the end of the month, there’s a possibility that I might be traveling to India for a week to deliver ISEB Foundation Courses in Software Testing, thanks to my chum Steve who is fronting my work at Searchspace. I’ve never been to either Ireland or India. More on the latter as I know it.

Or should that be “catch up”, to distinguish it from tomato sauce?

I am humbled by the fact that many of my lj friends update much more than daily, and I haven’t been arsed to update since the day after the General Election.

HWMBO has finally landed a new job, one that pays substantially more than he’s making now, and one with the public sector. It’s also closer to Chez Hansen-Tan than his current job. He is ecstatic, and I am very proud of him. The second interview required a day-long battery of tests, both technical and psychological. The headhunter told him that he did remarkably well on all of them. So we’ll be much better off once he’s begun.

I am still on one day a week at Searchspace. My chum at the consultancy which is doing my billing and sponsorship has told me that he’s amalgamating with a German company that makes software in the “quality” arena. This means that I’ll probably have to change my method of getting paid (not that I’ve gotten paid yet…SSL is a notorious cheque-holder-for-30-days type of payer) and suchlike. I do need to think seriously about how to spend my “free” time and what I might want to do after the SSL gig has finished. I’d love to write a book, and go back to university for an advanced degree in something-or-other. It’ll be difficult to do this now, but I want to do it before rapidly-advancing senility overtakes me.

I should also be redoing my website.

In addition, my midlife crisis is fully blown now…I feel as if I’ve wasted most of my time since I graduated from high school. I coasted through Columbia, getting a “gentleman’s B-” and learning more about alcohol than about academic work. I’ve coasted along since then, amassing debt and then only paying it off due to HWMBO’s frugality and our mutual love and respect for each other. I feel like I haven’t much time to do anything interesting or useful.

I know I’ll get over it; perhaps finding either full-time academic study or a good consulting practice around testing and quality will help. But for now, it’s daunting.

I will try to update more regularly; perhaps this will help motivate me to get the rest of my life kickstarted.

is here. We are controlling transmission. Thanks to Dave Barry’s blog for this gem.

Immigration has been a hot button with the politicians for a long while. However, one would hope that common sense would be able to untangle a mess like this one. The UK husband, British citizen Mr. Cable (an electrician, no less!) brought his Brasilian family to the UK. Now the non-British family are leaving ahead of being deported. His youngest son was born in the UK and, with a British father, is a British citizen. His wife was offered a job that she couldn’t take. His older children have had to interrupt their education. What a mess.

Why is the family being deported? Instead of filling out a settlement visa when they arrived here, they filled out a visitor’s visa. Now, any fule kno that something like this is an innocent mistake. Once the family’s papers such as their marriage certificate and the birth certificates of their children are produced, the paperwork should have been retroactively dealt with. However, they had to return to Brasil before they were deported.

If I were Mr. Cable, I’d stay in Brasil. It worked for the Great Train Robber.

The General Election is mostly over (Northern Ireland results won’t be known until later today but as they have an entirely different election over there with local issues predominating they can safely be ignored). Labour has been returned with a 66-seat majority, thus making this the first time that Labour has won three consecutive General Elections.

Labour, of course, is harping on that record: three consecutive terms. They are (conveniently) ignoring the fact that Labour has gotten a pasting at the hands of the Liberal Democrats, the Tories, Respect, and any number of independents.

So what do the numbers mean, in my humble opinion.

First, for the Liberal Democrats, the surprise was that they were taking more seats from Labour than from the Conservatives. Charles Kennedy expects to be the official opposition within an election or two; I don’t think he’s close enough yet but, with 59 seats, he has equalled the last major Liberal vote around 80 years ago. What’s more worrying for me (as a LibDem) and what ought to be worrying Kennedy, is the type of seat he’s won and what people are thinking of the LibDems.

Simon Hughes, my local MP, has had a scare as his share of the vote went down this time. Last election he had an absolute majority due to scandals associated with the Labour candidate that time; this time Labour ran an unknown just-graduated student and went up about 5%, dragging Simon down to a “first past the post” win (abbreviated FPTP from now on as my fingers like to type “poast” for some reason). Turnout was also down. Lessons Simon has to learn are: (1) Do a better job at mobilising his workers and voters. I got a call a few days ago asking for my help on Election Day and giving me an address near East Street. I went over there in the afternoon (as arranged) and rang the doorbell. A young man came to the door and when I said that I was there to volunteer, he replied that everyone was gone except him and there was nothing to do. I left my name and phone number so that they know I was there, but it seems to me that the volunteer coordinator for his campaign needs to examine how people are mobilised and where they help out and what they’re to do, and (2) Simon has to start thinking about the succession here. Not that he’s going to retire any time soon, of course; he’s still in his mid 50’s. However, this seat will turn Labour again if he were to retire at the next election. The local party organisation needs to be shaken up and refreshed for the fights ahead. This is one of the LibDem’s most public seats in the centre of London. They need to keep it and build on it.

I’m glad that Simon won, of course; he’s a good MP and a good man, and is a credit to this area (where he grew up–in contradistinction to the constituencies of many MP where they visit it for the first time when selected). Long may he wave.

The trend that I see happening is that a great reorganisation of UK politics is about to happen, and it could go either way. Absent the distortion of the Iraq war, the electorate probably would have kept the LibDems at about the same level as they were. Taking seats from Labour is starting a trend of seeing the LibDems as the party that is left-of-centre, with Labour and the Conservatives fighting for the centre and centre-right. The old union members, who are dying off in their thousands, would vote Labour if they ran an amoeba. However, younger voters who are not tied to Labour by the umbilical cord of “The Red Flag” and who remember Margaret Thatcher dimly, if at all, should be the LibDems target voters. By doing that, they will deny these voters to Labour and will nail themselves to the left side of British politics. Ignore these people, and they will lose all their gains (and more, perhaps) at the next election.

The good thing about the LibDem results is that they are now seen as viable candidates, even a viable government. This will help them in constituencies where the mantra has always been, “A LibDem vote is a wasted vote.” The BBC, in their lamentable “Swingometer”, has for the first time included the LibDems in a “Swingometer” of their own, where swings of percentage are analysed to spot national trends. A visual where the three main parties were seen as thirds of a “pie”, and where the seats were located on their individual sections as to their danger of being lost to the “adjacent” party, is also a first.

Come on, Mr. Kennedy: Build on this foundation, and build well! Examine your policies, make sure that they are not only good for elections but good for government, and lead your people, don’t follow them. If you do this, next time around it’s possible that a hung parliament might give you the entry into government you need to get proportional voting passed in this country. Oh, and enjoying a dram is OK, but moderation in all things except your passion for public service would be well-received by all.

Second, for the Conservatives. Yes, they have done well, and taken back some seats that are naturally theirs. Enfield Southgate is an example: Stephen Twigg, he of the eye-roll in 1997 when he swept Portillo away, looked haggard and unwell as he stood listening to the returning officer send him into premature retirement. I’m sure there will be a few before/after pictures of him at the two elections this morning.

However, Michael Howard is not necessarily the architect of all this. He didn’t win over Labour; Labour lost to him. He would have gotten these seats anyway, I think. There are probably a lot of electors who voted for Conservatives because they were not Labour. This will come back to haunt Howard at the next election, assuming he will be able to lead the Tories into it. He is getting old for a sitting politician (and don’t mention Churchill, who was ga-ga for most of his second stay in Downing Street, as a contrary example) and, while he seems in good shape, being 68 or so at a general election can take a lot out of you, and leave you too exhausted to form a good government. Even Iain Duncan-Smith, lamentable as he is, probably would have won more seats from Labour.

The second problem is in the House of Lords at the moment. Margaret Thatcher, milk-snatcher, Reagan-lover, privatiser, still lives on and on. Until she is “most sincerely dead” and the little Coroner has said so, her shadow will continue to blight the Conservatives. In death there is hope, it is said.

Howard’s relief must be that so many new MPs are coming into Parliament to dilute the mass of vipers who have, up to now, ensured that most Conservative brain power is taken up with plotting against the leader. There will be no plotting this time around, I believe. However, there is also no logical successor who is not tinged with the Curse of Thatcher. Redwood is bizarre. Ken Clarke is too busy keeping Big Tobacco afloat. Portillo has the TV career to look after (and thus did not stand). Rifkind has a safe seat but was again a Cabinet Minister in the last Tory government. Ann Widdicombe is too flaky to be leader, although I admire her outspokenness, rare in a serving politician. She once repeated to a larger audience Cardinal Hume’s private opinion of Archbishop Carey’s personality; Hume was not amused.

I think that the Tories need one more election loss to finally shake off the dust of Maggie from their sandals. By the time the next election but one arrives (2013 to 2015, depending on when the next two elections are called) almost all of the previous government’s ministers and minions will have left politics and new Tories, unencumbered by Maggie, will be standing for Parliament. This is exactly what happened with Labour: hardly anyone from the previous Callaghan government was returned in the 1997 election. The advantage to this is that the Tories couldn’t point to Labour and say that they were the people who’d ruined the country in the 1970’s. The disadvantage is that hardly anyone in Labour had ever served in even a junior ministerial post in government and they needed some seasoning.

I will post separately my thoughts on what Labour will do; I’m very tired from being up until 3:30 and then waking at 7:30 and need a bit of a rest.

Of course, I am a graduate of Columbia University (BA 1974, Latin and Greek), so it’s true, as far as that goes. I believe that a score of 1400 or more also entitles you to join Mensa without further testing (when I joined, mumblety-mumble years ago) it did for me.

This score is nearly 36 years old now, however. Brain shrinkage and general mopery would account for the fact that I’m finding my Greek refresher course difficult and that I found Chinese absolutely devastating to what few brain cells still function up there.

The General Election has become pretty tiresome in the last few days. New Labour has taken fright at the number of people who are attracted to the Liberal Democrats’ stand against the war in Iraq, and now are trying to convince wavering voters that a vote for the LibDems will allow Michael Howard into Downing Street by the back door. (I’ve seen the back door into Downing Street, and it’s as well protected as the front door).

I believe that this blog from qwghlm references evidence that the political life of the country is changing dramatically. Worth a read.

I am a Liberal Democrat (paid-up member even). One of the reasons is that they are forthright about their plans. Going into an election saying that they will raise taxes is not normally a way to garner votes. There is a crying need in this country to be frank about the facts. The economy is good at the moment, but New Labour are storing up trouble for the future, are not being frank about their tax plans (or are too ignorant to understand why there may be a need for higher/different taxes–which is worse, I don’t know), are running (again!) with a man who is a proven liar (or ignorant–ditto the last parenthesised remark), and someone who has allowed his ego and ambition to overshadow the good of the country. Michael Howard is maliciously playing upon the natural xenophobia of an island nation and downplaying the facts: immigration is (in general) good for a country that is becoming a provider of services. Who’s going to wash the dishes and pick the tomatoes that the Islington set puts on their foccacia? As for tax cuts, I don’t believe that the Conservatives actually think they’ll be able to cut taxes that much. Saying they will is pandering to the natural human tendency to want lots of public services for free. Nothing comes for free. The inevitable cuts in public services would rebound on the Tories.

But another reason is more personal. Our local MP, Simon Hughes, helped HWMBO and me when HWMBO’s application for temporary leave to remain as my partner was lost by the Home Office. He asked them where it was, and they miraculously found it and approved it, all within a month. More to the point, I had posted in a Usenet newsgroup and in uk-motss about our plight and the fact that we were writing Simon for help. One of Simon’s assistants read my post and emailed me directly, asking how Simon could help! This is an MP who knows a lot about constituency services and who hires people who care about his constituents too. The help started before they’d even gotten our letter.

So we’d vote for Simon no matter what. The Tory candidate in Southwark North and Bermondsey doesn’t even register on the radar. The New Labour candidate hasn’t bothered to canvass around here nor even leave any of her literature. This seat used to be safe for Old Labour up until Simon squared off against Peter Tatchell in 1983. They haven’t really gotten a look-in since (although Simon got a scare in the 1997 election as the Labour candidate came within about 3000 votes of unseating him).

The old American adage that “all politics is local” is, I believe, starting to come true here in the UK. Local candidates with stands on local issues can get elected, even if they are independents (a doctor who campaigned to save a local hospital won in 2001 and is running again).

Politics is full of surprises. I think that Labour will come in with about a 100-seat majority. I think the LibDems will come in at about 65-70 seats (which would be their best in almost a century). The Conservatives will, as has been usual, turn on their leader after the debacle as Howard will be too old to fight another general election, assuming a 4-year term for this Parliament (he’s 65 or so now). To whom will they turn? Ken Clarke is also too old, Malcolm Rifkind is still the Old Guard, John Redwood is too maverick, Portillo is too out of politics (as well as being too pink), Oliver Letwin may be out of Parliament–and if he is elected, he may be too concerned with his own majority to bother with leading the party. Until Margaret Thatcher (and her little dog Tebbit too!) finally kick the bucket, the shadow of Thatcherism will poison the Conservative Party .

Which brings me to my real fear in British politics: the lack of an effective opposition. In the United States, the separation of powers means that Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary keep each other in check (sometimes: the current signs from Washington aren’t too good). However, due to our history, the United Kingdom has no separation of powers: they all inhere in the Crown and in Parliament. The Prime Minister and Cabinet can basically do whatever they agree to do as long as they have a loyal group of backbenchers to follow them. The Opposition (and there is a reason they’re called Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition) are there to call attention to what the government is doing, to criticise it constructively, to work in committee to amend and improve bills, to work in the Lords to revise bills sent from the Commons, and generally to ensure that the Government doesn’t always get its unalloyed way. If the Opposition is ineffective (as it has been during all of Labour’s 8 years in office, since the Tories have been too busy tearing each other apart to be effective) then the Government can basically do whatever it wants. This is a bad thing, as no party or Government has all the answers even if it has a large majority.

We need an effective Opposition. If the Tories can’t get their act together soon (and I think they have one more Parliament to do it in) then we will need to think of alternatives. The Liberal Democrats seem to be that alternative, at the moment. Getting nearly 70 seats in this Parliament will help move people’s opinions, as up until recently they were too small to be thought of as an opposition party or even as a potential government.

So if you’re a British voter, please ensure that you do your duty this Thursday and vote for whomever you think is the best candidate in your constituency.

Hooray, hooray, the first of May!
Outdoor shagging starts today.

we have a revision to the Revelation of John’s Number of the Beast.

I particularly enjoyed the last paragraph.