Spreading the Love

LETTER I

Dear Writer(s) of Conficker

Thank you so much. There's nothing I like more than working full days plus overnight two days in a row, then all weekend and multiple site visits on a Monday morning. Working 30 hours in a single 36-hour period truly makes one feel alive. My little boy surely appreciated not having his Daddy for the weekend because he was fighting the insiduous and rapid spread of your baby.

Thank you also for ensuring that I endure at least three conference calls a day, every day including weekends. Interaction with management is something I sure do love, especially when the lion's share of the call time is spent working out how to buck-pass to a suitable scapegoat (see Part II).

I don't know why you wrote the worm. I don't know what twisted, vindictive, scabby and despicable itch this inventively-evil piece of rancid code scratched in what passes for your mind as you sat, hated and alone, scratching your stinking balls in your mum's basement. Quite frankly, I don't even care why you wrote it. I merely hate and despise you and your ilk with a venom and passion that your warped so-called intellect cannot even begin to comprehend.

It is merely my deepest desire that you contract a virus of your own that causes you a lifetime of debilitating and disfiguring illness combined with agonising and untreatable pain - at least until such time as I track you down, flay the filthy skin from your worthless body inch by inch with a blunt vegetable peeler and roll you in freshly-ground sea salt before setting you on fire.

Yours, in sure and certain hope of my vengeance upon you

Dungeekin

***

LETTER II

Dear $CLIENT

We knew this was going to happen. We warned you that this was going to happen. Everybody, EVERYBODY knew that this was going to happen. We told you so.

WE TOLD YOU SO.

Thus shall be the title of the Major Incident Report which will, you can absolutely guarantee, be attached to an invoice of a size roughly similar to that of a small manned mission to Mars. And that's just MY overtime bill.

Next time your IT company are pleading with you to install antivirus on your servers and desktops, FUCKING GET IT INSTALLED. The cost of the project is far less than the final cost of dealing with a widespread infection across a network which could have been designed with the propagation characteristics of a worm like Conficker in mind.

And stop, stop, just fucking STOP wasting my fucking time and the time of my technical colleagues in fucking pointless conference calls demanding to know which poor, benighted luser is to blame for opening an attachment or whatever, and bringing the worm onto the network. They're guilty only of normal stupidity.

You want to get the person truly responsible? Find the worthless sack-of-shit beancounter who shitcanned last year's AV install project on the basis of cost, set them on fire and sack their still-smouldering corpse. Then prosecute their estate for corporate negligence.

Learn the lesson, pay the price and $DEITY help you if you fuckwits ever do something this rampantly cretinous again.

Love and kisses

Dungeekin

***

LETTER III

Dear Microsoft

Fuckit. I can't be bothered. It's all been said, done and proved before.

Secure. Microsoft. Pick one.

Someone do me a favour and nuke Redmond from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Yours in overtime

Dungeekin

Twats of the Week: Mercedes-Benz

C-Class clearly refers to quality of service.

I wasn't expecting to do a TOTW this week. After all, it's Christmas - the time of cheer, comfort and joy, peace on Earth and goodwill to all men.

That goodwill does not, as of today, extend unto Mercedes-Benz UK.

The Darling G ordered her new company car - a C-Class estate with a few tweaks - back at the beginning of November. "There are a couple of parts on back-order", said the dealer. "But you'll be on the build list, so you should have it by the end of February. We'll keep you updated".

No updates were forthcoming, of course.

A call at the end of November intimated, but didn't confirm, that the delivery date might be pushed back to March 2010 - which is bad enough for a mass-produced fleet car, but still we kept our peace. Cue today's update call.

The dealer was advised on 5 December that the earliest delivery date for our New Shiny Car would be June. June! Eight months from the point of order to the point of delivery?

What form of fucking insanity is this? You're building a car, not painting the Sistine Fucking Chapel! You claim to be waiting for engine parts - quite frankly, you could hand-tool the parts from purest Unobtanium using nothing but stone-age flint tools in eight months, yet clearly you prefer to sit idly on your Germanic backsides expecting your buyers to show the patience of fucking Ghandi while they wait for you to get around to sticking another fucking order in for widgets.

Did I miss the memo? When was Mercedes-Benz taken over by fucking British Leyland? Are you waiting to rebuild Longbridge before building another fucking car? And don't even get me started on the laissez-faire attitude of a dealer network that thinks it's OK not to bother to keep customers informed of the delay to their order.

So, Mercedes-Benz? Stick your order where the sun shineth not - it's become painfully clear that the name C-Class defines your quality of service. You should be impaled on your own three-pointed star. And then set on fire, though it would probably take you eight months to wait for the matches.

Mercedes-Benz. Teutonic Twats.

Twats of the Week: CarData

For Sale - but NOT through Cardata, who are Twats.

TOTW is coming early this week, brought to you by the numbers:

020 8216 1550, 020 8216 1552, 020 8216 1560, 020 8216 1567, 020 8216 1575 and 020 8216 1588; and by the letters C A R D A T A.

This earnest and very determined company have called me at least twice a day, every single day, since we put The Silver Beast on the market. They tell me that they have many, many buyers for the car* and that for a small consideration of just £99.50, they will send me buyers. Guaranteed. Honest.

Oh, really?

So, Cardata, which is more likely? That you really do have hundreds of buyers who, on your say-so, will make their way en masse to Oxfordshire and stampede my house in their rabid clamour to hand over their money for a 2002 Saab estate - or that you're rather keen to divest me of MY cash for which, in return, I will receive almost precisely fuck-all except a few sleepless nights in fear of impending credit-card fraud?

If you were genuine, you would have happily accepted my offer of payment upon a successful sale, don't you think? But no. You demanded, quite rudely, for payment in advance and, when I refused and told you not to call again, you called again. And again. And again.

I've tried being reasonable, even amiable, in my requests for your calls to cease. Even telling you the car's been sold hasn't been enough to stop your incessant calls. You seem dead-set on disregarding my disinterest, ignoring my rejections, braving my warnings and continuing to call me. Daily. Well, fair enough. You've clearly been too stupid to listen to reason, so now it's time to face The Wrath Of Dungeekin instead.

By the time you read this**, your details will have been passed to the Nuisance Call departments of both O2 and BT, and a written letter of complaint sent to Trading Standards. That's on top of posts on scammer forums where you are already largely featured.

Your little ploy might work on someone who is a) desperate to sell, b) either unable or unwilling to use Google and c) the owner of a single-figure IQ, but it is unlikely to work on somebody with even the barest modicum of intellect or common sense. It simply beggars fucking belief that you cold-calling cretins can't conceive, after 15 increasingly-abrupt refusals from the same fucking person, that your pointless scam has been rumbled and your putative mark is not fucking interested.

Take me off your database. Now. I can no longer guarantee even the minimum of civility towards you when you call - the next time you disturb my reverie, you will be met with the sort of response I normally reserve for BNP members, followed by the sort of retribution that will leave you needing at least counselling, if not long-term medical care. And it'll fucking smart a bit when the A&E department remove your telephone headset, I can promise you. And then I'll set you on fire.

CarData. Twats.

*Said 'buyers' clearly being those people too stupid to read Autotrader and dial a telephone number.

**For values of 'read', obviously. If you're too fucking stupid to understand plain English, and my repeated requests to be left alone, it's unlikely your literacy skills extend much past the pack of lies you have passing for a sales pitch.

A PBR Letter

The Chancellor steps up to the Despatch Box . . .

Dear Alistair Darling

Now come on, own up. Who on earth writes this shit? Have you got Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf employed as a Treasury SpAD?

"We make these decisions from a position of strength". Oh you do, do you? Because I think the strongest thing around is the stench of hypocritical bullshit.

Instead of action on our spiralling debt, all we had were the same vacuous outpourings. Meaningless blurb on 'investment in the future' as the country collapses. The borrowing, and the debt, will continue unabated.

Borrowing 354 billion pounds over two years just so you can point at some arbitrarily-designated 'growth' figures is not sensible fiscal policy. In fact, it's pretty much insane. Growth is only good if it's not likely to be completely obliterated by an cascading avalanche of unmanageable debt. It's like maxing-out every credit card your entire extended family own, just to put a Georgian frontage on your house. While ignoring the subsidence.

And yet amidst all the political weaselling - the wanton abuse of statistics, the dreary drivel about green technology, working families, increases to benefits above inflation and the like - how much mention was made of how to cut the borrowing?

How, Mr Darling, are you going to lower the deficit? Yes, it's lovely and peachy lowering tax on Bingo - nice targeted 'tax cut' that one - but what about the deficit? You say the percentages will fall - how? Is there some magic afoot, that will miraculously sort the country's fiscal problems while you continue to throw ever more non-existent money at imaginary growth? Are we getting Harry Potter as Labour's next Chancellor?

Cynicism, all the way. 50% on banker bonuses as a sop to your core socialist voters*. Bingo Tax Reduction - as a sop to your core voters. Attacking pension-fund tax relief on those stupid enough to be genuinely prudent under Labour. Ostentatiously (and counterproductively) soaking those who work hard to gain their income, and hoping that nobody notices the extra £6 per year going into general taxation for the right to own a fucking telephone, or the extra 0.5% tax rise, through NI, in the dying moments of your turgid mumblings.

I know why you've done it. I even predicted that you'd do it.

This was, as George Osborne said, a Pre-Election Report. You know you've screwed the economy, the country and the people. You know you're going to lose the next election. And like all cowards, when the final opportunity came to own up, be a man and say, "we need to make tough decisions and cut back. Hard. Now", instead you still persist with the pretence.

You produced a soft Budget, bereft of courage, lacking even the barest of impetus to halt the decline - and you did so secure in the knowledge that in the next Budget, the Conservatives will have to be the ones taking the hard decisions you lacked the cojones to make.

And who will be the ones screaming loudest about the nasty, taxing Tories? That's right. Lying, craven Labour. There's nothing more contemptible than a coward.

Thankfully, I only have a few months more to remain, Sir,

Your Disgusted Taxpayer

Dungeekin

*Hoping that your core voters won't notice that it applies only to discretionary bonuses, not contractual ones. Twat.

On Carol-Singers

I love carol singers.

I love that friendly, cheery, charity choir, wrapped up warm against the seasonal chill, holding lanterns on poles, regaling me with a wonderfully-harmonised 'Hark The Herald Angels Sing' on my doorstep. Glowing with the Christmas Spirit, suffused with goodwill to all men, they make me feel Christmassy all over. I love that sort of carol singer.

Of course, I don't get that sort of carol singer.

What I ACTUALLY get is a bunch of scruffy chavs in fake Kappa jackets, hoods and Burberry baseball caps firmly in place. No lanterns on poles for this lot - any lighting they have is more likely to be the still-smouldering remains of the last person to turn down their demands for cash. Suffused with Christmas Spirit? Er, no. Suffused with White Lightning and Mad Dog 20/20, more like. And of course, their vocal skills extend only as far as mumbling their way through four off-key lines of 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas before a bunch of grubby hands are extended expecting payment.

Carol singing? This isn't fucking carol singing, it's mugging set to music*.

I'm not a Scrooge. I don't believe that anyone wishing another a Merry Christmas should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. I love Christmas - but this isn't about the Christmas spirit.

Just like trick-or-treating at Halloween, a fun and well-meaning activity has been appropriated by scrotes and used as a means to intimidate people. More threat than tinsel, and more about money than merry.

Well, my little troupe of talentless troubadors, guess what? You're not getting any money. Yes, you can ring my doorbell four more times after I've told you to go away. Yes, you can even call 'mean wanker**' as I shut the door. I really couldn't give a shit. You do your worst*** - it really, honestly, can't be any more painfully intolerable than what you believe passes for singing.

In the meantime, I will ensure that the next time you ring my doorbell and attempt to demand money with menaces for a tuneless rending of about 20% of a single 'carol', you'll have a close and meaningful experience with about a hundredweight of reindeer droppings and a mulled-wine powered flamethrower.

Bah. And, possibly, Humbug.


*I am, of course, using 'music' in the same sense that it can be applied to most X-Factor contestants. That is, about as musical as listening to a disgruntled donkey having a razor blade drawn slowly across its scrotum.

**Of course, anyone who'd actually been to school or who had even watched anything more intellectually stimulating than 'The Wall' would probably shout 'Scrooge'. But given the educational standards in this area, I'm pretty gratified they have sufficient vocabulary to use 'mean' in one of its contexts.

***I live in Oxfordshire, where I can say 'do your worst' and be reasonably certain that I've already experienced it. Presence of chavs notwithstanding, in this area it's unlikely they'll stab me in the face and burn my house down.

Twats of the Week: MoD Bureaucrats

There's only one winner for Twats of the Week this week. And it's pretty much the only accolade they deserve. Step forward for e-knobblement, Bureaucrats of the Ministry of Defence. I did the satire - now, Dear Reader, comes the Rant.

You see that rock over there? That's my contempt, that is. And right now, MoD Bureaushits are beneath it.

Back in 1994 I was involved with a NATO exercise, and I worked with a couple of USN reservists, both of whom had the Gulf Medal from 1991. I was impressed, and asked them about their experience.

"Oh no, we didn't go", they said. "We were in Basic Training, but everyone in the US Military got the medal". I can only assume it's because the colonials actually won a battle for pretty much the first time in their history.

The reservists in question were, understandably, mocked mercilessly for wearing a decoration to which they were not entitled.

Which brings me to civil servants. Specifically, those beancounters awarded the Operational Service Medal for their outstanding administration in the face of bureaucracy.

Money Quote:
To qualify for award of the medal with a clasp, personnel must have served in Afghanistan for either five, 21 or 30 days continuous service between various dates depending on the operation.

And how long does a deserving serviceman spend on a tour of duty in Hellmand Province to earn the same decoration? A hell of a lot longer than that.

Medals are - at least, to date have always been - recognition of a HERO'S action in the face of the enemy. Bravery. Courage. Selflessness. Above and beyond the call of duty, in the face of gunfire and with the risk - often the result - of death in the line of duty.

They are NOT, I repeat NOT, some gaudy lapel decoration for some fucking REMF who exceeded his target of reducing bullet supply budgets to serving troops for the quarter preceding.

Those who wear their medal on a uniform deserve our respect and admiration. Those whose contribution has extended only to spending a few days conducting logistics surveys while trying to find a decent dry-cleaner in Kabul deserve nothing but our scorn.

Can you really, honestly, say you earned it? When was your life really at risk? You were in your air-conditioned environment, protected by the very uniformed personnel whose service you now dishonour with your wearing of a medal meant for them. You want to wear your medal? Go and wear it in Tidworth, or Aldershot, or on the streets of Wootton Bassett - places where they understand what valour means, when for you it's just a word you read in the despatches before you file your paperwork on another life lost. Go on, bureaushit - walk the streets of a garrison town with your undeserved decoration and see how long you last. I'll even wear a tie to the funeral.

You want to wear the OSM? Go and pick up a fucking rifle. I don't care if you sat on your fat, besuited arse in a hot climate for a couple of weeks, second-guessing the people who were facing the bullets. You haven't earned that decoration and you don't deserve it Get your pasty, bean-counting backside out onto the fucking front line and then we'll talk.

Twats.

If You Want To Know The Time . . .

A Community Police Officer prepares to make an arrest for Littering.

. . . Don't, for the love of all that's holy, ask a Policeman. You'll only get nicked.

News reaches Vitriol Towers that your friendly neighbourhood StasiPlod have a habit of detaining innocent people, on trumped-up charges, just to get your DNA on their database. It seems Life imitates Art. Sorry.

Lovely. So you're walking down the street, minding your own business, when a burly stormtrooper in a stab vest grabs you and sticks a swab up your first available orifice, all in the name of 'Building Safer Communities'/'Tough on Crime in YOUR Community'/'Working For Safer Communities'/'Insert Pointless Marketing-esque Strapline Here'.

It's hardly Dixon of Dock Green, is it?

The oft-wailed cry of those caught speeding or committing some other egregious offence against 'the community' is, "why don't you go and catch real criminals?". And while I'm not normally one for cliche, that phrase sounds particularly apposite in this case.

This action by the police is not about lowering crime at all, not about catching criminals. It's about laziness.

To catch, say, a serial burglar requires expensive Scenes of Crime examinations, costly detectives and, perhaps, even (whisper it softly) overtime. None of these are acceptable, because they take the focus of the police away from the important goals of filling their 'Report on the Incidence of Reporting of Reported Crime (in YOUR Community)' forms in triplicate. Add in the fact that their all-black uniforms and Toys'R'Us Batman Utility Belts weigh so much they can't go running after felons as it's a Health & Safety risk, and you see the truth.

Collaring anyone within 500 yards of a parking-ticket and sticking a cotton-bud up their bottom means the Stasi don't have to go running after fleet-footed drug dealers, or enduring the rigmarole of following up clues to a real crime. Their arrest statistics look great, the DNA Database bulges with millions of 'suspects' - and we're so disillusioned with the whole thing that when we're stabbed in the face for our mobile phones we don't even bother ringing up for a 'crime number'*. So the 'reported crime' statistics look good too.

And if it turns out, one day in the future, that somebody on the database is wanted for a serious crime - non-payment of Council Tax or something - well, that proves why we must have a Database of Everyone. For the good of the Community, innit.

Oi, Z-Cars. Stop being the paramilitary wing of the Office of National Statistics, and go and catch some real criminals.

*which is another rant.

Dear @DEVELOPERLUSER . . .

Yep. That looks like a developer.

Dear $DEVELOPERLUSER

Firstly, my congratulations. It's been quite some time since anyone managed to incur The Wrath Of Dungeekin in the office - recently my vitriol has been reserved purely for politicians. However, you have managed it in fine style. Well done.

I remember a day when developers had some degree of Clue about computing in general. Your recent inputs have made it clear, however, that your knowledge of the wide world of Information Technology is limited to banging your forehead repeatedly against your keyboard and hoping the resultant random bollocks compiles. However, in the spirit of intra-office collaboration and in the sure knowledge that you won't understand a word, allow me to offer a small spot of enlightenment.

the Ping command is a blunt instrument. Unfortunately not one I can use on you, but a blunt instrument nonetheless.

An intermittent increase in ping response from 20ms to 40ms between two servers, across a VPN, between two sites 210 miles apart does NOT constitute a fault report, you C-spewing cretin. Especially when said increase in ping response does not coincide with any loss of connectivity.

There's no actual problem here, you programming prick. Nothing. You're asking us to 'troubleshoot' 0.02 seconds difference about once every 55 minutes like it's the End of Days. Can we expect The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to have a little trot through the server room? Is Lucifer himself going to cast us into an eternity of Dantean agony for the mortal sin of slight latency? I think not. We are Networks. We understand such things.

I know it's hard for you to comprehend, but this isn't Star Trek. Your code doesn't travel from point A to B at Warp Factor 9. Try connecting via VPN from a Windows server in Australia to a London datacentre if you want to see latency. And they're not fucking complaining.

So despite your protestations, I am not going to investigate further, because it's pretty difficult to diagnose a transient issue with a set of potential causes that are pretty much infinite. I don't care if you want me to. I don't give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut if you have emailed your manager, who is to technical knowledge what Paris Hilton is to cold fusion.

Go and read a fucking manual, or better still suck on a power cable. It would take a pretty screwed-up system to timeout in 2/100ths of a second (unless it was coded to do so, in which case I'd blame YOU and have even more justification to kill you in interesting ways). Instead, allow me to make a recommendation on your next course of action. I'll put it in code, and so you have some chance of understanding it I'll make my instructions basic*.

10 POKE yourself in the eye repeatedly
20 SET yourself on fire.
30 GOTO hell, luser.

Stick that in your array and debug it.

Dungeekin

*BASIC - geddit? FankyaverymuchI'mhereallweekdon'tforgettotipyourserver.

What's Mine, Isn't.

A Council Officer enforcing the Recycling laws.

I always thought that burglary was a simple thing. Some shell-suited, fake-Burberry-wearing Chav scrote kicks in your door, helps himself to your TV, DVD player and valuables, takes a shit on your living-room rug and heads out. Simples. Of course, in recent years I've also known that when you get burgled you're supposed to help the chav scrote carry your stuff out to his Saxo before you can get a crime number from Plod and start the interminable argument with your insurers.

But the point is that I'd always thought that burglary was illegal. That is, it was Against The Law.

Clearly, I was wrong. Burglary is now the domain of the State, I'm delighted to report.

The right to search homes, seize cash, freeze bank accounts and confiscate property will be given to town hall officials and civilian investigators employed by organisations as diverse as Royal Mail, the Rural Payments Agency and Transport for London. The Proceeds of Crime act will now be used against fare dodgers, families in arrears with council tax and other 'minor offenders'.

Oh, lovely. So forget about the shell-suited chav - now all it will take is a mustachioed council Jobsworth with a clipboard and dubious social skills to leave your house empty.

Imagine, dear Reader. Given that once they were given the right, Councils used anti-terror laws to monitor bin collections, school catchment areas and even teenage smokers, just how do you imagine the local officious brigade will implement their newly-garnered rights?

Got a parking ticket? We'll have your car, you evil miscreant. Oh dear, your Council Tax payment's a month late. That'll cost you your telly and your next years' wages, thanks very much. And God help you if you put the wrong plastic in your recycling bin. because we'll repossess your wife and sell her into white slavery, mortgage your children on the internet and flog the family dog to an environmentally-friendly sausage factory. You're a criminal, you deserve it.

The only upside I can see is that it's unlikely the Council Official will crap on your carpet.

In one stroke, this legislation effectively nationalises property. You no longer own the goods you purchased with the sweat from your brow - you merely borrow them from the State, and they will now have the right to remove those goods, legally and at a whim, on the flimsiest of premises.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "well, OK, this is awful law, yet again trampling on the rights of ordinary hard-working citizens and lumping them, yet again, in with criminals. But it's alright, we only have to wait until the General Election and the Conservatives will repeal it". Right?

Wrong, I'm afraid. Not a bit of it.

Remember, the country (and thus the Government) is skint. They've run up a level of debt beyond all comprehension. They don't have money, and they can't tax us any more than they already are. So they need some way to get their hands on what little we have remaining.

By using dubious laws to seize our personal property, the State achieves a triple whammy. One, they nick your stuff and flog it, raising immediate cash. Two, the proceeds can be used by the councils to supplement their budgets, meaning the Government has to give them less. Thirdly (and this is the sheer genius) YOU have to buy a replacement for whatever they've yaffled. Which puts money into circulation in the economy and allows the Government to point to recovery.

Sheer genius. Well done, chaps. Even at my most eloquent, I cannot find the words to elucidate just how much I fucking hate you.

Eat Your Greens

Save the World! Eat meat....or not...or something.

Oh, for the love of all that's holy. . . .

We now have the worthy Lord Stern, sternly telling us that we must become vegan for the good of the planet. Oooookaay... Would you greenies PLEASE get your stories straight?

While his nobleness is instructing us to go vegan for Gaia, wasn't it just a couple of days ago that some other tree-hugging enviro-whackjob was telling us to get pets we can eat, because Rover's worse than a Range Rover?

Yep. That they were.

It's hardly pushing a consistent message, is it? If both articles are true, then eating meat is both good and bad for the planet. Personally, given that you lot are clearly so utterly addled from protein deficiency you can't make any sense, I'll play it safe and carry on eating bacon sandwiches and the odd steak, thanks.

His Lordship neatly links eating meat with drink-driving. Bonus points for the emotive linking of issues, there, I thought. So, by that logic, me eating a hamburger is roughly equivalent to downing ten pints then mowing down a bus-stop's worth of pensioners? If I may hazard a guess, I'd say that the veggies Lord Stern chows down on contain rather too much THC for rational thought.

And that, dear Reader, is the problem with the environmental debate.

This debate isn't about rational science, because rational scientists are divided about causes, effects and solutions to a problem that may or may not be happening. Instead, it's become a politcal toy, a divisive issue that is more about dogma than dogs, more credo than carbon.

Lord Stern is a vegetarian, and therefore by definition mad. So he uses the climate question to further his own agenda of having the entire population subsist solely on cabbage. Robert and Brenda Vale simply don't like pets - perhaps their parents wouldn't let them have a gerbil, or something - so they use the climate question to further their own dislike of animal ownership.

Well, I've been doing my own research.

I have discovered that environmental campaigners produce gaseous emissions in proportions far greater than the average beef cow. In fact, an analysis of Lord Stern shows that he alone produces more damaging wind than the entire Virgin fleet of 747s. So, really, there's only one solution.

I am calling for environmental campaigners to become as socially-unacceptable as wife-beaters (there, do you see how easy the emotive link is?). And I think the best way to solve all the crises of the planet is to kill and eat anyone who bleats on about lowering carbon emissions, getting rid of airliners, or taxing whatever it is they don't agree with in the name of the environment.

In a stroke, we'd reduce the amount of noxious, damaging hot air being pumped into the atmosphere. We'd save the forests, because we'd get rid of the reams of paper spouting pointless, scienceless opinions about 'climate change'. We'd even make an impact into the food crisis, because getting rid of this lot would not only provide meat, but allow us all to eat the salad they'd have as a main course as a side to our sirloin.

And most importantly, it would ensure that they shut the fuck up.

I commend the idea to the House.

Enlightening. Or Not.

I would dearly love to meet the individual who one day thought, "you know what? It would be a great idea to move the clocks back and forward an hour at an arbitrarily-designated point. That would be neato!". And I hope that when I meet this individual, I'm heavily armed.

The clueless imbecile who postulated this clearly owned neither children nor dogs when s/he/it came up with what no doubt seemed like a fantastic wheeze over a pint or thirteen of mead.

Both The Dog and The Boy wake up when it gets light. Which means they wake up an hour earlier. Which means the clock-change isn't an extra hour in bed, it's getting up an hour earlier. And remaining awake an hour longer. Which means I feel lagged, tired, blurry and borderline homicidal (or rather, more homicidal than normal).

I've heard all the reasons and excuses why this anachronism, this festering pustule on the bottom of commonsense remains in place, the best of which was that it's safer to have an extra hour of daylight in the morning as there's less risk of injury to schoolchildren when they're walking to school in the morning. What? What form of insanity is this? No parent in this country dares allow their children to walk to school any more, as we all know that if they did they'd instantly be ravished, murdered and probably eaten by gangs of roving paedophiles. So forget that one.

Another one is that it gives British farmers an extra hour of light. Why? So they can have an extra glorious hour watching the fields that aren't growing anything because of CAP subsidies? I could perhaps understand it being constituted back in the Middle Ages, when the entire population were growing their own dung, but not now when anyone who DID work in agriculture is now either running a theme park, working in a call-centre or Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. And I don't see why everyone should suffer just because of him.

Or perhaps it's for the Scots, as they're virtually in the Arctic Circle. Well, I say tough. Having been in Ullapool in June, it's light until almost bloody midnight so the Jocks get more than their fair share of daylight. If we give them any more they'll just blow it on McEwans and deep-fried Mars Bars anyway.

Most normal people in this country work normal hours between a span of 0800 and 1800. For most people it would be infinitely preferable to have a bit of light remaining in the evening, and the feeling that you have some daylight to yourself, yet instead we still have an outdated timechange that serves absolutely nobody except a small minority that can't even clearly be defined.

Give me my daylight back, you bastards. Or I shall be forced to illuminate my world by setting anyone even remotely connected to the concept of British Summertime on fire.

Yes, it's Monday. And yes, I'm grumpy. Why do you ask?

How Much More?

See these pics? They'll be illegal next month.

Hat-tip to 'Not A Sheep' for this spot.

So on 16 February, the Counter-Terrorist Act 2008 comes into law.

The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the Terrorism Act 2000 , will target anyone who 'elicits or attempts to elicit information about [members of armed forces] … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.

Only it won't just target terrorists. It will target US. The British Journal of Photography has already seen how the current law is [ab]used to stop people - even legitimate journalists - from photographing Police officers. No doubt the next amendment will make it illegal to photograph politicians. The one after that - well, just don't go plane-spotting.

This is, for me, the final, final straw.

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it - the United Kingdom is becoming a totalitarian state (if it's not already). I've banged on and on about CCTV, ID Cards, Communications Data Monitoring and restrictions on the freedom of the Press. Even politically-motivated arrests of Opposition MPs.

How much is enough, Britain? Are you so inured, so dulled, so satisfied with the Government of this country? Are your daily rations of reality TV from Pravda, constant mentions of Diana in the Daily Express, a pair of 21-year-old tits in the Beano and house prices in the Mail enough to blind you to what is happening?

As Mark Knopfler put it, "they give you 'Rule Britannia', gassy beer, Page Three, two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease". More simply, the Roman phrase was 'panem et circenses' - trivialities and frivolities to distract you from the destruction of your society.

Since this Regime came to power, our country has changed, yet you've not noticed.

Now, your every action is monitored from the moment you step out of your door. Smile, you're on CCTV. Monitored, logged, tracked. Your emails and phone calls are no longer private. Your DNA and biometrics no longer yours, but held [in]secure on yet another database. Your information sources are either lowest-common-denominator excrement, or spin-doctored shills for the Regime.

Now you won't even be able to photograph the Fingermen as they carry out the Regime's wishes.

It makes you wonder about the Regime announcement that the UK is to have universal broadband. It makes you wonder what they'll use it for.

I've given up expecting a General Election. The Regime don't want it. They want power and control, and now they have it there's no chance of them releasing their grip. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a Government-funded Quango legislating your life - forever.

I'm off out to photograph some coppers, flip my local CCTV cameras the bird, have cyber-sex with my partner by email, and openly call Gordoom McBrown, Jacqui Beria and the rest of the Politburo scum-sucking weasels in public. Then I'm going to drink 10 units of alcohol, allow my 11-year-old son to have a spritzer, eat a steak and chips with plenty of salt, and read right-wing Blogs. All things that are either illegal, harmful or banned.

I urge you all to do the same. This country is OURS, not theirs. Let's take it back.

When Toilets Attack!

WARNING. CONTAINS DISBELIEF AND SWEARING AND SHOULD BE VIEWED ONLY UNDER RoSPA GUIDELINES AND UNDER ADULT SUPERVISION.

It's clear that RoSPA and Pravda don't listen to me.

From the worthies at Nanny Beeb: Toddlers' toilet seat crush peril

What the fuck. No, really, seriously, What. The. FUCK.

Money Quote:
"He called for more seats to be designed to fall slowly, and for heavier seats to be banned from households with young boys. "

Abolutely classic. You really couldn't make this nannying bullshit up if you tried.

Dr Joe Philip, of Leighton Hospital in Crewe: If you honestly feel that way, then it is my most sincere hope that you never breed, as I pity your children. If you already have been able to find a female insane enough to permit you to inseminate her, might I suggest placing your children naked in a large, hermetically-sealed oxygen tent, providing only scrubbed air and feeding them non-GM, organic baby food through a regularly-changed sterile tube?

You'll have to worry about bodily wastes however - and clearly given the terrible menace posed by the lethal household WC they can't use that. Catheterisation, perhaps?

Seriously though. You can't protect your kids from every potential menace in the house. If they're little, take them to the loo. It's what we do with our three-year-old. It's simple, it's effective and it requires only a modicum of responsibility on the part of a parent.

Everyone, stop. Just fucking STOP calling for things to be banned. IF (and with just 250 cases per year nationwide, it's a pretty big IF) little Johnny gets his knob clonked by a vengeful toilet seat, it won't kill him - nor is it likely to cause significant long-term psychological damage. It's one of those 'rites-of-passage' things into manhood, like getting it caught in his zip. Which he will do, as we all did. And he'll learn to pull back sooner, which could be a useful lesson in later life.

And thinking about it, if little Johnny takes said blow to the goolies, why on earth would you take him to hospital? It's a bruise. It hurts, and he'll cry. Admittedly it's not something Mummy can kiss better, but it's not exactly life-threatening, is it?

Or perhaps we should ban zips too? Sheesh.

Eeurghstenders. . .

I've got a great idea for a TV Drama series! This is dead realistic, this, you'll love it. It's a gritty, exciting taste of real life. OK, how about this. . . .

There's this bloke, right, and he's a really nasty piece of work. He has an affair with his own son's girlfriend. . . and then gets busted on his son's wedding day. His wife is bitter and twisted, and hits him over the head with a spade and buries him alive, then suffers a crisis and digs him back up again. . . she throws him out, and then shacks up with her ex-husband's brother.

She and her new fella are all set to run away together, and on the night they're due to escape her ex-husband is run over and left critically ill in a hit-and-run accident. It's attempted murder! After much investigation, it transpires that he was run over by his ex-wife - and the only witness to this awful attack is . . . . .

. . . .wait for it. . . .

. . . .I love this twist. . .

. . . . The former wife of his son, the same girl who was his ex-lover!

There you go, a taste of the gritty reality of life in the East End - or utter, pointless, depressing bollocks? You decide!

Actually, don't - who the hell writes such depressing, miserable, incestuous, unbelievable tosh? More importantly, how can anyone - anyone at all* - find it in the slightest bit interesting? It's dire beyond belief. I hate this programme. I would sooner scoop my eyes out with a melon-baller than watch this turgid drivel.

Currently entering Hour Three of The Darling G's Eastenders marathon....and wishing for sweet oblivion.

*Even The Darling G, who I of course adore and who otherwise has wonderful taste.

Techno-Rant.

Dear $LuserManager

Let's get something straight here. If I've taken the trouble to clarify the request with the requesting engineer, detail the steps necessary to implement the (complex) project requested, and made a recommendation that it's chargeable based on the technical information obtained. . .

Don't, don't, Don't You fscking DARE go over my head to the requestors saying it's simple, takes less time than recommended - and non-chargeable.

It isn't simple. It isn't supported. It sure as hell isn't free. Listen, you overpaid, underqualified, microscopically-genitalled, sub-protozoan excuse for a salesdroid. Your job is to go and make money, you simpleton - not to hand out the time of those who are actually competent as if it were Halloween sweeties. Your job is to generate profit. I realise that's not particularly easy, but it's a shitload harder if you don't fscking charge for anything, moron.

And there's more. When I've spent the last three MONTHS proving, with Crown-Court standard, beyond reasonable doubt evidence, that there's a bandwidth problem on a fscking site, don't you think that it's totally reprehensible, stupid and downright insane to recommend, implement and SCHEDULE a VoIP implementation? Especially without referring to me, without recommending a line upgrade and without any form of technical audit or input?

I knew you were an idiot. I knew you were dishonest. Now I'm firmly convinced that you should be nowhere near my Clients. In fact, I'd prefer it if you were straitjacketed, pumped full of Thorazine and dumped in landfill.

We are the Engineers. We know what is needed and how it is to be achieved. You cannot even connect your laptop to its power supply without raising a Helpdesk ticket, yet you presume to question the technical recommendations we offer, and make recommendations to Clients that will not only fail, but will backfire onto us? Quite frankly, we would see superior management decisions if you were replaced by the chair currently supporting the fat arse you clearly make decisions out of.

Consider yourself LARTed, you prize piece of reptilian pond-slime. A second rantable offence will result in The Wrath of Dungeekin being applied to sensitive parts of your anatomy with a claw hammer and lashings of Mains voltage. And a few of my Toys above.

FOAD - and your little dog too.

Love

Dungeekin

Fibber!

Dear Mr Humphrys

Re. your interview with Boris Johnson - a reduction in the rate of increase is not a cut. No matter how many times you frustratedly assert that it IS a cut, it don't make it so.

A cut is a reduction in expenditure, NOT a reduction in the rate of increase. Google can help with definitions if your political bias leads you to misunderstand basic English.

Please don't attempt to mislead your listeners, or I shall be forced firstly to find an alternative radio station, and secondly to set you on fire.

kthxbai.

Dungeekin

doubleplusungood rewrite upsub antefiling

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

From the Independent: 'The Intelligence and Security Committee. . .wants to press ministers to introduce legislation that would prevent news outlets from reporting stories deemed by the Governmnent to be against the interests of national security".

Fine, you may say. I can hear you thinking "well, we don't want the 'terrorists' knowing what we know, do we?". And you may think that makes sense. But let's just analyse that for a second, shall we?

There's one question you need to consider - one single question that goes to the heart of this matter. Who decides what constitutes the interests of national security?

Well - that would be the government of the day.

So, what if that Government decides that the issue of a dodgy passport is a matter of national security as it might impinge on sensitive trade negotiations? What if that Government decides that information on a donations scandal is a matter of national security, as it may affect the Government's standing on the world stage? For balance, what if that Government decides that a sexual scandal is a matter of national security for the same reason?

What if that Government decides that your Blog post - or those of any one of hundreds of others - constitutes a threat to national security as it is 'subsersive' or "viciously nihilist", and damages national morale?

Legislation already extant or in the pipeline allow Big Brother to know who you are, where you are, what you drive, where you go, what you look like, your fingerprints, your DNA, your tax records, what websites you visit, who you email, who you phone, where you phone from, where you shop, what you buy.

Now, with this, they will control the information you receive as well.

At this time of year, we remember The Fallen, who gave their lives for something that is, when it works, intangible - freedom. Freedom to speak. Freedom to think. Most importantly, freedom to learn and make your own independent decisions.

This isn't a political matter. The Intelligence and Security Committee is cross-party. The members of this LabLibCon committee are ALL guilty of trying to remove YOUR freedom.

Enough. Enough. ENOUGH.

Whatever your political persuasion, this blatant assault on freedom of information - on the freedom of the press that has endured so long - should disgust you. I implore you to contact your MP - write, phone, email, visit the constituency surgery. The time has come to take a stand and say ENOUGH. Or one day you will wake up and I won't be here. Neither will Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale, Old Holborn or anyone else.

And you will only know the doubleplusgood Ingsoc newspeak that bb goodreports regularwise in goodthinkful presspaper news.

Stop With The Sanitising

(This is also published on Dad-O-Matic, where it also seems to have touched a nerve....)

I've had all I can stand, I can't stand no more....

I am sick, sick SICK of hearing that for my surfaces to be 'clean' I need to have killed all the bacteria as well, for the sake of my children. What utter, pointless, dishonest, health-&-safety crap.

Firstly, the bloody Dettol advert is in itself misleading. It states quite clearly that "1 bacteria can become 2 million overnight", so you should use Dettol to be clean and safe. It then tells you it kills 99.9% of bacteria - thus ensuring that when you use it after dinner you're going to leave 1% remaining. Which means you'll be well past that 2 million count by breakfast anyway.

Bacteria Maths 101:
99.9% of 2 million = 1,998,000. Leaving 2000. So if 1 can get to 2 million overnight, that means even if you start with 2 million then use this, the next morning you'll have two billion of the hardy little buggers, all of which come from the original stock that survived your chemical attack. Futile, innit?

Secondly - who the hell says that every surface in the house needs to be sanitised to within an inch of its life? I don't plan to eat sushi out of my sink, nor have a quick snack of steak tartare on my kitchen floor. For that matter, neither will my 3yo. And I'll be making my son scrambled eggs, not performing an appendectomy on him (though if he wakes me up at 0530 again, I may feel some temptation. . . .)

For the same reason, why on earth do I need to kill off every single bacteria present on the *inside* of my toilet? I want it looking clean, sure - but let's face it, if I wake up thirsty in the night I'm probably going to grab a glass of water from the tap, not dip a glass into the lavatory bowl. Even if I'm pretty drunk.

I believe - I truly, absolutely believe - that it's hugely important for children to be *exposed* to bacteria. Pretty much all of us grew up playing outside, making (and probably eating) mud pies, splashing in puddles and $DEITY knows what else. Sure, some of us got sick. But the really cool bit is that our bodies defended us from the illness when we got sick, and in doing so developed in us a resistance for the next time some nasties came along.

I know the 'health and safety, protect kids at all costs' would dearly love us to keep our offspring in sterile oxygen tents, breathing HEPA-filtered air scrubbed of any and all airborne pathogens - and they do their level best to guilt-trip us into doing so. But that's not how we started, not how we evolved. We didn't even have antibiotics until the 1940's - we certainly lacked 'anti-bacterial multi-surface biological cleany-sterilisy fluid stuff.

Maybe I'm wrong - but if we already have a plethora of antibiotic-resistant pathogens because of historical over-prescribing of antibiotics, aren't we increasing the risk to our children by reducing their exposure to the bacteria that surround us every day? Aren't we forcing our kids back into the shallow end of the gene pool, and increasing their risk of contracting something really nasty at some unspecified future point?

These adverts attempt to guilt-trip us into using their product to protect our children. I personally think that by their use, we're doing the exact opposite.

A Message For The Database State

So now the Goonverment plan to use retailers to gather biometric data?

Fantastic. You can tie our ID cards to our Clubcards, so you know what we bought last week. Oooh, you'll be able to compare our purchasing to our credit history and PAYE records, to decide whether we're living within our means, or arrest us for buying unhealthy foods.

How much information does Big Brother want to hold on us?

Well - you want to log loads of information? Parse and log this, you bunch of arsebiscuits.

Explosion Gordon Brown Bomb is a complete IRA nuclear totalitarian warhead moron Allah Akhbar, and both he explode terror and his Al-Qaeda personal Beria bomb Semtex Islamic Jihad of a henchwoman Sarin Parliament Jacqui Smith Tabun assassinate Insh'Allah can stuff Provisional IRA shooting their VX warheads Orwellian CCTV 2lbs of C4 is begorrah surveillance state a martyr attack up their control-freak Stalinist hijacking arses Fatah Hezbollah.

With knobs on.

Every supermarket that puts one of these booths in will be a place I won't frequent. If necessary I will use nothing but farm-shops and markets to buy what I need. My personal, private data is just that and I will NOT cede it to Big Brother.

Is James Bond Loathsome?

So the very serious Mr Finlo Rohrer has graced us with his opinions on the BBC Website.

Apparently, we shouldn't enjoy the movies of the Bond franchise because of their sexism, racism, product placement and unbelievability.

Wow, Finlo. With that sort of attitude to life, you must be a real riot at parties.

Finlo - it's ENTERTAINMENT.

Main Entry: en·ter·tain·ment
Pronunciation: \ˌen-tər-ˈtān-mənt\
Function: noun
Date: 15th century

1: the act of entertaining...3 a: amusement or diversion provided especially by performers b: something diverting or engaging: as (1): a public performance (2): a usually light comic or adventure novel

It's ENTERTAINMENT. It's supposed to be completely over-the-top. Watching 007 spend 72 hours on surveillance before obtaining a warrant really wouldn't make for a fun movie, would it?

While serious people such as yourself get aerated over the subtexts, most normal human beings are watching a bit of escapist fun, not an instruction manual for modern interpersonal relationships.

Finlo, you can wring your sandals in outraged post-feminist horreur that Sean Connery slaps a woman's behind in 'Goldfinger' - the rest of us have sufficient intellect to work out that a movie made in 1964 is unlikely to have the same social strictures as one made today. Of course the attitude to women is different to today! The books were written over 50 years ago.

Of course the villians were never English - this was pretty much the canon for the detective and spy novel of the time. Try reading a Modesty Blaise book or two, and you'll see exactly the same thing. You also missed the fact that in numerous instances, the villians are revealed as rank bad hats not because of their megalomania or murderous tendencies, but because they cheat at cards!

Of course there are all sorts of product placements. If you read the books, you'd see that Bond is an insufferable 'brand snob', having even his cigarettes made to his personal specifications. He also drives a Bentley, rather than the Astons of the films. And these days, without product placement and the investment that comes from it, films don't get made. There are many worse examples of this than the Bond franchise.

Oh, and if you want your PC bollocks to be taken seriously when you're ranting about stuff, get your facts right as well. In Casino Royale, he didn't drive a Ford Focus - it was a pre-production Ford Mondeo. Who, incidentally, own Aston Martin. And most of the other cars in the film as well.

Of course it's unbelievable and full of plot holes. it's MEANT TO BE, you plank. If I want serious, believable drama all the time I'll watch f&*%ing News 24. Sometimes we want escapism - fistfights, car chases, casinos, explosions and the occasional spot of casual shagging. If you don't like that, then don't watch it - but please, spare us all your sanctimonious critic's drivel.

However, to make you happy I'll post a screenplay of YOUR sort of Bond movie shortly - watch this space.

PS: Twat.