The BNP on Question Time

Here’s what I think. Nick Griffin is an odious little toad of a man. Everything that the British National Party stands for is abhorrent to all sane people. However, there are enough irrational people on the electoral register that the BNP are an elected party. Question Time is supposed to be politically neutral. An unfortunate… Continue reading The BNP on Question Time

Nadnomics

Nadine Dorries (the MP for mid-Narnia) has been explaining why she is not in favour of all-women short-lists. I have to confess that positive discrimination makes me slightly uncomfortable, so it would have been easy for her to write something that I would have had to grudgingly admit to agreeing with. Luckily for me, she… Continue reading Nadnomics

Extending Number 10 Petitions

Like many people I’ve signed a few petitions on the Number 10 Downing St web site. Although I like the idea of this site, signing a petition is almost always a disappointing experience. To be more accurate it’s not the signing that’s the disappointment, it’s the response from the Government that turns up by email… Continue reading Extending Number 10 Petitions

Waiting For Donut

Google are naming versions of Android after cakes. My G1 is currently running version 1.5 – or Cupcake – and apparently version 1.6 – Donut[1] – is imminent. Every morning when I turn my phone on I’m hopeful it will tell me that an over the air update is available. Every day, so far, I’ve… Continue reading Waiting For Donut

The Power of Social Media

In the future, we may well look back on the past week and describe it as the week that the power of social media became apparent to pretty much everyone in the UK. This week social networks have allowed the powers of light to win three victories over the powers of darkness. It started on… Continue reading The Power of Social Media

Competition is Good

For over two years, I’ve been running Planet Westminster. It’s a simple site which aggregates blog postings from all UK MPs. I built it in an afternoon (based on my software Perlanet) and have tweaked it here and there since then. I always thought that it would good to have it working well before next… Continue reading Competition is Good

End of an Era

I’ve had a home internet connection for quite a long time. Originally I used Compuserve (I’m not too proud to admit it) but I’m pretty sure that I had switched to Demon before the beginning of 1995. At the time there weren’t really many other options to choose from if you wanted a real internet… Continue reading End of an Era

Updates from Jesusistan

Time for a couple of snippets of news from those lovable nutters on the American religious right. Firstly, take a look at this. The artist has created a “work of art” which sums up his view of contemporary America. And it’s a pretty weird view. Well, perhaps it’s not so weird if you’re looking through… Continue reading Updates from Jesusistan

Ernest Marples Closed Down

The Ernest Marples web site has been closed down following threats of legal action from the Royal Mail. The web site had been providing a free postcode lookup service – you give them a postcode and they return the latitude and longitude of a point within that postcode. This can be used in things like… Continue reading Ernest Marples Closed Down

Does God Exist?

If you’ve travelled much on London Transport over the last few weeks, you’ll have seen the new Alpha Course poster pictured on the left. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have experienced an almost irresistible urge to fill in the survey by ticking the ‘no’ box. It appears that doing so might be a somewhat… Continue reading Does God Exist?