Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Neil's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, February 12th, 2009
11:29 pm	Extremism According to the BBC the Home Office says that "The government opposes extremism in all forms". Is it just me or does this mean we're going to fail miserably in the 2012 Olympics because all our athletes are in jail for being extremist in training for their event? "This government is in no way against swimming, but Rebecca Adlington's approach showed the most serious form of extremism, in which swimming was pursued above all other things." At least we now have a coherent approach to bankers "Are you extremely rich sir? I'm afraid we're against all extremes, you'll have to come with me". Or have I confused extremism1 and extreme again? 1ism - the ended which means "like what the word means without 'ism', only it's bad and naughty". e.g. Female. Current Mood: silly (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
11:45 pm	Barack Obama Today seems to Obama love fest day. For example every single one of the iplayer TV highlights is in some way about America's new president. But I make this prediction: he will prove to be a disappointment. It's not that I have any reason to think he'll be bad at the job, simply that the expectations that seem to be floating around are simply unrealistic, I don't think anyone can live up to them. Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
7:53 am	The BBC are running a series on the jobless. "Why," it asks, do people end up long term unemployed? Well they've found some long term unemployed and discovered the reason. In the words of one of them: "it's not that easy to get a job straightaway, you've got to write out your CV and everything and then hand it in to places." Well I certainly wouldn't employ her. A history question, because I don't know, have their always been long term unemployed, and workless families, or is it an unintended side effect of the welfare state? Because everyone says it is, but I wonder if beggars existed before 1945. Imagine some disclaimers here, pointing out that I have been unemployed, and it's no fun, and work often isn't easy to find (not that this affects those who aren't looking). I should also point out that none of the family in question are on Jobseekers' allowance, because they're honest enough to admit that they're not seeking a job. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
10:58 pm	Recession I have long been an unenthusiastic supporter of capitalism on the basis that it is the worst economic system apart from all the others. Pragmatically at least it seemed the right call. Recently a panelist on the news quiz observed of the recent downturn 'It just goes to show that capitalism is a nice idea in theory, but it doesn't work in practice'. He's got a point. I'm hardly enthusiastic for any of the alternatives however. Communism has more drawbacks that bathing in nuclear waste, and I'm deeply unconvinced that landed gentry would even be a possible system nowadays, let alone a good one. Are there any other systems on offer? I don't like the set I've got. Still, there are a few signs of capitalism doing its thing recently. The estate agents I complained about so bitterly have disappeared leaving empty shells of buildings which the good estate agent1 is now advertising for rent, which rather cheered me. Due to a change in mood from speculators oil prices have fallen off a cliff. Which means that the hated speculators cushioned growth from overheating during the boom, developed production, and then softened the downturn. I think this means that the oil market was functioning efficiently and helpfully all along, which I doubt many people would have said six months ago. Recession: bad, but really quite interesting. 1Intercounty. Use them. They rock. Current Mood: curious Current Music: Simon & Garfunkel - Dave Grusin / The Singleman Party Foxtrot (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 7th, 2008
9:19 pm	Race Fifty years ago Martin Luther King had a dream that one day people would be judged on who they were rather than the colour of their skin. Recently his vision has been much invoked in connection with a recent president elect - many commentators have called a recent election the fulfillment of that dream. Thing is, I'm not certain that that's a result of them judging Obama on who he is. It looks a lot to me like they reached that conclusion based on the colour of his skin. The BBC have been running an article asking 'Could Obama happen here?' presumably they don't mean 'Could a socialist government be swept into an overwhelming majority on the back of a young, relatively inexperienced, but charismatic leader' since that happened here 11 years ago. I rather suspect that for them 'Obama' is less a man, more a colour. We should be fair to Barrack, he didn't seek to play the race card in any way during his campaign. Perhaps he figured that those who cared could probably work out the colour of his skin without help. Perhaps he shares King's dream. Not a dream that a black man would contrast in a white house, like a square man might in an oval office, but that there might come a day when if a black man or woman was elected people would say "That's very worrying, I totally disagree with his approach to taxation." (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
11:49 am	Npower 'Did you know that you can get paperless billing from Npower for no extra cost!' Really? I expected to have to pay to save you money. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Friday, March 21st, 2008
1:09 pm	A wikipedia gem Wikipedia on Hot Cross BunsThey are believed by some to pre-date Christianity, although the first recorded use of the term "hot cross bun" is not until 1733. Brought to you from the category for Baked goods depicting religious iconography. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
9:26 pm	Tyndale Series Declares Esther and Deuteronomy to be in the New Testament In a surprise announcement renowned publisher IVP let it be known that commentaries on Esther and Deuteronomy will be released in the New Testament Tyndale Commentary series rather than the Old Testament series. A spokesman for the company said that detailed research had revealed that this was the more accurate historical and theological context for these works. There has been a variety of response among scholars. Many have reacted warmly to the relocation of Esther. J. K. Packer went so far as to say "Separated from an invented history it immediately becomes apparent that Esther is really a complex piece of apocalyptic imagery. The absence of explicit reference to God invites us to identify him as one of the characters in the narrative, and understanding this metaphor in turn gives us the interpretative key to grasp the full meaning of the book of Revelation. Relocating Esther not only makes the book clearer, but the whole of the New Testament as well." Alternating the placement of Deuteronomy received less enthusiasm. Systematic Theologian Bruce Grudem said "In the final analysis I don't see that this makes any difference to the meaning of the Bible". The noted Old Testament scholar Christopher Right did have a word of praise for the change though "Good! I never liked Deuteronomy". Some hyper conservative theologians have responded with criticism. Citing manuscript evidence, and obsessing on quotations of Deuteronomy throughout the New Testament they have claimed that dating these books in the New Testament period is deeply dubious, and bemoaned the loss of trust in a publisher they previously thought so highly off. D.Z. Carson responded with admirable gravitas "If Peter referring to Paul's writing doesn't relegate Romans to the Old Testament, why should Jesus referring to Moses' writing relegate Deuteronomy?" (If you're feeling confused: IVP publish (among others) two series of commentaries, between them covering every book of the Bible, called the Old Testament Tyndale Commentaries and the New Testament Tyndale Commentaries. In the latest mailing 'Bookmark' they had pictures of the cover of the new Tyndale commentaries on Esther and Deuteronomy. Curiously the pictures claimed these commentaries where from the New Testament Tyndale Commentaries Series.) Current Mood: satiristic Current Music: Michael W. Smith - Don't Give Up (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 8th, 2007
4:19 pm	Estate Agents It has generally been my experience that people who you want to persaude to give you money are unhelpful, unreasonable, and generally difficult to work with. By contrast people who you want to give money tend to be helpful, polite and obliging. This kind of makes sense. The world of real estate doesn't. Yesterday Susie and I talked to a morgage advisor who was both friendly and helpful, despite the fact that we wanted her to give us collosal sums of money. Having been given a morgage in principle1 we felt we were in a good place to go and talk to estate agents. After all, the housing market has been very slow lately, with very few people buying. Surely we were just what an estate agent wanted. The first we entered eyed us boredly, and then demanded "What do you want?". I manfully resisted the urge to be sarcastic, which given the enourmous range of options available to a customer who has just entered an estate agent whose only business is selling properties, would have been rather easy. Instead we politely explained that we were looking to buy a house. Eventually they conceeded that they could put us on a list, and promptly packed us out of the door. The next was at least polite, but equally disinterested in our existence. For once I played the consumer 'If you don't want my custom, I shall find someone else who does', and went to Intercounty, because they were very friendly when we were looking to rent. What a contrast. Not only were we welcomed, not only were they friendly, but instead of a refusal to even conceed that properties of the kind we were looking for might exist, were under a positive shower of promising looking places. They arranged two viewings for us that very afternoon. The moral of this story is: not all estate agents are evil. Just most of them. 1The bank agrees, subject to certain conditions, to give you a morgage, should you find a suitable property. At this stage you can go and make offers on houses. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 14th, 2007
7:09 pm	The Over-Underdog Computing languages are funny things. In most settings, be it business, or films or sports teams the big players look smug, and the small players desperately, and in shrill voices, try to point out why they're actually better than the big players. Weirdly in the world of computer languages it seems to go the other way. In terms of user base C and related increments are a gigantic language, Perl is a huge, Python is fairly small language and Ruby is too small to be measured by current instrumentation. Yet for some reason the Perl community doesn't seem very bothered to try and explain why it's better than C, it just sort of assumes it. It does fall over itself to point out the advantages it has over Python. The Python community by contrast, seems convinced of Python's evident superiority to Perl, now Ruby on the other hand, Ruby has them scared. The Ruby community to a man, the one man, is untroubled by any worries, there doesn't exist a language to compete with Ruby, and the whole world already knows, so there's no need for him to point it out. Current Music: Undo Me - Jennifer Knapp (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 12th, 2007
12:19 pm	Why I should have been a Hacker I really want to play Heroes of Might and Magic II again, a classic game from my youth. I don't think the original works on Windows XP, but happily there's a site which sells a version which has been patched to work on XP. Unhappily they claim I'm outside the territory authorized for distribution. I suspect that if I'd taken the trouble to learn how to hack things, I'd know how to appear to come from the approved territory (presumably the US) and be able to order this. Grr. Current Mood: frustrated Current Music: Jennifer Knapp - A Little More (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 2nd, 2007
8:20 am	The Tax Man Today I received a tax return from the Inland Revenue and it caused me to reflect with surprise on the negative image tax collectors have in our society. Admittedly the tax man does take a great deal of my money away through all sorts of routes, but that's not his fault - it's governments that decide the rate of tax, and while I don't think our government is particularly good value for money that's hardly his fault either. My tax return contained an apologetic letter for them having charged me too much. That's not your fault folks, it's mine for not having filled in the relevant paperwork. The following year you took the trouble to notice that I hadn't filled in the relevant paperwork for the year before, and hand wrote a note onto that years form inviting me to fill it in for both years. Then you paid me the money back, with interest1. What sort of tax office, not only keeps inviting you to claim tax back, but adds interest to it? I'm pretty sure that if it'd been me I'd have said 'Well if he can't get the paperwork to us then we're not getting the tax back to him'. It's nice for there to be some part of government I admire. Besides the friend I have in the civil service and Sir Humphrey Appleby, obviously. In other news I have a day off today, which I'm going to use doing all those things I don't get to do enough of when Susie's around. Or 'Stargate Marathon' as we call them. 1 At a rate of 0.14% pa in fairness, so I suspect it's interest from the time I submitted the form until they paid me, rather than from when I paid the excess tax (which would still leave it at the hardly huge 1.7% pa, but then no one claimed that overpaying tax was a high reward savings scheme). Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007
6:57 pm	Usually I'm a firm 'the book is better than the film' man, but Jane Austin has some curious power - the ability to write poor novels which inspire good films. Pride and Prejudice wasn't great, though I rather enjoyed the recent film. We also have an older Sense and Sensibility movie (which makes Love Actually look like some kind of reunion), which I also enjoyed watching, enough to inspire me to try to book. And the strange thing is that the book is just dreadful. It's, it's, well frankly it's not well written. I knew there was a reason I didn't do English. Current Mood: tired Current Music: Nichole Nordeman (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
8:18 am	BBC Church Reporting In general whoever writes the religious articles for the BBC website is frighteningly incompetent, but their most recent offering did do a good job of highlighting the views of the writer. In an argument over whether the Bible saying homosexual practice was unacceptable for Christians could have any implications for choosing bishops the American Episcopalian church has resolutely refused to admit it does, and basically ignored the rest of the Anglican church who collaborated on a report saying it did, and what the American church was up to wasn't on. The American church refuses to back down. The 'Global South' Churches, a collection of Anglican churches in the third world and significant driving force behind the report, refuses to back down. The BBC believes that these two groups can be distinguished between by calling one of them 'hardliners'. Which, your only hope is to learn from context. The thought occurred to me near the top of the article, that orthodox would be a more descriptive name, which the article did in eventually use. In inverted commas. Apparently following more than 19 centuries of universal Christian belief is not adequate for one to be considered actually orthodox. Taking the same view as the article's author is also required. Susie once remarked that she thought The Times' articles very good, except when they were about a subject she knew a great deal on in which case she knew they were rather rubbish. I'm wondering exactly how much of the news I read this applies to.
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007
8:13 am	Evil Tesco I don't remember ever feeling great hatred towards supermarkets for their underhand acts of conveniently selling me food at reasonable prices, and doubtless working for Tesco is bound to make me sympathetic to their case. To complete the list of caveats, I don't suppose they're upright and moral in everything they do - a company that size and there's bound to be a few bastards somewhere. I give you all that, and yet a great number of the complaints I see lain against Tesco, and supermarkets in general are completely nonsensical. A recent BBC report has complaints against supermarkets for charging less for a product than it costs to produce (anti competitive) and for charging more (greedy, money grabbing capitalists!). It's not entirely clear how you win on that one. The only option apparent is to run a really inefficient business. Presumably this makes me what's wrong with all of Tesco since it's my job to change the way the supply chain runs to make it more efficient. The current round of complaint has been kicked off by claims that the supermarkets own lots of land they haven't built on yet. They've applied for planning permission but that government department is taking years to approve it. In the mean time another government department is demanding to know why they haven't built on it yet. Err, because building before planning permission is illegal? In a recent BBC article The Green Party's principal speaker, Derek Wall brilliant explicitly stated that Tesco had not even close to a quarter of the UK shopping market, and then called them a monopoly. He did this while remarking on an investigation into the big 4 - Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons. Apparently in green arithmetic 4=1, which does at least give us options for seeing a reduction in CO2 emissions. We do have a funny relationship with capitalism in this country don't we? It's probably an underdog thing. Current Mood: ill Current Music: None (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 2nd, 2006
11:06 pm	Internet Restored, House Changed, Marriage Immanent Well I finally have the internet again. It turns out BT were unwilling to surrender my line to my chosen provider - Utility Warehouse. This is understand because it turns out we had a 3 month contract with them - whoops! Of course you can't get another provider without first getting BT to connect you, which is a bit messy. However, I was deeply surprised that the hardest part turned out to be reclaiming my modem from Royal Mail1 - I hooked it up and it just worked. Since when has any internet service provider delivered as advertised? So there you have it. I've moved, ask if you want the new address and/or phone number. A week today I'll be married. If you've not received an invite to the reception I'm sorry, we couldn't fit you in - we were aiming for a small reception, you'd be very welcome at the service. It's at 12pm at Eden Baptist Church (CB1 1ER), I expect the service to be a little under an hour. It'd be great to see you there. 1It's rather sad that Royal Mail are closing small post offices because while they're good at a lot things they're a complete disaster at large town centre post offices. Current Mood: happy Current Music: The Navy Lark - It's back on BBC7, Yay (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 13th, 2006
9:18 pm	My 24th Birthday Well I'm 24 today. I left for work at 7:40am (happily the train was late too) and got in at 9:15pm. Unsurprisingly I'm not really in the mood to party. I'd realised at least by the age of 17 that Birthday's got progressively less exciting as one got older, but this is a bit of a dive. It levels out at some point right? You don't get kidnapped and tourtured for turning 31 or anything? Do you? Current Mood: tired Current Music: Katie Melua - On the Road Again (a present from Susie) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 12th, 2006
7:42 pm	David Cameron I'm probably going to get some stick for this, but I actually rather like the new leader of the Tory party. What rather worries me is that people (especially the Labour Party) are endlessly repeating that he's all style and no substance, and I fear that if it's said enough people will start believing it, despite the evidence. For the whole of my adult life Conservative leader after Conservative leader (and haven't there been a lot) have been saying to their party: "We have to realise that although we really loved Margaret Thatcher everyone else in Britain hates her. We're not going to change any of her policies mind. What was our plan to get elected again?" Cameron has accomplished a radical shift in Conservative policies, on the NHS, on tax, on the environment. He hasn't taken the easy choices when it comes to facing his party (witness the fight at the recent conference). He keeps talking about policy, and people keep interrupting him to demand that he start talking about policy. Of course hard doesn't equal right, Blair keeps making heroic attempts at hard things which I regard as at best foolish and at worst downright evil, and as a subscriber to the doctrine of total depravity I'm sure Mr Cameron has many flaws and failings, and I certainly don't agree with everything he says. But I do agree with him a lot more than with any other Conservative Leader certainly since Hague, and possibly ever in my lifetime (wait, is that damned by faint praise?). I've just been poking around his website and been rather impressed with the little videos. People accuse him of trying to reach out to the youth vote (of course the real youth can't vote, but let's leave that point aside. I suppose some of them will be able to by the next election). The odd thing about that is the word 'accuse'. Politician Caught in Shock Trying to Get Elected Scandal! MP found engaging with the public! It's good when politicians engage people with politics (I'm not saying it's by any means their fault when people aren't interested, but credit to those who do succeed in engaging people) because if people care about politics then the government is kept much more accountable. If nobody cares then they can do what they like and the point of democracy is rather diminished. Current Mood: good Current Music: None (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 8th, 2006
10:44 pm	You Can Be a Hypocrite Or a Fanatic In a conversation with my new work mates (I have a new job, I might post about it one day, but then that would break a long tradition of this journal not being in any way actually about my life) one of them expressed the view that the idea that a person's religion could, let alone should, have any bearing on their views on the rights and wrongs of their countries laws, politics or foreign policy was a uniquely American notion. At the very least no one in Europe would ever have get such bizarre ideas into their head. Apparently if you don't act according to your beliefs you're a hypocrite, if you do you're a fanatic. So you can be a hypocrite, a fanatic, or an atheist. Unless atheists are both at once of course, and they're a resourceful group so I wouldn't put it past them. Current Mood: ironical Current Music: News Quiz repeating a press cutting from last season. Cheats! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
10:36 pm	Ruminations on Odd Political Bedfellows Political parties combine some very odd views. The middle class is generally in favour of immigration (see for example the Now Show), because they regard the working class as lazy and demanding and foreign workers as possessing the wonderful working class spirit - polite, prepared to work all hours and most importantly: underpaid. Personally I believe that until the going hourly rate for plumbers and car mechanics falls below that for solicitors we should welcome with open arms any Polish immigrant carrying a wrench. By contrast the working class tends to be against immigration - they see the immigrants as competition in an already crowded job market, and worse as competition prepared to endure an inhuman standard of life (i.e. they undercut them). Into this debate steps the Conservative party. The middle class party. The anti-tax party (well, before Cameron at any rate). The anti immigration party (well, before Cameron anyway. For a moment his political views were starting to make sense). How did they get put together? Take another example. There's a philosophical debate, which is more important, my right to choice, liberty and independence, or your right to life? For example, if we outlaw guns then we remove my right to choice, if we don't then people get killed. If we outlaw abortion pregnant women get all upset at having to go through childbirth before handing a child over for adoption1, if we don't then presumably some babies get all put out at not being allowed to live, except their voices aren't very loud at that stage so they're generally ignored. Into this debate steps American politics with one party anti abortion, because life is important, and anti gun control, because life isn't after all, and another equally crazily opposing them on both fronts. Of course the Conservatives aren't just after the middle class vote, but any voter going, and there's a well known mathematical proof (translation: it appeared on a Tripos Examples Sheet and stuck in my mind) that if you take a set of people with logically consistent beliefs like: Neil believes 'murder should be illegal', 'abortion is murder' and 'abortion should be illegal' Fred believes 'murder should be legal', 'abortion is murder' and 'abortion should be legal' Alice believes 'murder should be illegal', 'abortion isn't murder' and 'abortion should be legal' and accept the belief of the majority on each point then you can end up with inconsistent beliefs, in this case: Murder should be illegal, abortion is murder and abortion should be legal. 1 Or want an abortion but couldn't cope with the idea of their kid being out there somewhere. The attitude seems to be "If I can't have him, (or at least, don't want him), then no one can!" Current Mood: good Current Music: The News Quiz (3 Comments |Comment on this)