Hiding the bodies.

It's clean, it's green, its the body dissolving machine! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14114555

OK so this hi-tech version of John George Haigh's acid bath might be a very clever way of turning granny into soup but its still using up energy (you don't get to 180 Celsius and 10,000 hPa for free) so how about we do this the old fashioned way, it's called "burial".

In my world it would work like this. You build a few big frozen storage places around the country and when people croak they get sent there, medical and dental students get to have a bit of practice at taking out the metal fillings and granny's hip replacements and then the bodies are put on ice in a dimly lit freezer. These facilities would pay for themselves as they could be rented out to the BBC every year for yet another episode of Torchwood which always seems to be set in places like this. This would have the added benefit of giving comfort to the relatives of the deceased as they would be able to picture their loved ones lying there whilst John Barrowman runs past them in tight-fitting trousers, an RAF coat and a hammy American accent.

Anyway once you have enough bods you go out to a big plantation, dig a bunch of holes, put a body in each one and then plant a tree on top. The body rots, fertilises the young tree so it gets off to a good start and in 50 years you can cut down the tree and use the wood, dig up any remaining bones and crush them up - the resulting grit is handy for spreading on ice in the winter.

All in all 100% eco-friendly and carbon neutral.

It's what granny would have wanted

Religious idiot in a silly robe gets a legal slap

Just for a change this time the religious loon wasn't a member of one of the various kiddy-fiddling christian factions, nor even one of the "Religion of Peace"® but this chap.



Yep, it's Arthur Pendragon. Self-appointed Druid leader (which is kind of like those "Community Leaders" who pop up all puffed up with their sense of self importance and everyone around them going "don't recall voting you into office matey") and head of the "Loyal Arthurian Warband" (all four of them - I met them once when I was on the same bill as "Arthur" here and all they were up to making war on was several pints of beer)

Actually he's pretty harmless, just eccentric in the finest British tradition. But it's important that any believers in any flavour of sky-fairy nonsense get a slap when then start to come out with crap like:

Pendragon, who represented himself, said the bones were remains of members of the "royal line" or "priest caste" who could have been the "founding fathers of this great nation".

for which of course he has the square-root of fuck-all's evidence. However it is a threat to him if the clever chaps with their DNA sequencers and electron microscopes up in Sheffield can actually find out who these bodies belong to and it turns out they were, lets say, executed prisoners thrown in a pit to pacify whatever sky-fairy the locals were in terror of 5000 years ago.

And whoever that sky-fairy and whatever his/her religious practices were it's a racing certainty that they would be utterly alien and unrecognisable to the modern cuddly pagans and druids we have today.


(Disclaimer: Back in my 20's I used to believe in all that pagan stuff... I grew out of it)

Pockets of Resistance

Well our latest foray in military meddling in the Middle East is coming to a close. Even if, as it looks, the Gaddafi loyalists have fallen back to make a last stand in Tripoli this is the end game; no resupply of food or weapons, it's now just a matter of time. Everyone's favourite comedy dictator is probably pacing around his bunker, throwing coloured pencils at a map of Tripoli and ranting at his remaining generals "Downfall" style.

Now as we are all aware Gaddafi is as mad a box of frogs and may really believe all of Libya loves him and will rise and fight to the bitter end but I don't think he's that batshit crazy. So why didn't he flee when it was obvious that he'd lost? Well maybe the fact that the International Criminal Court have already said they would like a quiet chat with him over tea and ontbijtkoeken in The Hague with regard to, you know, war crimes and stuff might have had more than a part to play.

Back in the day when the gig was up your average dictator went round to the central bank, hoovered up everything in transferable assets and flew the presidential plane to some equally totalitarian state and proceeded to live a quiet life with just the occasional interviewer from "Time" magazine to break the monotony. Sure not very comforting to the relatives of said dictator's victims but it did tend to mean that revolutions when they happened were relatively short.

The trouble I think with these courts is that they don't really seem to work. They don't act as a deterrent as the people committing war crimes don't every think they'll have to stand trial because, well, they're going to win the war of course. It also smacks of "victor's justice" - if perhaps a certain Mr Blair were to stand trial for engaging in a war of aggression on a false pretext then the courts might seem to be at least fair and impartial. Finally if anything they maybe are costing lives, prolonging conflicts as leaders who are shoe-ins for a few weeks of stand-up freeform ranting in a perspex box somewhere in Holland, decide they have nothing to lose so might as well hang on to the last bullet.

I can see why there's a desire for a war trials court, it's a noble ideal, but I can't help think that is this case like many other noble ideals done out of the finest motives it's just making things worse

What a doughnut

The first of the looters in Manchester are being hauled before the beak this week. Now down in the smoke it was kids kicking in the windows of Currys and strolling off with a Sony Bravia. Not in Manchester:

A man who helped himself to doughnuts from a Krispy Kreme shop during riots in Manchester city centre has been jailed for 16 months.

Apparently his excuse was he was hungry:

He was not involved in rioting but took the doughnuts because he was hungry, having spent his money on tobacco

oh and before he bought his tabs:

Thomas Downey, 48, was released from HMP Manchester at 19:30 BST on 9 August when he became caught up in the riots. The serial offender went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous before downing a bottle of sherry.

That 12 step programme is working a treat I see.

According to the article on the Beeb's website this bloke has over 100 convictions for 233 offences.

You know I try to feel sorry for people like this, I really do (deep down I am actually quite a caring dragon) but I have to ask myself wouldn't it be better if people like Thomas and the few thousand other Thomases out there, you know the 0.1% of the population that cause 95% of the trouble, could just be put somewhere away from the rest of us? Hell give them access to booze, drugs and 24/7 porn or something but isolate the infection so the rest of us can just get on with doing our everyday stuff without Mr Sherry and Doughnuts wandering into view and kicking off on a booze and sugar rush.

Mind you the one man I do not have any sympathy for is this loser:

Father-of-four Anthony Winder, 38, looted the Swarovski Crystal store and smashed a display cabinet to get an ornamental dog, the court heard.

You actually wanted a Swarovski crystal dog? You deserve to be executed for crimes against taste.

Showers, moderate becoming cabbages later

... Channel Light Vessel Automatic: south west variable 3 or 4, 1012 falling slowly, showers, good...

You know you are up far, far too early when the comforting ritual words of the Shipping Forecast are on Radio 4 as you drive to the station. So why am I up at crack of sparrow-fart today. Well for a start it's August and that means everyone on the team who has rugrats absolutely must have a couple of weeks off with their spawn. Consequently those that don't like me end up holding the fort whilst the Project Manager, Team Lead and one of the senior developers bugger off en famille to Lanzagrotty, Disney World in an American Swamp or Bournemouth respectively. Even the intern has buggered off for the week as he needs to resit a couple of exams he cocked up. So its down to me to be the "senior manager" (hah!) on the ground to mop the fevered brows of our traders should they take a dislike to the particular shading of an "OK" button on any of our applications this morning.

So there I am on the train, another wage slave, with a few other bleary-eyed companions trundling through Cambridgeshire in some clapped-out carriage we'll all have to pay 13% more for next year.

Now I don't know if you know the area between Ely and Cambridge, it's called "The Fens" and up until the 1800's it was just marsh, bog and shifting rivers. Then the happy collision of a clever Cloggie called Vermuiden and a load of free labour in the shape of prisoners of war from the little spat we were having with Napoleon came together to construct drainage channels (and these are no mere ditches, one is called "The Hundred Foot River" because that's how wide it is, it's 18 miles long and straight as a die, you can see it from space) and turned the area into fertile, productive land to feed the growing cities of the 19th century.

It was this I was bimbling through now. Flat as a pancake and acre upon acre of every kind of salad crop you can think of. It was before 6am and already there is plenty of activity; these big rectangular tents on wheels moving back and forth which house the pickers and packers working the rows of lettuce.

And I can tell you now every single of those will be from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, anywhere but here.

I don't begrudge them the work, they work bloody hard; the ones I've met in the market towns around here, Wisbech, Downham Market, Ely, are all polite and don't cause any bother.

But why the hell am I paying for a whole fecking underclass of zero-achievement ferals who have a sense of entitlement but no sense of responsibility who right now are tucked up in bed sleeping off the booze, dope and a hard night's looting of the local branch of JD Sports whilst I'm hauling my green scaly tail into London at 5 in the bleeding morning? There's work out there, tons of it, but it's been done by the aforementioned Eastern Europeans. Take a look at this from the Telegraph today

This is just not bloody on. If the state is to have a role here it is as a facilitator and broker. You have no job but you are fit and healthy, well here's a job, 50 hours a week picking cabbages. Here's your bus fare, your new employer will sort out some temporary housing.

What's that? It's demeaning? How are you supposed to use your DJing and Hip Hop dance skills in a cabbage field? Well fucking boo-hoo, let me call the whaaaaaambulance for you. Walk off the job and no money for you matey.

But you're unemployable because you perpetually skipped school and the only way you know how to talk is in a language that is a cross between pseudo Jamaican patois and the sounds a rutting pig makes? Just how much do you need to communicate to be able to pick a lettuce?


---
PS: Welcome to everyone who's arriving here from Old Holborn's blog and a big thanks to the masked maker of mischief and all-round thorn in the side of government for the link.

Haunted by the ghost of Macpherson

So now we cower in fear of a bunch of 100 or so teenage hoodies smashing up the place and nicking phones and tellies.

Well we let it happen, you and I. Sure some black kid got stabbed by a bunch of white thugs and plod make a horlicks of the investigation and so along comes the Macpherson report and lo and behold the police are "institutionally racist" and for years afterwards it's diversity this and kid-gloves that, maybe it needed to happen but it went way, way too far. Then along comes NuLabour with a new law every 32 nanoseconds and anyone who so much as raises his voice at anyone doing wrong or breaching the peace is descended on like the proverbial ton of bricks and hauled away as the miscreant.

"The police will protect you," we were told, "do not get involved, call the police, that is what they are there for, they're trained you see and have been on the relevant diversity and health and safety courses and wear florescent jackets. You, citizen, are not qualified. And don't you even dare think of arming yourself to protect your life, family and property. Trust in us, the police will be there."

Only now we see that Faustian bargain was just that. The police aren't there, they're not going to help, they will not stand there and protect your property or your life. Sure they might trawl facebook when this is over and nick the few mouthbreathers who were stupid enough to put "this is me an' me mates looting PC World innit" photos online but that's scant comfort to the asian corner shop keeper who's seem his livelyhood taken from him by the feral youth that decades of softly-softly policing, lefty pandering to the feckless, celebrity above talent and hard work culture and, quite frankly, not one us feeling we are able to stand up to insolent and loutish behaviour has created.

The scumbags perpetrating these mass lootings don't just think they are immune, they know they are untouchable. There are no consequences, even if caught they'll jet some token community sentence and an ASBO badge of honour.

This has, I would posit, gone too far for any remedial tinkering by our spineless politicians. If we want our communities back we will have to fight for them. What you won't see in the mainstream media today is the reports of mainly Turkish shopkeepers arming themselves with baseball bats and banding together to protect their businesses. Of 400 mainly asian young men fighting off 100 or so mainly afro-carribean youths in East London who were set on looting and causing mayhem. You need the very tools the rioters themselves use to get these stories.

We do have an answer. It's quite an old one, dates back to 1791 and it goes like this:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

I predict a riot

Well we have riots, recession and a Tory lead government so I guess all we need now is for OMD and Duran Duran to be back in the charts and it'll be just like that '80s

I find it rather telling that the good citizens (ha!) of Tottenham can get all antsy and smashing up the place when The Babylon put a cap in one of their local criminal entrepreneurs but when said criminals are shooting each other up then you don't hear a bloody peep from them. And what is it with rioters and looters, I mean you live there so why do you trash your own streets and shops? I mean I've been to Tottenham and it is a complete shithole so I'd be surprised that this morning apart from a few shoe boxes formerly containing trainers scattered around the high street anyone would notice a difference but why not nip down the road and smash up somewhere else?

And why on earth of all places did you want to loot a branch of discount carpet retailer Carpet Right? What the feck got into your head that said "I want justice, I want an end to police brutality, and I want a free roll of axminster for my granny's flat"

Apparently they queued up to loot JD Sports. Well we may be having a riot but we never forget we are English and queueing up is what we do.

Loldragon and the most incompetent phishing attempt ever

This has to be the lamest phishing attempt ever. As you can probably guess from the language it's from the Lads from Lagos and they're attempting to get their hands on accounts so they can pull the "Hi I'm stuck in wherever and lost my wallet please send me $$$$ many through Western Onion" scams.

Yahoo! Mail

VERIFY YOUR YAHOO MAIL ACCOUNT NOW TO AVIOD IT CLOSED

This Email is from YAHOOMAIL Customer Care and we are sending it to very EMAIL YAHOO User Accounts Owner for safety. we are having congestions due to the anonymous registration of YAHOO accounts so we are shutting down some of the accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name, password, date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account.

Due to the congestion in all YAHOO users and removal of all unused YAHOO Accounts, We would be shutting down all unused Accounts, You will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button, or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.
Yahoo! Mail

* Username: .....................................
* Password: ......................................
* Date of Birth: ................................ .
* Country Or Territory: .................... .


After following the instructions in the sheet, your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Thanks for your attention to this request. We apologize for any inconveniences.

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his/her account after two weeks of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.
Sincerely,
The YAHOO Webmail
VERIFY YOUR YAHOO MAIL ACCOUNT NOW,

I don't normally reply to these of course because they have almost no scam-baiting potential but just for once...

Oh noes! This is the very badness! Noooo they be taking my accounts!

U not to close or I be mads at U very much yes!

Here is logons!!!!

name: etheliusthedragon@yahoo.com
password: ihavesexwithgoats
date of bith: I hatch on 21 March 1324BC on moyntin in Syria from egg (I is draggon!)
country: is amerrica (but I flys here myself so not have green card or anything, you not be tell INS OK or I sets you on fire!)

Ok

Peeace!

Ethelius
(I really is draggon too! srsly!)

Loldragon FTW

Jaded

I wander back to my desk this afternoon having made myself a cup of tea to find the team leader of the mob across the corridor from us (let's call him Berk for now) excitedly chatting to my project manager.

What is the cause of all this excitement.

Well it turns out that Berk has had this brilliant idea (that he's nicked from Failbook - so you know this isn't going to end well) to get a team together to deliver some application to our users in one 24 hour period, that is starting first thing in the morning, working all day and then pulling an all nighter.

I was just about to say "what the fuck have you been snorting Berk" when I see my PM nodding his head faster that the Churchill Insurance dog on crystal meth. "Wow yeah, it's great, we can really show what we can deliver."

What you will deliver if you go ahead with this is a pile of cack built of compromise, quick hacks, hard coded "variables" and so many fudges you could open a branch of Thorntons; further more said "product" will perform like a mastodon on quaaludes and have all the grace and functionality of a 1960's era Trabant. And this abomination you are going to put onto a trader's desktop 24 hours after the project starts and expect them to use it live??? Jesus this just has "EPIC FAIL" written all over it in eight foot high neon pink letters.

I just could not believe sane IT Professionals were seriously going to go ahead with this - this fuckup in the making already has a venue booked where the 8 "volunteers" will be doing the coding - but there they were, thinking this is the greatest thing since the invention of the database. Bert has even got the head IT manager to stump up for the pizzas and coke.

I think they could tell by my expression that I wasn't really buying into this plan so Bert tried "Well we'll be strictly using Extreme Programming techniques! Paired programming! Test driven development!" - Yeah cut your hands on keyboards by 50% before you even start, why not handicap the team even further by paying someone to come round and kick them in the goolies every hour whilst you're at it. "Oh and I'm going to be making a time lapse film of the 24 hours" Hey and why not put that Benny Hill "Yakety Sax" music over the top of it, that'll make us all look like the highly trained and experienced artisans we are won't it.

Anyway after a while my PM started to realise that I wasn't going to stop making my "If Berk says one more fucking word he's getting a dose of the breath weapon set to 'Heart of the Sun'" face and decides to save Berk from immolation and goes "Oh maybe this would be a good thing for our graduate coder of all of 2 years experience". I nod and project passive-aggressive body language making it clear that everybody better leave my workspace right now and leave the grumpy dragon to his tea.

I don't know, maybe I've been too long in this gig and I'm just jaded. I just cannot see this being anything other than a stupid stunt to raise Bert's profile which will end up being a complete train wreck and will take a hell of a lot longer than 24 hours and more than 8 people to put right. Maybe when I was younger this might have seemed interesting to do but at my age there is no way on this little ball of mud and rock that at my age I am going to voluntarily put in a 24 hour shift, certainly not for a day off in lieu and a "bonus" of a 50 quid M&S voucher and a mention in some "What IT did this week" bit of the company website nobody reads anyway.