Lindum Imp's blog: "The Rambler"

Well, it certainly is if you happen to be in the UK at the moment. If you aren't from the UK you might not have heard. The eminently incompetent politician (I know, that describes all of them) and British Home Secretary, John Reed MP, sent out a memo to all judges to tell them about the chronic overcrowding in the decrepit prisons and asking them to only sentence those who have committed serious violent crime or persistent criminals to jail time. Now that memo in itself raised plenty of comment in journalistic circles but what happened over the last two days has, hopefully, made the Home Secretary realise what a complete muppet he is. First a case featuring a man accused of downloading and having possession of child pornography; he was given a suspended sentence. Then today yet another paedophile was released, this time on bail. Now since the first man was only in court for downloading the filth, he may have gotten that sentence anyway, maybe. However in the second instance the judge stated that he would usually have remanded him but due to John Reed’s memo he was forced in to the action taken. Then it was noticed that two people that were in court for tapping phone lines, intercepting mobile phone calls and messages; including those of Highgrove House (the home of HRH Prince Charles) have both been sentenced to 6 months in jail. Now either the content of that Home Office memo didn’t make it around all the judges in time or possibly the invasion of the royals and sundry ‘celebrities’ privacy is vastly more important then the safety of children. Either way something needs to be done; perhaps some items that might be discussed are building of new, larger prisons - The sentencing guidelines needing a revamping, to actually make criminals serve real jail time and standardise sentence length. Most important though is the need to keep the media attention whores in Westminster out of the actual running of these services and return them to the hands of civil servants (who should nevertheless be accountable). Let the politicians set laws but for the sake of all don’t let them instruct how these laws and the judgment of them are carried out.

There has been a system in place now, pretty much worldwide, that if someone actually manages to create a new and more importantly popular television show, everyone else must immediately copy or only slightly alter the format. This will carry on until the viewing figures fall far enough to cause the rating junky execs to cancel it. The case in point is 'Big Brother' originally created by the Dutch it has multiplied and has infested far more countries then it should have. It has created more 'Z-list' celebrities (and I use the term celebrity in a completely incorrect way) and brought far too may aging or has-been actors back into the spotlight then anything else. There are now however far more programs of this nature popping up all over the place in the UK; dancing, ice skating, singing and god-only-knows-what-else type of this reality rubbish. Now this isn’t anything new but while it became noticeable after all the make-over programs kicked off in the 90’s and early 00’s things are reaching saturation point far quicker. There are themes out there that while numerous have a life span because of the subject matter, plenty of different plot lines that can be explored. Why can’t the writers have either original ideas or stick to shows that have that plot diversity. There are also those great ideas that are running thin, for example ‘24’, now I know I’m going to get people riled with that one but please, how many times can one man have that bad a day? Not and remain outside of the safety of the ‘Insane Asylum for the Extremely Unlucky’ for any length of time anyway. Pretty much the same thing for any long running Soap Opera too, any small region of the country that had that constant a number of fatalities, accidents and people dying and returning looking nothing like they did before would end up the guests of that country’s government and being prodded, x-rayed and dissected by lots of folk in white coats. What is possibly worse then the programs themselves though are the people without a solid grip on real life that actually shout obscenities at or even accost the ‘bad guy’ actors of these shows because they think it’s real! Please, if you are that type of person, step away from the computer and run, don’t walk, to your nearest psychotherapist. Please, please writers, come up with something worth turning the TV on for, otherwise apart from sport and the odd program there’s no point in turning the damned thing on and we here in the UK have to pay for the privilege of receiving TV signals, let alone the actual channels themselves and it’s an expensive paperweight to have if it doesn’t get used.

Well, it's that time of the year again and once more one of the most popular resolution is to give up smoking. Now this is something I managed about 8 or 9 years ago and happened to find quite easy. There was someone else who found it pretty easy too, Allen Carr used to have a 100 a day habit and once he'd decided he was going to quit, he did. He then went on to make rather a lot of money writing books and running seminars about how to give up. Allen Carr died in 2006, of cancer, whether directly or indirectly due to that 100 a day habit or just that he was susceptible to the disease doesn't really matter. His way of quitting cigarettes is pretty much how I managed and how a lot of others can do the same, not using Nicotine Replacement Therepy (a waste of money) but by actually wanting to give up and then doing so, destroying any remaining tobacco and then sticking to your principles. My rant though is over this NRT, now how can anyone stop smoking when the health service tells you to keep taking the substance that creates the addiction in the first place? Nicotine is what make you want to smoke. It can't work, indeed if you look at figures for people who use this over the long term they return to smoking cigarettes, they don't stand a chance. They're all just replacing one type of addiction with another one that uses the exact same substance Check out Allen Carr's website, open your mind and realise that pharmaceutical companies that produce these patches, gums and god only knows whatelse want your money and are actively fighting against the tobacco companies to gain a bigger foothold in the nicotine supply market.

**Saturday 19th August 2006 Well, it lasted a whole five days... The peace in Lebanon has been shattered with an attack by Israeli special forces aimed at what was claimed to be a 'weapons transfer' between Syria, Iran and Hezbollah fighters. Now before people start attacking my stance as being 'Anti-Semetic' and other such nonsense I DO NOT condone the terrorist rocket attacks on Israeli towns. In the same breath though, I can not condone the Israeli use of excessive force against Lebanese civilian infrastructure either. I have seen many people try to explain on TV the whys and wherefores of such force. Trying to compare the rocket attacks with London and the V2 raids during WWII and the responses with Allied bombing in Germany. Which to me just emphasises the abject mentality of the Israeli officials hiding behind explanations that have the water carrying abilities of a colander. The definition of a 'cease fire' is "A temporary cessation of fighting by mutual consent; a truce." I just hope that this agression by Israel doesn't damage this fragile peace in such a volatile area. Maybe if the UN sends the Israeli Knesset a dictionary with 'cease-fire' highlighted and something other then a polite note and total disarray, we might actually move forward in the light towards peace, rather then stumbling around trying to find it in a darkened room full of bear-traps. **Thursday August 10 2006 I'm rather a rare entity in the UK, you see, I like Country Music. A few years back I discovered The Dixie Chicks, they'd had a couple of albums and hit singles in North America and were generally accepted as a major group in Country circles. Then in 2003 in London the lead singer, Natalie Maines said she was "ashamed" that George W Bush was a Texan, this was less then two weeks before the assault on Iraq. Those in London loved the sentiment, it didn't go down so well in the US, the backlash was rather extreme with several radio stations staging events like mass burnings of Dixie Chick albums and memorabilia and boycotts of their music. Now, how can a country supposedly built on the premise of free speech suddenly go overboard whenever someone has the temerity to question anything linked to the president or the course their country is taking. This backlash is still evident with several dates being cancelled from their tour, although some are replaced with dates mainly in Canada. The new 'Chicks' album 'Taking the Long Way' is currently No1 in the US so most of their fans still follow the group, indeed the tour stops in London, New York and Washington were sold out. The heartland of country music however (south and midwest) are apparently still smarting... Maybe these people should read their 'Bill of Rights' where in the first amendment the protection of freedom of speech is in plain text. **Wednesday August 9th 2006 There used to be a saying... "The camera never lies", well, now it does apparently, or at least the photo that was taken by it can. Adnan Hajj, a freelance photojournalist has had over 900 photos removed from the Reuters database after he was found to have doctored at least two of them. Hajj has denied deliberately manipulating them, citing he was attempting to "remove dust from the image and made mistakes because of poor lighting conditions". This brings into question many of the modern day photographers works, since how can you not start to wonder whether the picture you see in the newspapers, on the net or on your tv screen has been altered in any way. Yes we want high impact pictures to go with the high impact news stories, especially with the problems in Lebanon continuing unabated, but integrity has to surpass that need or else they lose any of that impact.