Asylum needed for Afghan Interpreters

May 8th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

If you look down the right hand side of this blog, underneath my blogroll, you’ll see a section of links called Campaigns. The first in that list is a pretty image which links to a campaign that ran from about 2007.

It calls for the British government to help the those Iraqis’ that helped the British by being interpreters. Those interpreters put their and their families lifes in danger to help our armed forces. In the eyes of some of their countrymen, and others who sought to influence the course of Iraqs’ future, these interpreters were traiters and were hunted, and beaten and killed. Those Iraqis asked for our help, for refuge. The British government dragged it’s heels and lots of interpreters died.

They deserved to be treated better. Many, many of them didn’t get it.

Although I have added and removed many links from the sidebar since 2007 that one has remained. An important issue that never really got resolved.

The button links to a video (by Bloggerheads) that explains a little about that campaign. It is just as relevant to a new campaign for Afghan interpreters that are facing the same problem after helping our armed forces in their country.

Watch the video and see why this issue is worth revisiting.

Liberal Conspiracy…

About six years ago, bloggers from across the political spectrum banded together for a campaign to offer asylum to Iraqi interpreters to British armed forces. It was a long and bumpy campaign, and we didn’t get all that we wanted at the time, but it helped to get more Iraqi interpreters into the UK than if we had done nothing.

Now it’s time to revisit the issue, for interpreters who have helped British armed forces in Afghanistan.

The reasons this is the right thing to do are straightforward:

1) These interpreters have helped save the lives of British soldiers in Afghanistan.

2) They put their lives at risk, from extremist elements, to help British forces.

3) If we abandon them, it hurts British peace-keeping missions in the future. Locals will be less willing to help British armed forces in the future if they think they will be abandoned at a later date.

Whether you were for or against the war in Afghanistan, helping Afghani interpreters and their families is the morally righteous course of action. This says nothing about whether Afghanistan was right or wrong – only that these people need help, and should be offered asylum in the UK for their services.

How to do online services, the governmental way

April 30th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

This is un-fucking-believable.

From the Department of Work & Pension: Services and Benefits Online…

What do I need?

This page explains:

  • what software you need to use this service
  • how to print your transaction
  • how the service uses cookies.

If you use Jaws or Supernova screen readers, we apologise for any problems you may experience. You may wish to claim in another way.

That’s not a good start. People with some disabilities may only be able to use screen readers. Screw them, eh?

Operating systems and browsers
The service does not work properly with Macs or other Unix-based systems even though you may be able to input information.

Oh. Windows only then. Well, they are the majority of computers out there, but still, Windows only? What were they thinking of?

You are likely to have problems if you use Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9 and 10, Windows Vista or a smartphone. Clearing temporary internet files may help but you may wish to claim in another way.

What? This just gets worse and worse. Be advised, You can’t use the last four incarnations of IE and Vista and smartphones will let you down here too. I’d better try a different browser, Chrome or Firefox then.

Wait…What?!

There is also a high risk that if you use browsers not listed below, including Chrome, Safari or Firefox, the service will not display all the questions you need to answer. This is likely to prevent you from successfully completing or submitting the form. You may wish to claim in another way.

So along with IE7, 8, 9 & 10, I can’t use the other three major browsers on my non-Mac, non-Unix, non-Vista computer. Claiming another way is beginning to look rather attractive. What the hell can I use?

What the service was designed to work with
The service was designed to work with the following operating systems and browsers. Many of these are no longer available.

Microsoft Windows 98:

  • Internet Explorer versions 5.0.1, 5.5 and 6.0
  • Netscape 7.2

    • Microsoft Windows ME

  • Internet Explorer version 5.5 and 6.0
  • Netscape 7.2

    • Microsoft Windows 2000

  • Internet Explorer version 5.0.1, 5.5 and 6.0
  • Netscape 7.2
  • Firefox 1.0.3
  • Mozilla 1.7.7

    • Microsoft Windows XP

  • Internet Explorer 6.0
  • Netscape 7.2
  • Firefox1.0.3
  • Mozilla 1.7.7

Microsoft stopped supporting the latest of that list of operating systems, XP, FIVE years ago! How the can a government develop an online system that is only usable on an operating system that old? Never mind the latest browser being IE6!

And they even bloody tell you that you are unlikely to have a fucking machine you can use this service with!

it’s almost as if they do don’t want you to claim.

Beyond words. Speechless. Completely.

(via @geeoharee

stuff

April 15th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

Margret Thatcher was a important leader. She won three general elections and completely changed the political, industrial, financial and, some may say the social, landscape of the country. She also had a big influence within international affairs too. Whether all that was for the good or otherwise depends entirely on what colour tint the spectacles you’re currently wearing have – rose or shit.

Because of this, I don’t really begrudge her a big flashy funeral. For the right or wrong reasons, she was important. For some reason though, this little nugget from The Speaker, John Bercow, has irked me. It’s trivial, doesn’t cost anything but is a step too far… for some unfathomable reason.

The Speaker told MPs: “I have received a number of representations, direct and indirect, formal and informal, concerning how the house and parliament as an institution might best mark this occasion. I have considered all of these, but concluded that the most appropriate means of indicating our sentiments would be for the chimes of Big Ben and for the chimes of the Great Clock to be silent for the duration of the funeral proceedings.

“I have therefore made the necessary arrangements to achieve this. I believe that there can be a profound dignity and deep respect expressed in and through silence and I’m sure that the house will agree.”

I think the house is showing profound enough dignity and respect by spending fuck-loads of cash on a ceremonial funeral, one step down from the state funeral the Queen will get, in a time when people with bugger all are being told they’re on their own because the state has no cash.

Which brings me on to this little turd of a man, Francis Maude…

Maude told Radio 4’s Any Questions programme on Friday that reports that the funeral will cost £10m had mistakenly included the costs of police and soldiers who would be working anyway. “There are costs which are people doing their ordinary jobs which are costs which are being borne in any event. We have not hired more soldiers, we haven’t hired more police. There is no one who has been hired who would not be doing their ordinary jobs which they would not be doing in any event. We are not hiring more police.”

Maude wouldn’t let on how much the funeral is costing as he didn’t know. Apparently nobody knew, which is unusual as there would’ve been at least a rough plan, and so cost, prepared before Mrs Thatchers death. y’know, just in case.

To say that the soldiers and police costs shouldn’t be included in the final figure is ridiculous. It is weasly words to try and not admit the full cost. And it’s a pretty shitty attempt to minimise the shock if I can spot it.

Of course there won’t be anymore police or military hired for the event. You can’t draft in and train coppers and soldiers to a proper standard to be able to call them coppers and soldiers in about a week, like you could for private security firms.

In the statement above is Maude saying that all the coppers that will be policing the route the coffin will take will only be policed by coppers that would be on duty that day anyway? OK, cancel a few copper’s leave and there may be enough police to do the job, but there’ll be sod all police anywhere else in London. Is Maude saying that there will be no overtime paid? And if they are policing Thatchers’ funeral they are not doing their ‘ordinary’ job, which is a cost. The cost of policing of this funeral is not going to be covered in the bill for an ordinary days policing. That’s just fantasy.

As usual, it’s not the event itself that’s starting to piss me off, it’s all the shit that people come out with.

Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

April 10th, 2013 § 2 comments § permalink

Margaret Thatcher is dead. Some people are sad, some are happy. Very happy. I don’t particularly like Thatcher, I think the best thing she did was keep Neil Kinnock out of No10. What I also don’t like are the celebrations that have sprung up. I understand some people are going to more affected by her policies than I am. This, though, is a real old woman that has died. Any harm she could’ve done was either done a long time ago or started a long time ago. Dancing and cheering and generally partying about the death of an old woman strikes me as vindictive and nasty, everything Thatchers’ opponents see themselves as not being. The celebration of the death of a leader could be understood if they died whilst in power, justified by the celebration of the end of their reign or tyranny, but not after they left office over twenty years previous. Some might argue that Thatcher still had influence. In those passing twenty years, but she didn’t. Her ideas did. You can’t blame her for that, especially when thirteen of those twenty odd years were under Labour prime ministers, the very people that should’ve stamped out her ideology. Blame the people in power that succeeded her for letting her have a legacy, never mind such a long lasting one. An old woman dies. People party in the streets. Welcome to Broken Britain.

overdue upgrade

March 7th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

Hello.

It’s been a while, huh? Do you wanna hear a story with a happy ending? Read on then.

I’d had my current mobile phone for a while now. It’s a HTC Desire S and it’s been a good, trusty tool for me. The spec is ok and I’ve never really had any problems with it.

Recently though I’d been thinking about rooting it. I don’t know why, just plain old curiosity probably. I’m not sure what I’d do with it after rooting it, but I’ve never quite been able to bring myself to do it. I’ve read a couple of forums and so on about it and it seems easy enough but there’s always the fear of bricking it that has stopped me.

Then yesterday my phone locked up. It stopped. Bugger. I tried rebooting it, taking the battery out for a while and restarting it, and eventually the only thing I could do start the bootloader and factory reset it. That worked for a little while, half an hour or so and then nothing again.

It’s now sat on the mantlepiece, the only thing it will do is start up in bootloader and shutdown.

Until now, I’d never really thought about how long I’d had the phone. Every reasonably priced contract is 24 months long with available at at 21 months. I logged into the Orange website to look at my account to see when I was due an upgrade. I was expecting to see I had another month or two to go, but now the little box said “Upgrade available anytime”. Excellent. That’s a bit of a result. In a subsequent conversation with the upgrade department it turns out I got my Desire S 35 months ago! I suppose that’s a testament to how well happy I am with it. In nearly two and half years it never occurred to me to change my phone, it never lacked anything enough to make me think about getting another.

Because I’m a skinflint and the latest high-end mobile phone isn’t that important to me I don’t want to be paying hundreds of pounds for a new phone. Taking this into consideration, my options for upgrading looked like a Nokia Lumina 820 LTE, a Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini or an iPhone 5 16GB for nothing or a 32GB iPhone for £50.

The Nokia is Windows Phone 8 OS, and even though its spec is quite good (I’m no expert on phones btw) I really don’t want Windows. I use Windows everyday for eight hours at work, I really don’t want it on my phone as well. So that one is out. The Samsung looked ok. Every review I read said it was ok, but it was no full sized Galaxy S3 which, although the reviews were good, left me a little disappointed that it wasn’t a phone that would cost me £199 to upgrade to.

This left the iPhone. I know the iPhone. Everyone knows the iPhone. Loads of apps, good screen blah blah blah and it wouldn’t be used in a way that would mean changing loads of accessories (because of the change of connector). It doesn’t have an SD card slot so it’d have to be the 32GB version. I clicked the upgrade button and a pop up box appeared I’d have to either pay a fuck load more for it (I can’t remember how much) or change my contract to a 4G plan. I didn’t progress any further because either way, it’d cost me an arm and a leg.

In hindsight, I think I would’ve got fucked off with having to do everything through sodding iTunes very quickly.

That left the Galaxy Mini. Fair enough. On its own it looks a capable phone, and it’d cost me bugger all.

Whilst buggering about on the Orange site I thought I’d have a look at some bills and check exactly how much I’m currently paying a month when I noticed I was being charged £3.33 a month for the last fuck knows how long for something called TrafficTV. A little stupidly, I don’t always check my bills. Ok, I never check my bills. I know I should but the amount always varies a little because of 0845, 0870 and all those non-geographic numbers that organisations have started using over the last couple of years. Sometimes SayNoTo0870.com doesn’t have an alternative number and you just have to suck it up and pay a little.

It turns out TrafficTV is an app Orange bundles with their phones. It tells you about the state of traffic on your route and stuff like that. I now remember opening it once to have a look and never opened it again. That, apparently, is enough to trigger a subscription to it. I can’t moan about it being sneaky or false as it’s that long ago I can’t remember the warnings, if any, I was given about any subscription. I was still bloody angry about it and was prepared to give whoever answered the phone a load of shit about it when I called. Remember kids, always check you bill, I will now.

So, I ring Orange and eventually get through to someone to speak about this TrafficTV thing and with out hesitation the chap said he’d cancel the subscription and will refund up to £50, which is handy as I want a £40-ish refund. That completely took the wind out of my sails as I don’t have any way to prove I haven’t been using it and was expecting at least a little resistance to it. After a little bit of Googling, I think they’ve had a lot a calls like that and it’s pointless ranting to the customer service chap about it, so I got passed through to the upgrade department to order my new slightly disappointing phone.

Again, what happened I wasn’t quite expecting. When I upgraded to the HTC, I can’t remember all the details but I kept my call plan which is now getting on for 10 years old, got a discount on it, and had to pay £50 for the phone, whereas it was listed at £75 or £100. The phone was despatched to the wrong address and so arrived a day late and without even being asked, Orange refunded the £50 I had to pay.

This time, I was asked what phone I was looking at and told the Nick, for that was her name, that I was looking at the Galaxy Mini as I couldn’t justify paying nearly £200 for the big Galaxy…. and off she went. “Just give me a minute” she said and 20 seconds later, she’s offering me the Galaxy S3 LTE for nothing, on basically my plan, but twice as much data for one pound more a month. Oh and then she re-applies my 10% discount.

So now, I’ve got a phone that should’ve cost me £200, twice as much data allowance, and a monthly bill not too far shy of £5 less. 35 months ago I had to threaten to go with another phone company. I know the people on the phone have a certain amount they can do, but wtf? I was expecting to at least have to haggle/beg a bit to just got the Galaxy Mini for free.

For now though, it’s off to the forums to get work out how to fix the trusty HTC.

The RSPCA, the judge and *that* hunting court case

December 22nd, 2012 § 5 comments § permalink

(I’m doing this on my phone so you don’t get any links and spelling/names might be slightly out.)

The RSPCA prosecuted the Heythorpe Hunt, David Camerons’ local hunt, for deliberately hunting with dogs. The hunt admitted their guilt and it cost the RSOCA approx £330,000 as they brought their own prosecution rather than leave it to the CPS.

The judge in the case made comment along the lines of the RSPCA being a bit silly and that amount of money could’ve been spent better elsewhere. Presumably stopping poor people killing animals for fun in council estates rather than stopping rich people killing animals for fun in the countywide.

The defendants also made claim that this prosecution was politically motivated because the prime minister has ridden with them a few times.

Two things here.

1. I’m pretty sure if the RSPCA had evidence of other hunts hunting dogs on purpose and not just losing control of the dogs, then they’d prosecute. To gather evidence to a standard where one can prove a hunt is deliberately going after foxes is notoriously difficult. Which is partly the second point.

2. For the judge to comment in his closing speech (or whatever it’s called) on the cost and what the prosecutors should do with their money instead is completely outrageous.

The court case is for someone to defend themselves against specific allegations of law breaking. The accuser is not on trial, if the accuser is bringing a private prosecution it is not up to the judge to tell them they should be spending their money elsewhere. The judge should deal with the case and that’s it.

The judge though, by bringing up how much the RSPCA had to spend to get this case to court, raises an important point – the cost of the law. Ask anyone that has has serious dealings with the law and they will agree. The law is not for the poor man but how much it costs is not a debate for a court case.

The RSPCA said they brought the case because they had no faith in the CPS, and they’re probably right. To get the evidence of deliberately hunting with dogs is extremely time consuming and I guess to get a successful prosecution a prosecutor actually needs to be there at the time. It’s probably quite hard to prove the ‘deliberate’ part after the event, and the police etc cannot be there at every hunt meeting just in case, that really would cause an outrage.

Private or public prosecution, it is not up to the judge to decide whether it is a waste of money or not. His job is to preside over the court and ensure justice is done. This judge should be seriously reprimanded.

Terms and Conditions

December 19th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

Instagram has taken some shit over the last couple of days for it’s new terms and conditions.

You don’t fuck up, especially when you have the sort of money Instagram have, via their owners Facebook, when writing you’re T’s & C’s.

I hesitate to raise the Instagram topic on here. The controversial terms and conditions and subsequent ‘clarification’ have already received wall-to-wall coverage elsewhere.

But there’s a writing angle to the whole thing that needs some airing. The whole story is already being co-opted as a case study in the importance of clear communication and getting the tone right. This worries me, because that’s exactly what it isn’t, at least not in the way that’s being suggested.

This was the main offending paragraph in the terms and conditions:

To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

There is nothing wrong with the tone of this paragraph. It scores highly on clarity, using plain language, active verbs, personal pronouns (us and you) – all the things writers go on about every day.

There is a lot wrong with the content of the paragraph, at least according to thousands of Instagram users. But that’s not a language issue – it’s a policy issue. Any writers trying to use this as an example of the importance of ‘tone of voice’ are misinterpreting the problem. To an expert in tone of voice, every problem looks like a tone of voice issue.

The situation isn’t helped by Instagram’s disingenuous ‘clarification’, which tries to imply that this was all a miscommunication caused by ‘confusing’ language.

Again, this statement from Instagram has been hailed in various places as a good example of crisis communication – clear and helpful in the way the Ts and Cs weren’t.

But again, this is completely wrong. The Ts and Cs were absolutely clear, even if their content was controversial.

By contrast, the ‘clarification’ is slippery, mealy-mouthed and contradictory.

Read the rest.

Catch my whimsical, non-filtered images here.

via @MooseAllain

The NRA wants to help

December 19th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

This sure is good of the NRA after all the damage it’s done over the years…

The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again

So, what’s the odds on that contribution being to let kids carry assualt rifles in school so they can defend themselves should anyone want to go on another killing spree in a school?

Update 21/12/2012:

Well, I wasn’t too far out, and if you remove my sarcasm, you could say I was right on the money.

How predictable, huh?

Come in child number 9. Your time is up

December 17th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

God has called them all home

Obama said.

Wow. God must’ve been having an off day and taking it out on them then.

No passing away quietly in their sleep for these kids, as innocent children should die. It’s a full on kicking, screaming, painful death full of fear recall for them.

God is kind and compassionate, apparently. That’s certainly a definiation of ‘kind’ and ‘compassionate’ I haven’t come across before.

Orange hazlenuts

December 16th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

My lad has a nut allergy. That’s not a problem in itself, especially as he takes it seriously himself, always asking people, when he’s eating food other people have prepared, if something has nuts in.

It takes you back a little at first when you’re told, or it did me at least, but then you settle into things. You remember to take his epipens with you about the place. You look at ingredients of anything new you pick up shopping, you ask in restaurants or, you make a packed lunch, just in case.

Now and again though, you slip up. You’re in a hurry and forget the epipens. You pick up a packet of food and forget to check the ingredients, or as happened tonight, don’t think you need to.

Because my lad has a nut allergy, we have chocolate spread that doesn’t have nuts in the ingredients. We have Tesco’s chocolate spread. This one…

chocolate spread

These are the ingredients:

ingredients

It looks like Tesco, along with Cadbury’s, have found the secret of making chocolate spread without using hazlenuts.

So why the buggery, would they do this to their orange chocolate spread?…

ingredients_2

They both have virtually the same ingredients, except the orange flavoured one has orange flavouring… and hazlenuts. Since when have hazlenuts tasted of orange? What purpose do they serve?

What irks me, is that the labelling is the same on both jars, apart from the colour. There is no indication to someone used to buying the plain spread that the orange one would have anything other than orange flavouring added. I must add that it probably irks me as a reaction to my slip up of only checking the ingredients at the last minute before opening the jar rather than on the shelf before purchase.

But why should the label be any different? It is from the same range of products, so the labelling would be the same. But why should it have bloody hazlenuts in it? As far as I can tell the only thing Tesco have done by adding hazlenuts to chocolate spread that doesn’t have nuts in, is to keep a little lads’ packed lunch from being a little more exciting.

Update 17/12/12:

I tweeted this post at Tesco. They responded…

My lad will be happy.

Update 27/01/2013

Well, what the fuck happened there, then? A nut free recipe was supposed to be being introduced for the Orange flavoured chocolate spread, but instead, look…

chocolate spread with nuts

Nuts where there wasn’t any previously. When Tesco tweeted that a new recipe was about to be rolled out, I thought they meant they’d be taking nuts *out* of the their orange flavoured chocolate spread, not putting hazel nuts *into* it’s ordinary chocolate spread.

But why? What has prompted this change of recipe? Have there been a sudden flurry of complaints about it not being nutty enough? After years of not having nuts in it, is it suddenly not good enough?

Very disappointed, Tesco. Very disappointed.

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