They provide loads of humour. Iran’s ‘Friday Prayers Leader’ says no one should interfere in the arrested British sailors issue:

“Britain is an aggressor and Iran has confronted it. Therefore, no third party — neither the United Nations Security Council nor any country — has the right to interfere in the issue. They should be aware that their interference will make the matter more difficult and complicated,” he said.

Addressing Britain and the country’s enemies, the prayers leader said that Iranian border guards will tackle any aggression against Iran’s borders.

How’s that for lum pah (see earlier post about British and Iranian lum pah). AGGRESSOR. ENEMIES. I think it’s funny that in the British press, the claim that the sailors were arrested in Iraqi waters is virtually fact, and in Iran,

“Based on the information obtained from the British Global Positioning System (GPS), the arrested British servicemen themselves admitted to trespassing Iran’s territorial waters,” he added.

Does anyone in Iran really believe the bad propaganda that the sailors have been speaking freely? The Iranian lum pah must be so big they can’t walk.

I don’t talk much about Harry Potter, but I am a fan. Not a rabid fan, I enjoy reading the books and watching the films, but I’m not obsessive about it. I don’t have book seven on pre-order, for example. I’ll wait till Borders is selling off their excess stock to get a bargain.

I’m not looking forward to the series ending, but all good things must. I don’t need to read about a middle-aged Harry trying to organise a has-been life. Although, I must say that I did enjoy reading Sue Townsend’s renditions of Adrian Mole from age 13 and 3/4 to his early middle age (sheer ordinariness has never been so entertaining).

What I find most amusing is other authors being super concerned about Harry’s fate:

U.S. authors John Irving and Stephen King were sufficiently concerned about the fictional hero’s fate to urge Rowling to spare him.

I quote because John Irving is my favourite author in the whole wide revolving world. And I’m glad he likes Harry Potter, too.

Or, why my lum pah* are bigger than yours.

Iran says Britain can only resolve the issue of 15 British personnel arrested and taken to Tehran if they admit they were in Iranian waters. Britain says their GPS data shows they were in Iraqi waters. The Brits are extra cheesed that footage of the personnel was broadcast on Iranian teevee. Iranian officials have since offered British officials access to the sailors.

Craig Murray, a former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan (and very vocal critic of the UK government), says the border between Iranian and Iraqi waters is murky (sorry) at best. And that the border shown in the British evidence was, well, decided by the British government.

So the issue is much more complex than it appears (as if it wasn’t already complex enough). I’d be interested to see what the Iraqi government has to say about where they think the border is. Because surely the border should be a decision made between Iran and Iraq, not Britain. If Britain then turns around to say they have the authority to decide on the border (and I would be FLOORED if they say that), well well.

* Lum pah refers to a man’s testicles.

Jesus H Fucking Christ.

Members of Parliament have voted to give themselves £10,000 each a year to spend on things like websites to boost “public understanding” of Parliament.

The new allowance comes on top of the £20,000 office running costs allowance and £7,000 for pre-paid envelopes.

Holy fuck, all those IT consulting companies must be coming in their pants.

Pardon me for being a little paranoid. I love conspiracy theories, and the prospect of Iran’s Ahmedinejad planning war through secret phone calls with Bush and Blair for some really nefarious reason (oil prices, control through instability, a new Cold War) is truly hair-raising.

The United States is adopting a relatively quiet attitude, perhaps by agreement with London that a strong US position against Iran might not help.

If Iran still shows defiance and won’t let the Brits go, it may be considered casus belli to launch an invasion / rescue mission. The world quakes in its boots, the Senate / Congress gives the Bush administration even more money to prosecute war, elections are delayed, anyone who’s had any contact with Iran is under suspicion (I’m lookin’ at you, Jeff). And so on.

Neil says no one reads them. Here they are. For the major parties, anyway. I can’t be arsed to link to every party standing for election.

• Scottish Conservatives (manifesto) Update 2/4/2007: got the full document on the BBC website as it was announced today.
• The Scottish Labour Party (manifesto) Meh. Okay. Too comfortable in power, as evidenced by ridiculous expense claims despite a ‘transparent’ system.
• Scottish Liberal Democrats (manifesto) Actually, I’m liking their ideas the most so far.
• Scottish National Party (policies) I started by typing Snottish. Freudian slip! Plus I have demonstrated, more than once, what I think of the SNP.
• Scottish Socialist Party (election pledges) Too socialist. People are selfish and don’t give two shits about their community unless they are doing better than everyone else. Get used to it.
• Scottish Green Party (2005 manifesto) Too greenie. Fucking hippies. Heh.
• Solidarity Scotland (can’t find any manifesto or policy document) A rival socialist party because Tommy Sheridan and the SSP split over saucy allegations.

Hehe. I wonder if any Singaporean students will dare to be amongst the protesting crowd (earlier), or if they’ll all be too paranoid that they will be photographed and when they go back to Singapore, die die cannot get job.

LKY will probably enjoy it, knowing that these protesters can essentially do fuck all beyond assuaging their conscience. He would HAVE to engage with them if they were in Singapore, challenging them to start their own party or whatever it is he likes to say to people posing uncomfortable questions, but in Australia? He can maintain a dignified silence, rise above the rabble, etc.

OMG. I can vote because I’m from a Commonwealth country and resident in the UK. Now I have to start reading the policies from the other parties (I’ve read and heard enough of the SNP to know they HAVEN’T got my vote because even if it’s bloody time it’s not THEIR bloody time).

Come on, 3 May!

(There a delicious irony about being able to vote in a parliamentary election in a foreign country while I have been eligible to vote in Singapore for a decade but have never had to. Which is why I am relishing the prospect so much.)

Discovered via a commenter on What’s New, Pussycat?

My favourite non-prescription remedy for getting over a cold (aside from the Chinese chrysanthemum and herbal tea granules you can buy in China) is hot honey and diluted lemon juice. Especially if I’ve got a sore throat, the honey makes things all better, and what’s not to love about vitamin C when a rhinovirus is making you feel like crap?

I’ve been drinking that simple concoction (sometimes as tea with honey and lemon) for over a week now, and I think it’s definitely helped me feel better while my body fights the cold, with the unintended (but very welcome) benefit of clearing my complexion.

I don’t get a lot of spots or anything, but the skin on my face ain’t smooth, dewy, or radiant like you see in skincare ads. Since moving to Scotland, where the air is much drier, I’m getting the added fun of dry AND oily skin at the same time. In the short time I’ve been drinking hot lemon and honey, my skin’s become a lot smoother. We’re talking almost baby’s bum standards (Mark and Kristen, please confirm that your baby’s bum is very smooth).

(I remember reading a bloog post somewhere a while back about a similar discovery, but it was more adding a bit of lemon juice to flavour water and discovering the benefits to one’s complexion. Too bad I can’t remember where.)

If I was living and working in the US, I know a few people who would be addicted to Bid4Prizes. What happens is you join the site and you try to bid as low as possible, and the lowest bid amount with only one bidder (i.e., the bid amount is unique amongst all other bidders) wins. You can play by SMS (unlimited bids) for $9.99 a month (wow, that could build up) or for free online.

If you’re one of those majorly lucky types, you should know that you’re restricted to winning only once every 90 days.

So to sweeten the deal, they will give you ‘points’ for every bid you make, and you can redeem those points at the shop. You’ll need to bid at least 100 times to get a laser pointer and 325 times to get a twee leather backpack (yeah — what a bargain). IMHO, if you’re doing it by phone, it’s only really worthwhile if you’re bidding on every single sweepstake they have on the site every month, every day. There are 17 prizes on the site at the moment, one of which is an Apple iPhone. Are they even out yet?!

I can definitely see the addictive quality of this site.

This post is sponsored.

Ban ‘helping smokers to give up’:

Health Minister Andy Kerr said: “Initial findings suggest that the ban has encouraged people to give up smoking, with the number of people contacting cessation support services increasing in the run-up to the ban’s introduction.

“Although it is too early to know exactly what the health and economic impact of the ban has been, we are already beginning to reap the health benefits.

“The ban is working extremely well. More people have come forward to smoking cessation services. We are continuing to be creative in how we support smokers. We are not out to get them, we are out to help them.”

Trust Neil and I to live with the most unapologetic, defiant smokers in the country, who won’t stop even with diagnosis of serious, irreversible smoking-related health problems. Because The Laser is the panacea. Knowing our luck, we — as passive smokers — will be the ones to get the nasty cancers.

Thousands of prisoners have keys to their own cells.

Yeah.

Home Office minister Gerry Sutcliffe said: “It’s mainly used for people who are soon going to be released or in open prisons.

“It’s all part of providing incentives to encourage them to take more responsibility for themselves, to give them a little bit more respect and decency.”

I’m still not quite understanding the concept of an open prison. Seems paradoxical to me.

I can understand wanting to give prisoners something to feel responsible about, but KEYS TO THEIR OWN CELLS? WTF? Why not give them keys to the gates, it’ll be a real test of responsibility then.

I think a programme like Cell Dogs would be more appropriate in teaching inmates to prepare for a life as a law-abiding and civic-minded person.

• went to Brian and Carene’s for a few drinks (and fell asleep, I’m so lame)
• had McDonalds for lunch (I was craving very bad food)
• went to Neil’s friends, Roy and Pam’s house for their miniature class reunion (there’s something seriously wrong when his peers have children old enough to go to primary school — when did we get that old?)
• turned the clocks forward for British Summer Time (I am NOT used to this)
• ran jogged the St Andrew’s Hospice Lanarkshire Ladies 6K at Strathclyde Park
• checked out furniture, Mandor’s (got some remnants), and Miller’s (got nothing)
• had some homemade tomato soup
• watched a little Grey’s Anatomy

I did take a hit off the Ventolin inhaler this morning, because I’ve been suffering a very mild case of bronchitis. We got there in plenty of time, and it all went okay, except I walked a few times because I was trying to monitor my breathing, and once was due to a stitch. It was a bloody cold day for a run, even colder than the Oxygen Deficit 10K in February.

Things were made worse by my having not run a step in almost two weeks, since I fell ill. But it went okay, I was only two minutes off my normal time. At the moment, I’m trying to figure out if I should enter the Tom Scott Road Race (I have less than a week to decide) because I’m still not feeling too healthy, although four miles is only 6.4 kilometres.

So… I did it. I raised almost £300 for two separate charities. If I do enter the Tom Scott race, I’ll wait till the May race to raise more funds, give the people I’m hitting up for cash a month or so to recover. Hehe.

Anger at ANU honour for Lee:

But the decision to honour Mr Lee has incensed university staff, students and human rights advocates who accuse him of running an authoritarian regime in Singapore over the past four decades in which he has quashed any political opposition.

The academics and anyone connected to ANU are well within their rights to oppose the honour. I don’t argue with their point of view, but they must understand as well that Singapore would not have got to where it is economically (as quickly) without that iron fist. It’s good and bad. Good for Singapore in the economic sense, bad because we are a bunch of children (no matter what chronological age we are) who expect the ‘gahmen’ to take care of the things we don’t want to be responsible for but complain about a lack of freedom.

Australia’s relationship with Singapore was severely strained throughout last year when the Singaporean Government now headed by Mr Lee’s son Lee Hsien Loong carried out the execution in December of 25-year-old Melbourne man Van Tuong Nguyen after finding him guilty of drug trafficking.

…

Mr Chee has also condemned the decision in a letter to Professor Chubb, saying “do you not think that the award of this honorary degree to Lee Kuan Yew mocks the memory of Nguyen and the others who were hanged by the Singapore Government?”

I disagree with the death penalty, too, but NGUYEN was caught TRAFFICKING DRUGS THROUGH SINGAPORE, and I imagine pretty much everyone knows that Singapore HANGS drug traffickers. That policy ain’t new. I hadn’t realised a misguided youth doing something incredibly stupid in a place where he would be executed if caught was MARTYR MATERIAL.

So, if the ANU academics feel so strongly about LKY being honoured at their university, are they going to resign in protest? I definitely support their right to protest and their reasons for doing so, but I hope they don’t, like Chee Soon Juan, bring up Nguyen. It just undermines the whole thing for everyone (well, me).

Hey, how come Scotland is so ready for secession and the dependence on England is a complete sham and propaganda perpetrated by Unionists if they still expect money from Westminister to prop up their economic policies?

There are serious flaws in the SNP’s policies - not least its plans to replace council tax with a local income tax, set at a uniform 3p in the pound across Scotland. That means the end of councils’ accountability for local taxation, but it also assumes Scotland will still receive the £380 million currently paid from Westminster for council tax benefit - which seems unlikely, to say the least.

The SNP said that they would make up the council tax shortfall by getting £450 million from the Scottish Executive. Where, pray, will the Scottish Executive get the money? From Westminister? By cutting spending elsewhere? Does Scotland have a money tree only the SNP know about?

I sacrificed an hour of sleep last night to watch, with rapt fascination, Question Time (the panel, Have Your Say). I wasn’t exactly surprised to see John Bolton refuse to answer Tony Benn’s charges and SMIRK at him like a demented lemur.

Tony Benn was right to say the UN charter has been all but torn up by unilateral actions by the US and its ‘allies’. The audience member was right to say other members such as China were undermining the power of the UN by looking out for their own interests (as EVERY country clearly is, evidenced by the US in this case as well). Benazir Bhutto was very right to say the decision to go to war and what’s happened is in the PAST, and now what the world has to do now is help Iraq decide on its future.

Since I have no concept of what it’s like to fear for yourself and your family every single day, all I can do is rabbit on about ideas. Perhaps it’s time for the ‘allies’ to alter their role in Iraq, instead of clearing insurgents from villages (which reminds me of trying to remove community cats in Singapore and finding that new ones have moved in soon after) with guns to training villagers in civil defence. You know, fire service, emergency medical help, teacher training, additional training for doctors and nurses, counselling, that sort of thing. If a village collectively decides NO MORE to violence and is given the tools to help themselves, they will be able to help themselves.

From what I can gather, the reason insurgents and their ilk are allowed to hide in the village is (aside from fear) the attitude that the occupying forces are NOT their friends. Shooting innocent people (or your presence apparently causing innocent people to get blown up) wouldn’t really make you many friends. How about doing it one village at a time, motivating other villages to get started on their own civil defence preparedness?

This is not to say that it won’t still be a dangerous and not very nice place to live for a long time to come, but wouldn’t it set Iraqis on the right road? Maybe the individuals feel powerless, but if a village could be protected while they learn these civil defence skills, things could slowly start to improve on a permanent basis.

The convicted armed robber who lodged a Legal Aid ‘human rights’ case about telephone calls (i.e. that a recorded message identifying the origin of the calls was a breach of his human rights) WON.

Judge Lord Glennie said this policy was not made with the authority of parliament.

He said: “In some societies, it might be regarded as obvious that a person convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to a period of imprisonment should, for the duration of his imprisonment, be deprived of his civil rights.

“Such a notion has no place in our society.” said the judge.

Because, you know, convicted armed robbers showed due respect to other people’s civil rights and private property when they held a knife to their throats.

Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie said: “Back in February when we first heard about this, I warned that we would be a laughing stock if this man won his case.

“There is a clear issue here - are the rights of the law-abiding majority being served ahead of the rights of a minority who happen to be in jail? It appears not.

“Prisoners forfeit a number of rights when they go to jail for their crimes, which should include the ability to dictate on what terms they make a phone call.”

Yup. I’m laughing.

Jail phone case appeal considered

Is it bad that I find this funny?

Seriously, I adore the smoking ban that has meant our clothes do not require hardcore laundering after a night out (assuming we don’t spend too much time stuck in the doorways with the smokers).

(However, as I have said before, there is a hardcore smoker in the house so our cleaned clothes need laundering anyway. Almost makes me want to live in the pub like an alkie.)

The placement of the articles sure seem like a subconscious (or perhaps conscious) effort to KILL THE PUB. What are people gonna do without the cheap beer from JD Wetherspoons? Everyone’s gonna get hyped on their 99p (69p if you’ve got SnapFax) coffees and caffeine will be classed as a dangerous drug (it should, with how sick it can make a person).

Pub trade ‘has gone up in smoke’

Alcohol nearly as harmful as heroin, warn top scientists

Prisoner demands ‘right to vote’:

Aidan O’Neill QC, representing Birrell, criticised the authorities for failing to act in time to prevent such a situation arising.

“This is not a try-on or some kind of clever lawyers’ attempt to get somebody out of jail free,” he said.

“This is bringing to the court the legal consequences of a political decision to go ahead with an election which unlawfully stops prisoners from voting.”

Birrell, who was not present in court for the hearing, is also seeking £1,000 damages if the election goes ahead and he is not allowed to go to the polls.

The next legal challenge being brought by convicts will be, I wager, the authorities’ power to incarcerate them at all, as depriving them of their liberty must surely be a contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights.

(Note on the title: so that the Scottish courts will be able to ignore the European Convention on Human Rights and treat these ‘challenges’ with the contempt they deserve.)

Update: thank FUCK a judge dismissed it. But WTF is this possibly paying him damages — that’s conceding he was right?!!!!