So much for the "Online Society"

Over on this BBC Web Page you will find the "startling" research finding that 43% of those who do not have access to the internet would not want it if it were handed to them free of charge.

And this is a surprise ?

I remember going to a trade show in Birmingham for the scuba diving "industry". I went to it mainly because the producer of "Blue Planet" was giving a lecture there but it was also a useful place to pick up some extra gear.

While I was there I saw a bloke advertising a "latest gizmo". we all have "surface marker buoys", right ? They show the dive boat where we are in the water. So this chap had a bright idea. "You put your mobile phone in here", he said, "and then if someone calls you while you are underwater, the call is taken and you can hear them through the vibration in this mouthpiece on your air regulator and you can talk to them too".

I looked on at this sales pitch open mouthed. I thought it was some sort of a joke. But then it dawned on me the guy was for real.

"You don't get it, do you", I said. "I spend all week at that bloody thing's beck and call but at weekends all it takes is an inch of water and the microwaves are blocked. From then on it's peace and quiet - except for the sound of my bubbles - for up to forty five glorious minutes".

I saw him again hours later. He hadn't sold any of his whizz kits and he still did not understand why.

Apart from the most remote areas of the planet (like Haverfordwest, according to Betsan Powys the BBC's Welsh Current Affairs Blogger) internet connectivity for those who want it has been available for over fifteen years.

Yes I can see that for some there is a question of cost for the equipment and the running costs, and yes for some there is a real problem of connectivity and not always for the reasons you might think.

For those who want the service and cannot get it I know all about the frustrations - for years in the late 80's and early 90's I lived in a house on the outskirts of North East Newport whose telephone service was apalling and whose internet service was more so because of the lousy telephone link. And even today my home cannot receive Freeview digital TV because the only free radio spectrum in the nearest TV mast was given over to the CottageBurner Channel S4C.

But come on, guys. The technologically disadvantaged make up only a tiny part of the numbers of non-adopters of your brave new online world. Why is it such a surprise that such a LARGE chunk of those not already making use of it see no need of it.

Do you support Egg-Chucking, Jessica ?

I sent this to my MP last night. I wonder if she will reply.

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Dear Jessica Morden,

I wonder if you would care to explain something to me.

I would REALLY like to know why policemen stood back and did nothing about UAF protestors pelting an elected member of the European Parliament with eggs this evening.

After all, they didn't stand back and do nothing when John Prescott was pelted, did they. They didn't stand back and do nothing when Tony Blair was bombed with dyed flour lobbed from the public gallery, did they ?

I noted with interest Peter Hain's demand that the storm troopers of the Anti Nazi League he founded shortly after arriving on these shores after delivering the eulogy for a terrorist bomber and murderer in his homeland of south africa rise up against the BNP leader Nick Griffin MEP.

Are you personally pleased that they have heeded his call ?

I noted with interest that this incident occurred within television camera coverage of the houses of parliament. Now I was among the very last group of people - the Professional Contractors Group - to take part in a mass public lobby and demo of Parliament in 1999 over the Welfare Reform Bill, and our organised lobbying of members of parliament caused you so much chaos it was probably the reason Tony Blair brought in legislation to ensure it would never happen again by banning the assembly of a group of people without prior police permission within a mile of Parliament.

I note with interest that no policemen did anything about this group of "UAF" thugs. I take it then that you and the Home Secretary are pleased to condone their actions? I see no other explanation for the lack of police intervention in the face of the scenes that have been made public courtesy of the BBC and Sky TV.

I think it's a very dangerous path you're treading here.

I was a counting agent at Torfaen last week. I confess to being more than a little delighted to see your party's stranglehold on wales destroyed by the conservatives and UKIP and the shock at the size of the BNP vote in was palpable in the faces of the massed tory faithful but I think that unless the Home Secretary starts sorting out some proper protection for our elected representatives - ALL OF THEM - then this is all going to end in tears.

I note that the website of the organisation that your government allowed to violently assault an elected member of the European Parliament is ALREADY saying it should have been a brick in the face.

Is this what you want ?

DO tell me because if it is I'll join the BNP tomorrow and stand against you in the next General Election.

I'm PRETTY convinced they'd be delighted to have a former director of a company that employed five people and turned over £200K until YOUR government's policies on taxation and immigration destroyed it standing under their ticket.

Yours sincerely,

"johnofgwent"

The Court of The Star Chamber

Sir Hugh, persuade me not;
I will make a Star Chamber matter of it.
If he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs
he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, Esquire

(Shakespeare: The Merry Wives Of Windsor. Act 1 Scene 1)

by johnofgwent

I'd forgotten much about my English Literature and History 'O' levels until this week. And then the mouthings of Chairman "Not Flash, Just Gordon" Brown brought them all back to me. For much of this week Brown has been trying to rescue his political arse by mentioning at every opportunity the need for his dishonourable members to face a "Star Chamber". As if the institution was a good thing.

Yet something puzzles the hell out of me. Because in my second year in secondary education at the age of twelve, our history lessons covered the original Court Of The Star Chamber and believe me it was not a good thing to have.

The Star Chamber (Latin Camera stellata) was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges, and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters.

The court was set up to 'ensure' the fair enforcement of laws against prominent people, those so powerful that ordinary courts could never convict them of their crimes.

Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, no right of appeal, no juries, and no witnesses.

Evidence was presented in writing. Over time it evolved into a political weapon and has become a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power by the English monarchy and courts.

So at the age of twelve I was led to believe the Court of The Star Chamber to be the device of the absolute monarch and political despot, an institution publicly paraded as necessary to deal with those who would set themselves above the law, but in reality a version of Soviet Russia's Lubyanka centuries before its time.

But of course in those days this country believed in giving British schoolchildren an education that covered British Economic Social and Political History. These days I wonder what schoolchild below the level of A Level or even Undergraduate or Postgraduate Historian has ever been told the truth of what the institution was or why The Long Parliament abolished it.

And here's a funny thing. When I was twelve the History textbook from which we learned of this institution and what it really stood for has a woodcut of the building and several pictures of paintings depicting it. How strange then that after thirty minutes of searching I can find no evidence of those pictures in cyberspace, just one which somone has attributed to being the establishment, yet which I believ to be nothing more than some nobleman's dining room.

Oh well, they say history is written by the winning side.

Jessica Responds On The Google Street View Cars

I was so annoyed when I realised the qualityof the images on Google Street View allowed any tom dick or harry who fancied doin' a blaggin' to get the low down on your house's fencing, gates, door locks, window locks, security cameras and everything else the enterprising criminal would want to know before breaking into your house.

I was particularly peeved because unlike "before google", when the crim wishing to case the joint would have to walk down the road and look suspicious doing so, now they can do so from the safety of a MacDonalds Restaurant at the other end of the country, just by supplying a false name, address, postcode and email so as to get onto their wireless internet.

So I was not at all surprised that the good people of Milton Keynes rose up against one of the Google Cars when it came to photograph their street.

What did amaze me was that our Home Secretary was too thick to spot this herself. Presumably she is too busy watching her husband's port flicks, and her advisers are too busy trying to stop the BNP at all costs, for them to have had time to work this out.

So a while ago I wrote to jessica morden pointing this out and asking whether she thought it was such a wonderful idea after all.

I got a reply today

It says I have "raised some reasonable concerns" about the service and the Home Secretary is going to get a letter pointing this out.

All well and good but given that it took me less than five minutes to work that out, just from looking that the wikipedia page with a "typical street view", what the hell are Jacqui Smith's "paid advisers" doing for their money and more to the point, should I send her my CV to apply to be their replacement ?

In my book, this is just one more example of how New Labour have made you less safe in your own home

CPS London Staff To Get £250 Just For Turning Up To Work

"Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Give Us More Dough"

by johnofgwent

In December 1981 I walked out of my flat in Richmond Road, Cardiff to walk the mile or so to work in the University. My experimental diary from the research lab notes "it's started to snow". And the last entry says "it's still snowing". The next day starts, and ends in pretty much the same way with a mid-day entry "it's getting deep". And the snow came down day after day. An each day I walked to work.

And I was in no way exceptional. The entire staff did as I did, although I do recall the drop dead gorgeous redhead Jane, my co-researcher, who hailed from "The Sunshine State" across the pond who had come to work in this country with our team, who found the sight of all this snow a little overwhelming.

Ah Jane, the number of blokes who would have given their all to be snowed up for a week with you - but you were safe with me for I had just married a woman the spitting image of Kate Beckinsale as she appears as Anna Valerious in "Van Helsing" - and the novelty of going home every night needed more than snowdrifts to hold me back (!)

But enough of such things and back to the subject in hand.

Imagine what I felt when I found staff working for the Crown Prosecution Service were to get a big fat £250 just for doing earlier this year nothing more than I did - getting off their arses and getting in to work despite the snow.

But you see, what I did then, I also did earlier this year. And nurses and teachers in South Wales did the same earlier this year too. One woman spent hours walking in to work to make sure the patients in her hospital had someone to care for them. Will she get handed £250 ? I very much doubt it.

So what makes the "Crown Prosecution Service" such a special case ?

Answers on the back of a used arrest warrant to NP19 7 please

Ask An AM - What is it with GP's and appointments

Who amongst us will has already forgotten the way Tony Blair's polished, teflon-coated election campaign was sent headlong into the buffers and the end of a dead-end siding by a skillful verbal atack from a member of the public in an audience for one of his numerous appearances on the BBC in the usual "Let's Worship Tony" format.

I speak of course of the moment when he realised that his wonderful plan (that would have made Stalin weep tears of joy) to introduce ten year plans and target after target into the NHS had backfired. The moment when he took on the appearance of a rabbit, caught in the headlights . I speak of course of the moment when a member of the public demanded to know why he thought it was a brilliant idea that her doctor be allowed to refuse to make appointments more than 48 hours in advance as a result of his policy penalising doctors who were more than 48 hours late seeing a patient with an appointment.

As the truth suddenly dawned on him, his expression changed to that of a man facing the electric chair. Fear gripped his intestines. You could see his facial muscles twitching involuntarily and the demon eyes darted around the room seeking a means of escape from the trap he had laid with his own hands, mind and mouth.

It was a good night for British Democracy.

And in its wake, the insane system of allowing lawyers and "practice managers" (Orwellian Newspeak for Profit Maximisers) to dictate the way sick people would get access to the health services paid for out of their taxes took a beating.

But the time has come to give it another.

Thanks to my previous job and the Managing Director who forced me to work insane hours under insane pressure I now have heart problems caused by high blood pressure. I need to see my GP on a regular basis to have the efficiency of my current medication monitored. Every time I have seen him he has said I should come back and see him in a month's time, and every time I have gone to the desk to book a new appointment the receptionist has rolled out the inevitable story as scripted by the practice manager that "We Do Not Book Appointments More Than 14 Days In Advance".

WHY NOT ? The bloody DOCTOR told me he needed to see me in a months time. WHY does the jumped up upstart accountant have the power to tell the Doctor he cannot see me at a time of his choosing, for that is what is happenning here.

But no, I must bow down to this Stalinist Planning and twiddle my thumbs for a whole fortnight hoping that an appointment slot will be available before my prescription runs out.

Yesterday the inevitable happenned. "I'm Sorry JohnofGwent but you cannot see your GP as there are no appointment slots available in the next 14 days".

My prescription runs out in 12. But more worrying than that, the cardiologist I saw last week told me the existing medication is not doing the job and the dosage needs to be doubled. And because the drug has known efffects on kidney function, I need a blood test to be arranged to make sure the increase doesnl;t make me a dialysis patient.

So ordering the meds from one of these online get yer viagra here mediwebsites isn't going to provide the answer, is it.

So why am I being denied access to the medical assiatance the GP told me I needed.

Why indeed.

I would pose this question to my MP whose government put these insane policies in place but of course they did a Pontius Pilate and washed their hands of all responsibility and handed "Health Issues In Wales" to the Welsh Assembly Hot Air Pit.

So here's what I sent to each of the bloated expense-laden wasters whose highly paid job it is to "represent" me.

Tuesday 31 March 2009

Dear Mohammad Asghar, Jocelyn Davies, Michael German and William Graham,

I am sure you will remember, some of you with amusement, some not, depending on your party affiliations, the way Tony Blair was made to look a complete fool when during the general election campaign, it was made clear to him on prime time television that no General Practicioner would allow a patient to make an appointment more than 48 hours in advance, for if they accepted it, they risked breaching one of the lunatic targets set by the government, which would cost them a chunk of their "nice little earner" from the insane contract the government had failed to negotiate properly with GP's

In the fallout from that election campaign event in which it became clear to all that Tony Blair had absolutely no idea of the havoc his "master plans" were causing, our GP suddenly changed his policy and started allowing appointments to be booked up to two weeks in advance.

HOWEVER it is clear the same mentality and target driven stupidity reigns supreme. I have just been advised, and not for the first time, that I cannot be given an appointment to see the doctor treating my high blood pressure because no appointment is available within the 14 day limit.

The cardiologist this GP referred me to recently recommended my medication be increased as my BP is NOT being properly controlled; the existing medication is known to cause kidney problems; I wake each morning with a pain in the lower back right by the adrenal glands (as a former medical biochemist thrown out of that career by Margaret Thatcher I think I know enough to know none of this is a good sign).

I thought with matters of health now devolved to your hands I would ask each of you what you thought about this state of affairs.....

Yours sincerely,

John Of Gwent

I received a reply from Mike German - the Lib Dem man - within minutes acknowledging my email and stating he would get back to me as soon as he was able. Yes the cynic amongst us may say this is a "brush off" but the mail headers in the reply - and a typo in the body of it - tell me this was no auto-response from an email robot but the words were was typed by human hand. Which means he at least feels it is important to read and acknowledge constituents correspondence. OK OK he probably pays someone to do it in his name from those fantastic allowances but at least I have hard evidence that one of these people puts that money into measures to try to serve the people. No response from the others yet though.

"Ask Glenys" - What DO the french think about those asylum seekers ?

There's a Euro-Election coming up. Not that most people would know about it. I mean, apart from articles in "The Dail Mail" denouncing the BNP for using a Spitfire flown by a Polish Pilot in their election campaign (smart move that, I thought, getting the Daily Mail to give them all that free publicity for their campaign !!) have you seen anything about the election ? From anyone ? If you have, I'd love to hear from you. Because the last leaflet drops here were one from the Lib Dems celebrating their success in saving money by blacking out our streetlamps, only ten minutes after they finished spending hundreds of thousands of pounds getting the street lamps fixed (!!) and another from our New Labour apparat-chick MP. Apparently she is holding a Surgery. I wonder if she refuses appointments that canl't be done in 14 days like my GeneralPracticioner does. But why hold a surgery anyway ? Ah, I get it, she must be worried that if she doesn't, she might have her allowances for the premises challenged :-)

And talking of the Labour Party, while round my neck of the woods they seem to have gone all coy and quiet, just down the road they're having a right old rant. "Get Out And Vote To Stop The BNP" they say. "They Only Need 8% To Claim All Those Lovely European Parliament Allowances And Expenses". So no prizes for guesing what motivates New Labour then. Not "Vote For Me For All My Had Work", or "Vote For meFor All My Policies". Not even "Vote For Me For Standing Up For YourInterests". No, in the eyes of new Labour it's "Vote For Me And Show Me The Expense Account". I'd say New Labour just blew a hole in their own head here if it wasn't already the case that I can see daylight between the ears of their candidate.

So what the hell, I figured, maybe I have not seen hide nor hair of any candidates at all because they all presume no-one will bother voting. Or maybe the ones in power have finally worked out, as the electorate has, that their discredited representatives ought to be hanging their heads in shame at what they have allowed to be done to this country and its people on their watch.

So I decided it was time to take the fight to them and see whether they have the stomach for battle. I used the excellent "writetothem" website, now expanded to allow a concerned - or brassed off - constituent to see all elected representatives charged with looking after their needs across a wide arc ofgovernment organisations, and joy of joys I found out my current EU constituency was represented by a right shower, including none other than Glenys Kinnock, the wife of the Welsh Windbag Neil, whose first job once packed off to Brussels was to impose VAT on the Severn Bridge Toll so as to more heavily tax the people wishing to enter the Principality of Wales.

It was too good an opportunity to miss. You might remember about a fortnight ago now a BBC TV News crew crossed the channel to capture the behaviour of a group of people camped out in filth and squalor near the French port and rail terminals at Calais hoping to smuggle themselves aboard something bound for england so they can claim political asylum.

I have often wondered what the official line on these people is in France. And who better to ask for a European perspective on this issue than a woman who has been paid quite a bit over the past few years to be there as our elected representative. I confess the temptation was irresistible. Here is a copy of my recent letter to Glenys Kinnock MEP sent courtesy of "www.writetothem.com". I don't expect an answer, of course, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't make the woman work for her money once in a while.

Enjoy (!)

Thursday 26 March 2009

Dear Glenys Kinnock,

I understand from the website www.writetothem.com that you are one of the Members of the European Parliament representing the constituency in which I live. If this is not the case and I am mistaken, please accept my apologies.

I am having great difficulty understanding a matter that I first saw on a BBC News at Ten broadcast a few weeks ago. I have sought answers but have not yet been able to find any, and I think someone with a EUROPEAN perspective may be able to provide some insight.

On March 12th the BBC ran a piece on a large number of people living in conditions I would describe as filth and squalor outside a suburb of Calais, each trying to break into lorries to catch a free ride to Britain. The camera crew interviewed one such person who beamed straight at the camera and said "I want to go to england and claim political asylum"

Now I spent a month or so working a few miles from the French "Le Shuttle" terminal, albeit a few years ago. From my first hand experience I do not see any easy way that I could describe the area as a war zone or famine area, neither does France appear to me to be a country riven with dictatorial corruption or political or religious persecution.

So I find it most confusing that this man wishes to depart a land built on the principles of "equality, liberty and fraternity" to come to my country and I am even more confused as to how he can possibly be given asylum from persecution in France should he succeed in illegally entering here.

But the thing I find most confusing of all is this.What is the status of this person standing there in that field in France ? What are the authorities there doing about him. How did he get there ? Why is he being allowed to behave in the manner he is ?

I would REALLY like some answers to those questions and perhaps now you understand why I think someone with a European perspective on the matter might be better equipped to provide those answers.No-one has seen fit to explain any of this to me in the past. but with the European elections coming up, I think I would like to hear some answers before I cast my vote.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope to hear from you on this matter at your convenience.

Yours sincerely,

John Of Gwent

.... of course, I don't expect to hear a word from her at all.