Nice to know

These MI5 alerts really are useless - months and months without an announcement, then this! I could have told MI5 that some folks were up to no good from watching the BBC news yesterday... And just what am I supposed to do now that the threat is critical? Well I have to write a risk assessment into my field project before Monday, so maybe I can work attack from terrorists into the plan or something

Scottish Elections all over

Well, how about that? Seems like the new fangled multi-voting system was a bit too ambitious after all. And my clever tactical voting ensured that Edinburgh South escaped the clutches of New Labour, and the Greens are still represented in the Lothians (just). I'm pleased about the SNP victory in the polls, but I don't think they'll be able to force through an independence referendum unless they make some very crafty coalition negotiations.

Anyway, chances are I'll not be here whenever in the distant future such a vote takes place, so I won't spend too much time considering how an english person in scotland should approach the question.

Scottish election countdown (part deux)

Wow, that was good - 3 different ballot papers, each using a different electoral system. If the result is close, I expect some lengthy court battles will ensue over the confusion. As a committed tactical voter, I was delighted!

First-past-the post vote: This was the easy choice. As my constituency is a Lib-dem/Labour marginal, I was still in the mood for 'giving Blair a kicking' (particularly as I reluctantly voted Labour in 2005 to try and keep the Tories out of Lancaster)

Regional pseudo-proportional representation vote: So many parties to choose from! There were at least 15 or so, including such attractive propositions as the BNP (their usual Union flag replaced by a lovely stylised scottish thistle) and the Scottish Christian Party (with their leaflet rabbiting on about the promotion of 'abominations' in schools and what not). I was tempted to vote for the SNP merely to spite all the tabloid front pages that were urging me not to, but decided to prop up the Green Party which according to all the projections is likely to lose most of their seven MSPs. I don't agree with half of their policies, but I like to think that there is someone being paid to make the hardline arguments.

Local Council Single-Transferable-Vote: The most difficult part of all. The green candidate is a scientific researcher at the King's Buildings, so he went top of the list. But then I put the Tory candidate second on the sole basis that he proudly boasts in his mailout of being a member of SPOKES, the local cyclist's pressure group. But I still had 8 candidates to rank, and no sensible rationale for doing this. The BNP and the Scottish Christians hadn't bothered to enter a representative, so I had no need to vote just to put those guys last. So I just vaguely voted on national policies, but it was a bit random, and I can see that most voters will have a similar problem. How do you really decide if the Scottish Socialists are better or worse then Solidarity? Plus, I'd like to see how long it takes them to count all of these numbered ballots, and what computer routine they've written to help them.

So there it is. I think I've derived all the pleasure I can now from merely canvassing and voting in elections, so am definitely considering forming my own party for next time. Amongst so many, another weirdo in the mix can't hurt...

Scottish election countdown (part one)

Oooh, my polling card has arrived in the post!

Number of people who live in my flat: eight

Number of above who are entitled to vote: eight (3 by UK country of origin, 2 by other-EU country of origin, 3 by Commonwealth country of origin)

Number of people who have bothered to register to vote: only me, obviously

Democracy... where the election geeks can play their little games and everyone else just goes about their lives as normal...

I cannot handle money

Having been out and about doing something socialable every evening this week (highly unusual for me, which is why I failed to budget for it), I woke up this morning with only £24 in my bank account which must last me untill I get 'paid'* (hopefully Tuesday of next week).

Regardless of the perilous state of my finances, today I have already wasted money in the following ways:

• Purchasing the Weekend Guardian (I could have read it for free on the internet or in the public library but I needed the free wonders of the world stickers to complete my wallchart)
• Purchased the Big Issue (there's never anything to read inside it but I made the mistake of maintaining eyecontact with the vendor a little too long, so she assumed I wanted to buy it, and I hate letting people down if I can help it)
• Purchased felefal from the extortianatelly priced veggie cafe in the Old Town (I could have made some myself but last night was a big work gathering and I felt I needed to restore my body salt balances urgently)
  

I hate the way that the consumer society makes fools of people like me that I spend money on stuff I don't need without even realising it. Maybe I should just stay inside for the duration.

* by this I mean 'receive the next grant installment from the research council' but everyone else refers to it as 'being paid' so whatever

Update: further unnecessary spending -

• a half of coca-cola (necessary 'entry fee' to watch the second half of the England match in a sky sports bar full of scottish people cheering on their team in blue - Israel, who also played very poorly). This was a listless experience, and easily the biggest waste of money of the day.
  

Open 5 race report

Mountain 5 Open5 Series - Sutton Bank (somewhere in Yorkshire), 11th March 2007

Finishing position: 21st of 53 (male solo category)
Finishing-position-if-everything-had-gone-to-plan: ooh, I'd say about 9th

Things that went right:

• My bike didn't fall to bits half way round. Given the condition of my bike, that is worth celebrating in itself!
• It was a nice bright, dry day, hence at no point did my brake pads become clogged up with mud and dirt (as is the norm)
• My route choice was relatively sensible. Lots of high scoring check points dotted together deftly avoiding all the densely packed contour lines on the map.
• Looking at the route analysis site, several of the other competitors seemed to head straight up the densely packed contour lines and so lost a lot of points in penalties, to my benefit.
• I decided to bike first. Frankly this was so that I wouldn't lose all my points in penalties if the bike did fall to bits (which, as ever, I was half expecting). However an advantage of this approach was my transition consisted of dumping my bike and beginning my run. No time wasted re-adjusting the brake pads (for the 14th time...), tucking into a three course picnic lunch (as others do) or similar annoying distractions.
• I suffered from a bad cold earlier in the week, and so was probably snoring in the local YHA. This would have ensured that several of the other competitors would not have had a restful night
  

Things that didn't go right:

• Typically, I left my fancy technical £65 running shoes at work. These are the same fancy technical running shoes that I have previously abandoned on a bus to Leith (but were recovered thanks to Lothian buses). I had to run in my 'dossing around the house' £19.99 trainers instead. I blame this for my slow running speed.
  
• The forest trails on the map were a very poor match for the forest trails in reality. Either that or I was just plain lost. Looking at the route analysis I lost about 40 minutes or so on the leading competitors whilst biking around the forest trails section of the course trying to find the checkpoints there. I could have made good use of those 40 minutes in the running section collecting the extra 50 points that had originally been on my route - then I would have been 9th!
• Looking at the most successful route decisions - my running route could have been more creative. In particular, the guy who came first was clearly 'thinking outside the box' by spurning the circular run that most of us chose.

Interesting landmarks:

• do not walk on the Kilburn White Horse
• dramatic sutton bank cliff - possibly the location for an ancient hill fort
• the B6270 , winding its way gradually cross country along the path of the river Swale. Sheep and rabbits from the surrounding hilly countryside carelessly amble across the road although the abundant roadkill corpses indicate that this carefree trust in the motorist is misplaced. My quote: 'Maybe this is like the road to hell... or Yorkshire". No really, it's a very picturesque road, and my anti-yorkshire prejudice is bred purely from a mixture of automatic suspicion and ignorance.
  

Generally I was fairly happy about how it went, although if I was actually organised enough to train for these events now and again I might be up there with the, like, real contenders in the top ten. But I'm lazy... still maybe for the Keswick event in May I will make a special effort.

Democracy in action

Fantastic! It looks like communicating with your MP is effective after all - serves me right for being cynical.

At the start of the year I decided to open up the channels of democracy and get in touch with my MP more often, starting with a letter on the upcoming Trident vote. Several weeks later I was becoming slightly miffed that he had not replied to my letter. I even contemplated the possibility that he had just thrown my missive in the bin. But it turns out that my sceptism was entirely misplaced since yesterday he resigned from the Government over the issue. Thanks, Nigel!

ugly rumours, indeed...

Now that records can make the chart purely by digital sales alone (saving the likes of me the embarrassment of actually walking into shops and revealing my poor taste in music), I'd love this to make number one! So much that I've purchased it once and may do so again. Problem is it needs more media coverage to reach beyond the demographic of peeps like me who check the stop the war website regularly.

hmmm peace marches

Well I didn't go to the peace march in Glasgow yesterday, but the BBC's reporting is curious - 'Unlikely allies unite on Trident'.

Anarcho-syndicalists. Communists. Scottish Nationalists. Anti-racism campaigners. Trades unionists.

It was an eclectic mix which wound its merry way from Cowcaddens to Glasgow's George Square.

Why are they 'unlikely allies'? It sounds like just the sort of random left-of-centre groups that normally attend marches of this kind. If the Guild of City Bankers or the Countryside Alliance had been there too, then one might say that unlikely allies would have been uniting. As it is, it is just typical slapdash BBC reporting. But then I'm bitter that the beeb never gave me a job!

I have written to my local MP about the Trident, and have now been waiting nearly two months for my response. I'm sure it's in the post, but I wonder how much longer I should wait.

Wet weekend

Well, it continues to rain so I have resorted to my wet sunday routine of booting up a computer model of the troposphere is SE Asia and setting it running (on a remote server). Every 90 minutes, I download the results and issue fresh instructions. I only feel safe running it for 90 minutes unsupervised because there is a good chance my connection will crash after this time. Each 90 minute window gives me just enough time to do the other type of running, outside (should the rain stops, which it might do later on), visit Sainsbury's or make some phone calls. Yes - a sheltered life, but my own...