Manic

My God, that was busy. The trains were completely un-natural, and ran on-time. Most bizarre. I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff I could blether about from today, and from various news stories etc., but I’ll leave it ’til tomorrow.

Spring Fair

Don’t expect much in the way of updates today (hey, it’s the weekend, you weren’t expecting many anyway) as I’m putting myself at the mercy of Virgin Trains to go and visit the International Spring Fair down at the Birmingham NEC. With luck it’ll be productive – so long as the Virgin service isn’t well and truly fucked, as per usual. (oh, the irony, an utterly screwed service being run by Virgin)

Fixed-ish

Well, it’s been kind of hacked back together. Not what I needed on a Saturday morning, but hey ho, at least it’s semi-fixed.

Bollocks, Arse, and Fucking Shit

Yes, I made an addition to the template yesterday. And yes, I made a right monkey’s cock out of it. So, in the spirit of fuckwitdom, it may have to stay like this ’til Monday, as I have apparently not been as rigorous in backing up my template. There’s definitely a copy at work, but the one here was well and truly out of date. Bugger.

Content remains the same, it’s just that it’s gone back to the page “design” without CSS. Ooops. Anyway, I’m aware of it, I can do close to fock all about it ’til Monday, so we’ll just have to live with it. Hey Ho.

Disability Flights

I have to say, I’m really pleased to see that Ryanair were found guilty of discrimination by charging a disabled man for use of a wheelchair today. As the Disability Rights Commission chairman, Bert Massie, said in the story

“It beggars belief that a company with £165.23m annual profits last year, should quibble over meeting the cost of providing disabled people with a wheelchair.”

Ryanair have always been penny-pinching bastards, but this case was one of the better examples, and I can’t see that their petty “we’ll levy a 50p wheelchair levy on everyone who flies from Stansted and Gatwick with us” attitude is going to win them any friends either.

Fluffy Disease

via Parm, I have to agree with Chris, I really want these these fluffy toys. Quite how you explain your collection of fluffy lethal diseases, I have no idea – but the concept is sufficiently warped that it seriously appeals. And the idea of explaining to – say – a friend that you’ve got their kid a cuddly Black Death, well, that’s just comedy in the making…

Interference

According to the BBC, Lancaster City Council are considering whether people should report relationships with colleagues. Personally, I think it’s intrusive and pointless – yes, perhaps if there were problems with nepotism or, for example, an MD promoting their partner in preference to someone better qualified. But to my mind this entire thing should be an exercise in discretion – and generally, what the hell business is it of an employer to know whether one employee is shagging/living with/ married to another ?

According to this concept, it still wouldn’t be necessary to declare if one’s partner were working for a company that was tendering for council business, or any of the other infinitely dodgy practices normally detailed in Private Eye.

In the same week, Wigan council has barred all its workers from using the Internet, which is equally interfering, and a pain in the arse for all concerned. Again, to my mind so long as the internet use doesn’t interfere with everyday work, and is used sensibly (as opposed to looking for porn, downloading music, or *cough* blogging ) then who cares?

I simply don’t understand this nannying “we know what’s best” attitude, particularly when combined with a Big-Brother-esque surveillance of all employees, as with Lancaster council.