The weather for Monday 3 April 2012

Dull, broken cloud, light wind, no rain. Min 5C Max 14C

1984; Warning over need for safeguards in email and web monitoring plan.

There is only one safeguard needed with regard to this unbelievably stupid idea.

Click here for your MP's email address.

Write to your MP and tell him if this legislation or anything even remotely resembling it becomes law then you will vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party at the next election. Get everyone you know to do the same.

There are three main reasons why you should do this;
One, if you are looking for a needle in a haystack it doesn't seem a sensible idea to make the haystack 10 million times bigger. Now that alone should be reason enough to stop this legislation dead in it's tracks but here are a few more because you know politicians can get awfully pig headed when you tell them one of their bright ideas is a contender for the "Worst idea any politician has come out with since Poll Tax".
So onto number two. There are no safeguards that can guarantee that all this data will be completely protected. The Pentagon recently were attacked by hackers, if The Pentagon can not keep data safe then what do you suppose are your chances of every email you have ever sent, every web page you have ever visited and every text message you receive and sent ending up on Wikileaks or somewhere similar.
The third reason this legislation mustn't get into law is sheer cost. Today I have received about 20 emails of which 16 were spam, I sent one text message but so far I have visited over 100 different web pages and I don't really spend that much time on my computer compared to some. But if for some reason my name did come up and the KGB (formally know as British Intelligence) or the Police decided they would like to see all my data then they would be able to read it, eventually. How far back in the queue would I be unless there is an army millions strong sitting in front of computers all day long reading the boring drivel that most of my data would be. The cost of this army and their computers, rent for office space, software to do all this snooping, extra police offices to interview everyone even slightly suspect and a small army physiatrists to keep the work force sane would put back our economic recovery to some where behind that of Greece.
I am sure there are issues of privacy involved so think about this, a load of data is leaked, lost or stolen and reprinted every day in the Daily Scum, Rupert Murdock's new best selling paper. OK when it's strangers or celebs, but what if you read that your best friend or a family member or work college was into kinky sex or was a train spotter or fancied sheep or had some other mildly interesting but not exactly illegal interest. How would you feel every time you spoke to this poor unfortunate sod. Or worse still it was you everyone was reading about.
Email your MP, but do it now before Big Brother gets set up and gets on your case.
ps If you have any lingering doubts then get down to the library, if it's still open and get a copy of 1984 by George Orwell.

pps

Weather Monday 02 Ap  Sunny, dry, slightly cool wind. Min 2C Max 14C

A day in Paignton, mostly

This is the new, just opened today, children's play park in Paignton. work started last August and it is cirtainly a hit. Thousands turned up, slight shame the weather wasn't as bright as it has been.

If your child gets fed up with the play park then right next door there are 5 donkeys just waiting to give some child a ride.

This shop in Torbay Rd is the only one I have seen so far to mention that HRH The Queen has been Queen for 60 yrs. Come on the rest of you shop keepers, make a bit of a show for Liz.

And the new Steam Train Station is now open. From here you can buy a ticket for an open top bus ride to Totnes, a trip down the River Dart to Dartmouth and a steam train ride back to Paignton.

 But if you end up in Torquay please try not to leave a mess on our flower gardens.

Today's temperatures
Max 13C
Min 8C
Dull, cloudy.

Day Out in Lyme Regis

Max 19C
Min 7C
Sunny
It was such a nice, sunny, warm day yesterday that I decided to have a day out and went, courtesy of my wonderful concessionary bus pass, to Lyme Regis. I never been there before and I had heard it was a small but very nice sea side resort with a big cob. Actually it's spelt with capital letters and two bs; The Cobb. It's a breakwater to protect the harbour and basically has been there for hundreds of years though the present structure dates from the mid 19th century. It's a pleasant walk out to the end, in good weather but Meryl Streep managed to get to the end of the Cobb in the film The French Lieutenant's Woman in bad weather so it can be done. It's nowhere as long as the breakwater in Brixham and I feel, a little local pride coming in here, that the views of Brixham are much better than Lyme Regis. You can fish at Brixham as well so if you are coming here and you like fishing then bring your tackle. Bring a camera in any case.
The trip from Torquay took about two and a half hours, first the X46 at 09:30 to Exeter, arrived at 10:32, then FirstBus Dorset X53 Jurassic CoastLynx which if you have the stamina will take you all the way to Poole. (About 5hours). It runs every 2 hours so make sure you don't miss the returning bus.
Also I went past a few petrol stations, everyone must have filled up already because though they were busy none had queues out into the road as was reported elsewhere yesterday. And DON'T even think about stockpiling petrol in plastic jerry cans. They are for emergency and short term use only.

Hot Weather, Cold Pasties.

Sunny, dry, Min 9C Max 20C

Max temperature in my back garden today was 20.5C which isn't bad for the end of March. It's nice but should we be worried that the weather is getting weirder. In other words is the rise in global temperature causing the climate to do strange, extreme things or is this just a nice start to the year. Has it rained recently where you live for instance? Should all those people who, according to the newspapers today, where buying jerry cans to stock pile petrol be filling them with water instead for the coming drought?
Actually, on my travels through The Bay today I went past 4 petrol stations. None of them had the vast queues of motorists desperate to buy petrol before the strike ( I should say possible strike) by the tanker drivers causes the pumps to run dry. This could be because of one of three possible reasons. One, people here in Torquay don't panic. Two, we'd sooner spend our money on Cornish pasties that have gone up by 20% for some strange reason or three, we're all too skint, coming from the unemployment capital of the UK, to buy petrol at 1.45 a litre. (£6.58 a gallon) Note; if your car does 40 miles per gallon it will now cost 1 pound to drive 6.07 miles.
Talking of pasties, I'm thinking of setting up a stall in Fleet Street out side one of the pasty shops. People can go and buy a cold take-away pasty, no VAT, and for a small fee I'll put it in a microwave oven and heat it up. I wonder how long it would take Mr Obscene, sorry Osborne to plug that lope hole. A lot quicker, I expect, than it will take him to plug even one tax avoidance scheme that keeps the filthy rich, well, filthy rich.

Wet, Windy, Desolate.

The Jet Stream has a lot to answer for. When it moves North in the summer it draws high pressure and stable weather to the British Isles. If it moves South for the summer we get low pressure and lots of rain and wind. It ain't moved North for this summer that's for sure. It is going to get better though. Just not exactly sure when but next Tuesday is an important day, it being St Swithin's Day (15 July). If you have never heard about St Swithen's Day then here goes, it is English folk lore that if it rains on St Swithins day then 40 days of rain will follow, if it is fine then we will have a good summer. Lets hope the Jet Stream moves North by Tuesday.

Couple got on the bus today and asked for two tickets to the Balloon stop. One of them asked what the stop was called. It's official name is Belgrave Road but with a 70 foot high white elephant, sorry, white balloon parked in the field across the road from it then Balloon Stop will do for me. I haven't been keeping count so far but the number of days the big white thing has made it into the air seems to be a lot less than the number of times it hasn't made it up, wind being the problem.

Wet and Windy

To day, as the BBC weather forecasters predicted was wet and very windy. Several trees came down, two of which ended up on the road way. The first fell out of Rock Walk which overlooks the front here in Torquay. It came down just missing two parked cars as it plunged to it's death at 7:00 am this morning blocking the road. Later out at Strawberry Bends on the way to Brixham another member of the arboreal fraternity also decided that enough was enough and ended it's days blocking the only road in the area big enough to take buses. The local council acted with remarkable speed and both roads were opened very quickly. Well done the council.

Double decker buses come under the category of high sided vehicle. High sided vehicles are often reported blown over on Motorways in the kind of winds we had to day. 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. It was also raining cats and dogs. It is very unlikely that a bus will be blown over due to the fact that most of the 11.5 tonne weight is low down. I have seen pictures of buses leaning over at 15 degrees without falling on their side. That doesn't stop them being blown about in high wind and we have a stretch of road on the way to Brixham known as Windy Corner and it certainly lived up to it's name to day. Not dangerous but you needed to concentrate.