Update

So, some random things since the last update:

-       Photography. Yes, I eventually put a film in the ‘Super. Three so far, actually. The first back was B&W, and a bit of a disaster. Yes, the focusing issues are as bad as expected. Almost as bad to be unusable, or so it seemed. Today however, the Kodachrome slides came back, and they look beautiful. Tomorrow lunchtime I’m off in search of somewhere to scan them in, so we can see what they really look like…

-       Writing. Hasn’t really happened in Chichester. But my good friend Jacky did persuade me to join NaNoWriMo. Thus far it has been a random, inconsistent brain dump, and nothing much has happened since the weekend. But there is the (slim) chance that I may continue, and the (very, very remote) chance that something usable/readable will come out of it.

-       Driving. Yes, after 11 years, I have got back behind the wheel, and have started driving lessons again. My instructor says that I “know how to drive, just need practice on the details”, which might be encouraging, or may just be flattery. Either way, I reckon I’ve had more varied experience in the last two lessons than I had in 6 months of driving all those years ago. Plus the guys a geezer, which helps!

-       Work. The website is up, and I’m now into the amorphous second part of the job. Which I’m unsure of. Am currently thinking about the possibility of setting myself up as a freelance copy/web writer/editor. Anyone out there in need of those services who would be willing to encourage me in that regard?

-       Chi. Is a mixed bag. I’m loving being out of London, and it’s a nice town, but I know no-one here. I have a social life that consists of being in my room every night, and escaping on the weekends. Not sustainable in the long run.

-       Weddings. I have invites to The weddings of 2009 and 2010. I am overjoyed! (especially as the 2010 one will involve a road trip through the States)

-       Shooting. I have discovered Quake Live. And everything else is suffering…

Oh, and I’m disappointed in the lack of engagement with my last post. I commented too! Common guys! Get with the programme…

Quote

I’ve just finished Terry Pratchett’s latest Unseen Academicals. Not his best, but rather engaging and very funny in places. A welcome return to Discworld after the slight distraction that was Nation.

This isn’t a post about wizards and football (the “subject” of the book) though. Among the moments of humour, telling comment on modern times, the human condition and some downright hilarity a single paragraph punched me squarely between the eyes. I thought I’d share it with you:

“The Patrician took a sip of his beer. ‘I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect I never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the banks of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I’m sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature’s wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining on mother and children. And that’s when I first learned about evil. It is built into the nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.’”

Discuss.

Beauty in the Strangest Places

I haven’t posted anything totally inane here in a long while. I thought I should make up for that…

This, is a beautiful film; something I found completely captivating. It’s bullets hitting things, filmed at a million frames per second. Set to a cool European house soundtrack

I know that the subject might not sound worth watching to most my readers, but it is. The shapes and textures created are amazing; the affect of seeing so many, hypnotic. And it is definitely worth persevering with, as many of the most beautiful images are towards the end.

But, compared to most things I’ve written about lately, it is pretty pointless and inane.

Enjoy!

The saga of the camera

So, the other day I bought myself a birthday present. Well, technically a pre-birthday present. I went onto ebay, and purchased a camera.

I used to enjoy photography, as a kid. Throughout my preteens and teens, I regularly had a camera nearby, and enjoyed the process of photography: framing the scene, judging the composition, taking the subject unawares. As I got older, it fell away as an activity. Cost was an issue, but so was interest in other things.

If I’m honest, I don’t really know why I stopped. I know there was some dissatisfaction with the process, some product envy. Compact cameras were in; digital was beginning to be a real possibility; autofocus SLRs were the big thing. I had an old, early Minolta autofocus which didn’t do what I wanted. Plus it held my hands too much, and I began to be lazy…

I dunno. Maybe I just wanted to have the shiny new toy. I’ve always been too much of a sucker for advertising. I wanted a shiny Cannon or Nikon SLR, with the zoom lenses that now seem so common, but were then so new. My camera didn’t have spot metering, or five-point autofocus, or a zoom lens. My camera wasn’t good enough; a compact wasn’t (and still isn’t) good enough. I was suckered – sold on the feel and the lifestyle and the act of seeing through the lens. When I went to University, I didn’t take my Minolta with me.

During my time in London, it only got worse. Digital SLRs came onto the scene. But instead of being £100 out of my price range, these were £500, or £1000 more than I could afford. So, as usual, I lusted from the sidelines and stopped thinking about it. On occasion I would borrow a friends SLR or compact, for a party or a trip or just to play, but most of the time I lived vicariously through the photos of other people, and became one of those people who don’t take pictures.

But there has always been a part of me that remembers, thinks back. That wants to be Amelie with the Polaroid, or Ansel Adams on the mountain top. That wants to be capturing and creating something beautiful with the turn of a bezel and the press of a button.

While I was at l’Abri I met many wonderful people, including several photographers. Mary Frances and Kari with their amazing candid shots of people, capturing the characters so well. Marcie with her resurrected old cameras, lovingly crafting every single shot, not knowing if any would work. Julia with her Polaroids, little off-colour frames of wonder. Phil, with the old manual SLR, creating incredibly evocative black & whites…

They were all so inspiring. As we left and went on our separate ways, that inspiration stirred a hunger in me. A desire to get out there and try again, to see if I could create something as beautiful as those images I’d seen…

Then my good, wonderful friend Anna picked up her dad’s old camera and had a go. With the same inspiration as me, with the beautiful and quirky town of Portland to explore, she stepped out and went to see what would happen. Well, some really great black and white shots happened, that became gifts and surprises, sent in the post to friends around the world.

If Anna could do it, why couldn’t I? So I picked up my dad’s old camera and…

Found that it had no batteries.

A quick trip to a camera shop revealed that the battery compartment was corroded, and that new batteries would not help. In this old camera, no battery meant no meter, and more importantly, no shutter. It was dead. My first attempt to get back in the game had been a failure.

That was back in May. For most of my summer in Birmingham, I was living with the intention, the hope, that very soon – maybe the next week – I would get a job and be moving. I wasn’t planning to stay around. Maybe next week I’ll move to London. In London there are second-hand camera shops and market stalls; I can find something there… So I waited, and put off the idea for a while.

But a germ of a thought had been planted, which was to find a body that could take the lenses from my dad’s camera. Over time, with a bit of occasional internet searching, I settled on the Pentax ME Super. It was a great little camera in its day, fondly remembered. They were popular, and well made. There are lots of them out there…

Come September, and I’ve decided I’ll go for it. It’s my birthday – I can treat myself. I bid on ebay for a couple of items and, as always, pay a little too much for a camera of un-guaranteed quality. It arrives the day before I pack to go to Chichester to start my new life.

Open the package. Hold it. Feel the weight. Press the buttons, turn the knobs. Open the door, examine the mechanisms, the seals, all the details. That nervous anticipation – the delight of having a new toy, mixed with the fear of whether or not it is a good buy. Will I be happy or will I regret?

There was no cap covering the mirror box, and the insides are very dirty. I try and clean inside with the cleaning cloth for my Mac, but the foam seal at the front edge disintegrates and some of the residue ends up on the focus screen. Or was it already there? I don’t know…

I find a small airbrush and a lens cloth in my dad’s camera bag. I remove the dust and dirt from the film chamber, and the remaining dust from the mirror box. I try and clean the focus screen with the lens cloth, but all that happens is it spreads the residue around.

Putting on one of my dad’s lenses and looking through, it’s all a little blurry, but it basically works. I’m not happy though. The camera wasn’t expensive, but it’s still the most expensive ‘new’ thing I’d bought in a while. And I’m not sure if it will do what I want it to do…

I pack the camera, the lenses, the yet-unused film into my bag, along with everything else, ready for the trip south. It waits there until I am in my current abode, when I put it into a draw. Safe. Out of sight.

I don’t know what to do. The light is beautiful; Chichester is gorgeous. I want to get out and explore, to take pictures, but there is much trepidation. I haven’t taken pictures in a long time. I’m not sure I remember all the rules about aperture and shutter speed and focal lengths… And I want to get it right. I don’t want to waste precious film.

I take the camera out of the draw a few times. Put a lens on, look through, play at changing the controls. Get confused by the manual film advance. Man! I haven’t used one of these in years! There’s no film in yet, and as I look through the viewfinder, I’m bothered by that smudged screen. Very bothered. The camera goes back in the draw.

As I explore the town, I find a couple of camera shops. The first one I go into (without the camera) is very helpful. He identifies the problem right away (the disintegrating foam), and says that it might be permanent damage. “The only thing you could try, is to clean it with a fluid that will dissolve the glue. You could try isopropyl alcohol. You can get it from a chemists…”

I thank the man, go to the chemists. They have it, but the bottle is huge. I only need a few drops. I leave it.

The next week I go to the other camera shop and ask them about it. I take the camera with me. They look at it, examine it, look through it. Consult among themselves. Say that there is nothing that can be done. “It’s permanent damage. But you can still see through it; you can still use it.”

I’m annoyed. I want my camera to work. I’ve been thinking of doing this, of following Anna’s example, for months.

So I do something foolish. I believe the guy in the first shop. I go back to the chemists and buy the big bottle of isopropyl alcohol. And a pipette, and cotton buds. A 500ml bottle for maybe 5ml worth of work. Seems ridiculous, but I want my camera to work!

I go home and try. The first couple of applications I brush against the seal and make the situation worse. So I try again, apply more.

Every application seems to be making things worse. But I keep going. Fool.

Now that the dust has settled, the residue evaporated, the “tools” put away, I can see the results. I have cleaned up the glue residue. But I have also stripped away the top layer of the focus screen. The two segments in the middle of the screen that actually let you focus are broken. You can’t see them move properly. And the rest of the screen is… well, it’s less blurred, but not by much…

I’m now left with a camera which may be impossible to focus accurately. It will take pictures, but in all likelihood it will take pictures that are slightly out of focus, unless I am very lucky. Not exactly my dream of crisp, clear, artistic shots.

I go back to the (second) camera shop. The focus screen could be replaced, but it will cost me nearly twice what I paid for the camera. Best bet? Go back to ebay and see if I can get another, in better condition this time.

I still haven’t put film in the camera yet. I haven’t fired a shot. I don’t know if I should. Do I risk it and see what happens – join in with Marcie’s spirit of photographic adventure? Or do I trawl the marketplaces and second-hand shops for an alternative body? Or do I wait until I have a little more saved up and buy the DSLR I’ve always wanted?

Will the saga continue? I just don’t know right now…

30

I’m now 30. I have lived on this celestial orb a total of three decades, or thirty entire orbits around the sun. That’s a total of 17.5 billion miles. A long journey, I’m sure you’ll agree.

At this point, you can’t help but take stock somewhat. Some might call me old, others a young wee scrap of a thing. But while there might be dispute, on the basis of perspective, there are some things that we can say…

At 30, I am somewhere between a third and halfway through my life. Current UK male life expectancy is 77.46 years (at birth), but fully 51% of UK males live past their 80^th birthday. So, if I’m lucky I have more time ahead of me than behind, but not so much that I can’t take stock.

But in saying all that, I shouldn’t get too depressed. Because although more than a third of my life is already over, I am barely begun on my working life. I have been working for nearly 7 years (since leaving university – I did have jobs before that), but I can be fully expected to have to work until I am 70 (the pensionable age will rise – but the argument proving this is for another post). So thus far I have worked my way through 7 years of a 47-year working life, or less than 15%. So, when I get depressed on my scrappy CV or my lack of a “career” at the age of 30, I should remember that I am barely begun on my working life: there is plenty of time ahead to achieve (or not).

In the last 3 decades I have had 4 – 6 girlfriends (depending on how you count). I have only kissed 7 women (as far as my recollections go, at 10pm after 1/3 of a bottle of wine). I have no children, and I am single again. But, male fertility lasts well past their 50s, so I have time…

This is a scrappy post, not quite as eloquent as I would have hoped. I guess I wanted to take stock somewhat, and I think the best way to do that is with some figures. It would be easy to say that I haven’t achieved very much, thus far. I have dreams, but I have not seen them realised. I have no “career” as such, and thus far my romantic life has been a series of minor (and a couple of major) disasters.

But the time ahead is greater than the times behind. And, although the clock is counting down, it is not counting me out. Yet. I still have time to dream. I have maybe 4 more decades to read what I want to read, write what I want to write, find people to love, find people to build with. Yes, by the standards of generations past, I am not doing too well. I have no land, no family, no obvious career path. But by the standards of my generation, I think I’m doing ok. And there is plenty of time ahead.

Plus, I have an advantage. I’m thinking about this now. I may not know the plan, but I am no longer drifting. I am thinking about the future, and I am not daunted by it. There are maybe another 30 billion miles to go. That’s a long way. And I’m looking forward to them…

[Figures from Wolfram Alpha. Have a play…]

Transition

I have been living out of a suitcase for over a year now. Back in August 2008 I packed up my life into (not so) little boxes, and put it into storage. Since then the accoutrements of my life have been reduced to what I can carry. Over the course of the year that core amount of clothing and belongings has been pared down again and again as a suit has been left here, or a coat there, or a bag of books there. I am now travelling with my laptop and a trolley-bag of clothes and precious little else: and those clothes are perhaps a third of all I own.

Last week I packed up my life once more, made the decisions to take this but not that and jumped on a train, ready to start a new job. The first three nights I benefited from the generosity of a colleague who put me up in Portsmouth, and now I am in the spare room of some Chichester church leaders who happen to be related to the company’s founder. I have unpacked.

Only I haven’t, and I don’t know when I will be able to. The vast majority of my stuff is still in an East London storage unit, or in the houses of various friends scattered across London. I can’t unpack that stuff here because I am merely a lodger. Even if I find a room here which I can call my own… My contract in Chi (as the locals call it) is for three months. Can I really transport all my stuff down here for such a small amount of time?

If you haven’t guessed, I am feeling rather small and lost and homeless at the moment. I haven’t had a sense of home since I left l’Abri, and even that was transitory, temporary – full of the knowledge that “real” life existed outside it’s walls. In reality I haven’t felt a sense of home since Andrea left. Perhaps even since before we were married, since our “home” life together was such a disaster.

Every time I think about those boxes a bits of furniture I get down. Because it represents a snapshot of my life from years ago, when I was a different person: The Christian books, some of which I actually read. The furniture bought to make a new home with my new wife. The many wedding gifts, bought by friends to bless us in our new life. Even the clothes, purchased for a job I no longer have, which I would never wear unless I had to.

I have these two, strong, conflicting emotions within me when I think about all this. One is the yearning for home, for a place of my own. The desire to be able to unpack and settle and say, “this is my space, where I belong, where I am known and can be”. That yearning wants to get the stuff out of storage ASAP, and into a space that is mine.

The second is a desire to burn it all; to build a huge pyre in front of Bow Big Yellow Storage and set light to it all with petrol. To say that “this was me but no longer. I have moved on”. Or perhaps to bury my head under my pillow and forget it all.

***

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how permanent a home to try an make here, in a new town where I know no-one, in a job which may well not work out and has little guarantees of the future. At some point I need to deal with the sequestered remains of my former life, but I don’t really know how.

I don’t want to be a lodger, a houseguest, for three months. I don’t want that permanent feeling of having invaded, of having to tiptoe around people and apologise for your very existence. But then how realistic (or even desirable) is it to move into a new place only to have to move again at Christmas?

You can see my dilemma, I’m sure.

And alongside all of this, running deep down is that dreadful undercurrent, that feeling of loneliness, of homelessness. I have lost my sense of belonging: of belonging to a person, to a faith, to a community. Some deep part of me is terrified that I have forever lost that sense of home, and am doomed to haunt this earth like a spectre, permanently detached from the best of reality. A ghostly remnant of a life now dead.

The future is an undiscovered country; we have no idea what is around the corner. Did I ever expect to be moving to a little slice of middle England to work in the jewellery trade? No. But the fortuity of this move is hidden in the mists ahead; I have no idea what the future holds, or even how to discern the best way to move into it.

All this is to say that transition sucks! I am fed up of feeling like a plate in a conjurer’s trick, being spun wildly in the air not knowing when or where I will land (and in what condition). Can we get to the end of this please?

Last Night

Saturday was my mum’s birthday. It was also the date of one of the greatest uniting examples of Britishness: the Last Night of the Proms.

For the uninitiated, the Proms are a summer-long series of public concerts, run by the BBC at the Royal Albert Hall. They have run each year since 1895, and are designed to bring classical music to the masses. The Last Night of the Proms is a British cultural institution. But more than that, it is quite wonderful.

The Last Night has traditionally had a rather fixed programme. Or rather, the first half changes every year, but the second half is an almost-set programme of British patriotic music. In the last couple of years the programmers have played with the format somewhat, but despite the (truly deplorable) absence of Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs, we still have a wonderful set that includes: Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No 1 (ending with the singing of Land of Hope and Glory); Thomas Arne’s Rule, Britannia; and Parry’s Jerusalem.

Lets be clear: this is a programme of ‘classical’ music of the Victorian period, and comprises the singing of some of the most jingoistic verses in support of the greatness of the British Empire. Yet what makes the Last Night so wonderful is that the hall is full of people from all over the world, waving their national flags. Despite the words sung, the effect is the most open and inclusive display of harmony you could imagine. It is, in reality, the whole world joining together and irreverently celebrating what used to make this country great.

You can’t help but watch this (and millions of people around the world do) and be happy. It really is an uplifting experience. And it is a wonderful reflection of our national character. We were great; we did rule the waves (and the world). We don’t any more – we don’t even aspire to – but the British remember that once, longer ago than anyone alive can remember, we ruled the world. The wonderful thing is that we, and millions of others in other nations, can celebrate this fact together, and somehow share in that faded glory.

It’s giving me a warm glow just thinking about it [or is that the G&T?].

There is a sort of pessimism amongst the British about Britain and its current achievements. Some of that is undoubtedly deserved – our political class have not quite woken up to the reality that we are a once great power, rather than a great one – but I think on occasion we do ourselves down. The Olympics is a great example. There is a pessimism about our ability to deliver: can we build it on time; what will be the legacy; what on earth will we celebrate at an opening or closing ceremony?

Well, on the last point, I think we don’t have to worry too much. Yes, we built the huge white elephant that was the Millennium Dome. But we also run the Proms. And, as far as an inclusive celebration of Britishness goes, I think we could do far worse than repeat the format of the Last Night. Just imagine, the closing ceremony 2012. All the medal winners standing together, waving their national flags. Singing Land of Hope and Glory.

That’d work, wouldn’t it?

12 Months

I have been out of work for over a year now. True, I’ve not been looking or wanting to work for a good period of that time, but my last pay check was mid-August 2008, and my last day at work was at the end of that month.

Twelve months is a long time away from work, and after a while that length of time really distorts your thinking towards the whole subject. A friend was reminding me last night of how on returning from l’Abri at the beginning of May I was talking mostly about lifestyle as the number one priority. The type of daily life  – the pace, the ecology and morality, the community  – was far more important than what work I did. On these pages I blogged about living in the country, about getting a dog…

Yet, in time, your focus shifts. You get consumed by the process of applying for work; of judging between jobs, and being judged re your abilities. For me, that meant very quickly being consumed by questions of hours, remuneration, time, location… Each job is judged by internal questions: is it better or worse than my last post? Does it pay more? Greater or lesser responsibility? A move up the career ladder, or a sideways step?

Last week, I had my first interview, for the 30th position I’d applied for. In many ways it ticked all the boxes. It was a job at my old workplace, so I knew the team and the environment. It was a definite career move; more responsibility, great experience for the CV. It paid (a lot) more than anything I’d done before. All good.

Only I didn’t get it.

For the last month or so, I’ve been in conversation with a small company in Chichester about a possible role. A semi-rural market town. A small team doing varied work. Easy access to the country.  There hasn’t been a clear job description, or an obvious application process to go through. Talk of pay has been hazy, right up to the last minute.

The contrast has been pretty clear, really. A career choice, and a lifestyle choice. One plugs me rapidly back into the high-pressure, fast-paced life of London. The other takes a step outside of that, and explores a new beginning in a new location; close to the country and close to the sea. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, the one possibility has largely prejudiced me against the other. The prospect of moving outside of London, away from existing friends, to a completely new place, to do a job which pays a good £10k less than the one I was interviewed for last week… Lets just say that I haven’t been exactly enthusiastic.

On reflection though, over the last couple of days, I have begun to rethink my perspective. Since when has money been a motivator for me? Yes, I want to be rewarded for the work that I do, but this isn’t exactly a return to the poverty of working for CGC. And there is a reason for the London Weighting. The South East isn’t as cheap as Birmingham, but it isn’t as costly as the East End, either.

Plus, there is the issue of quality of life. There is a reason why that phrase was on my lips so much after returning from l’Abri. Slowing down, taking stock, building a rhythm of life that included time to breathe… Life at the Manor House was a revelation, especially in contrast to the metropolitan rat race. And a good quality of life, with good people and a slower pace… That is more important to me than money.

I’m not really career focused either. Faced with countless job adverts, you have to find a way of choosing between them, but I didn’t come back from my sabbatical with a burning desire to progress my career in the charity sector. Yes, long term I want to do something different. But as yet, I don’t know what (currently I’m stuck on trying to work out if writing and directing films is a remotely feasible possibility – and as I am only halfway through my first script, I think that question is going to be unanswered for a while). So a job is, as has been suggested before, primarily an income and a set of possibilities and opportunities. It is a better step forward than living at home with my parents, moping and fantasising about unachievable ideals.

All this is to say that my perspective has shifted over the last few days. I have decided to try and stop examining the dental work of the equine gift in front of me. The company is small, ambitious, worthy. Ethical. Enthusiastic. They’ve worked hard to change their perspective on this role in order to accommodate me; they have pursued me, to a degree, and I am honoured and grateful for that.

I’ve only been to Chichester once. I don’t know anyone there. I have no idea where I will live, who I will meet. It is a scary, nay terrifying, prospect. But it is also pregnant with possibility.

After a year out of work, after four long months of looking for employment, I am eager to get going. I want to work, as much as anyone does. I don’t know what this will pan out like, but for the next three months at least I’m heading south.

Wish me luck…

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is free. Causing a bit of a controversy, that. The one man convicted of Britain’s worse terrorist incident, the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, has been freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish authorities. And pretty much everybody is complaining about it.

I’ve taken a bit of a break from blogging on political issues in the last year or so. There have been many significant political events and controversies over the last twelve months, but I’ve bit my tongue and held my silence. Perhaps I should do that in this case too, or perhaps I’m ready to reengage with my former, ranting, self. Who knows; but I’m diving in here…

As far as I can work it out, the political decision was based on a recommendation by the judicial authorities, by the court and the parole board. There were also some representations from the police about the cost of necessary policing, were Megrahi released into Scotland instead of to Libya. The controversy? The controversy seems to be that the Scottish Justice secretary followed the advice given, and went with the recommendations of the parole board, and granted a compassionate release, because Megrahi is dying of cancer.

The Americans, especially, are rather pissed off. This tends to happen, in cases like this. As far as I can work out, America has a different understanding of “justice” than we do. In that they seem to replace the word with “vengeance” in most cases.

As I’ve said in the past, vengeance and justice are not the same things. It is not legitimate to kill terrorists, because they have killed people. It is not legitimate to deny compassion to a prisoner that we believe did not give compassion to others. The point of the law is to remove the natural desire for retribution, by providing a fair, impartial judgement and handing down a statutory sentence. It is fair because it is impartial and it is impersonal. The decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, and the feelings of the victims, or of the general public, are essentially irrelevant.

If a public minister, such as Kenny MacAskill, changes an impartial decision of justice because of the emotive feelings of the general public (or the equally emotive desires of a foreign government) it fundamentally changes the nature of the justice system. It can’t happen. If it did happen, it would be very, very wrong.

Of course we are appalled by the Lockerbie bombing. Of course we wish the perpetrator brought to justice. We may even feel, very naturally and understandably, a wish for some form of vengeance.

Questions over Megrahi’s guilt aside, there has been justice here: there has been a trial, a conviction and a sentence, a large part of which has been served. Perhaps Megrahi should have died in prison, but compassionate release, on medical grounds, is a right afforded to every prisoner under Scottish law, provided they meet the relevant conditions. Obviously, Megrahi did. To not grant him the release that is his by right, would be fundamentally unjust.

So, the American’s can go whine. I don’t care. Perhaps MacAskill can buy Clinton a dictionary, and helpfully flag the word Justice for her. It is the UK politicians I am appalled by, who seem to have decided, almost unanimously, that the opinions of the Sun and the Daily Mail are more important than actual justice. To them, I have two words:

Grow up.

Rant

The new Mac operating system, Mac OS X 10.6 (aka “Snow Leopard”) is out this month. The upgrade price, a very reasonable $29, or £25. Not bad.

So why the rant? Because $29 ≠ £25. $29 = £17.60. Why the hell does Apple *always* insist on ripping off it’s UK customers? It does not cost 60% more to print a DVD in the UK, or to ship one. And VAT would not make up anything like that amount. It’s bl**dy ridiculous

/end rant