Bassett’s Fruit Allsorts are top. Want one?.. ohh sorry, I appear to have eaten them all.
My Gran (85?) uses phone banking.
Ryder Cup heading destined for Europe?
Tag: Europe
bookmark_borderRadar O'Reilly
Transit of Venus, dying young, iTunes Music Store Europe?
And can anyone explain to me why spiders turn upside down when they die (of natural causes, not by being stood on obviously…). Do they, in their death throes suddenly leap onto their backs and curl up?
bookmark_borderAll quiet
Working at home has it’s advantages. I get oodles more done as there are no interruptions, impromptu meetings or random co-worker distractions (I’m as good/bad as anyone at all providing all of these mind you). Yet home working is still viewed with some scepticism.
Sure it means you can structure your day differently than a 9-to-5 day in the office but that does not mean that your productivity goes down.
For example, I will be working at home today. I will start around 8am. Take a break around 12noon and go out and do some light gardening for 45 mins or so. I’ll grab some lunch and work until Louise comes home at 6pm.
Add to that the 4 hours I’ve just done, and the few hours I’ll do over the weekend and what do you have? Well around 8 hours extra time worked at easily double the productivity. It’s not always like this mind you, it just so happens that I’m researching some new ideas and working practises and will be trying out some of the supporting technology. Just the thing to motivate an “idea implementor” like myself.
It also means that I’m not helping the stats that say we (in the UK) have the longest working hours in Europe, but for once I’m feeling good about the direction my team is heading in and I’m determined to make it happen.
Right, that’s enough about work, it’s 1.05am and I’m off to bed. Expect things to be quiet around here tomorrow today.
bookmark_borderSnoopy
Privacy International Media Release about the Snoopers Charter.
The what? you ask. Well whilst the government was keeping us all occupied with the ID Card proposal, it was pushing a new law through the House of Lords. This law will allow “The data — relating to who you phoned, who phoned you, mobile phone location, emails sent and received and websites visited — [to] be handed over on request to dozens of government agencies.”
There are two clauses that temper this slightly, although I doubt by much:
- “the oversight body must let people know when their privacy has been improperly invaded”
- “the government to report to Parliament the extent of overseas access to personal information stored by communications providers”
It has also been suggested that this law is illegal under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (now where are the people who say we won’t be governed by Europe? Will they allow it now?)
Just because they are out to get you, doesn’t mean you are paranoid.
bookmark_borderShopping
We seem to have spent most of the weekend (and most of our monthly budget) shopping. We’ve not ‘been away’ on holiday for several years and our wardrobes were in dire need of updating with some ‘holiday’ clothes, so we hit the shops yesterday at 9:15 a.m. and got home around 3pm.
Back out the door 30 minutes later for a “Odd beer and wine” evening at a friends house. Old Engine Oil, Sheepshagger and several eastern europe beers were quaffed resulting in a slightly thick head the next morning (and you don’t even wanna know about the other end!).
Today, our niece’s birthday (Happy Birthday Megan!), a quick visit to my parents who are in the midst of interrogating my Gran as they continue to try and complete the family tree, and then home to sort out the bags and bags of shopping we dumped in the spare bedroom when we got home the day before.
And all the while I’m thinking how I’ll tackle the Blogathon. A separate ‘blog’ probably, with a few themes, … still thinking …
bookmark_borderCalling all europhiles
Did you realise that, according to a journalist in the US of A, Europe still doesn’t get the Internet.
I won’t comment on the fact that… ohh bugger it, I will.. we do get the internet, in fact I have been accessing the internet since 1995. Did you mean, Mr. American Journalist, that Europe doesn’t ‘get’ the Internet.. as in we don’t understand it? I think you did, so how about you tidy up your ‘English’. Thanks.
Reading between the lines, it seems that we (Europe) should create a First Amendment (or borrow one from the USA). It also seems that we (Europe) are seen as one large ‘state’ by some people, whereas we (the UK) are still self-governing, and as it mentions in this article, we (the UK) don’t have a right to reply in place (neither does Ireland or Portugal). Do we need to offer one? Do we all need to add disclaimers to our websites? Is the availability of comments enough to consistute a right to reply arena anyway? (just to be prepared).
It was all a lot simpler back in 1995.