Longrider

Railtex is on at the Exhibition Centre in Birmingham this week.

If you’re there, why not stop by at the Nexus Training stand and say hello.
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The Bagel Virus is doing the rounds again according to the BBC. Usual indications are an email containing the subject line:

Re;
Re: Hello
Re: Hi
Re: Thank you!
Re: Thanks

If it does infect your system, it will harvest the email addresses in your contacts list and send out copies of itself to them. It will also try and shut down your firewall.
If you get any of these, don’t open them and delete immediately.

Better still, defend yourself and make sure they don’t get into your in-box in the first place. Get a good anti-virus program and keep it up-to-date. I also recommend an aggressive mail filter. I Use Mailwasher pro from FireTrust. This has a number of facilities that enable you to stop damaging email and SPAM from getting onto your machine. A caveat here - it has a well advertised "bounce" facility. Turn this off as all you will be doing is bouncing the SPAM to an innocent party as the return address on SPAMs and viruses are invariably forged.
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According to a recent study reported by the BBC, cats suffer stress. Common causes are rivalry with other cats and additions to the family.

Uh, oh, we have ten of them and Ahmose was recently introduced to the tribe. There’s been a deal of pecking order sorting going on. Should we get in a stress counsellor?
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Last night the clocks went back to GMT. This is for me a depressing time of the year. The leaves have mostly fallen from the trees and the branches are stark against the grey skyline. Now the dusk will be with us from around four in the afternoon. Now is the long dark teatime of the soul (apologies to Douglas Adams). Now starts the slog through the awfulness of winter until the spring starts to make itself known in early March.

I was born to feel the sun on my face. These northern climes with their extended winters, do nothing for me….
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The people over at RiderSite are having a go at the old trick or treat custom. It’s the usual complaint of course; one that Brits have been complaining about ever since this sordid little custom slurped its way across the Atlantic.

Hordes of children (often unaccompanied) knock on peoples’ doors demanding a treat or they will play a trick. I guess my problem with it is that this is extortion dressed up as a game. "Give me something or you will regret it". Is this behaviour we wish to endorse or encourage? Last year, the Police issued notices for people to put on their doors stating that the householder did not want to be disturbed. I don’t recall any indication of how successful this was, though.

The complainants are rightly making the point that hallowe’en is October 31^st, not the 29^th or 30^th, yet the little darlings are already starting their demands backed up with menaces - not that they see it that way. They see it as nothing more than a bit of fun.

I’m not sure that there’s an answer to this - people do all sorts of odd things in the name of traditions and customs and once ingrained into the culture they are notoriously difficult to eradicate. My own method of dealing with it is the same one I use for doorstep salesmen and proselytizers; I don’t answer the door.

Seems to work.
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According the to the New Nation newspaper, Jesus has been named the top black icon. Er, given that the stories from the New Testament are set in Judea, and he was supposed to be a jew, this stretches the imagination somewhat. Also, given that there is absolutely no historical evidence that Jesus ever existed, the idea that we should be arguing over what colour his skin was, is somewhat silly.

So, did Robin Hood have blue eyes, or what?
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According to a UGOV Poll for the Daily Telegraph, UK voters are prepared to give Tony Blair and New Labour the benefit of the doubt and return them to government for a third term. This, despite disquiet over Iraq. If the electorate do not consider Mr Blair trustworthy, it would seem that Michael Howard is considered even less trustworthy, wouldn’t it?

I have to say, that having experienced Mr Howard’s term in office as Home Secretary, the thought of him occupying Number Ten, sends shivers down my spine. It is likely that Mr Blair will return for no other reason than a lack of credible alternative. A state of affairs that has existed in one form or another since Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election.
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Yesterday, the High Court wiped out Tony and Michelle Meadows’ debt. And a good thing too. The idea that having paid five times the original loan they were being pursued for nearly £400,000 was outrageous.

However, no one should get their hopes up that this will mean an end to the sharp practice existent in the financial industry - this judgement applied to the technicalities of this case only.
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