Longrider

Slowly, surely, inexorably, the new puritanism is enveloping this country. Trawling its way through parliament is the egregious amendment to the criminal justice bill that will outlaw the possession of “violent” pornography. This terrible bill is the consequence of a terrible crime – and as such, is a terrible reason for it to be considered in the first place. As with the dangerous dogs act and the handgun legislation, we have bad law built rashly on the back of a tragedy.

Five years ago Jane Longhurst, a teacher from Brighton, was murdered. It later emerged her killer had been compulsively accessing websites such as Club Dead and Rape Action, which contained images of women being abused and violated.

So this man liked to watch violent porn. This does not mean that violent porn leads to violent acts. This is the facile thinking of the ban-it brigade, those who claim that porn leads to rape, that violent video games lead to violent behaviour. This is a non sequitur. People who are predisposed to behave badly may well want to watch videos and pictures of acts that turn them on. It does not mean that watching such material corrupts or depraves people to the point where they will carry out acts of violence against others purely as a consequence.

Under the new rules, criminal responsibility shifts from the producer - who is responsible under the OPA - to the consumer.

And where will this lead? Another operation ore is highly likely. This from Deborah Hyde of Backlash:

“How many tens or hundreds or thousands of people are going to be dragged into a police station, have their homes turned upside down, their computers stolen and their neighbours suspecting them of all sorts?

Such “victims” won’t feel able to fight the case and will take a caution, before there are enough test cases to prove that this law is unnecessary and unworkable”

Which is pretty much what happened with operation ore – innocent people had their lives and reputations destroyed by an obsessive, puritanical state set upon prosecuting scapegoats.

While I have sympathy for Jane Longhurst’s mother’s loss, I have no sympathy whatsoever for her nasty little campaign:

Speaking from her home in Berkshire, Mrs Longhurst acknowledges that libertarians see her as “a horrible killjoy”.

Ah, yes, the old “I’m jot a killjoy, but…” argument. Yes, Mrs Longhurst, you are a killjoy, because you want to subvert the law in order to impose your sensibilities on others.

“I’m not. I do not approve of this stuff but there is room for all sorts of different people. But anything which is going to cause damage to other people needs to be stopped.”

There being no evidence that watching pornography, violent or otherwise, causes such damage to others; it is not the place of the state – nor the victims of crime – to decree what people watch or read in the privacy of their own homes.

To those who fear the legislation might criminalise people who use violent pornography as a harmless sex aid, she responds with a blunt “hard luck”.

There you have it. Mrs Longhurst is now the arbiter – with the blessing of a puritanical state – of what you may or may not watch. Don’t like it? Hard luck is the reply. Mrs Longhurst is right and you are wrong. Hard luck, tough titty. That you are a consenting adult engaging in consensual activities, watching other consenting adults engaging in consensual activities is neither here nor there to Mrs Longhurst. She doesn’t like it, she doesn’t understand why you want to do or watch it, so, hard luck. What she says, goes. Get used to it. Your life is not your own. Mrs Longhurst will tell you what is okay or not.

“There is no reason for this stuff. I can’t see why people need to see it. People say what about our human rights but where are Jane’s human rights?”

Which just goes to demonstrate how catastrophically ignorant this woman is. Her daughter was murdered by a violent criminal – this has nothing to do with the matter of human rights or freedom of speech and expression. Mrs Longhurst is confusing negative and positive liberty. In restricting the liberty to read and watch what we like, Mrs longhurst will not prevent another tragedy of the type that befell her daughter. Those who are predisposed to murder, will do so. Meanwhile, innocent people will suffer the consequences of bad law because Mrs Longhurst went on a vengeance trip enabled by people like David Blunkett.

I put the Longrider abode on the market a little over a month ago. Realising that this was probably the all-time worst possible time to do so, I went ahead anyway. Hopefully we will be moving sometime in the summer, but the world will not come to an end if we don’t. I’ve asked a price that reflects the investment in time and money that we have made and it is in the middle of the price band for the type of house.

Of course, it is true that value is determined by what someone will pay – but this is a two way street – it is determined ultimately by what I agree to sell it for. I’ve done the maths. To clear our mortgage in the UK and half of the mortgage in France, leaving some fall-back capital should my self-employment hit another lean patch, then I need to get the price I’m asking or within a couple of grand.

If that is too high for potential buyers, well, we will sit tight. There is no hurry. So, should anyone be using the current state of the market to try and negotiate a big discount – or, worse, gazunder us – they will receive short shrift. The house goes at a price that I agree and not a penny less.

That rant aside, I’ve decided to try selling privately. I figured I’d give it until the end of April and then reconsider the possibility of placing it with an agent. I will probably seek out an agent as it turns out – a couple of viewings with no outcome so far. However, what pissed me off was an agent touting for work on the basis of my Internet ad. Now, I didn’t put that ad up so that someone could sell me something, I put it up so that I could sell my property. Mildly irritated, Mrs Longrider told them that we may, possibly, be looking for an agent at the end of April.

At the end of March, they called again. I reminded the caller that this was the end of March and I might consider an agent at the end of April. He did try to convince me that Mrs Longrider told him the end of March, but that one didn’t float.

Yesterday he called again. Now, to my thinking, the end of April comes around the 30^th – not the 22^nd of the month. Mrs Longrider politely told him to sling his hook.

There was a point where he might have convinced us – if he had listened to what we said and called back at the end of April. As it is, nagging us had the opposite effect to that desired. Let’s put it this way, when I am looking for an agent in a week or so’s time, that agency will not be on the list.

Hard selling comes with a risk; that you piss off the potential customer to the point where they will avoid you like the plague. This gentleman overplayed his hand. A little patience would have paid off. Nagging us lost him his sale.

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Update: A chancer knocked on the door yesterday evening and asked Mrs Longrider if she would accept an offer close to £30K below the asking price. I realise that the market is in difficulty, but that is taking the piss. The response was short and to the point.

This time of the year sees the sudden burst of life in the garden and greenhouse. My cacti have started to flower once more. Rebutia are a particular favourite of mine with their abundance of delicate flowers ranging from bright reds, pinks and yellow. They will continue to give a fine show throughout the summer months. This one is rebutia karuisiana.

Via Freeborn John, yet another staggering intrusion by the state into our private lives:

More than 500,000 people a year are to be questioned about their sex lives and salaries by Government inspectors, it has emerged.

Sigh… The bastards want to know the ins and outs of everything. Is nothing sacred?

Officials will ask for information about former sexual partners, contraception and how long couples have lived together before getting married.

The 2,000-question survey, which will be carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has prompted fears of further data security breaches as both names and addresses will be logged by inspectors.

The thought that went through my mind was echoed by Juliam commenting on FBJ’s piece:

…what happens of every one of those selected 500,000 people simply tells the researcher to fuck off…?

Should any inspectors be knocking on the door of the Longrider abode, that is exactly the response they will get.

I refuse to blow a gasket… I refuse to blow a gasket… I…

LUL drivers are to protest about a new comedy film because it trivialises railway suicides:

Train drivers will stage a protest tonight at the premiere of a British comedy about suicides on the London Underground.

Members of Aslef will hand out leaflets when Three And Out, starring Mackenzie Crook, is shown at Leicester Square, London, this evening.

Crook plays a tube driver in search of a volunteer to commit suicide under his train so he can get compensation. Union members have criticised the subject material, saying that deaths on the railway are “never funny”.

I’m sorry, but haven’t they got something better to do?

No, deaths on the railway are not funny. That didn’t stop us cracking black jokes with the local BT Bobby while standing over the dismembered body of a young woman who had put her head on the line at Westbury some years back. We were waiting for the coroner’s office to send out a medical practitioner to declare the body pieces formally dead – we knew she was dead, but we were not experts, you see. When the doctor did turn up an hour or so later she tottered along the line to the scene, took a brief look and told us what we already knew – yup; dead. Including the bits the foxes made off with before we got there.

As I’ve helped recover the body parts from suicides, I concur with the view that there is nothing funny about it (despite my facetious tone in the previous paragraph). But… But… Writers and performers will always try to push the envelope of acceptable source material. Sometimes it is funny and it works. Sometimes it is plain distasteful. Why not let the viewing public be the judge?

Do I want to watch this film? Nope. Do I plan to protest about it? Nope.

Keith Norman of Aslef thinks that it shouldn’t go unremarked:

I don’t want Aslef to look like some sort of kill-joy organisation, because we’re not,

I’m afraid that’s exactly how you come across – and as stated, I have personal first hand experience in the matter.

but there are issues which we shouldn’t ignore - and this is one of them. I want the public to be aware of how distressing it can be for a driver to discover a body under the wheels of his or her train.

Maybe you should trust them to be able to tell the difference between a piece of fiction and reality?

Of course, as is often the case, someone comments on the article and in so doing displays that they are have qualified with honours from the university of cretinry. In this case, gil from Bristol:

I have read that once a train driver has killed a person he is never able to return to his job because it has so unnerved him. This film should be banned. I have every sympathy with train drivers over this stupid film.

No, gil, some drivers become so distressed that they cannot carry on driving. And, no, it should not be banned, you fucking ignorant little control freak.

Despite efforts to forestall an impending revolt, it looks as though Brown is in serious trouble. So much so, that Miliband is reminding the troops that it could cost them the election when it comes. To which I can only say; keep up the good work. Not that I have confidence in the Tories’ ability to bring about competent government either, it’s just that they are marginally less awful than the current administration. There’s a fag paper in it, but that fag paper is enough justification – at least we will see if they keep their promise to repeal the Identity Cards Act 2006. That, alone, would be worth it.

While his more than well deserved all time low approval ratings are entirely his own fault, the cyclopean premier remains in denial and looks to the media for a scapegoat, as Martin Ivens notes in the Times today.

The age of deference is dead. If our masters needed further proof, then the unprecedented collapse of Gordon Brown’s approval ratings has provided it.

Quite right, too. Politicians are self-serving, snouts-in-the-trough, lying, pernicious jackanapes who treat the electorate with disdain. Why on earth should we treat these people with deference? I – and it seems I am not alone – treat them with well deserved contempt; for the nasty, thieving bastards that they are.

The prime minister’s election-that-never-was and his handling of Northern Rock were certainly clumsy. Yet John Major didn’t receive as vicious a drubbing for his much worse “crime” of presiding over the pound’s humiliating expulsion from the European exchange-rate mechanism in 1992. Brown blames the “feral beasts of the media” as Tony Blair called us in his farewell speech. The rebellion over the abolition of the 10p tax band is apparently all our fault, too.

This is the Neil Harding trick. It’s all Murdoch’s fault. Now, I certainly don’t hold a torch for Rupert Murdoch and I definitely don’t hold one for journalists, whom I hold in almost as much contempt as I do politicians; but for crying out loud, the problems that Brown and his cohorts are suffering are entirely their own doing. The media didn’t decide to make poor people poorer by removing the 10p tax band, the media are not responsible for the shambolic mismanagement of the Northern Rock collapse, the media are not responsible for the collapse of the pound against other currencies, the media did not systematically mismanage the economy over the past decade, and the media did not erode our civil liberties  – that was the Labour party and if the country censures them for it, then they can only blame themselves. Not that the arrogant cowards will, they have not the slightest understanding of the concept of taking responsibility for their actions.

There has been a sea change in opinion. A young John Simpson of the BBC got a left hook from Harold Wilson, the then prime minister, 38 years ago for daring to ask him the date of the election. Ever since that encounter, journalists have given up pleading: “Have you anything else you would like to tell the country, prime minister?” Now, after years of spin, the public has become a feral beast, too. Voters won’t tug their forelocks to prime ministers, either. That’s democracy for you.

As a sea change, it’s the right one in the right direction. We employ politicians, not the other way around, there is no reason whatsoever why we should look upon them as our betters or even our rulers. They are our servants. If there’s any forelock tugging to be done, they should be deferring to us.

It follows that politicians who come demanding more money had better watch out for the voters’ left hook instead. Taxpayers know that government wastes bank vaults of their money although the sums are too big to grasp…

Indeed so – and it is beginning to look as if the beast is awakening. Ivens goes on to mention the corrupt nature of politicians’ behaviour:

But when politicians exploit their housing allowances and put their sons on the parliamentary payroll, they really get it in the neck. People think there is little difference between a welfare cheat and an MP on the fiddle.

That’s because there isn’t one – apart from the welfare cheat feeling the full brunt of the law and the MP walking away from his “administrative error”. It is not just the fact that they lie, cheat and steal that places politicians beneath contempt; it is the sheer effrontery with which they expect to walk away scot-free from their behaviour that sticks in the craw.

So it’s not a good time for Labour to come cap in hand to the voters asking for a handout. Last week the prime minister had to tell his party’s debtors that they will get their money back later rather than sooner. The wells of loot are drying up in the wake of the cash for peerages and Labour deputy leadership scandals

Well, there are a few idiots around who still think they are worthy of support. The rest of us can see through them – and I notice in my daily travels that people are tired of the lies, of the shenanigans, of the self-serving venality, and of the contempt with which these evil slime-balls treat their employers. Brown can hold off an election until the last moment, but he has all the hallmarks of the John Major years about him; he’s a dead man walking and a humiliating and crippling defeat waits in the wings to serve judgement on a decade and a half of maladministration, lies, theft and titanic conceit.

If the Labour party goes bust, I for one, will not weep for the loss.

Simon Singh wades into chiropractors today in the Groan, arguing that the practice is dangerous and half of patients suffer side effects – possibly fatal ones.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

I can’t comment on his assertion that chiropractors claim to cure ailments unrelated to back pain as I do not have the relevant knowledge, so I’ll take his comment at face value. However, I can comment on chiropractic from the point of view as a patient.

Back in 1998, I was suffering from significant lower back and neck pain. I was also getting a migraine at least once every six to eight weeks or so. I suffer from a slight congenital curvature of the spine; inherited from my mother’s side of the family. My line manager at the time recommended that I see a chiropractor as he felt that it would benefit me.

Now, I am the world’s biggest sceptic on just about everything from God to global warming and everything in between. That said, I am open minded enough to check out the evidence. The chiropractor I saw was a McTimony practitioner. They are an offshoot of the main theme, using a more gentle method of manipulation.

Despite warnings that I would suffer the side effects that Simon Singh mentions:

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

I suffered no such discomfort. The chiropractor warned me that there may be some initial stiffness, but, no, nothing. Within a few weeks and three or four visits, my posture had noticeably improved and my lower back was no longer making me constantly aware of its presence. The neck pain eased, too. The neck manipulation had another side effect; migraine frequency dropped from one every few weeks to one or two a year.

More recently, I went to my GP with a painful knee. The GP could find nothing wrong, whereas the chiropractor noticed that my pelvis was slightly out of alignment. It was the chiropractor who cured my knee, not the GP.

So, on balance, I’ll stick with chiropractic. Unlike homoeopathy, there is evidence that it works. Like Singh, I don’t buy the “curing asthma” that he quotes in his article, but it has certainly eased my aches and pains. Sure, there’s a risk. There is a risk with any branch of medicine. You pays your money and you takes your chance. I suspect that Singh is overstating the risks somewhat.