Nick Jordan

I didn’t mention it before I left, but I spent Easter visiting my father on the Isle of Man. A splendid and relaxing time was had and I feel much more like doing things now. I suspect that particular feeling won’t last too long, though.

What on earth is the matter with some people? I was waiting at a set of red traffic lights this morning, and a pedestrian stood by the side of the road all the time the lights were in her favour then, when they went green for the traffic to go, she ambled slowly across the road in front of us. Is it just me or is stupidity on the increase?

Apple has begun to tighten the DRM noose. Now that they’ve got plenty of people hooked on their already restrictive technology they’re beginning to decrease their freedom to listen to their music, for which they’ve paid, in the way that they want. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Apologies for the outage over the last couple of days. The database that this site uses was unavailable and it took my hosting company an age to sort out. I have plans to set up a backup database to switch to if the main one goes down again, which should help.

Comedian Dave Allen dies aged 68. I’m deeply saddened. My brother and I used to watch Dave Allen with our mother when we were kids, and all three of us would be absolutely creased up with laughter. He was never afraid to tackle controversial subjects, but always did so in a manner that showed his kind and compassionate nature. A true one-off, he’ll be missed.

English Heritage jousters seek glory. English Heritage are bringing back ‘proper’ jousting, complete with the authentic risk of maiming or death. For some reason, I’m rather pleased. I’ve met some of the loonies who get involved in re-enactment and I know how much they enjoy trying to hurt each other, so they’ll probably be delighted.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft says it very well in his piece for the Guardian arguing that the end does not justify the means and that the Prime Minister took the UK into a war based on a lie. Someone who does this does not deserve to lead their country and, furthermore, their party does not deserve to be in power ever again.

I have voted Labour in the past but this is just another reason (among others which I won’t go into here) that I will never, ever, vote for them again. Of course, I couldn’t possibly bring myself to vote Conservative either and I’m not too enamoured of the Liberal Democrats, so I guess that just leaves the Green party, assuming they field a candidate in my constituency in the upcoming General Election. If they don’t I doubt that I’ll be voting at all, which seems a shame.

Yesterday morning it snowed. Not all that hard but enough to leave a layer on the back streets that made parts of the journey into work interesting, to say the least. I would have left the bike at home but the tube wasn’t running and I truly hate standing around at bus stops in the freezing cold. So, rather stupidly perhaps, I rode on slippery roads instead.

Today, however, when I don’t have to go anywhere further than down the road to the shops, the sun is shining brilliantly and it’s dry out. I hate the winter, I really do.

Last time I got the bike taxed I bought a tamper-proof tax disc holder. This morning I had to put a new disc in it and it was, quite frankly, a pain. Silly, fiddly little allen bolts and tiny nuts are a nightmare to deal with when it’s cold out and your hands are frozen. What I wouldn’t give for a garage.