Council Runs Text Message Course

A government-funded (that should probably read 'tax-payer funded') course is teaching adults how to send mobile text messages and download ringtones.

The two-hour course in Birmingham is run by the Learning and Skills Council, as part of its Bite Size Intros scheme.

The course organisers say it covers all aspects of using mobile phones, including sending text messages and creating an address book.

IT lecturer Maggie Fitzpatrick-Jordan, who launched the course, said it served a real purpose. She told reporters: "Lots of people are really scared of mobile phones, particularly the older generation. They're not happy with using it, they'll often prefer to call or something, and in order to save money quite often we can text."

Critics have called it a waste of taxpayers' money, with the Campaign for Real Education branding it a "disgrace", but they're both wrong;

It's An Outrage!!

Why didn't they just run a course called 'How To Read an Instruction Manual'? (Or RTFM, as real IT insiders know it!)

Or better still, spend the money teaching the younger generation how to read and write and string intelligible sentences together... now that is a crazy idea!

Y'see, if you encourage this sort of this amongst the older generation, pretty soon we'll have double the problem of Text Speak in Daily Life.

Text Speak in Daily Life

I'm a member of a few Internet based forums (all good, clean, decent ones before you ask!) and am becoming increasingly irritated by the number of members who can't be bothered - or don't know better - to use real English instead of text-message derived abbreviations.

Some of my 'favourites' would be;

• NE WAY - anyway

• SUM1 - someone

• CUZ - because

• PPL - people

• W8 - wait

• U - you

The first one is especially fantastic as it's exactly the same number of keystrokes as the word it's supposed to replace!

Even the National Railway Museum has resorted to this bastardisation of the English language in a bid to attract younger visitors. Their new poster uses the text message "Ifu think trAns R ZzZz thnk x2" (If you think trains are boring think again).

It's An Outrage!!

If you're texting on a mobile phone and the number of characters are limited, then fine. If you're being charged by the minute for online access, then fine. But when you're trying to contribute to a sensible, grown up debate or request help with something, and you're doing it from your home PC, there's no excuse.

I've also generally found that ppl (oops, sorry - people) who use these abbreviations are frugal with capitalisation and punctuation, have second-rate spelling ability and are not overly familiar with the most basic points of grammar. Oh yes, and by and large they're aged under 16.

Which makes me wonder not only what schools are teaching, but on what date in the not-too-distant future will the last intelligible conversation take place between those over 25 and those under?

I mean, WTF?? U can LOL M8, but I'm way :(

Church Appoints Gay Bishops

The Church of England has this week appointed the first openly gay man as the new Bishop of Reading, Canon Dr Jeffrey John.

Not a fortnight ago, the Anglican Episcopalians in the US state of New Hampshire also appointed their first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson.

It's An Outrage!!

Let's get this straight right from the start; I do not consider myself to be homophobic in any way. I don't believe that homosexuals should be prevented from holding positions in the Church, and the actual fact of their appointment is not what's outrageous to me.

Both men are said to be more than qualified to perform the role of bishop, and are highly recommended and supported by their appointers; their suitability per se to do the role is not in question here.

What is outrageous to me is that the Church has a definite, vociferously held and age old standpoint on homosexual men, and the Bible lays it out fairly clearly;

• Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

It would therefore appear that the Anglican Church on both sides of the Atlantic has happily appointed a pair of 'abominations' to look after their flocks.

I'm wary that this will sound all wrong, that I will look like I'm aiming this at the bishops themsleves, but I'm not; let's take another analogy to try and set this straight.

The rules that the police govern themselves by and are employed to uphold for the public ("the Law") says that murder is very wrong. You're therefore never going to see a murderer appointed as a Chief Constable, as this would undermine the very foundation of the police, and anarchy would rule.
However the rules that the Church govern themselves by and are employed to uphold for the public ("the Bible") says that homosexuality is very wrong, but they've appointed anyway with no heed or creedance to those rules.

So what I just can't understand is what that means to the establishment of the Church itself, the faith its followers put in the Bible (which is after all the word of our Lord), and the centuries-old underpinning principles of Christianity. I can't accept that these appointments have been made without any attempt to justify how this can be. To my mind, the Church is saying either the Bible is irrelevant, or God was wrong. Both of which are fairly earth-shattering (and humanly arrogant) statements that shouldn't just be side-stepped.

I really hope we're moving towards a more enlightened religious philosophy, but at the minute it seems like a hell of a contradiction. Can we now decide, with the approval of the Church, which of the teachings of the Bible we live by or disregard? And can we soon expect to see an adulterer, a murderer and a Buddhist taking up senior positions within the Church?

Road Tax Collection

Road Tax - well, it's not an outrage in itself, not at all. My gripe is with the method via which it's collected. And even that isn't an outrage. But what is, in my mind, a bit outrageous, is the way that governments have never publicly stated the reasons why they collect it so inefficiently and inequitably. But, to be fair, the UK government has always collected it in the same way, and so have presumably all other governments, and nobody's ever whinged about it, so perhaps I'm alone in thinking this way.

The government knows how much total revenue it obtains per annum from Road Tax. Presumably it also knows how much total revenue it ought to be obtaining per annum from Road Tax, if the tax dodgers paid up too.

And the government also knows how much total revenue it obtains per annum from vehicle fuel tax. So it knows how many litres of car fuel are sold per annum.

So let's assign some symbols as follows:

A = Total revenue per annum that ought to be obtained from road tax
B = Litres of car fuel sold per annum

If Road Tax were scrapped, and vehicle fuel tax were increased by A/B per litre, then

• Everybody would pay it, nobody would be able to dodge it
  

• It would be fair - the more miles you drove, the more you'd pay, the more efficient your vehicle was, the less you'd pay

Of course, we'd also need a separate system for registering vehicles, but that would involve a nominal charge, or no charge at all, so there would be no disincentive to registering. And we already have that system in place - it's the system that we currently use for collecting Road Tax.

Yes, I know, there'd be exceptions such as agricultural vehicles and electrical vehicles, but methods can be found for dealing with such exceptions.

Now the government doesn't do this 'cos (I presume) industry would have a hissy fit about it. The average person, driving 10000 miles per annum in his privately owned/taxed/insured car, would gain (slightly). And the company car driver and the lorry driver would lose. And governments always do what industry wants.

Now here, at long last, is my gripe. They don't tell us why they do it inefficiently and unfairly. They should do it efficiently and fairly, or they should come clean about it.

It's An Outrage!!

Liquidising Goldfish is Art

A Danish court has ruled that an art display which invited the public to put live goldfish through a food blender did not constitute cruelty to animals.

The Trapholt Art Museum near Copenhagen displayed an exhibit of goldfish swimming in 10 blenders, with visitors being told they could press the "on" button if they wanted. At least one visitor did, killing two goldfish.

The Chilean-born Danish artist who created the 'piece', Marco Evaristti, was apparently "trying to test visitors' sense of right and wrong". He said he wanted to force people to "do battle with their conscience". The idea was to "place people before a dilemma: to choose between life and death."

When the director of the art museum was fined for cruelty to animals after complaints from campaign group Friends of Animals, he refused to pay and was taken before the courts.

'Expert witnessess' including a vet and a representative from the blender manufacturer testified that the fish would have died instantly, painlessly and 'humanely'. The judge therefore ruled in favour of the art museum on the basis that the fish had not faced prolonged suffering.

It's An Outrage!!

The fact that two goldfish died in a blender is almost irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. What riles me far more is the fact that yet another looper has pulled together something from his deranged mind and managed to pass it off as Art (with a capital A!), and that another looper has then thought it acceptable to put it on display!!

There seems to be a real fear within the intellectual and artistic community of turning round and saying "Well, that's just crap, you're an idiot, take yourself away."

First Damien Hirst's calf in formaldehyde, then Tracey Emmins' unmade bed (complete with with skid-marked sheets, used condoms, and soiled knickers) and now fish in a blender; and these are just the ones we've heard of! No doubt somewhere a skinny, sunken eyed, pasty skinned, unshaven 'artist' with a tortured soul and knitted hat is eating a big hot curry, shitting onto a canvas and calling it an insight to the frailty and existentionalism of man. It'll get entered into the Turner Prize and sold for £££ (or more likely $$$!).

Rodan, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Turner, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet etc, etc; that's art, and let the latterday wannabees call me a philistine for saying so. But to quote Al Capp, "[Abstract art is] a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered."

There are two saving graces of the fish farce; one is that it didn't go on display in this country, and the second is that we didn't have to pay for the court case!

Police Protect Criminals

A crimebuster who made a video of crack dealers operating outside his home has been banned from filming by the police, and warned he is breaching civil liberties.

Darren Gibbet bought a £250 video camera soon after the people moved into the flat opposite his and started dealing crack. Despite numerous complaints to the police, they failed to deal with the problem.

On one occasion as he filmed, one of the dealers entered Darren's property, assaulted him and tried to smash the camera against a wall. The police were called, but when they arrived Darren was told that he was breaching their civil liberties, and that the man was entitled to retrieve the film. In addition, if he persisted in filming he would face arrest and prosecution.

It's An Outrage!!

How many times do we hear the police extolling the virtues of neighborhood watches, or bemoaning the fact that they can't get ordinary citizens to stand up against and help prosecute criminals?

But when somebody actually has the courage to do exactly what they're asking, they plump to protect the criminals!!

Darren Gibbet should be given a medal, and control of London's CCTV system; the man's a hero, not a villain.

Hypocritical Manufactured Pop Band

Manufactured pop band GirlsAtPlay are just about to clog up the bottom of the charts with a remix of the classic 80's song by Mel & Kim, Respectable.

Now some of my favourite pop bands have been well and truly manufactured, but by that I mean pulled together from a large crowd and honed into a unit (Take That springs to mind).

But when I say 'manufactured' in relation to GirlsAtPlay I mean so totally fake that Trading Standards ought to be locking them up.

If you are unlucky enough to stumble across their website, you'll find that the group is made up of the following highly unlikely mix;

• Lisa-Jay, an incredibly successful business woman who owns the biggest and hippest club in London - Fallulabub's (try this on a search engine, there's only one entry...)
  

• Rita, the owner of an all-women chain of garages (there must be a Kwik-Fit pun in there somewhere; answers via emailplease!)
  
• Lynsey, an NYPD motorcycle officer who won a Medal Of Honour for "an act of heroism above and beyond the call of duty" (going out without make-up on perhaps?)
  
• Shelley, an Air Force One Pilot who flies the President around whenever he needs her
  
• Vicky, a cow girl who was left a ranch by her 18 year old Native American cowgirl penpal who died of an unspecified cause (handy, that)

Hmmm....

Some of the text on there is just so laughable you'd swear it was straight out of Monty Python or The Fast Show ("I bumped into the Prez at a club in Ibiza when he was in drag, and asked if he needed a pilot" - I'd have been asking for about $50million in used notes and a City named after me!!)

(I've emailed Lynsey and Shelley to check what exactly they've been doing to help in the wake of the terrible World Trade Centre attacks, but so far no answer.)

So that's bad enough, but what makes it worse is the song they've chosen

It's An Outrage!!

How can a bunch of Spice Girl wannabees possibly have the nerve to take on this tune?

Firstly they murder it. Secondly, and more importantly, hasn't anyone pointed out to them the irony of the lyrics?

They'll always be respectable, because every word they say is scripted, everything they do is planned, they are mindless drones controlled by people with both eyes on the bottom line.

What are the chances of any one of them dropping in a swear word into a kids TV interview? Or being photographed buying large bottles of gin from the local offie? Or being caught by police in a drug-fueled sex orgy?

Fairly slim I'd say... and more's the pity; it might make them slightly interesting and give them about another week in the spotlight than they're going to have.