The “no junk mail” sticker on my door seems to be pretty effective, so I particularly noted the Burger King leaflet deliverer who this morning kindly provided me with FIVE of their thick leaflets. (Now in the recycling bin.)
I rang up the company’s “careline”, which was notably uninterested … their money; pity about the trees.
… to anyone who was trying, or planning, to fly today. Why the chaos? Well I won’t be believing much of what I read or hear for at least the next week – particularly if it is sourced to “security sources”. After the dust has settled there might be some hope of judging what the threat, if any, was.
Why the cynicism? Well remember the “sarin” plot, the “blow up Man U ” plot, the “tanks around Heathrow” scare, poor old Jean Charles Menendez, Forest Gate … I could go on.
And notice how much trouble the Blair government is in: on Iraq, on the Mideast (with growing calls to recall parliament), in Afghanistan.
That’s not to say that the whole thing is cynically made up – there undoubtedly is some basis there somewhere – but as the non-existent WMDs in Iraq showed, a wide variety of judgements can be applied to “intelligence”, and if the push from the top is all one way, the outcome is almost inevitable.
When it is funded by the ‘first sector’, i.e. government.
From today’s Guardian:
State funding for charities has outstripped donations from the general public, putting the independence of the voluntary sector at risk, according to a report from the Centre for Policy Studies.
While donations from the general public grew by just 7% in three years (up to 2004), government funding over the same period rose 38%. State funding now accounts for 38% of charities’ total annual income of £26.3bn, compared with 27% from donations, says the report.
The theory that NGOs can provided better, more flexible services than the government sector might, if they are small and funded by donations, he true. But when they start providing government services, funded by the government?
Can’t remember where I found this now, but since I’m about to start a new “career” as a school governor, I should point to the website of the eco-schools programme:
The Eco Schools programme can help schools to:
• improve the school environment
• reduce litter and waste
• reduce energy and water bills
• devise efficient ways of travelling to and from school
• promote healthy lifestyles
• encourage citizenship.
… and what is more recommended by a committee of MPs headed by a Tory.
Work for the committee showed that when the purchase price and the CO2 emissions were taken into account, the VED on the biggest cars was proportionately about half that paid on the smallest cars.
A wealthy businessman being chauffeur-driven in a luxury Bentley Arnage R V8 auto, a petrol-driven saloon costing £160,203, will pay only 42p per gram of CO2. But the owner of a humble 1.3 litre Ford Ka costing £7,395 pays 68p per gram of CO2 and the driver of the 1.3 litre Toyota Yaris which costs £11,290 about 74p per gram of CO2.
“Tax differentials between higher- and lower-carbon cars must be made much wider if they are to drive market transformation,” the committee said.
Not that I can imagine any of my readers would be so anti-social, but if you were to earn one such I’d recommend getting rid of it quickly – they’ll be – they’ll HAVE to be, priced off the road soon.
Over on Blogcritics I’ve just got up a review of Joanna Frueh’s Swooning Beauty. I conclude:
One of the fascinating aspects of book reviewing is encountering books far outside your normal frame of references, taking approaches that are new, but sometimes shine light and new thoughts on your existing work. I’ve written a thesis arguing for the corporeality of the online world, but Swooning Beauty presents a view of a very different form of corporeality – one that, it has to be said, given the dominance of porn in the online world, has something new and relevant to say. I can’t see myself ever writing anything like Swooning Beauty, or indeed regularly reading such writing, but it has given me a lot to think about.
It is definitely different, and I might not have stuck with it had I not had an obligation to review it, but I’m glad that I did.
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