Junk mail, Is it me - am I just being a tart?

I received a leaflet in the mail at home.  Now like everyone else I do get my fair share of junk mail but it is not normally addressed to the actual home.  Okay it did not have my name on it but it was addressed to my home and that differs from the normal junk mail that you get.

Junk mail is either delivered en masse to homes in a particular area because the company sending it out has paid the Post Office to do a bulk delivery to every home in a particular postcode area and so they do not have to put individual addresses on each leaflet, or, it is stuffed through the letter box by some plonker being paid a pittance on a wet and windy day to stick them in your letter box and you rush to the door open it up with the offending crap in your hand, hold it up so that the delivery agent can see it and then rip it in half and stuff it in the recycling box, in the hope that if they come back with another one they will remember you and not come back through the gate!

That sort of approach seems to work with cold callers from Church of Latter Day Saints and others of that ilk as Ishbel will tell you.  Me, I quite like them coming to the door, because I do like a good debate, where they eventually give up in frustration.  And, do you know, they do take notes.  If on the other hand Ishbel answers the door to them, she is quite rude, now if you actually know my 'wee wife' you would know that that is completely out of character for her but for some reason these people do bring out the worst in her.  So, when we see them out in the street before they come to any of the houses they pull out the little black book and refer to it before approaching the houses.  I am imagining that there are comments from previous visits along the lines of, " No **, Don't Visit, not welcome, unbelievers, will burn in hell" or "No**, Okay to visit BUT if the witch answers the door withdraw immediately BUT if the nice chap answers the door engage WE MIGHT win him round!"

But anyway I digress, back to 'Junk Mail'  I am going to put this one back in the post, do you thing Royal Mail will actually return to sender, and will they get the message? Don't get me wrong I do like an occasional pizza, but can't really remember the last time I had one but I just hate junk mail, and I don't, on the very rare occasion where I have one, order home delivery, and I have never ever had a Domino Pizza, so I do object to them having my address on file!

KETTLING - is this Police tactic wrong?

It is reported today that Liberty is challenging the British Police tactic of Kettling in the European Courts.

I have said before that I believe that there are to many bleeding hearts out there with big budgets and bigger mouths shouting about the human rights of all and while they are looking after and complaining about peoples rights being violated, we the ordinary and law abiding people of the country who want to get on with our daily lives, are being ignored by the minority who shout and stamp their feet the loudest.

Now, don't get me wrong, the core principles of Liberty are manifestly well intended but, as with everything else they end up ignoring the rights of the majority.  Ok, I know that they and others like them will argue that they are looking after and fighting for the rights of me and others like me, but I am 55, I am law abiding and I am white and want to get on with my life and not have it disrupted by protester's or the police who don't stop and search me because I am white, but who are out in large numbers to attempt to manage another protest.

But this blog is not about stop and search-  and I believe that this rule should be challenged as it has been proved over and over again that it appears to be a racist policy aimed at non whites, so Liberty keep going with that one, no - this blog is about KETTLING.

Again, I am with Liberty to a degree, that in some instances it does seem to go to far, but that is not to say that it is a tactic that should never be employed by the Police, that is Liberty's argument, BUT, it is not mine.

I wrote a blog recently entitled Jody McIntyre - Police Brutality I finished of the article with these comments:

You say,  "the Police incite violence", I say, "you and the protesters incite violence"

You say, "The real issue is the cuts that the government are making in education" I say "what a bunch of prats" People are starving all over the world, the 'under privileged' as you call them of this country are oppressed and ill educated IN EVEN A BASIC EDUCATION and have nothing AND YOU ARE PROTESTING AND RIOTING IN THE STREETS BECAUSE FEES ARE BEING INTRODUCED FOR FURTHER EDUCATION. Now if you were rioting because the basic education of the masses in this country was suffering and that millions of our children are being condemned to a life of ignorance, I might just have had some sympathy for you and these 'educated morons' but you didn't, so I don't.

So while you promote anarchy then I promote giving the Police bigger and thicker batons, giving them more guns, allow then to kettle you as you join the rampaging mob and I will continue to not have a problem when the Police drag you and your likes off our streets.      

Lets face it, and I think everyone must agree, you do have to have permission to hold a protest on our streets, that is only right and proper, so no one can say that they did not know that a protest was scheduled to take place in an area where a) they might be working in or b) where they might have planned to visit for social reasons.

Now it is pretty difficult if your place of employment is smack bang in the middle of an area that is going to be passed by a protest march to do anything about that and you really have to just get on with it, but is it not ridiculous when before a 'peaceful' protest takes place that we see images of businesses and local authorities boarding up those business premises, of course it is.  So most of us know that a high proportion of protest marches are not going to be peaceful because peaceful does not get the message out, but they still have a right to protest!  Is it ok then, Liberty, for the protesters to destroy and burn businesses and for the minority to disrupt the majority and not just for the day of the protest but for the days weeks and months that it may take them to recover and get their business up and running again, what about their rights?

What about the rights of individual Police officers being pelted with bricks, bottles, and fire bombs, I do not believe that I have ever heard you say that their rights are being abused, or is it that they lose their individuality and the rights that accompany the individual once they become Police officers?

I am not a Police officer, never have been, but I have had dealings with them over the years in the various jobs that I have in fact I even recall, although I can not recall what it was about, but many years ago [early 90's] I laid in to them in a letter to the Police Gazette.  I continue to be a critic of them today and no doubt tomorrow and let me make it perfectly clear, I do not have a problem with people taking to the streets in peaceful protest BUT, I do have a problem with protesters, whether it has been engineered by a minority within the protesters or not, then turning that protest into a running riot and street battle.

Every single time that happens or before it happens then I am happy that protest marches should be KETTLED.  Yes, the police need to review and manage the situation better and YES they need to take into account that there may be innocent protesters or members of the public contained within that action, BUT, if KETTLING means that the protest does not denigrate to the level of Neanderthal savagery, them I am happy for them to do so.

Looking at your website there is an article entitled, "Inside the kettle" written by a 'child'  the article clearly written by a SCHOOL pupil, not a COLLEGE or a UNIVERSITY student, and all I can say to that is, she and the rest of the SCHOOL students that were there, were truants on the day and should not have been there and for you to justify your arguments by using this 'article' really does your cause  a disservice, please grow up and join the rest of us in the real world.  I do not believe that I am naive in MY outlook on this nor is it down to my suburban existence that I write these comments, no, it is a sense of frustration from the point of view of the person sitting at home switching on the TV and once again seeing someone from Liberty or other similar organisation blaming the riots and problems on the Police and that the poor downtrodden protesters are once again victims of Police Brutality.

What I would do in A Second Life -By Mollie Ing aged 8 1/4

     If I had a Second Life I would make it last and make it fun like every one should and you have to be grateful for yourself even if something bad happens like someone passes away or you lose you most special thing.

     You should always be grateful that's my first reason now all you should know now is you should be grateful. but I shall tell you what I would do, I would spend time with my family most of the time ,but I WOULD go to the park and go outside the front with my friends twice a week.  That,s who I would spend time with if I had a second life.  

me, rubbing garlic and herbs that I prepard in a mortar and
pestle before rubbing it in my leg of lamb

Now I shall tell you what I have been up to tonight .Tonight for my dinner I am having roast lamb and I helped prepare it so in a second life I might be a chef.  Also in a second life I would allways make my dinners sea food like sqid and stuff like that.  In a second life if I was the qeen I would make smokeing band forever and homework band forever .now I would like to tell what pets I would have in a second life.now here they are I would love a hamster because my friend millie has one called bert and I really like so I would like a hamster in a second life.


AND IN MY SECOND LIFE EVERYTHING WILL BE SPLENDID.

What would you do with a Second Life

I have a 'Twitter Friend' who goes by the name of @EmmaGerain, this is her twitter picture or Avatar.
Now, I suspect like most Tweeters, Emma and I have never met but we comment on each others tweets if each of us say something that interests us or that we find funny or disturbing or we just plain 'hate'.  Hate as in the sense that it makes us want to shout at it, them, the situation, or whatever.

Now I have no idea who found who and who befriended whom first, but that is really not important.  Emma, and I have no idea if that is her real name or not, I have discovered, is a "Second Lifer". No, that does not mean that she is hiding behind a made up picture because she is a mass murderer, well at least I do not think she is, or that she is serving consecutive life sentences behinds bars in Holloway Prison.  No it means that she is a part of a community who meet on line in a virtual reality.

Wikipedia describes it thus:

Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers^[1][2], enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars. Residents can explore the world (known as the grid), meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another. Second Life is intended for people aged 16 and over^[3], and as of 2011 has about one million active users^[4].

I see Tweets from Emma from time to time advertising that she is DJing at SL and inviting people to pop along to listen to her set and this morning she posted a short blog on SL at Emma's Blog.

I visited, I read and I didn't understand a word of what she was twittering on about, but that is me.  But, it also got me to thinking, "What would you do with a Second Life in real life"?

Would, if you were married, for instance,(and please do remember Ishbel Stronach, this is a work of fiction and not my desire) you have a Second Life as a single club loving partying, socialite?  Where once or twice a week you could slip out and let your hair down, on your own!

Would you get the wife to do her own ironing? (threat last night unless her behaviour improved)

Or, if you were stuck in a boring office job would you have a Second Life as a high flyer or an entrepreneurial wizard with everything you touch turning to financial gold?

On the other hand, if you were a high powered boss in stressful meetings every day would your Second Life  be that of a stay at home parent taking the kids to school and out walking with the dogs?

Or if you are a blogger would your Second Life have you as a successful author?

Just what would you be in your Second Life?