Encouragement to Cheat

I set up a new blog two weeks ago with the specific purpose of charting my progress towards a second degree, and interestingly enough, only four posts later, the spam comments are already flowing in. Not that this is a problem, Askimet catches 99% of them, as I check a couple of times a week that nothing has been cuaght that shouldn’t have been and delete the rest. It is the nature of the sites that these spam commenters are promoting, site like this, and this, sites which are actively encouraging students to cheat.

So, what is the point of studying if you are going to cheat to get your A level, degree, PHD or whatever; surely the whole point of studying is to learn, and one does not learn anything from someone else doing the work. Personally I think that sites like the two highlighted here should be shut down, but I know that that would be a fruitless exercise because more would just spring up to take their place. Perhaps the answer is a more rigourous policing of a students work, along with much more severe penalties for those student who decide to cheat.

Lies, Lies and Untruths!

I have not taken a swipe at the Cross of St. George bunch recently, but I just cannot resist highlighting their tendency to lie! This came to my attention this evening:-

The death of Labour MP John MacDougall, which was announced this morning after a long fight against mesothelioma, will give rise to another by-election in Scotland. With it, an opportunity arises for Gordon Brown to demonstrate just how British his Scotland is or should be!

Unlike England, which has over thirty Scots [plus other non-English people in addition] occupying its parliamentary constituencies, not a single MP in Scotland is English.

Dare the prime minister prove his ‘British’ credentials by having an English person as the Labour Party candidate in the forthcoming by-election? Come to think of it, why doesn’t David Cameron pave the way by having an English person as the Conservative candidate here also?

Frankly, I doubt very much that an English candidate for any party in Scotland would be elected but, at the least, Mr Brown and the Scottish Labour Party could cite anti-English prejudice as the main reason for failing to retain the Glenrothes, Fife seat . . . and likewise Mr Cameron for the Tories’ failure to win it!

Now the only factual accuracy in this piece of rubbish is “The death of Labour MP John MacDougall” the rest of it is just so much shite; particularly “Unlike England, which has over thirty Scots [plus other non-English people in addition] occupying its parliamentary constituencies, not a single MP in Scotland is English.” There is not one tiny vestigal grain of truth in that second quote; I know that this is utter rubbish because my MP, Mark Lazarowicz, is most definitely English (Born  - 8 August 1953 - Romford, Essex). So the “anti-English prejudice” card has been ripped up even before it could be played; but then when have the Cross of St. George loonies ever let the facts get in the way of their preconceptions or their prejudices, not to mention their bigotry…

The one thing that puzzles me is that, given their history of factual inaccuracy, anybody actually belives a word that they spout. Maybe one day they will engage the brain cell before shooting from the mouth; even checking their facts would be better than nothing…

Shite Hawks…

Any one who knows me at all well, and Bondwoman in particular, will tell you that I have a very high minded opinion of your common or garden seagull (Shite Hawk), and that, in my humble opinion, the only good “Shite Hawk” is a dead one… I suppose, when I think about it, that there is only one species that I hate loathe and detest equally, and that is the moron that feeds them; even pigeons take third place to thes loathesome creatures.

Above are two versions of your basic shite hawk, the first is the most basic version, the Herring Gull, the second is the slightly improved version, the Lesser Black Backed Gull. These pictures do not mean that my attitude to these loathesome birds has softened, I include them only for identification purposes.

Bondwoman nd myself are great fans of a local free magazine, the Leither, which usualy has some great information to disseminate. One of us always pick up a copy when we see one, as I did this morning; and in which I found a most interesting article by David Barnes entitled “Neds with Wings”, which I unashamedly reproduce here in its entirity…

Neds with Wings

If we are going to describe pigeons as flying rats because the two animals have some slightly similar characteristics, then I reckon we should start referring to seagulls as “Neds with Wings”.

Think about it. Both sets of creatures hang around in large intimidating groups, both leave a horrible mess wherever they have been, both constantly disturb the peace with irritating high-pitched screeching, and both can be frighteningly aggressive for no obvious reason. Add to that the similar pallid complexions and the almost identical ridiculous swaggers and you are only-one cheap shell-suit away from having two peas from the same spitting, snarling, soap-dodging pod.

The only real difference is that seagulls probably have a longer life expectancy than neds. Did you know that a lesser black-backed gull can live up to 34 years?

Just like their humanoid cousins, the number of seagulls causing trouble on our streets is growing. Peter Rock, a former teacher from Bristol who is now Britain’s only full-time urban gull expert, reckons that from a standing start half a century ago there are now about 130,000 pairs of gulls breeding on rooftops and other parts of buildings across the country. If you include unattached individuals, he estimates a total of about 400,000 birds.

Worse still, he believes that the urban gull population is now growing at 20 per cent a year, and the prospect of 800,000 of them living in Britain’s towns and cities in the next decade is a very real one. He predicts that the noise, the mess, and the airborne assaults that accompany urban gulls everywhere they nest will be features of towns and cities all over the country in 10 years’ time.

“Even if it turns out to be only half of that figure, it will be a truly massive number of birds,” he said. “It has the potential to be a really serious social and environmental problem, but nobody knows what to do about it.”

A gang of them has moved into the Shore area of Leith and they are wasting no time in making their presence felt. As if their ear-piercing dawn squawks were not bad enough, eating your lunch outside is now a major gamble because there is a very good chance that one of them will swoop down and attempt to wrestle the cheese and onion pastie you have been looking forward to all morning from your grasp. Such assaults have been known to draw blood.

To conjure images of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 horror movie The Birds might seem melodramtic, but the fact of the matter is that attacks by gulls can be very serious - and in some cases fatal. In July 2002 Wilfred Roby, a retired ambulance driver in North Wales, died after he disturbed some nesting gulls whilst cleaning bird droppings from his garage roof. They attacked him and he suffered a heart attack.

That same year there was a run of gull attacks in Scotland. An unnamed security guard at the Western General Hospital was attacked in the centre of Edinburgh by a herring gull, and was given emergency treatment. There were attacks in towns and villages of the Aberdeenshire coast, and Lossiemouth in Morayshire. Fergus Ewing ,then Scottish National Party MSP for Inverness East, was also threatened by a swooping gull while out jogging.

While all sorts of sociological reasons have been given for the increase in the number of neds on our streets, the problem we have with seagulls can be traced directly back to the 1956 Clean Air Act, which prevented rubbish being burnt on tips, thus providing gulls with an unlimited food source. They outgrew their natural colonies and began nesting in towns and cities. With no predators, plus plenty of food and street lighting that enabled them to feed at night, they flourished. Having received 77 gull complaints so far this year (which is a slight increase on last year), the City of Edinburgh Council say they are aware of the threat and are taking the appropriate steps to deal with the problem.

“It is advisable to check your roof for the presence of nesting gulls between the months of April and August, particularly if there has been such an issue with your property in the past,” said a council spokesperson.
“It is essential to remove any nest or nesting material as soon as it has been discovered, as adult birds will become more protective as they establish their nesting site. The adult birds may attack anyone attempting to approach the nest and will call other gulls from the colony to assist.”

“Prompt action to remove any nest and any subsequently rebuilt nests, before the eggs hatch and the young birds appear, will prevent numerous problems in later months. If the gulls are prevented from successfully raising any chicks they are far less likely to return to your property to nest again next year. You can contact the Council’s Pest Control Service through the contact centre on 0131 529 3030 for advice or for a quotation for a nest removal seasonal programme.”

“But Mr Rock believes a more comprehensive solution is necessary. He dismisses out of hand any ideas of mass culling.  “Poisoning is out of the question. All the chemicals required are illegal,” he explains “and all wild birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.”

He says the gull population can only be brought under control by choking off their food supplies and to do that it is important that we get a better grasp of how the gulls in our area operate.

“Step one is to assess the colony’s population and make-up to provide an accurate baseline. Thereafter, the colony must be monitored for another two or three years to find out how fast it’s growing. It’s also vital to understand the feeding regimes of the two species. Where are the major food supplies of the quality necessary for chick rearing? Most important of all is to get colour-rings onto the nestlings to find out exactly how the expansion and migration between colonies works. There are lots of questions, but it’s important that we find the answers so it becomes possible to plan a meaningful and sensitive strategy.”

Hmmmmm. Sounds …er …methodical. How about we engineer our own solution? If I tell Wee Bazza at the bottom of the street that one of the gull’s round the corner was giving his ’burd’ the eye, then that might just start the sort of almighty punch-up, or is it peck-out, which could solve all of our problems.

Cycle Paths

Bondwoman just drew my attention to this story in the Evening News; as regular users of these cycle paths, both as cyclists and pedestrians we are only too aware of the overgrown nature of them at present; on reading this article i was horrified to learn that:-

a) - “there was “no budget” attached to such work”

and

b) - ” the paths can only be “cleaned and cut back by the task force as and when they have any spare capacity”.”

Now forgive me for making a point here, but we pedestrians and cyclists are residents of the City of Edinburgh, and as such duly pay our over inflated council taxes only to be treated as second class citizens. Maybe it would be a good idea if all of us pedestrians and cyclists refused to pay the City Council another penny in council tax until they got their collective arses into gear and sorted the problem out. Also it might just be a good idea if the City Council stopped sending “our” money up in smoke on at least two occasions every year in the form of firework displays, then there just might be “a budget” to maintain the cycle paths.

While I am in full rant mode, there is another connected gripe that I have about the cycle paths, and that is the proliferation of Japanese Knotweed along the sides of them. This is definitely something that needs to be kept tightly under control; in the three and a bit years that we have been using these cycle paths I have noticed that it is spreading extremely rapidly and killing off everything else in its path. One of the pleasures of using these paths is the variety of plant life that inhabits them, but if this bloody imported thug is left unchecked it is all we will have left to look at.

Update:

With regard to the Japanese Knotweed problem the City Council might like to take a very close look at this website, where they will find that:-

Managing land infested by Japanese knotweed in a timely and appropriate way can avoid:

• excessive cost
• potential prosecution and/or compensation claims
• physical damage to buildings and hard surfaces
• harm to the environment.

Yet Another By-election

I have just read this story on the bbc website. Now, anyone with an ounce of sympathy would be feeling for Gordon this morning; do I have an ounce of sympathy, well yes I do, but not one single gram of it for Gordon Brown. The one thing that GB wanted least right now was yet another by-election to lose; he has to be going down as the unluckiest PM ever… Not that I have any problem with that, because I plant the blame for many of our economic problems firmly and squarely at the doors of Blair and Brown. Andrew Marr sums it up in one sentence in his “A History of Modern Britain“:-

The decade-long Blair-Brown boom has been based on cheap imports from China, on very high levels of borrowing secured by upward-spiralling house prices, and on cheap, skilled migrant labour from Eastern Europe.

So another by-election, perhaps one too far for Gordon, another loss to the limp dems, but probably to the SNP; could this finally be the demise of Brown and the Blair legacy of New Labour, I certainly hope so!

Right to Roam???

Those of you who read regularly will know that I don’t need much of an excuse to have a good old rant, and this is a 24 carat gold opportunity!

Well, there is no doubt that the answer to the question posed in the title of this post is yes there is a Right to Roam; however, in Scotland the right to roam goes far further than simple access to land

Scotland has both a different legal system and a different tradition when it comes to access to open country. The Land Reform ( Scotland ) Act 2003 is much more radical than similar legislation in England and Wales, and gives the public responsible access to all land, both open and enclosed.

See here and here for more info.

Here in Scotland a landowner has to have a bloody cast iron reason for restricting access to his/her land. The problem with this is that some landowners do not respect this legislation. As I said in the previous post, the Bonds have been off walking on Skye, and about half way through our trip we encountered just such a problem when we took a walk to the coral beaches at Claigan, which we extended out along the cliffs and up to the summit of the hill behind the beaches. It was not until we had completed the descent from the hill and were almost back to the car park when we encountered the problem:-

Now, the “No Parking” I can understand; having grown up in a farming community I know that there is nothing worse than some idiot blocking a farmer’s access to a field. But this:-

I have no time for whatsoever. It will probably be easier to see in the larger version of the pic above (just click on it) that the landowner here has not only wrapped barbed wire around the top of the gate, but has also chicken netted the lower two thrids of it to prevent people climbing it. But why not just open the gate I hear you ask; well, take a look:-

This obnoxious bugger had not only barbed wired and chicken netted the gate he had bloody padlocked it as well, here is a closer look:-

The rusty chain, indicating that this is not a recent event, is clearly visible, but the padlock is cunningly hidden to those who would not be looking closely. By the way these photos were taken after we had successfully negotiated the obstacle course.

This is ot the first time that we have encountered such tactics by landowners who wrap gates and stiles with barbed wire; but it is the most comprehesive attempt to keep people out that we have yet come across. To say that such tactics annoy me would be a gross understatement, this sort of behaviour makes me want to invest in a good sturdy pair of wire cutters to remove any barbed wire that I find wrapped around gates and stiles, and I would welcome my day in court to highlight the problems caused by the moronic landowners who do such things!

Institutional Vandalism…

The Bond’s have been off on their hols this last couple of weeks, we were walking in Skye; more of this in later posts… I digress, to get to the point, in our travels around Scotland in particular we have noticed the institutionalised vandalism that results from the operations of the Forestery Commission; this is the sort of thing that I am talking about:-

Now, as if planting these vast stands of Norwegian Spruce in the first place was not a big enough act of vandalism; they did nothing but create a completely sterile environment beneath which nothing else would grow, and extremely few things would live, not to mention sucking every bit of life out of the ground. This blatant act of vandalism is further compounded years later when the trees are “harvested”! The photo’s above were taken close up to show just what a mess the Forestery Commission leaves behind when they move into one of these sterile forests to cut down the trees. What cannot be seen from these photographs is that the scar left once they have finished is visible for miles around. The other thing that a photograph cannot show is the amount of time that the ground takes to recover after being denuded of this bloody awful blight of the countryside.

I call this “institutionalised vandalism” because that is precisely what it is; the one thing that I do not understand is why the Forestry Commissions of Scotland, England and Wales are not forced to clean up the mess that they leave behind them, and to take steps to repair the damage that they do to the countryside.

Spot the Difference…

Gordon Brown?

Heathcliffe?

I have to admit that i find it quite difficult!

Nineteen Days to go And…

No Candidate!

I read this earlier this morning, and could not stop myself laughing! Nineteen days to go the the Glasgow East by-election on 24 July and Labour have no candidate for the voters to vote for, or against as the case may be. The leading contender did not make an appearance at the selection meeting on Friday.

Shettleston Councillor George Ryan has now officially withdrawn from the contest after missing the selection meeting on Friday for “family reasons”.

Now I am not say that George Ryan is finding an excuse, we all know just how stressful a life can be for Scottish MP’s in Westminster, and I think him very wise to put family first. However, I do know that were I even vaguely in the running for this position I would not only scraping the bottom of the barrel, I would be turning the bloody barrel over and looking underneath it for any excuse not to be taking this poisoned chalice; and indeed in  te present political climate it most certainly is a poisoned chalice.

That all round nice guy Brian Taylor (BBC Scotland’s political editor) has a really good take on this whole debacle - see here…

Hedonistic Frivolity

Thoughts on Violent Crime

I just read this horrendous story, and it got me thinking about the problems of knife and gun crime. I just want to tear my hair out in frustration every time I hear one of these political pillocks on the radio pontificating about something that they really haven’t given much thought to. They usually end up calling for a ban on this, a ban on that or a ban on the other; they also usually end up demonising the “young thugs” who, they think, are responsible for the majority of gun and knife crime. Have they never asked the question “why do we have a problem with gun and knife crime in young people?” well, obviously they haven’t, because if they had then they would not make the asinine comments that are so frequently heard from them.

The answers are not simple ones, but they are common sense ones; a) there is the matter of education, or the lack of, both in schools and in the home, b) there is the matter of parental control, and if this is not exercised from a very early age then it is worthless. I actually think that the most important aspect is the parenting; if children grow up in violent households then they are more likely to be violent themselves, whereas if they are taught from birth to respect others then they will be more likely to do so. I know that this is a very simplistic argument, but these are simply off the top of the head thoughts. I also think that there is a problem with the way young people are policed, in as much as they seem to be targeted simply for being young and doing what young people do. In my opinion if we treat young people as potential criminals, then that is what they are going to become. They will end up thinking, well if that is what they think we are then that is what we will be.

Then there is the whole problem of the availability of knives and guns, they are too easy to get. I have heard all sorts of cries for banning this, that and the other, but we have been down this road already, with hand guns there was the knee jerk reaction after Dunblane, which led to the hand gun ban; and what was the net result, the fact that it is easier for kids to get their hands on a hand gun now than it was before. The whole problem is that it is now almost impossible to police hand guns as they have been driven underground, where there is absolutely no control over them at all; it is the criminals who are now making money out of, and controlling the supply of hand guns. Surely it would be much better if the control and supply of hand guns were in the hands of responsible people rather than criminals.

There are inherent problems with making anything illegal, whether it is hand guns, knives, drugs, boxing or whatever. Making something illegal will not make it go away, all it will succeed in doing is drive it underground and into the hands of the criminal elements who will seize upon the chance to make money out of it. Once something has been driven underground, for whatever reason, all control over it has been lost, it becomes virtually impossible to police. Surely it makes far more sense to legalise something so that at least there is some form of control that can be implemented and policed effectively.

There is no doubt that we have a societal problem, particularly in some inner city areas, but no amount of bans will make even the smallest difference, bans will just make the problem worse, experience tells us this. The societal problem we have has to be understood, we have to get to the cause before we can effect the solution. The cause of the problem is not the knife or the hand gun, the cause of the problem is the person wielding it. So, does it not make sense to understand why the person wielding the knife or the gun is doing so, would it not be much easier to effect a solution with this knowledge at our disposal, at the end of the day I think that the answer to both questions is a resounding YES!

Thoughts on Identity

I know I am going to offend some people with the very content of this post, but that is not my intention in any way. The point of this post is more an internal exploration of myself.

While out wandering around Leith a while back I saw a quite rare sight for Leith, a woman in a burqa, and I have to admit that I found it quite offensive. Now I am not saying that the burqa should not be worn, nor am I making any sort of anti-religious or anti-cultural statement; all that I am saying is that confronted with what for many women is a matter of personal choice, my first reaction was that I was offended by it. This probably says quite a lot about me as a person, but I have to confess that, a few days later, my reaction made me stop and think about who I am, why was I offended, and about ethnic and cultural identity in general.

At then end of the day I think that I am a reasonably intelligent and pretty liberal minded person who’s basic philosophy is live and let live; which is why my reaction came as all the more of shock to me. I have never given the wearing of the burqa any great deal of thought, of course I have heard some discussion, and quite heated at that, about the matter, but have always taken the attitude of “if that is how people want to express their religious/cultural identity, so what, it’s their choice”, as I say live and let live.

When I began to think about why I found the burqa offensive my first thought was that it sort of implies that all men are rapists, now I know that this is a rather stupid reaction, especially when one begins to think of the psychology behind rape, the whole ‘power’ thing amongst others. My next thought was about how one would interact with someone wearing a garment that covers everything with only a slit for the eyes, and I think that it would be almost impossible to interact with anyone wearing such a garment as we all rely on body language, facial expressions etc. as part of everyday communication, whether we realise it or not.

This led me to thinking about who and what I am, and whether who and what I am is responsible for my reaction; after all this was only someone expressing their own sense of identity. After a great deal of reflection I have come to the conclusion that I don’t think of myself in terms of any form of ethnic or cultural stereotype; I know that I sometimes make a big thing of being a Cornish Celt, but that is more for effect than anything else. I don’t think of myself in terms of black, white, pink with blue dots or whatever colour you may care to mention. Neither do I think of myself in any religious terms, not as a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, nor any other religious identity. As a matter of fact I have very little time for religion at all, but that is another story.

This led me to thinking about how I perceive others, and I think that all of the above also apply there; I do not think of people I meet or know in terms of their colour, religious beliefs, cultural beliefs etc., I judge them by what they have to say, but that is not to say that I always agree with them. I suppose that at the end of the day I see myself first and foremost as a human being, albeit a white, Cornish, liberally minded and slightly flawed (but aren’t we all) human being. And that is precisely how I see others, as human beings; fine they are human beings who think differently, have different beliefs and probably see themselves differently than I see myself, or them for that matter, but they are still human beings, no more no less.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the lady in the burqa, whoever she may be, for stopping me dead in my tracks and making me think about who and what I am. What I have put here only scratches the surface of my thinking, and I know full well that we are all shaped by the circumstances of our mundane lives. But, ultimately, we are all human beings, and to put it in a rather vulgar manner, we all enter the world through a hole, and we all leave the world through a hole. So, why the fuck can’t we all just get on and make the best of the short time that we have between the two holes of birth and death!

Lost - A Genius!

For those who know George Carlin was a comic genius. For those who don’t just take a look at this video clip, and if that grabs your interest here is the Wikipedia entry.

George Carlin

Genius

May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008

Thoughts on Nationalism - Update

I have on several occasions made my thoughts on nationalism quite clear, here for example. Having just caught up on the days news this story ony goes to highlight my natural abhorence of all forms of nationalism, especially those more extremist forms that promulgate what amounts to terrorism. Nationaloism can be wrapped in whatever banner it likes, but at the end of the day those of the far right who see themselves as “white suprematists” are actually no better than the Islamic Fundamentalists. A terrorist by any other name is still nothing more than a terrorist!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Finally this politically and morally bankrupt bunch of loonies that are “running?” the country have got just what they deserve, a bloody good arse kicking. It is all very well for Harriet Harman to say on the Today Programme this morning that this result was more to do with people’s perception of the economic problems, which is complete and utter bollocks; because all that proves is that this bunch of loonies are completely out of touch with the people and public opinion.

Now, as a good dyed in the wool socialist, the last thing I want to see is the Tories winning, but in this case I will make an exception. What has happened here is a combination of things; we have had over ten years now of a government which has constantly lied and cheated the British public and a party which decided that the only way it could win in Crewe and Nantwich was by dirty tricks, result a massive (17.6%) swing to the Tories, and that on a high (58.2%) turnout, and this in the Labour heartland. Why? Well, the way I read it is that the people of Crewe and Nantwich responded to two things; a) they probably thought that the “dirty tricks campaign” was a ploy designed to tell them which way to vote and, more importantly, b) they were/are so pissed off with the track record of this bunch of lunatics that they decided to stick two fingers in the air and say “we’ve had enough of you FUCK OFF!”.

So, I imagine that, by now, the long knives are out of their sheaths and being assiduously being sharpened. Labour bottled it when it came to getting rid of Micheal Foot as leader, will they do the same this time? I for one certainly hope that they do indeed bottle out of gettig rid of old Gor Blimey, because the longer he stays the more the chance of Labour readjusting itself back to the left, where it should be, and throwing off the Tory clothes that they have adopted for the last decade and more…