Labours smoking plans not good enough

Other

The current story running in all the press (BBC), is that John Reid will ban smoking in all workplaces except private clubs and pubs which don’t serve food.

Now whilst I don’t agree on the LDYS policy, as readers may have guessed (and here), at least their policy means workers at the greatest risk, will be more safe.

Labours plans mean that the most smoky and worst ventilated places will still allow smoking, whilst the companies that have invested in ventilation systems, but choose to serve lunch time food will be banned.

A short drive

Other

EdinburghOn Friday, Heather and I went for a short drive on the A1(M). Five hours later we ended up in Edinburgh!
We found ourselves a reasonably priced “hotel” and then went for a wander. After looking around some shops, we got something to eat and then headed off to Jongleurs. The comedy was good, just a shame the audience weren’t.
On Saturday we went to look at Holyrood, and to me it looks like it fell through the ugly tree and got the branches stuck to it.
Chocolat CakeWe then wandered up the Royal Mile and stopped at a lovely chocolate shop called Plaisir du Chocolat for some chocolate overload. After filling up we headed on to the Castle, which was lovely, although a bit loud with the One o’Clock firing of the cannon.
We finally started to head home, with a quick stop in Newcastle for a curry at the Spice Cube.
Overall a lovely weekend.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Reviews

Jonathan Strange and Mr. NorrellThis has to be my book of the year. It was lovely from start to finish, and I enjoyed reading the some 800 pages.
After buying this book on a whim from Amazon, once I started, I found it hard to put down. The narration is great, and the whole book feels like it must be factually correct. I’m now certain that if I was to visit Newcastle, that remains of the Raven Kings lands would still be visible.
A Harry Potter for the older generation? Nope! A unique book which doesn’t go on and on about previous plot line, and over the top descriptions.

11 out of 10

A decade of winning (and losing)

Other

With the Lottery celebrating 10 years, I did a quick bit of research into the numbers that I play with every draw.

Now whilst I haven’t been playing the lottery for the whole 10 years (as that would have been illegal), when the mid-week draw came out, I started playing with my Mum’s numbers, as she didn’t want to, and when she stopped playing the Saturday draw, I did that too.

Since the start there have been 929 draws, that means that we’ve parted with £9,29, and we’ve won a prize 21 times, above the average of 1 in 54, but only a total of £210 in cash. Therefore over the last 10 years we are down £7,19.

Of those 21 wins some are memorable. 4 wins since January this year :), no wins for 15 months between August 98 and December 99, and the birthday win in 2002.

With the odds of getting four numbers being 1 in 1033, I should be seeing a prize bigger than £10 in the next year, and I wouldn’t mind if it was more than a few grand.

Westminster protests to be banned

Other

Hmm, working in Westminster for the last two years, my view on the actions of Brian Haw have changed.
I have no problem with people protesting in Parliament Square, whether they be Anti-War, Pro Fox Hunting, Women’s Global Strike, Anti-Fees.
However I believe that Brian Haw is slightly different.
Firstly, Westminster City Council are always cracking down on people sleeping rough, including those behind Army & Navy on Victoria Street, so how Brian Haw is different I don’t know.
Secondly, if I was to hold a demonstration outside Westminster, and then leave my placards behind, I would expect Westminster City Council to remove them, but again it’s different for Brian Haw. How signs and placards which litter Parliament Square can be seen as “his property” I’m not sure.
I believe that he has to go, although I have no problems with him catching the bus everyday to Parliament Square, to stand out side and to shout through his megaphone, whilst holding his placard, but any more signs and the sleeping rough must stop.

Young Dems’ sick Blunkett Stunt

Media

Mirror Later Edition
Now whilst I think that I might have been called sick once before, a national newspaper is a first for me (and on page 2!).

Mirror Early EditionChris Bryant MP seems to think that an item which I designed and sent out to student branches 15 months ago is newsworthy. Now I can understand why people might think that I’m “poking fun at David Blunkett’s blindness”, but I wasn’t.

I spent ages researching what an ID Card would look like and a year ago these were the stories that were on the BBC Website Plans for ‘£40 ID cards’ and Blunkett pushes ID cards debate. Back then, we were all led to believe that ID Cards would be an all-in-one card, which would replace your passport and driving license.
Now as we have EU standardised driving licenses, the belief was that ID cards would look similar, but would differentiate between those who could drive, those with a provisional license and those who can not drive.

ID Card FrontEarly examples of designs for ID Cards across a variety of sources all had the words “This card is not valid for driving”

However since Blunkett changed his mind last week, and now you’ll need a driving license, a bio-metric passport and a bio-metric ID card, I’m guessing that the design will be slightly different.

On another note, I like the fact that Chris Bryant said “Everyone knows the young Lib Dems want to legalise drugs and Kennedy hasn’t the spine to take them on.” I was under the impression that we lived in a democracy, and one of the great things about the Liberal Democrats, is that it lets it’s members, local parties and the youth wing make policy. In fact this is exactly what Peter Hain was calling for in the Guardian back in March.

Although I have to say that I do like Chris Bryant’s idea of calling LDYS “Lib Demlets”

Please note, that I DO NOT grant permission to anybody, to use the images included in this post, please contact me first

A Second Style

Other

Whilst wandering around the Opera website, I discovered the style setting handheld.

So I’ve knocked together a style sheet for mobile/pda devices which use Opera.

To add your own, you’re best off hosting your style sheets in a separate file, and not in the blogger template.

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”https://blog.artesea.co.uk/blog_style.css” media=”screen”>

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”https://blog.artesea.co.uk/handheld_style.css” media=”handheld”>

Will probably play about with it some more over the next few days, but if you want to have a look at how it appears, you’ll can download normal Opera, and then press Shift+F11 to get it to convert into SSR.