What's Doing

The parliamentary home affairs committee has looked at the lovely Mr Blunkett’s plans for ID cards. Their conclusion? Despite more holes than a colander and the omission of a number of substantive facts (like, for instance, how much the whole lot is going to cost) they conclude that the scheme is correct in principle.

Dear sweet lord we’re doomed.

There is a more lucid discussion of the matter on the Spy Blog. It’s well worth a read.

<Update>The Register has some analysis as well, under the great headline of ID cards, a bad idea but we’ll do it anyway.</Update>

For my next birthday I would like a bionic dolphin please.

That is all.

Here is the text of a letter I’ve just sent to the nice people at Amazon UK complaining about their "fulfilment partner";

Terrible delivery service from DHL. My orders to date have come through Royal Mail and I have not had a problem. If I haven’t been there to receive a parcel in person it is held at a local post depot and it’s a simple matter to pick it up.

For some reason this package has come via DHL and they still haven’t managed to successfully deliver it. I was out when the delivery was initially made and the only real option they left me with was for it to be re-delivered (and I had to wait at least two working days for the re-deliver). After waiting in all day (because they couldn’t arrange a delivery time other than between 9 and 5) there was no sign of my parcel. I contacted them and they informed me that the parcel was still in their depot as they had not actually scheduled the re-delivery.

I’ve now got the joyful lottery of waiting in all day on Tuesday to see if they can be bothered to deliver my goods to me. I would complain directly to DHL but they would probably lose it. Can I suggest you revert to using the Royal Mail as soon as possible.

What I didn’t mention is the terrible customer service I got from the former Jordan sponsors. I phoned the number on the card they left and was told that they couldn’t help me as they only arranged pickups and re-deliveries. I had to call another number to arrange a re-re-delivery. Twunts.

I am enjoying the coverage of the test match on Channel 4 at the moment. I have only one comment to make on their presentation – Geoffrey Boycott is a twunt. Will no one rid us of this turbulent Yorkshireman?

Each week I receive, by email, a copy of The Friday Thing an incredibly well written, insightful and amusing "comment sheet". If I was you I’d subscribe. I’m just catching up on my backlog and would like to share with you a quote from the edition published on the 16th of July. Talking about the controversial documentary du jour – Fahrenheit 9/11 – they said;

"Much as a new BBC documentary demolishes the lie that the BNP aren’t racist by showing its members to be so racist they probably want to gas the Welsh, Fahrenheit 9/11 unashamedly shows what a huge fucking mess the war in Iraq was, and is.

What wouldn’t we give to sit in a private screening with Tony Blair?"

I only have one point of disagreement, what’s wrong with gassing the Welsh?

I swear that I’m turning into my mother. It was a hot, dry day today in London and all I could think of was "ooh, good drying day I must get some washing on."

You decide. Aunty Vikki stated quite firmly that I wouldn’t dare post any of the photos I took this afternoon because she was (and I quote) "having a bad hair day&quot. Doesn’t look like it to me. Although JFGP obviously isn’t too sure.

Vikki and her better half are off on holiday for three weeks on Saturday. But if you were thinking of breaking into their house and stealing all of their belongings think again. Because Mark’s gran will be in residence and you don’t want to mess with her.

On a completely unrelated note, a little plea. People, I slave night and day over this her diary and looking down the page today I saw one comment in eight posts. Surely you can do better than that? Even if it’s just a message saying what a smashing job I’m doing, you know I’ll appreciate it.

Alright, don’t bother then, I knew it was asking too much.

SWMBO is working away from home at the moment. She is missing her little ankle biter and asked me to post another photo of JFGP. Ever obliging, here is one I took on his birthday last week. We were in Dartmouth for the day and I couldn’t resist the windmill, especially not after I’d shown it to him and he had dribbled all over the thing.

Being a gentleman of leisure I obviously couldn’t afford it but Bobo came to the rescue and stumped up the requisite pound.

Folks, we’re saved. Swiss Toni is back for a second series. I inadvertently missed episode one but I shall be watching the rest of the series religiously.

For those who missed the first series and haven’t been aware of the second either – it’s on BBC Three, so I’m not surprised you haven’t seen it. Hopefully it will make it to a real television channel some day soon.

Courtesy of Richard Jones I shall now be reading daddytypes.com. Its a blog for new dads and I expect the other top fathers who read these scribbles to follow me there in their droves.

Of course we all know that the top fathering tip is that it will always take more wipes than you have taken out of the packet.