I can’t go backwards

I took a day off yesterday with the intention of taking the boy to Bowood House. They have an excellent adventure playground there, though it is vastly overpriced because you have to buy a ticket the visit the Mansion aswell. Anyway, it was raining so we abandoned the plan and went ice skating instead. It turned out well. The boy enjoyed himself. I haven’t been on skates for more than 10 years. I’d forgotten how to do it. I can’t seem to go backwards any more.

Last week so many people signed a petition in support of removing benefits from rioters, that the website crashed. It was far and away the most popular petition on the e-petiton website. It is currently the only petition with over 100,000 signatures, meaning it has to be considered for parliamentary debate. And it has almost five times as many signatures as any other petition on the site. Admittedly this is not the most scientific gauge of public opinion, but it does give some indication of national feeling towards rioters. Why then today are we hearing of MPs condemning the over-harsh sentences?

Two thugs in particular seem to have been highlighted. Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan were each jailed for four years for attempting to arrange riots using social networking websites. In fact their attempts failed, and of course, it wasn’t very bright to use a traceable facebook account as a vehicle for criminal activity. One of the men is planning to appeal.

It would appear to be Lib-Dem MPs who are most critical of sentences. Here are a few quotes:

David Cameron’s pledge of “zero tolerance” on criminality was not acceptable, according to Baroness Hamwee (Lib Dem)
Not acceptable to whom? The public appear to be right behind it!

David Ward, the Lib Dem MP for Bradford East, described plans to withdraw benefits from offenders as “nuts”.
There is no plan to withdraw benefits from offenders is there? The idea has to be discussed under e-petition rules simply because the idea gained so much support.

Tessa Munt, the MP for Wells, said the plans were “bonkers, bonkers, bonkers”.
There are no plans, see above.

“Frankly, this all smacks of headline grabbing by Conservatives, not calm rational policy – making,” Tessa Munt said, again.
What should they do, cause a national outcry by ignoring public opinion.

Huge heated discussion in the office this afternoon about how an electric shock pen works. Clever people here, but all geeky computer scientists. None of them has a grasp of basic physics. It’s really sad.

I’ve downloaded Kobo reader on my smart phone and, while browsing available e-books, I discovered that Beowulf was available to download free, so I did. I’m really getting into it.

Another new thing I have downloaded is a QR code reader. I’m very into QR codes now.