Zero Hour

School starts again tomorrow. Weirdly, though, I don’t have the usual gloomy feeling that I have at the end of a holiday. Maybe its a false sense of security, and the full horror of the change will hit me after the first day. Either way, it means more work, obviously. At least I think I now know what I’m doing at University. It will probably be computer science if I can resist the urge to change my mind.

In other news, an article on the guardian unlimited website lead me to a report by the left-leaning think-tank ‘Compass’, detailing numerous faults of Boris Johnson, MP, who is currently campaigning to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London. It’s an interesting read. Boris doesn’t come across favourably. I’ll say no more. The report itself can be found here.

Hopefully I will still find the time to write here during school time. Not that the curriculum is incredibly strenuous, and that certainly doesn’t imply I am at all bright, as familiarity with my school would reveal.

Okay, I’ll have my say, if you insist

As I write this, a loud music event is taking place not far from my house. The key word being loud. Irrelevant, really, but it adds an unnecessary air of disdain.

I just came across an item on the “Have Your Say” section of the BBC News website, asking for views on the new gambling legislation in the UK. The “Have Your Say” “feature” of the BBC site causes me genuine annoyance. Their use of the imperative form is interesting. Do they want everyone, regardless of whether they actually know anything or, indeed care at all, to say something, just for the hell of it? One comment began with the words ‘I’m not sure what to think yet’. WHY BOTHER WASTING BANDWIDTH AND YOUR OWN TIME WRITING THAT YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO ADD TO THE DISCUSSION? Seriously, though. What’s the point?

Moving on, the reason I mention this is that it seems paradoxical for the government to allow advertising for casinos on television and still claim that children will be unaffected. They banned tobacco advertising. Then again, this is the government that supporting the Americans in actions that Dick Cheney himself judged in 1994 would lead to a “quagmire”. How perceptive of Cheney to realise this so far ahead of time. And how extraordinarily absurd that this all went out the window nine years later. I was both bemused and unsurprised when I read this on MichaelMoore.com, a while ago. Anyway (my single most used word to link completely unrelated topics, or try to stop myself from go off on a tangent), I digress. Overall, it just seems like the gambling businesses are out to make as much money as possible, and the government is willing to do their bidding, possibly expecting support in return. I know. Sounds unlikely doesn’t it. I’m probably just being overly cynical. Or realistic.