Press "Enter" to skip to content

Month: April 2010

Life: Which country am I in?

April 28, 2010
Leave a Comment

Today whilst filing my annual return for Companies House, I was asked to select my Country/State of residence (because, you know, having a UK company listed on the England/Wales Companies House with a registered address in the UK and my service address being in the UK wasn’t enough of a giveaway). Not a problem thought I, so I clicked on the drop down list to be presented with:

  • United Kingdom
  • England
  • Wales
  • Scotland
  • Northern Ireland
  • UK
  • Great Britain

WTF? I could understand if it listed England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland separately (as technically they are different countries), but to list them AND “United Kingdom”, “UK” (is there a difference between those two?) and “Great Britain” just got me confused. I live and work in London, England, in Great Britain part of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” commonly shortened to just “United Kingdom” or “UK”. So which should I pick….

Poitics: My thoughts on prison overcrowding

April 27, 2010
Leave a Comment

This post was inspired by one of Votematch’s questions which was “New prisons need to be built to ease overcrowding (Crime and Justice)”. Here’s who agreed and disagreed with the statement:

Me UKIP BNP LibDems Conservatives Green Labour
Agree Disagree Disagree Agree Disagree Agree Open-minded

Current prisons are overcrowded (“two to a cell designed for one”, “doubled up in cells…113% of capacity” with Ministers admitting prisons are overcrowded), and whilst I do believe Prisoners should be punished – this does not mean depriving them of their human rights (note that access the television, computers, gym equipment etc are not human rights!). Therefore more prisons do, unfortunately, need to be built.

My response to comments on Votematch: UKIP did say that they “would double prison places” and Liberal Democrats said “[we] will make prison work to turn people away from a life of crime; We will take steps to stabilise the prison population in the short term and reduce it in the long term”: but did not state that they would ease overcrowding for people that should definitely be in prison (I’m talking the “serious” crimes such as murder here)

TV: BBC Apologies for Graham Norton IPP in Doctor Who

April 25, 2010
3 Comments

Last night, myself and many others had our experience of Doctor Who interrupted due to an “In-Programme Promotion” for Graham Norton’s “Over The Rainbow” which followed Doctor Who. The BBC has, via their news site, released an apology headed “Doctor Who fans angered by trailer for Over the Rainbow” which said:

Thousands of Doctor Who fans have contacted the BBC to complain that the ending of Saturday night’s episode was ruined by a trailer for the next show.

The on-screen caption featured an animated cartoon of presenter Graham Norton, host of Over the Rainbow.

It appeared as The Doctor, played by Matt Smith, was making an emotional speech during the story’s cliffhanger ending for The Time of Angels.

The trailer was seen by millions of viewers watching on BBC One in England.

Fans have also been complaining on social networking site Twitter. One wrote: “Why is the BBC treating its audience like idiots?”

Another said: “Don’t blink or Graham Norton will catch you.”

The BBC often promotes programmes in this way but the corporation has acknowledged that in this case the scheduling was inappropriate.

A BBC spokesman said: “We apologise for the timing of Saturday night’s trail.”

When I sent in my complaint regarding this matter, I did ask for the BBC to contact me regarding this matter, but I still haven’t received even an acknowledgement from them. This is the first time I have seen an IPP on the BBC – I know I don’t watch a lot of TV now, but I’m sure I would have seen them before now if they “often promote[d] programmes in this way”…