I wish the weather would make up its mind. It’s all windy and rainy in the morning when I slog it to work but sunglasses weather on the way back. A bit of sun first thing puts me in a cheery disposition (as does remembering to charge up my MP3 player).
Next on my reading list (when it arrives): Culture Jam, How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge, and Why We Must.
There an excellent report from the International Commission of Jurists about the latest session of the UN Commission on Human Rights on the various resolutions that were blocked or watered down by countries sticking to their own agendas. No doubt they’ve seen that the USA can get away with it. It’s a blow for internationalism.
Regarding this particular session, Amnesty International have an article detailed how a resolution put forward by Brazil, emphasising that universal rights should also be enjoyed by gays and lesbians throughout the world and without fear of reprisals, was scuppered by (mainly) strongly religious countries.
It juxtaposed neatly when I read about there being complaints to the BBC regarding a gay kiss on the drama Casualty. Shock horror!
While installing Redhat 9.0, I made a backup of all my stuff but forgot the CVS repository of the new version of my website, so it’s all lost. Well, a lot of the content is but the structure is safe and sound on my iMac. Doh.
Adbusters on Choiceless democracy. Very much on the mark but sad all the same.
Equally sad, and not unconnected, is an article from the Independent: How the road to war was paved with lies.
I bought Redhat 9.0 today. Let the install-fest begin.
I nearly forgot that the coming bank holiday Monday is the week after next. That would be comically embarassing if I didn’t turn up for work.
Speaking of which, I may have to go in this Sunday to help out with some testing. It’ll only be for a few hours.
I wrote to the Parliament information service asking them about how governments go about ratifying treaties (I am, of course, thinking specifically of Protocol 13 of the ECHR). Apparently, although the treaty or protocol is shown to Parliament, they usually don’t have a say on its ratification. From the factsheet they sent me:
According to constitutional practice in the United Kingdom, Parliament has no formal role in treaty-making, as the power to do so is vested in the executive, acting on behalf of the Crown.
I emailed the Lord Chancellor’s Department asking them when it would finally be ratified. They replied that an exact date hadn’t been decided but it would probably be soon after 19 May 2003.
Just received my latest Sainsbury’s delivery and although I only ordered 32 items they used 20 plastic bags to contain it all! Twenty! That’s something like fifteen more than I would have used. My goal of becoming more environmentally friendly by not using a car to buy groceries has been wiped out in a stroke.
I had my (much delayed) performance review at work today. Overall I received a very good, going on excellent. I’m just so top.
Who says I’m not serious about my diet?
Yet another example of corporates trying to dictate government, and international, agendas (from the Guardian):
The sugar industry in the US is threatening to bring the World Health Organisation to its knees by demanding that Congress end its funding unless the WHO scraps guidelines on healthy eating, due to be published on Wednesday.
I’ve been working on version 5 of my website (FYI this is version 3 and version 4 was only a prototype that has since been abandoned). Maybe I’ll even get it finished soon now I’ve settled on what new sections are being included - there’s going to be one all about human rights.
I was watching the second (i.e. “value added”) DVD of Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets and got a shock when I saw the interview with JK Rowling was conducted by a certain Lizo Mzimba, who I went to university with. A lot of my university friends were media types and it can be embarassing when they keep turning up on TV.
It’s TV turn-off week. Then again, this is mostly aimed at those in the US who have it on from morning ’till night. It’s frightening that for so many USians the television is their only source of news, and I shouldn’t think a lot of them watch the slightly more tolerable News Hour on PBS. That’s why I didn’t watch any TV while there. At least bf was slightly more discerning (i.e. watched a comfortable amount of PBS programming).
It also amuses me that a number of USian’s blogs have frequent entries going on about Buffy or Angel or Farscape. If they miss an episode it seems to be the end of the world. Oh people…
The weather seems better today, not raining or cold, so I shall venture out in the open and photosynthesise.
What a lazy bank holiday it’s been (so far). I’ve just finished watching the film Lost In Space for the first time which, as I’d heard, was mostly awful (IMDB currently rates it at 4.7/10). The various cameos from the original TV series was a nice touch. However Matt Le Blanc was just hyper eye-candy! He looked so dishy. I’m going to dream well tonight.
Apart from my usual dreams about bf, of course.
*ahem*
Otherwise I’ve spent today reading through the things on my big pile of things to be read through, including such treats as the 58th Human Rights Information Bulletin from the Council of Europe.
Easter bank holiday weekend (that’s four whole days off). The weather has been gorgeous today. Valentina came to visit, though I thought she had meant Saturday. However I hadn’t anything planned specifically.
She is considering moving from London to Guildford, as she can rent somewhere in a nicer location that’s larger for less money (like about 300GBP per month less!). I have been encouraging this as, of course, Guildford is the centre of the universe (along with Madison).
As I plan to visit Brazil with her, I asked her to annotate my copy of Portuguese in Three Months with things specific to Brazilian Portuguese. Instead she decided it was too different and bought me Teach Yourself Brazilian Portuguese instead! How nice.
I’m back. Well, I got back yesterday around 11am feeling more sick than ever from the flight. What was worse was my jacket and bag (hand luggage) seemed to have the odour of ‘aircraft air conditioning’ which was what seemed to have been making me so ill. Then again it could all be psychological. Said odour has since dispersed.
I didn’t get to sleep until about 3am (eternal).
As usual I brought back the obligatory box of Twinkies. However, the number of people at work around to finish them off is significantly lower so I may have to join in, with consequences for my diet. After all, I lost 1Kg while away!
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