Harry's Blog

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Springtime Glow, originally uploaded by Cartmel Veteran.

Just something I snapped while out for a lunchtime walk close to home. Taken with a Canon EOS 50D DSLR camera and Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 lens, on a memory card - because there's no such thing as digital film.

Last night I heard an interesting report on BBC Radio 4 from Oklahoma. The programme wanted to get the views of folks in the "American heartland" following Barack Obama's first 100 days in office.

What it found was rather shocking stuff, but not very surprising.

Yes we have political extremists in the UK, but they are losers on the fringe of society - only disreputable chav scum vote for the BNP for example.

However mainstream US politics is very strange. People who claim to be Christians can seem to reconcile their faith in a man who taught peace, tolerance and loving one's enemies with such moronic levels of hate it beggars belief.

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If someone is willing to fight and die for this country then the bloody well deserve to be able to live in this country.

I'm absolutely shocked by the way our government is treating the Gurkhas. Shameful, really shameful.

Trying to achieve anything with Vodafone customer services is like trying to wrestle a Vaseline-coated snake while wearing as Teflon gimp suit.

But after two weeks of trying the snake is finally back in the box, so to speak.

Here's a tip for you if you need anyone at Vodafone to show they give even the merest shit about your problem. Don't phone regular customer service, talk to the cancellations department instead. If they think their money-teat is going to go dry they'll be much more helpful.

Won't someone in the Conservative Party explain to David Cameron that being a sanctimonious bore is not likely to win him an election. Is there no aspect of government policy, whether he agrees with or not, he won't refute with some high and mighty, holier than though, political game-playing rhetoric.

Good God, he actually makes me want to vote for Labour again. Every time Cameron opens his mouth on a subject he makes such a mountain out of a molehill that I find myself switching from disgust with whatever New Labour has been up to, to wanting to support them against Cameron.

Cameron how about a little realism and good grace in your politics eh? Being the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition does not mean that you are supposed to oppose everything the government does in a childish "no, you smell" playground manner. It actually requires more thought and intelligence than that.

Even worse he has a comedy sidekick in the form of George Osborne, one of those irritating little ticks whose lips move when someone else is reading. Just watching him in parliament when Cameron is peaking at the despatch box, he's like David's ventriloquist dummy.

I've had a rather busy morning playing with Swedish man LEGO. But my work here is done. I've built the sofa, now I can get on with my day job.

We were rather nervous about the arrival of the sofa. Our lounge is on the first floor and the sofa we originally had delivered from John Lewis wouldn't fit up the stairs - so we had to send it back. Thankfully this IKEA corner unit came up the stairs in bits.

Now this is rather fab...

Most of my first time visitors don't get what they're after when they arrive at harryneary.com. Judging by the statistics from Google they are most likely fundamentalist nutjobs looking for evidence that dinosaurs didn't exist and God created the world in six days.

Alas what they find is me taking the piss of their stupidity. No doubt this post will add to the Google confusion. Look folks, the Earth is billions of years old and humans are descended from a common ancestor to today's apes. It's a fact. You looking for lies about it makes a mockery of the commandment about bearing false witness.

Other popular posts include nonsense about Bagpuss, wildlife programs and a rant about the witch McKeith. Anyway, without further ado here is the list of the most popular posts on the site this month:

1. That's Not My...
2. Master & Commander Sequel?
3. We've Been Streetviewed
4. What is a Dadda Cheese?
5. Dinosaurs Didn't Exist
6. The Perfect MP3 Player?
7. Bagpuss - The Chocolate Biscuit Episode
8. Annoying TV Personalities
9. Dear Barclays Bank
10. The Wussification of Planet Earth

And no, there's still no sign of that Master & Commander sequel.

It seems that now the folks who brought you the Patriot Act are no longer in power, they are getting rather whiney about its use. Glenn Greenwald has written a very interesting article about the US right wing reaping what it had sown.

Right-wing polemicists today are shrieking in self-pitying protest over a new report from the Department of Homeland Security sent to local police forces which warns of growing "right-wing extremist activity." The report identifies attributes of these right-wing extremists, warning that a growing domestic threat of violence and terrorism "may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration" and "groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority."

Readers with a good memory may remember we set up a blog for my wife in the dim and distant past and that although her posts were entertaining she lost interest rather quickly.

Well now she's actually started blogging again with the hope of riches, a book deal, keeping busy for five minutes - who knows.

Any road up, you'll find all her thoughts on pregnancy, motherhood, being a city girl living in Dorset etc. over at joneary.com.

I would love to be asleep. I'm bloody tired. But my brain is too busy thinking about all kind of nonsense and refuses to go into something akin to screensaver mode so I can gently hibernate for the evening.

So after nearly two hours lying in bed and not sleeping I've decided to get up and not sleep instead.

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I'm in a fix. The reason? Wifey has just bought herself an iPod Touch. No I'm not suffering jealousy, my problem is that the device is clearly very good, it's almost the perfect mp3 player. But it's the "almost" that's annoying. The iPod Touch is a marvel of modern technology and arguably the best all-round small portable media player around - but it's still light years from being the device I want.

While I do have plenty of technology that's just right - my camera, TV, AV amp and the like, I've still not really nailed it with a portable music player. And the reason is I don't think the device I want exists.

Take the two mp3 players I already own...

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