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Genus Loci - Printed and Promoted by John Brace (Liberal Democrats), 28 Falkland Street, Birkenhead, CH41 0BD. Published by Six Apart Ltd. 548 4th St San Francisco, CA 94107 USA
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| Lib Dem Conference - Q&A - Leader Nick Clegg |
[Sep. 21st, 2009|01:06 pm] |
Well I was watching the questions that Nick Clegg was fielded from party members at the question and answer session.
He got through the following questions.
Would they share a platform at Question Time with a BNP MEP?
Answer: Yes
There were a number about tuition fees.
Answer: Yes, it's policy but question of when it's affordable. £x billion over the life of a Parliament. (However I work that out at about £1 per a person per a week).
Questions about pupil premium. Questions about youth unemployment. Question about Lisbon Treaty.
Seems quite good so far, he's answering them well but clear party members are concerned over dropping student support as his comments in the media have seemed to imply we'll drop the scrap tuition fees policy.
Bear in mind my mum phoned me (at work - I'm on a lunch break but still answering the phone) part way through so I missed about 5 minutes. Seems his Town Hall meetings have helped him; perhaps we should get one going round here?
Anyway my own point of view:-
1) Getting rid of scrapping tuition fees policy (or implying we will) very very bad move for the party.
2) Should've took on the BNP years ago instead of ignoring/shunning them (I say this as a person who in a local council election got more votes than the BNP candidate).
3) Being pro-European doesn't always sit well with voters because of Eurosceptic media.
Now he's going onto crime/disorder, European arrest warrants, terrorism etc. |
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| it's been too long |
[Jul. 25th, 2009|12:00 pm] |
It has been too long (in fact around 7 months) since I updated this blog. That doesn't mean there's been any shortage of things happening in my life worthy of comment and writing about.
I've been to more Wirral Council meetings than most local councillors, attended a public inquiry, been delivering leaflets and responding to people's concerns raised through the Resident's Survey.
I've also found time to go on a few short breaks to Wales with Leonora, have been updating my Facebook profile and finding time to do my day job.
On that last issue, the recession is affecting my business as very few people have the money to get their computers repaired these days. The phone book ads weren't making the money to cover them, so I stopped them. Judging by my competitors, many of them are cutting back on their advertising too. Many people have decided to call it a day or have gone into "hibernation" until this recession is over.
Having said that, it gives me time to concentrate on the more profitable online side of things and politics.
Talking of politics - there was the Norwich North byelection yesterday. The winning candidate (Conservative) was only 26. This made me think that we need to develop our membership among people under 30 locally in the Liberal Democrats.
I'm also moving where I work out of where I live. Some stuff (computer, printer etc) has been moved, other stuff (eg office furniture) is still to go. The good thing is the new place has wireless internet access (one less set of cables), the downside being I'll have to get the phone lines transferred over.
If I remember later I'll put up some articles I wrote recently for a leaflet we're delivering; it may take me a while to convert them to HTML though. |
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| been a long time |
[Dec. 15th, 2008|10:54 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | work | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
Well it's been a long time since I updated this blog (been spending most of my life offline to be honest). However, I'm selling off some Bond movies on ebay for a friend (video, PAL format). I've listed the first -  The Living Daylights just now on Ebay, so if anybody on my friend's list is a UK Bond movie fan - please leave a bid by either clicking on the picture or the movie title.
However even if you're not; but are more experienced with ebay any hints and tips on successful selling would be appreciated (including which paid options are worth it and which aren't).
Thanks in advance. |
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| Spam, spam, spam |
[Jul. 4th, 2008|12:48 pm] |
Well I received my first ever spam notice from my website host - Tera Byte.
A long time ago someone who writes some of the pages on the site wanted an @level80.co.uk email address and for this to be on the pages they'd written so people could get in touch.
As this address was on a webpage; the spam harvesters have picked it up. Now this is where it gets interesting. The user involved asked their email from this address to be forwarded to their AOL email address.
So, inevitably the user received a piece of spam (forwarded through their @level80.co.uk email address). However because it was forwarded AOL complained about spam from my website hoster (Tera-Byte) rather than the original source; leading to this email being sent to me:-
"We have received this spam complaint concerning an email that correlates to
your account with us. Please take action to ensure this does not happen again.
Please reply letting us know what action you have taken to correct this.
Further SPAM notices are not welcome as it may lead to potential blocklisting
by AOL of both your domain and our network.
-Chris Simmons,
Network Operations Centre,
Tera-Byte.com"
So basically I've had to delete the user's account because they receive spam and put their AOL email address instead on the pages they write so that AOL can't accuse me of forwarding spam (and therefore being responsible for it in their eyes).
This situation would be like moving house and having mail forwarding set up. You receive some redirected mail that is junk mail so instead of going to the source of the junk mail you complain to the place it came from last (your old address).
I'm suprised AOL's email team is so unsophisticated they can't realise that mail can pass through many servers and computers before it arrives in an AOL inbox. Surely it's better to tackle the source of spam rather than go after the place it last came from with a threat of blacklisting?
The headers on any email (similar to postmarks) show this. In future however I'm going to be more careful.
1) Any forwarded email only goes to my own accounts (and I make sure I never tag any spam sent to these addresses as spam)
2) Any other email for other users (eg brother etc) is stored in POP3 email addresses and not forwarded.
Sounds like a reasonable precaution to me; I can't stop spam but I reduce the risk I'll get my website hosting yanked by AOL getting the wrong end of the stick. |
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| saying sorry |
[Jun. 21st, 2008|07:15 pm] |
There's nothing like getting a thief to say sorry for what they've done in front of their friends. Admittedly they tried getting violent and spitting first; but sometimes one has to just be persistent...
At least she knows in future I'll stand up to her.. |
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| well a new one |
[Jun. 13th, 2008|11:39 pm] |
Seems I've been to a certain extent (but not legally but with agreement with the police) placed under house arrest (eg not supposed to leave till dawn).
It seems this is how England treats Liberal Democrats. No wonder the Conservative Home Secretary resigned as an MP.
Mind you you did have one neighbour with a knife to my throat; I effectively dealt with that before the police arrived.
Why don't the lynch mob and police have something better to do on a Friday evening?
That's nine police that turned up; no arrests. Like the other times they keep sending more and more police.
This kind of thing just irks me though. If I was a real threat to the State I wouldn't mind. |
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| Marie Celeste |
[Jun. 5th, 2008|01:55 pm] |
Well it's even more like the Marie Celeste here in the student union; with only one more full day to go of the university year (and most people have headed back "home" as their exams are finished).
Let's hope things are more ship shape by the time people return...
Well I'm killing time on a lunchbreak; deftly avoiding things I should be doing back at home.
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| Absolute Power corrupts absolutely (update to power cut story) |
[May. 28th, 2008|01:06 am] |
The Times and Liverpool Echo have more details on the power cuts.
It seems a Suffolk nuclear power station and a Scottish coal-fired power station in Fife both went offline within about two minutes.
Then "generating units" in power stations in four places in the country had cuts and at one point a total of nine went offline. They're going to try restarting the nuclear power station (first time it's been offline in 3 1/2 years).
There's another article about this power plant on the BBC's website here.
To be honest though, why worry about things like terrorism affecting our critical network infrastructure when it seems we can have blackouts just caused by human incompetence instead?
See Gordon Brown's government can't even get electricity right without blackouts. This is supposed to be England, not Zimbabwe or Iraq or some place with patchy and intermittent electricity supplies! |
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| another video |
[May. 27th, 2008|10:34 pm] |
Just a brief snippet from a picnic I was at on Monday.
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| Does work pay? |
[May. 26th, 2008|08:50 am] |
Does work pay or is it easier just to not work was a theme I heard going round the doorsteps at election time.
I'm beginning to think along similar lines myself. With the rising price of food and other things going up; admittedly with a diverse range of untaxable income (both earned and unearned) I'm relatively well off but at the same time there's not as much disposable income as there once was.
Sure being self-employed I can tilt the levers that affect my salary; but at the same time I need to get the work ethic back. The distraction of the election has interrupted me and I need to get back on track.
In conjunction with that; after 9 years of the same job I just don't have the passion for bits of it anymore; the yearly tax return, the yearly tax credits renewal form, self-employed earnings declaration form.
No wonder the government calculates I have less income than they think I need to live on; they take money I've earned away in taxes and tie me up in paperwork and bureaucracy for days each year. :P
Anyway winge over; looking positively to the future I should dust off my 2003 plans and be assertive enough to put them into action. |
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| a video I took in Sheffield |
[May. 25th, 2008|07:12 am] |
In the video is Elaine Bagshaw and some guy from Glasgow I can't remember the name of.. :P Sorry about it being silent! I know there's another film shot from a different angle with sound (might try to get my hands on it). |
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| meeting |
[May. 16th, 2008|06:38 pm] |
Met with Councillor Ann McLachlan at her surgery tonight. Brought up the issues of the dangerous road junction (Boundary Road/Worcester Road). She fielded my questions about youth service provision rather expertly.
Will ask Frank more later when he countersigns the form.... |
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| McGregor |
[May. 6th, 2008|12:49 am] |
Well I met with Inspector McGregor, he seemed to take it personally that I'd written to him at his home address ahead of the meeting on Monday.
Seeing as he gets paid a minimum of £42,000/year (US$82,900/year) this seems a little rich!
Anyway, productive conversation; but at the same time the police seem to want too much to explain why and how they do things (the ins and outs/process); rather than the overarching meaning (which is perhaps true of a lot of government agencies).
For example it's in the police's interests for recorded crime to go up; they do have various targets however there is wide latitude given to their actions & it falls down often to individual decisions made by officers.
The police will always complain that they don't have enough officers etc but they're just looking at it really from a police perspective. They don't always see that the public needs to:-
a) have confidence in the police to catch criminals
b) feel safe
c) feel it's worth reporting crimes to the police as they'll do something about it
This isn't always communicated effectively; which perhaps is where politicians and the political class should play a more active role. |
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| assault |
[May. 3rd, 2008|08:14 pm] |
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Lyndsey decided to assault me today; then her partner made all kinds of threats. Elbow and arm is rather sore; am otherwise ok. |
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| results from last night |
[May. 2nd, 2008|07:41 pm] |
In the election I was in (Bidston & St. James ward) the results were as follows, results from 2007 are in brackets along with the difference :-
| | 2008 | | 2007 |
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| Labour | James Andrew Crabtree | 1,129 | ELECTED | (1,384 -255) |
| Conservative | Christine Wilson | 313 | NOT ELECTED | (292 +21) |
| Liberal Democrat | John Brace | 266 | NOT ELECTED | (215 +51)<-- this is me |
| BNP | Steve McHale | 236 | NOT ELECTED | N/A |
| Green | George Bowler | 125 | NOT ELECTED | (116 + 9) |
So I got 12.9% of the votes; a swing of +3.6%.... Labour's majority has gone down from 1,073 to 816. |
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| day in court |
[Apr. 17th, 2008|02:12 pm] |
Well I turned up in court and my case was 9th on a list of 9 cases all to be heard at the same time at 10a.m.
As I was representing myself, the defendant's barrister gave me a photocopy of the relevant pieces of legislation and explained the process to me a little.
We waited for a few hours till about noon (myself (claimant), defendant's barrister, defendant's solicitor, defendant's witness). By this point most of us thought it'd just be postponed until after lunch.
Anyway we (three except the witness) were invited in to see the Judge. The judge was very nice and explained that with such a long (it was 110+ pages by then) case it would involve plenty of reading time for the judge to go through as well as more trial time (I'd initially estimated 2 hours and the defence 1 hour).
So the judge adjourned the case to between 17th May and end of September with the agreement of both parties. I'm quite happy because it gives me plenty of time to prepare (as if 1 year and 3 months wasn't enough already!) and/or hire a solicitor or solicitor/barrister to represent me.
To be honest I think it's winnable without one... who knows? Suits me though as it puts it the other side of these local elections.
Beyond the above I'm not going to write much more than this... |
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| Mad dogs and Englishmen... |
[Mar. 16th, 2008|03:13 pm] |
 Well I got bitten by a dog on Friday delivering a leaflet. After inwardly cursing myself for not wearing gloves and dripping blood over the stone pavings like I was throwing confetti, I had the presence of mind to ring the bell.
The person who answered rather graciously gave me some plasters which thankfully stemmed the flow of blood. Luckily I was only about 2-3 blocks from home.
Unluckily, mum was down in London about a school reunion (why can't they hold them at the school as she only lives 1/2 mile away?); so after getting no reply from Dad (he'd probably left the phone off the hook) I rang my younger brother Michael.
He'd just finished his shift at the hospital, so was nice enough to pick me up and come in to Accident & Emergency with me (despite having just worked in the same building since 8.30a.m. that morning).
It was only around 4.40p.m.; so thankfully A&E hadn't met the Friday evening rush hour yet of drunks, fights, RTAs and other stuff.... had a good chat with some of the other people waiting about things.
After about twenty minutes he went off for a curry with one of his friends leaving me waiting. Thankfully I only had an hour to wait as it could be dealt with by a nurse practitioner. Someone else was waiting longer than me as (although I didn't say this); their symptoms suggested the early signs of age related macular degeneration; so the wait was probably because they'd paged the off-duty on-call consultant opthamologist.
No stitches, but a dressing was put on (along with some spare I was given), questions about tetanus shot (had I had one in the last 12 years) as well whether I was allergic to penicillin.
You know you'd think after 27 years; they'd have figured which allergies to medication I have and have it on file by now and not have to ask me every few months; but I suppose I could've developed a new one since I last told them!
Anyway typing speed (it was my fourth finger on my right hand) is a little reduced and I won't be riding my bike or doing much writing (not that I did anyway) for a week or two until it heals.
However it's times like this having a younger brother who's a physiotherapist and a mother who's a retired nurse helps. Michael tried to stand up for me in A&E; even trying to get me priority... :P It has shown me how his training and on the job experience have meant he's grown up though; it's unusual for me to have Michael along to appointments... he just waltzes in and out of A&E though as he's wearing a staff ID.
I might take a photo later of it to show you all (with the dressing on obviously!); as it was a political leaflet I was delivering; it was quite impressive to show off to my colleagues at the constituency exec meeting on Friday and the North West conference yesterday.
North West conference went well enough; the usual sort of motions on trains, plastic bags etc.
I missed most of the emergency motions as the North West Chair wanted to chat with me; made some new friends though and got given some chocolate... the location was a little unusual though; I'll upload or provide links to pictures of it easier.
Probably only two people there anyone would recognise are Chris Huhne MP and Chris Davies MEP. Occuring a week after Spring Federal Conference in Liverpool I think the North West Liberal Democrat activists are a little conferenced out!
P.S. Got selected as the Bidston & St. James candidate on Friday; still got to get the 10 signatures required though as well as those from within the party.... We'll see what happens between now and May. |
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| union stuff |
[Feb. 23rd, 2008|08:04 pm] |
I wonder if chairing (or co-chairing 5 meetings at the student this week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday), plus chairing one of the two other meetings is pushing the limits of my capabilities a little to stretching point.... oh well I'll survive. :P |
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| crime again |
[Feb. 17th, 2008|08:30 pm] |
Well the bike mentioned here
 has been taken again, this time in a burglary rather than a theft.
Let's see it's about 4 weeks between it getting stolen each time at the moment! :P |
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