And I know this to be true, because I have a postcard from the city council’s anti-social behaviour department giving me a stern ticking off. My offence, it seems is that I have been contributing to litter in the street where I live by leaving out my bin bag on the pavement before collection day.

Which doesn’t sound all that pleasant, it’s true, but not all that heinous at the same time. Perhaps a little context would help explain. Here, then, are the facts.

• I live in a terrace house, with no rear access other than through the house itself.
• The pavement at the front of the house is not wide enough for residents to store bins (and there are no front gardens or yards here).
• Yesterday was waste collection day. But not recycling collection day
• The bin bag in question was, in fact, a clear recyclables bag, full of recyclable material.
• The council only collect these bags every fortnight.
• Not only that, but although they provided residents with bags to collect recyclables in, they did not provide us with bins or anywhere to store the bags. We bought our own bin for this.
• The house is small, and there isn’t really anywhere to set aside for the luxury of storing recycables waiting for someone to come collect them.
• The council is overly fussy about what can and can’t be put in these bags. Because they are collected then manually sorted (I assume this is why, anyway) you are not allowed to put shredded material in. Which is patently ridiculous, since I don’t really want recyclabe sorters going through any sensitive information I have, and besides, is it not the case, perhaps, just maybe, that in order to recycle paper, at some point during that process the paper is going to be mushed / pulped / whatever? Or have I got it embarrassingly wrong, and the process involves trained paper engineers painstakingly laying out individual sheets over ink-absorbent solutions to ‘clean’ the paper, producing new, crisp blank sheets?

Apparently, if I don’t comply with the instruction to NOT leave this ‘rubbish’ outside, I can be fined £75.

Funnily enough, it was only the other day that I was reading about how in the UK despite being among the higher waste producers (600kg per person, per year) across Europe, we manage to recycle the least amount, with a paltry 18% recycled or composted, which compares pretty unfavourably with The Netherlands (65%) and Austria (59%), and in fact all other nations except Greece (8%) and Portugal (a shocking 3%, but then there’s not many of them, and they each only generate two thirds of the waste that we do in the UK).

I wonder why it could be that we don’t recycle more in this country.

September 28th, 2006, posted by Neil in Vague rants · No comments

I’ve decided I might as well copy all the articles I wrote over at everything2.com to this blog.

There’s just one small issue I need to contend with, and that’s how I’m going to handle e2’s linking system.

When you write something at e2, there’s a neat-o way of including links to other pages on e2. You just enclose the text in square brackets and away the engine goes, and looks for the e2 page you are linking to. You can also use the pipe symbol to link to one thing, but display different text on the screen. Essentially it’s like how a hyperlink works using the href attribute. Unfortunately, I can’t just include those links as they are, or at least not if I just copy the original source. And then the formatted links, once the e2 engine has processed them, are relative, which wouldn’t take any work to replace I suppose, but I’m not sure whether a) I am allowed to copy the formatted output, even though I own the source, or b) whether these links work if you are coming from an external page.

But in any case, I figure it will be more fun to use this as an excuse to develop a wordpress plugin. What I’d like to do is allow myself to really easily include hyperlinks. I get bored typing

<a href=”this that and the other”>Some text here<\a>

No, much easier would be to type something like

[[link text here]]

[[wiki|link to wiki page]]

[[amazon|link text here]]

What’s more, I wouldn’t want to limit the user to my pre-defined set of links. Using an options page from the admin panel, I could allow users to define their own. So, you simply have to say what the text is to identify where the link will go, and what the format of the link will be. If it’s something like an amazon link which you might want to include affiliate codes in, then I hope it would be possible to include those…

Perhaps this is more work than I imagined, but as a starter, here’s an example of a piece. Not sure how those external link markers look when there are so many, but I can work on that:

You’ll never win anything with kids

September 22nd, 2006, posted by Neil in General · 2 Comments

So, I watched most of Tuesday night’s Panorama investigation into English football financial skull-duggery while barely stifling my incredulity. To think that we could be hoodwinked in this manner by a bunch of so-called professionals, who are out to make a quick buck while the going’s good. And that there are people out there who value a bit of cash over integrity, thoroughness of thought and deed, and a sense of fair play. Who knew?

And the football agents aren’t much better either!

Boom-boom!

C’mon Panarama, you have to do better than this. Sure there’s corruption in football. Sure there are some shady operators. Sure I wouldn’t trust Harry Redknapp or Sam Allardyce to run a charity match, but that, and the secret camera footage shown does not make them the arch crooks you’re making out. Sam comes off worse, I have to say, but what did Harry do? When asked if he would be interested in player x if player x was available, and you never know player x might be available, nudge nudge, Harry leaned back, twitched a little, and just said “yeah he’s a good player, of course I’d have him”. Uh-oh Harry! Perhaps you should have said he’s a donkey with spoons for feet, then no-one would have minded, eh? P’raps you’ll be more street-wise next time.

And Sam’s son, Craig. Fancy him bigging up his links with his Dad! Lord. What. Do. You. Expect. Him. To. Do. You’re offering him business, and he’s trying to impress you. You’re suggesting that you could be interested in deals with Bolton, and whaddya know, he’s the son of the manager. And strike me down if he doesn’t mention it a little in the hope of getting some business. Did you think he wouldn’t?

Yeah, yeah, alright, so he’s probably just some talentless feck who’s coining it off the riches and skills of others, and for that, I say let him swing if need be. But the whole programme just missed the mark. Here’s my favourite moment: about two-thirds of the way through, we get to the part where Mike Newell, the Luton Town manager, goes public with the news that he knows of people in the game on the take. Newell, it should be pointed out here, isn’t in on the BBC’s little game, and is just acting apparently out of priniciple, and perhaps frustration. The voice-over in the programme makes the following remark, or words to this effect:

This is disastrous news. Now it’s going to be even harder to persuade anyone to take a bung

Now please jump in any time, here, but isn’t the editorial stance of this programme that football is rife with bung-taking, backhanders, brown envelopes, etc? Hardly the sort of situation in which you’d say it would suddenly be “even harder” to get anyone to act corruptly?

Actually, I lied, My favourite bit was when the moronic agent at the center of it all realised the undercover hero’s button had “went all red”, but was apparently too soused or short on slices to work out that he was being set up. Especially when all our hero could do was mumble something, say he didn’t know what it was, and fumble nervously with a pack of B&H. I won’t lose any sleep if that guy gets it, I must say, but let’s not think that it any way has Panorama exploded any lids off the modern game.

September 20th, 2006, posted by Neil in Vague rants and Football and Television · No comments

This guy:

should marry this gal:

And they could shout at all their guests, especially for daring to even look at the wedding cake, and for not eating all four thousand lentils they’d each been given at th reception, or for, well, just being there, and having weaknesses.

I could wish children upon them, except I would pity the poor sods. And it would be harsh of me to then wish that the kids wanted to eat junk food from time to time, occasionally went off the rails, or god forbid did anything to suggest that these two dispensers of brutality-led wisdom were less than prefect and beautiful.

I know McK means well, but fercrissakes, I am beyond wanting to say many pleasant things to anyone with such sanctimonious “I’m the busiest person I know, but I manage to eat perfectly” ideals.

As for Kyle. Just watch his show. That’s all I need to say. Watch as he tears into any of his ‘guests’. Watch him hurl abuse in the name of help. And watch him make his way up the aggressive pole to a comfortable retirement. Bastard.

September 20th, 2006, posted by Neil in Vague rants · 2 Comments

While following links here and there and elsewhere, I came across a great page with a discussion of crap acoustics at gigs, concerts, and public music performances in general. Since the Southampton Guildhall is my nearest medium-sized live music venue, rubbish acoustics are something I’ve become accustomed to myself.

In the spirit of the wonderful “Does anything eat wasps?”, which I’m browsing my way through at the moment, the responses to the original question include a host of informative responses and deviations.

Link to the article: Public performances: music always too loud?

September 13th, 2006, posted by Neil in General · No comments

“The police are really good at understanding someone stole my credit card and ran up a lot of money. It’s a lot harder to get them to buy into ’someone stole my magic sword,’”

My quote of the day, found in a BBC online article about security in online gaming:

Microsoft warning on online games

September 13th, 2006, posted by Neil in General and Brilliant · No comments