Paul's space

I hope/plan to do a meme every Monday in an attempt to get in to the habit of writing regularly. So here goes with a meme I’ve pinched from Devyl Girl.

1. What is your occupation right now:

I work for Royal Mail as a postman delivering mail in the Ditchling area of East Sussex. I’ve been on the same round for the past four years and I was covering it for holidays and sickness for the previous four. I cover part of the village, the outlying farms and an industrial estate – real mix. And once I get out on delivery I love the job.

2. What colour are your socks right now?

Black

3. What are you listening to right now?

“Once upon a time in the west” by Dire Straights – the live version on the Alchemy album

4. What was the last thing you ate?

Trifle. So small it was hardly worth bothering, but as my parents were feeding me I wasn’t going to complain :-)

5. Can you drive a manual (stick-shift)?

Yes

6. Last person you spoke to on the telephone?

My friend Lisa, discussing going to the theatre tomorrow night

7. How old are you today?

43

8. What is your favourite drink?

Non alcoholic: tea.

Alcoholic: Single malt scotch whisky

9. Have you ever dyed your hair?

No

10. What colour did you dye your hair?

See answer 9

11. Favourite food?

Spaghetti carbonarra

12.  What was the last movie you watched?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

13. Favourite day of the year?

Can’t think of a favourite day, I have a few days which I don’t like, but no favourite ones.

So this is it. I’ve made it to the end of the month and I’ve succeeded in making a post everyday. Yes I know some were drivel and at least one was just a “filler” for the day. But I don’t care, I managed to write something everyday, and that I’m pleased with.

I hope you have enjoyed reading (some of) the posts. I have had some comments left on the blog, and some of you have made comments in person just so I know you read it.

The big question now is will I continue? To be honest I don’t know. I will continue for the blog, but whether it will be daily or not is something I’m undecided about. As I’ve mentioned before (somewhere) I have plenty of ideas for posts during the day. But by the time I get to sit down in front of the keyboard, things are different. All inspiration just disappears, like a puff of smoke. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with writing; I’ve always wanted to write, but usually find that two sentences in, I get bored. So this has actually been a challenge, and hard work.

I would like to continue posting each day, but without the pressure/excuse of NaBloPoMo I don’t know if I will. I’ll try though – promise.

Finally, there will be some changes to the blog in the next few months. At the moment I have two blogs, and I’m posting identical posts to both of them. One is hosted on Microsoft's Live Spaces and the other is hosted by Wordpress. I don’t really want to keep both of them going with the same content, so I will be moving over to the wordpress one permanently. What I’ll do with the live spaces one, again, I don’t know at the moment – it would be a shame to just abandon it.

Also at some point in the future, I would like to host the blog myself, giving me more control over it. But that’s still a fair way off, and more details will be posted when I know what’s happening.

So there we go, my final post for nablopomo is done. All I have to do now is hit the “publish” button I have succeeded! Yippee! Go me!

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I was a member of RAYNET. I realise that some of you may not of heard of this organisation, and so I would like to give you an insight into who we are and what we do.

RAYNET is a group of radio amateurs in the UK who are provide emergency communication services for certain agencies during an emergency. In the UK, radio amateurs are not permitted to pass third party messages except in an emergency. RAYNET evolved after the devastating east coast floods of 1953. During these floods, radio amateurs broke the terms of their licence and became heavily involved in message passing for the emergency services. Following this, the licence was changed to allow these messages, and RAYNET was formed to co-ordinate radio amateurs’ efforts.

Originally it was called RAEN (Radio Amateurs’ Emergency Network) until it was pointed out that these letters were actually the call sign of a Russian ship! So the name was change to RAYNET.

So what do we do. Our primary purpose is to supply emergency radio communications to agencies such as the Police, Fire Service, NHS Trusts, Voluntary Aid Societies (Red Cross, St John Ambulance etc) and local councils. However we also assist with training exercises for these organisations. And we also hold our own internal training exercises. We assist with things such as floods, air shows, plane crashes and general communication equipment failures. We also assist with more routine events such as marathons, horse rides and long distance hikes.

We are all volunteers, and do not receive and do not get paid for providing these services. Sometimes the organisations we have been working with make donations to the local RAYNET groups, and this can be used to either reimburse expenses or purchase equipment for use by the members. Generally, all equipment used is provided at the members expense.

So that’s a brief introduction to RAYNET.

This is not the post I intended to write today, but something has happened that I feel needs to written about.

A few days ago I reported how some of our freedoms were in danger of being taken away from us here in the UK. Well yesterday something happened that took us not just another step down that road, but the whole way, and we’re now standing outside the gate, banging on the door.

So what happened I hear you ask. Someone got arrested. Well not just someone, an Member of Parliament. In fact a member of the Shadow Cabinet.

Damian Green was “arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office”. What he did was leak the following information to the public:

That several thousand illegal immigrants had been cleared to work in security jobs, including jobs in Whitehall [known by most people who have actually had dealings with security firms]

An illegal immigrant with a false ID was working in Parliament

A letter from the Home Secretary to the Prime Minister warning that a recession would lead to increased crime [obvious]

A list of 42 rebel labour MPs who voted against the government’s plans to increase to 42 days the length of time terror suspects could be held without charge.

He is also accused of coercing a Home Office working in to supplying him with he information.

The arrest is bad news for freedom as it appears the police are now being used to silence criticism of the government.

But there are other aspects to the story which make it really worrying:

He was arrested by anti-terror police. So now leaking information is terrorism?

The investigation was instigated after a complaint by the Cabinet Office, and the Home Office were informed of the arrest beforehand. The Leader of the Opposition, the Mayor of London, and the Speaker of the House of Commons all knew beforehand. But surprisingly neither the Prime Minister nor the Home Secretary knew anything about this.

Why now? Why was this piece of obscure legislation never used against labour MPs when they were in Opposition?

So what’s next? The Thought Police? A Civil Emergency Act giving the Primate Prime Monkey Minister total control? The abolition of Parliament? Or just an Act of Parliament saying that the Magna Carta is invalid because King John had his fingers crossed when he signed it?

And when you go to bed tonight, listen out for the police knocking at the door.

You often hear about letters getting lost in the post. But it’s vey rare you hear about the letters that we manage to deliver despite the “address” that’s written on them.

Take these examples, although the names have been changed for privacy, they are all based on addresses that I have recently seen (and none had postcodes).

1. Mr Smith. Land opisit (Sic) Queens Head Pub, 800 yds up A376.

2. Mr Bloggs, House with green door, just past second lamp post after garage, Worthing Road

3. Mrs Smith, Famous Singer, Sussex.

And yes, I managed to deliver them all.