Note to self

In future, don’t drive from Bristol to Norwich, and back again on the same weekend as the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. It didn’t help the journey that the Thaab overheated as we arrived in Norwich, having decided to develop a rad leak. A sachet of RadWeld courtesy of the AA seems to have fixed that, though.

That aside, ramtops and I had entirely too short a time with Harry and Clare, arriving Friday afternoon and driving back at lunch time today. There’s not much to report, aside from Harry being Enormous, and Utterly Wonderful, and Clare foiling our plan to secrete him away in our bag.

We (kalunina, Grandad, ramtops and myself) ate lasagne together on Saturday night, and Harry slept with Mac and me on Saturday night, in theory to give an unbroken night’s sleep for his mum. We suspect that she actually spent much of night awake listening in case of a Massive Grand Parental Supervisory Failure that didn’t happen: Harry slept until 1:30, scoffed the first part of the minski provided, slept another couple of hours, scoffed more, had his nappy changed (the first I’ve done for over ten years), gruntled a bit, and slept till morning. It went very well indeed.

So. We’re home, and missing the boy already: there ought to be some way to move Bristol and Norwich closer together.

[cross-posted from bubbamoose]

on listening to the Home Service whilst driving home yesterday

We heard about this on the news; is it just me who thinks that it’s the thin edge of a very thick wedge indeed? We’ve already had this in the campaign to get people to shop benefit “cheats” and it all helps nicely in propagating an atmosphere of distrust and fear. Does it benefit anyone at all but the government? And who will be the first person snitched out of malice, for being in possession of a dusky complexion, or just for a laugh? E M Forster applies, I think.

The news was followed by possibly the most egregious piece of blatant fearmongering I’ve yet heard from the post-Hutton BBC: File on Four on Iran and export controls. In the entire programme there wasn’t a single attempt to justify their prejudgements: Iran is uniquely evil; US export controls are necessary and correct if possibly a mite liberal; UK and EU controls are entirely inadequate, and as for the Polish courts releasing someone the US wanted (and want) extradited who had broken no EU or Polish law, words nearly failed them.

There was a magnificent example of tabloid “investigative” journalism when we had an extended description of Hampstead property prices leading to a description of a trader who, it was carefully pointed out, had done nothing illegal. His sin was to be of Iranian extraction, to be rich and to have sold on dual use tech to Tehran; his guilt confirmed by his refusal to speak to the odious shit wielding a hatchet at his front door.

Lest I be misunderstood, I hold little truck with the current Iranian regime. They are, however, no worse than many (most?) other governments and their current singling out as the focus of the axis of Teh Eval is mostly a matter of Realpolitik. It was pointed out that they are using whatever means are necessary to buy parts to keep their F-14s flying: it was not pointed out how on Earth else they could keep their air force operational when they’re under blockade.

Still, as long as we’re all kept in a state of fear, eh?