Awww Yeah!
Just got off the phone with the One.Tel broadband order query services and it turns out BT issued the live date! Woo! Its Thursday the 6th of February and apparently my equipment was sent off today meaning that via Royal Mail parcel force it ought to arrive tomorrow before noon Wooo! To quote David Baddiel and Frank Skinner:
"Its coming home, its coming home, its coming - Broadband's coming home!"
Or something to that effect. At last I'll be back on bandwidth parity with other folks - sadly miles off Lee's conn which is his Uni's largely unused T3 line.
I already have a substantial list of things to download starting with my OS 10.2.3 update and an iCal update to let Denning Sync with iCal through nSync. In fact I spent my last waking minutes last night putting down my new studies timetable onto iCal which is perfectly suited for that kind of thing. I can't wait to see them transfered to Denning.
Strike! Strike! Strike!
I decided not to go into Uni today due to advice given by my personal tutor. He noted that the main Unions of University workers were striking so the building would probably be (as was the case for one of the Mock exams in November last year) locked down. My rather cynical Legal Method lecturer last year noted that by striking all the unionists were doing was kicking the students as they were the only people affected by the strikes, but to be honest: a) He makes 4 times what they earn by forcing his book upon ALL the students of our syllabus and b) I sympathize with their calls for higher London Weighting. London is expensive.
House of Lords reform
Dear god no!!!
There are actual calls for a fully elected second chamber. I don't even have time to write about how stupid that is nor to note how superb the House of Lords actually is. To see it changed towards actually elected members would be a sad day.
Basically because the Lords aren't elected and no-one can really get rid of you once you're in there they tend to be guided not by party policy, nor by economic drive (They pay you quite handsomely) and are not subject to the party whips which make them superb independent arbiters of legislation, guided only by conscience and intellect.
The only reform I might ask for would be the inclusion of more of the "heads of their fields" we already get that so in the Lords there are people who are knowledgeable in their field and can actually add to the debate and discussion in a meaningful way. The addition of elections would mean more Career Politicians and one of 2 prominent results pending each election: Either complete Governmental Executive control over all legislation or complete gridlock. A foolish and idiotic system which is most definitely unnecessary given the unique and apt second house we currently employ.
In short the steps that have been taken so far have been in the right direction, but an elected second house? Even partially? It sounds odd but leave politics out of the House of Lords.
Just my 2¢
Posted by John Swaine at February 4, 2003 01:05 PM