Jonathan's Blog: Currently lacking a tagline

I’ve been thinking about socialism quite

I have decided to give myself some belated New Year’s resolutions (an idea stolen from inspired by Sean and James R). Here they are:

1. Keep a diary in my Moleskine
Moleskines are beautiful. I probably won’t live up to that with my scribblings, but they’ll be valuable to me in years to come. I look back on the half-dozen diary entries I have left from previous years and regret not having written more.

I’ve just been installing Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 (I’ll give it a quick post by the end of the holiday), and was amused by the DRM:

I haven’t tried it, but I suspect that the process of making an installable copy is as simple as ignoring that notice and copying the contents of the CD. You don’t even need the disc in the drive to run it!

Oh, happy days. Now even the

For those of you who don’t know (and either you’re foreign, in which case I’m amazed that anyone I don’t know personally is reading this thing; or you’ve been living in a cave without a phone line, computer or TV for the past six months), the UK government is planning to introduce the power for pre-charge detention for terrorist subjects to be extended to 42 days (from the current – and still too long – limit of 28 days).

The government claim this is necessary to enable the police to gather complex evidence (decrypting hard drives and the like) in a hypothetical situation where the country is facing a series of attacks. Let me rephrase this: The government want it so they can keep terrorist suspects out of the way rather than having to make a proper case.

Stopping terrorism may seem like a noble cause, and of course it needs to be done, but the ends do not justify the means. In abandoning our principles of freedom and habeas corpus we defeat the point of stopping the terrorists: we do their dirty work of destroying our society for them.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (the person in charge of deciding whether there is sufficient evidence to charge) has said that 42 days is unnecessary. Almost everyone right across the political spectrum agrees with him, apart from the gesture-politics-mongers of New Labour. I hate to agree with John Major, but in this case I do. If anything, this will just help terrorists with their radicalisation: “Look, the government wants to lock us all up.” Quite frankly, in 42 days, they could probably find evidence that anyone had committed a “terrorist” offence – I possess a copy of Scouting for Boys – useful for terrorist training in reconnaissance – , and as for those holiday snaps of London…

It is not just the powers, and their destructive effect on an innocent person’s life that I hardly need mention, it is so obvious, but the way they may end up being used – to stop peaceful protest. We have already seen police using powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act to harrass protesters who they know full well are not terrorists. What happens when these poweres are similarly abused.

The powers may help slightly in gathering evidence, but the price we will pay for them is too great. Labour as a working majority of 60-odd. That means only 30 or so Labour MPs need defy the government and liberty will be protected.

It’s the half-term holidays, so I’ve been on holiday with my family from Saturday (24th) to Thursday (29th). We were camping in the Lake District on a very nice campsite just above Keswick. For the first couple of full days it was pretty windy, but we managed to get a couple of walks in, going up to 600-700 metres. It was pretty unpleasantly windy on top, but overall enjoyable. Tuesday and Wednesday were rainy, so we got very little done, although my mother and I got up Catbells on Tuesday, having seen the ospreys in Dodd Wood.

Wednesday was spent looking around Keswick’s four or so decent gear shops (and avoiding the dozen or so rubbish touristy ones) in search of rock shoes for my mother. I also got a new pair of waterproof overtrousers, since the old ones were halfway up my shins, and my dad got a new pan which is supposed to be about a third quicker for boiling water, which is perhaps a little exaggerated, but not by a long way. (An aside to those of you who aren’t outdoors nuts. Boil time is an important factor in camping, since the longer it takes, the more fuel it uses, and fuel is heavy, so minimizing fuel use is important for lightweight camping. We fill a Ford Focus estate and roofbox when we go camping, so you couldn’t exactly call us lightweight, but faster tea in the mornings is a very good thing.)

On Thursday we climbed Helvellyn, the third (or second, depending on whether you count Scafell and Scafell Pike as the same mountain or not) highest mountain in the Lakes (and, since the lakes are the only serious mountain area, England). We climbed up Swirrel Edge (to the right as you look from Red Tarn) and down Striding Edge (to the left). The scrambling wasn’t hard, but at that sort of height, it doesn’t have to be to get a decent adrenalin rush. Swirrel Edge was great, but Striding Edge was very busy, longer than you’d like it to be, and easier, so it wasn’t as interesting.

We drove home on Thursday evening, stopping in Catterick to wait half an hour in a small chippie for greasy fish and chips – not the greatest meal out I’ve ever had.

All in all, a great holiday.