Pete's Eats

Manchester rock group Doves have grabbed the number 1 slot in the album chart from Scissor Sisters today with their new album ‘Some Cities‘.

Obviously, the main reason that they’ve managed to do this is because of the blog we set up for them at http://doves.musicblog.co.uk/ although the new music on the actual album might have helped a bit… Ah, who am I kidding? It’s got nothing to do with the music…

UPDATE: The BBC have written a short piece on the blog’s band’s success here – they linked directly to the blog too

My friend Tom Hume came by here today and so instigated a perusal of his blog in return… I was rather hoping for something to troll – it being Friday afternoon and all that – but no, it wasn’t to be, and I left simply having stolen a link or two…

The best find was the Flickr Colr Pickr (see what they’ve done with the spelling there? that’s cool that is). Although somewhat disturbingly, Tom seems to think that this has been all over the blogosphere already. This means I’m either so l33t that it passed under my cool radar, or I’m hopelessly out of touch these days – I shall leave it to the individual to decide which is applicable… Be kind.

A woman who has attempted suicide four times has been banned from jumping into rivers, canals or onto railway lines.

Bath magistrates granted an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) against Kim Sutton from Odd Down. The 23-year-old was rescued three times from the River Avon in Bath last year after trying to take her life. She was also found hanging from a railway parapet and police had to stop trains to rescue her. Sutton could be jailed for breaking the order.

On Thursday, magistrates sentenced her for three public order offences after deciding at an earlier hearing that throwing herself into a river did constitute disorder. The Asbo seeks to prevent her doing anything which could cause alarm or distress to the public.

- BBC News

Mental health, and the care of people who suffer from problems with it is an important subject for me. I very much feel that our social structures do nothing but let people down when they really need support. People who have mental issues need real help – sometimes this may only be a temporary measure whilst others need longer term care but our attitude to mental health is draconian and simplistic in the extreme. Voluntary admission into specialist units or anti-depressants are generally the way open to sufferers and yet the varying problems and their degrees of seriousness would indicate that the help and treatments available should be as wide and varied.

This woman who has attempted suicide so many times needs help. Not asbo’s or prison or punishments – somehow I don’t think any of those will help at all very much. Magistrates in the UK are well known for being, shall we say, out of touch with the rest of society, but to ban someone from jumping in a river whilst trying to commit suicide strikes me as a little stupid. If this woman is as distressed as her actions indicate then how the fuck is that supposed to help?

I wanted to be all sarcastic with this entry but halfway through realised that I couldn’t. The idea of banning someone from jumping into rivers so that they don’t become a nuisance makes my head ache with astonishment and the sarcasm became a bit lost when put up against the complete lunacy that makes this entry-worthy in the first place…

After the xxxth email asking where you could play Swarm Invaders :-

Labour MP Brian Sedgemore gave his last speech in the House of Commons and it hits pretty hard.

I bet becoming an MP isn’t easy. Indeed, I’m sure it takes a considerable amount of commitment, sacrifice and energy, so it doesn’t make any sense, once you’ve achieved that goal, to give it up easily. And yet Mr Sedgemore is the latest in a line of Labour MP’s to have done exactly that. Why? Maybe this excerpt of his speech will give us a clue:

“How on earth did a Labour Government get to the point of creating what was described in the House of Lords hearing as a “gulag” at Belmarsh? I remind my hon. Friends that a gulag is a black hole into which people are forcibly directed without hope of ever getting out. Despite savage criticisms by nine Law Lords in 250 paragraphs, all of which I have read and understood, about the creation of the gulag, I have heard not one word of apology from the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary. Worse, I have heard no word of apology from those Back Benchers who voted to establish the gulag.

Have we all, individually and collectively, no shame? I suppose that once one has shown contempt for liberty by voting against it in the Lobby, it becomes easier to do it a second time and after that, a third time. Thus even Members of Parliament who claim to believe in human rights vote to destroy them.

Many Members have gone nap on the matter. They voted: first, to abolish trial by jury in less serious cases; secondly, to abolish trial by jury in more serious cases; thirdly, to approve an unlawful war; fourthly, to create a gulag at Belmarsh; and fifthly, to lock up innocent people in their homes. It is truly terrifying to imagine what those Members of Parliament will vote for next.I can describe all that only as new Labour’s descent into hell, which is not a place where I want to be.”

How much longer are we going to put up with this government’s actions? Good God, even their own MP’s are standing up and saying ‘no more’, and yet they carry on with their authoritarian stance on almost everything, unforgivably choosing to set aside human rights in order to achieve their goal.

Much has been said recently about the holocaust, for obvious reasons. But it brings into sharp relief, the fact that despite all the talk of moving on and learning from the past, we’re descending further and further into patterns of behaviour that can be directly compared to that of the years just prior to the second world war.

So, legalised torture next? Come on, it will be in our best interests – there’s terrorists out there you know…

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This rant was inspired by an entry about this speech on Boing Boing

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Flash Game

I spent far too much time on the original version of this game… But, this is an excellent remake and fun to play – for ten minutes

You have no idea how many times I’ve found myself in the same situation and got really stressed out… Now we know what to do…

Nice one Mr Eubank

I should add, for those who aren’t local to Brighton, that Sydney Street is a one way, single lane road lined with shops etc. Between 1030am and 5pm the road is closed to normal traffic such as cars etc. Additionally, Brighton has a privatised parking enforcement agency and they never issue tickets to commercial vehicles loading or unloading whereas they do to private vehicles in the same situation. If you live in Brighton and own a car it’s becoming more and more difficult to get around thanks to the council’s attitude to car-owners. Never mind that the area takes in some large rural towns and villages – they still think you should take the bus. Which is infrequent, dirty and generally driven by the kind of person you would avoid in dark alleys… So, Mr Eubank’s frustration, in my eyes, is totally understandable…

Sinn Fein are going to have to face some financial restrictions today after evidence emerged that they’re a bunch of criminals who’ve never really abandoned the ‘old ways‘.

This is a shame because they’d managed to do something that almost every terrorist group in the world would love to do. They bombed their way to the negotiating table.

Some will argue that I’ve got confused between the IRA and Sinn Fein, that they’re different groups. But I haven’t and it’s very questionable that they are. The line between the two is extremely blurry at best. All I know is what I’ve been told and read over the years. And that quite clearly demonstrates that the criminal element in Sinn Fein runs to the very top.

Not that they care of course. They’ve done their dirty work and earned their millions along the way. They’ve destroyed, murdered and lied in the name of religion and political belief and have suffered no punishment for it at all. They, unlike their victims, most definitely have some bloody big guardian angels looking out for them. People like this cheapen human life.

Bastards.

Two bloggers, Mojtaba Saminejad and Arash Sigarchi, are being detained by the Iranian Authorities for having the nerve to publish facts and opinions on their blog sites.

Behaviour like this wrongful imprisonment will do nothing but provide the US government with more ammunition in the PR stakes while it positions itself to continue ‘bringing peace to the middle east’.

Read more about these two here.

I’m not a great fan of American literature normally, but Hunter S. Thompson was most definitely the exception. I loved his writing and crazy attitude to all things ‘normal’. I read on the BBC news today that he died from gunshot wounds that were most probably self-inflicted.

The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over… – Hunter S. Thompson