Internet "Cafés"

I’ve got a whole hive of bees in my bonnet right now (mainly work or people taking diabolical liberties), but one of the tiny niggling things is so-called Internet Cafes.

In my town there have been a host of tiny shop fronts opening up that contain a server, a few PCs and some furniture. They offer Internet access by the hour and proudly proclaim their status as Internet Cafes.

What annoys me is that the owners (mostly band-wagoneers woefully out of date) seem to think that a service that provides Internet access is a “café”, when what most of us will realise is that the original Internet cafes were actually cafes that also provided Internet access. The café part of the name refers to the serving of coffee, tea and light snacks.

I want to go into these little places and ask for a full English breakfast, or a croissant and a latte.

I might take a camera to record the look of confusion on their face.

“Nuclear Wessels”

Serious blog posting here today. Sorry.

There is a lot of talk at the moment about the Trident nuclear-submarine defence system. Many people are saying we should update it because we need to have a nuclear deterrent. Some people are saying we should not update and spend the £20bn on hospitals, schools, infrastructure and the environment.

The pro-nuke argument points to rogue second- and third-world countries who are trying to develop nukes (and some cynics suggest we might need to defend ourselves from America one day).

The anti-nuke argument says we have America to defend us, and we’ve never needed to use the Trident system, why would we need it now.

As a budding game-theorist I’ve been looking at the nuclear ‘game’ and have spotted a flaw in the pro-British nuclear deterrent argument.

The basic form of the nuclear deterrent is this: If we both have nukes each of us knows that we cannot launch a strike without retaliation. And where nukes are concerned retaliation means we both end up sitting in a radioactive crater with leukaemia.

The problem with this is that it assumes both sides realise the consequences, and aren’t willing to die to harm their opponent.

This falls down when you consider the rogue states that the politicians point to as a threat. Most of these countries haven’t played the cold-war games, and some contain zealots who are willing to die for their cause if it will harm their enemies. If this is the case, no matter how many nukes we have, we could still be targeted by these countries.

We might have nukes, but no-one is being deterred. Spend the money on something useful.

Body Fascists

I went clothes shopping today. I thought I'd try out a few new places for my Pandora wardrobe.

Firstly I went to Primark. Cheap and cheerful, and I've heard good things about their range. Sadly most of the stock is bog standard stuff or hideous 70s prints. I did manage to find some gorgeous negligees in black and pink lace. Except they only go up to 16/18. I'm hardly huge, but my shoulders and ass requires a 20. I'll try somewhere else.

There's a George store in my local mall, except there seems to be a gap. I can find 18s and 22s but no sign of 20s. Maybe there's been a run of people annoyed with Primark.

Trying TK Maxx I give up immediately when I find "Extra Large" refers to size 16!

Despondent I give up on clothes shopping and shop for other things, although I did find a lovely bracelet in Claire's Accessories.

On the way home I stop into my regular Asda and find a cute pink chemise and a very sexy black basque and knicker set in my size. (The cup size claims to be a DD but oddly when I get home my falsies fit fine). And when I get to the till I find out they are half price, and they just haven't adjusted the ticket yet. Score!

Not sure when I'm going to get to wear the basque, but with detachable straps (shoulder and suspender) it might work as a sassy top with a short black skirt and my snakeskin jacket.