"If it weren't for Jesus, they'd all be Jews." -Seen on Facebook

[mcgillianaire]

In the unlikely event that you are banned from contacting someone in your email address book, remember not to make the same mistake as Dylan Osborn in Newport Pagnell. Osborn apparently inadvertently sent an email to his wife when he signed up with Facebook and the next day his estranged wife contacted the police. He was then arrested for breaching his bail conditions and sentenced to 10 days in prison. Thanks to a plea from his solicitor he was released 3 days early. According to Osborn: "People on Facebook should be careful - this could easily happen to someone else."

Meanwhile, London has been voted by users of the popular travel site TripAdvisor to have the world's best transportation system. New York came second. dubaiwalla should note that this is yet another reason, this time not even voted by me but the people of the world, why London is the better city and more importantly, the world's best.

Unfortunately, all is not well beyond the capital as a major postal strike has just commenced. Don't post anything through the Royal Mail this week if you can avoid it, or if it's not urgent.

And finally, one of my all-time political heroes has voiced his interest in becoming an MP again. When Tony Benn supposedly retired from Parliament in 2001 he stated his desire to devote more time to politics. It seems as though politics is not as fun as pretending to be a politician while sitting in the House of Commons. For those of my father's generation, Tony Benn is viewed as somewhat of a radical left-winger. For people of my generation, brought up in an environment where privatisation is the norm rather than the exception, Benn is a voice of reason amidst big business and everything that is going wrong with capitalist excess. If he does win the ticket to stand for election, he won't be the only Benn to do so. His son Hilary is the incumbent Secretary of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, while his grand-niece Emily has been selected to contest East Worthing & Shoreham in the next general election (assuming there isn't a snap election later this year because she is currently too young). The family's rich political heritage goes beyond Tony's generation. Both his grandfathers were MPs, so too his uncle, Sir Ernest Benn, and his father was even Secretary of State for India between 1929-31. It was during this time that Tony had the unique opportunity to meet Gandhi when the latter was in London for talks with the government. Here's to hoping Tony wins a Labour ticket!

Comments

[kapitankraut.livejournal.com]

Those mistakes with sending Emails automatically are likely to happen even more over time, I think. People will be nice and careful, but there are too many sites which just raid your address book and message everyone.

Incidentally, have you heard the term for Emails like ones saying "You have a new Facebook message"? Apparently they're called "bacn", on the grounds that they aren't spam, but they aren't "steak", which are the important Emails to get.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

haha... I'd never heard the term before!

[kapitankraut.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it'll catch on rapidly. It seems to have been coined at some conference or another, but outside of the one report saying basically "look at what all these geeks have done", I've never heard of it.
Still, "spam" was coined by geeks and eventually filtered through to the rest of us.

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

For those of my father's generation, Tony Benn is viewed as somewhat of a radical left-winger. For people of my generation, brought up in an environment where privatisation is the norm rather than the exception, Benn is a voice of reason amidst big business and everything that is going wrong with capitalist excess.
There's something weird with this. Back in more left-wing, not-so-privatised days, Benn was considered a left-winger. Now that the norm has moved to the right, Benn should be considered even more radical. At least, he shouldn't be any less radical than he used to be.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Yes, in some ways you are right. Perhaps what I should've said is that there are two distinct schools of thought that exist now. One that sees him as more of a radical (those who support the move to the right) while those who see his stuff from yesteryears as a whiff of fresh air in light of capitalist excess. At the time when Benn was arch-agitator, the private-sector was being seen as this great agent of positive change. As Benn himself has regularly professed, there is nothing wrong with being able to buy a bar of soap for the cheapest price in your local store, but it's the overriding power of these big businesses that's the problem. Before it became a problem people shunned his ideas, now it's obvious he was right.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

Tony Benn

I would be delighted to see Tony Benn back in the Commons. I may not agree with everything he says (some of his Euroscepticism, for example) but he's a real breath of fresh air in these times. I went to a talk he gave a couple of years ago, and it was riveting. =:)

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Agreed!